1910-11-21

[Stage Direction]
Report of the Department of Agriculture and Report of Experimental Farms for the year ended March 31, 1910, and Report of Criminal Statistics for 1909.-Hon. Sydney Fisher.
Report of the Department of Inland Revenue, Report on Excise, Report on Weights and Measures, and Report on Adulteration of Foods, for the year ended March 31, 1910. -Hon. Wm. Templeman.
Report of the Militia Council for the same year.-Sir Frederick Borden.
Report of the Department of Public Works for the same year.-Hon. Wm. Pugsley.
Report of the Department of Indian Affairs and Report of the Department of the Interior, for the same year-Hon. Frank Oliver.
Report of the Department of Customs, the Public Accounts, Report of the Superintendent of Insurance, and Report of the Auditor General for the same year, also Report of the Royal Commission on Trade Relations between Canada and the West Indies, together with the minutes of evidence.- Hon. Wm. Paterson.
Report of the Department of Marine, Report of the Department of Fisheries, and Report of Steamboat Inspection for the same year.-Hon. L. P. Brodeur.
Report of the Department of Railways and Canals, Report of the Transcontinental Railway Commission, and Report of the Board of Railway Commissioners, for the same year.-Hon. Geo. P. Graham.
Report of the Department of Labour for the same year.-Hon. Mackenzie King.
Report of the Department of the Secretary of State, Report of the Department of Ex-Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
ternal Affairs, and Civil Service list, for the same year; also copies of-Ordinances of the Yukon Territory; also Report of Inquiry into the Printing Bureau.-Hon. Charles Murphy.

Hon. CHARLES MURPHY moved:: With respect to the report of the Secretary of State of Canada upon his inquiry into the affairs of Public Printing and Stationery, now laid on the table, that Rule 74 be suspended, and that such report and all papers in connection therewith, presented to this House, be printed forthwith.
He said: I may add that in view of the recommendations contained in the report touching the work of parliament and the parliamentary printing, I intend at a later-stage to move that it be referred to a special joint committee of both houses.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN.: Might I ask whether anything has been done towards printing the report up to date?


Charles Murphy: There has been nothing done towards printing it.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr LANCASTER moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 2) to amend the Rai -wav Act. He said:	The object of this Bill
is to require, in regard to all Dominion railways, in case of any person	knlec
on a train or on the property of the company, an inquest to be held by the nearest coroner forthwith. There have been a great many deaths throughout this country caused by railways without any inquiry being made as to the cause of death. This is becoming a scandal in some parts of the country, and this Bill is intended to remedy that evil.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

Robert Laird Borden: Before the orders of the day are called, I would like to extend to the Prime Minister congratulations upon his having attained his sixty-ninth birthday. I am delighted to know that the cares and responsibilities and burdens of political life seem to sit so lightly upon his shoulders. Not long ago I observed that the right hon the Prime Minister almost expressed the wish that he might again become leader of the opposition. He said he would be very glad indeed to undertake that task if he were 10 or 15 years younger. I venture to hope that, as he seems in such splendid health and spirits at present, he will not deem the task of leading an opposition too

great should that undertaking come his way any of these days. In the meantime, however, apart from all political 'questions we desire to wish our right hon. friend, as a very distinguished Canadian fellow citizen and colleague of ours in this House and as a personal friend of all, although the political foe of some, very many happy returns of the day which he has just celebrated.


Right Hon.   S@: I am more touched than words can express by the very kind remarks which my hon. friend has been pleased to address to me on the occasion of my 69th birthday. Some newspapers have said it was my 70th, and this reminds me of a mistake which I made when offering congratulations to the Hon. Sir Charles Tupper at a time when he was occupying the position I am now holding. On that occasion I added one year to his record, and Sir Charles drew my attention to it. At my age, he said, every year counts, and I do not want one more added to the number. It is true on one occasion I did express the wish-and it is a wish which, although I expressed it but once, I have felt many times-that I would fain be again at the head of the opposition, and I think it will be generally admitted that there is more fun being in opposition than in office. But as it is in human nature to want what we have not got, I can equally well understand my hon, friend, though he is so well fitted for the position he now holds, wanting to exchange it for a similar one on the opposite side. In my case, however, there is an almost invincible objection to my going back to the rank which I formerly occupied and which my hon. friend now adorns, and that objection is that, up [DOT]to the present, the will of the Canadian people is strongly opposed to any such change. Only for that objection I would gladly go back to my former position. On the occasion to which my hon. friend refers, I said also that when a man had reached the age of 69 it was folly in him to make any plans for the future, and I do not suppose it will ever be my privilege to sit again on the other side and occupy the seat of my hon. friend and again share in the pleasure enjoyed on that side.
When I leave my present seat, I suppose I shall go back to private life, and I am glad to say that if I have political opponents, I have at least no personal enemies and my hon. friend was kind enough to say so. When I do retire from the position I now occupy I shall only be too glad to go back to private life, if it should please Providence to let me enjoy something like a Test which ITiave not had for many years.



GENERAL FRENCH'S REPORT.

Robert Laird Borden: Before the orders of the day are called, I would like to know whether the report of General French, will
be laid on the table, with regard to our militia?


Right Hon.   S@: It is being printed. I hoped to have had it to-day, but it will be laid on the table without delay.



THE EXTRADITION OF FEDORENKO.

Robert Laird Borden: I would ask whether or not the government propose to make any statement with regard to the extradition proceedings in the Fedorenko case?


Hon. A. B. AYLESWORTH (Minister of Justice).: I have very little knowledge of the proceedings referred to except such as is to be gathered from the newspapers, but 1 may say that I have received a considerable number of communications on the subject from different parts of Canada. It is a matter of official knowledge that, in accordance with the provisions of the Extradition Act, the learned Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Manitoba made his report to me upon the occasion of his committing the prisoner for extradition, but since that report has been received I have had no further knowledge of what has taken place in connection with the case except what I have derived from the sources to which I have alluded. I understand that the order made by the Chief Justice for commitment is the subject at present of either an appeal to the proper Appellate Court or that the decision of the Chief Justice is being reviewed upon application for habeas corpus. Until the proceedings in the courts have reached their termination no copy of the evidence would be sent the Department of Justice and none has yet come, so that I am not acquainted, by means of a perusal of the evidence, with the circumstances of the case. I can only say that, in these circumstances, there is no answer I can make except that should the case come before me it will certainly have the most careful consideration I can give it.



ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HIS EXCELLENCY'S SPEECH.

Mr. HAL  B.@: McGIVERIN (Ottawa City), moved:
That a humble Address be presented to His Excellency the Governor General, in reply to the speech from the Throne.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time, I believe, since confederation that the honour of moving the address to His Excellency in reply to the speech from the Throne has devolved upon a member from the City of Ottawa, and as one of the representatives of that electoral district, I ask the indulgence of the House in rising to perform that duty. Allow me, Sir, to thank the right hon. the Prime Minister for the honour which he has thus bestowed upon
]J

me, which, however, I look upon rather as an honour conferred upon the city itself. In common with all the loyal subjects of the empire, I recognize the great loss we have suffered in the death of His Majesty, our beloved King Edward VII., to which reference is made in the speech from the Throne. We have all seen how nobly and brilliantly his late Majesty undertook and carried the burden of empire, and the true greatness of his character and his zeal and ability will ever be fresh in the minds and hearts of the Canadian people. Staunch devotion to duty was his -strong and unfailing characteristic. No trouble did he deem too great so long as it served to advance the prosperity of the empire and the happiness of all his people, and he passed away beloved, not -alone by his own subjects throughout the empire, but by the people of the whole civilized world. It is very consoling for us, however, in common with all loyal subjects of the Imperial Crown, to recognize and appreciate the magnanimous attitude of our new sovereign towards his people and his anxiety to promote and advance the will of the people, thus showing, in the highest sense, his devotion to constitutional rule.
The speech from the Throne mentions several most important questions which must come before this House during the coming session, but before dealing briefly with these matters, may I be allowed to refer to the great privilege this -country has enjoyed during the past year. This privilege I do not think I -can bring more clearly and effectively before the House than by offering a few figures as evidence of our unprecedented prosperity. And, first, touching the trade of Canada with the world: For the fiscal year just closed, our total imports of merchandise, dutiable and free, amounted to $385,835,103, as compared with $299,768,166 for the previous year, an advance of $86,066,937, clearly showing that our population, our industrial demands within our own borders and our commercial activity were increasing at an enormous rate. But, even though we required increasingly large amounts of produce to satisfy our home demands, I find that, comparing this year with last, our total exports of merchandise have been nearly $39,000,000 greater than the year before. And-, summing up the general situation, I find that, whereas the total trade of Canada, inwards and outwards, including coin and bullion, up to the end of the fiscal year 1909, amounted to $571,000,000, it amounted during the past fiscal year to $693,000,000, an increase of $122,000,000. For the twelve months ending September last, the total trade of Canada was $130,000,000 over what it was in the previous year. And I have no hesitation in saying that, at the end of the present fiscal year, namely, -on the 31st March, 1911, our total trade will be Mr McGIVERIN.
considerably over $800,000,000, as compared with $693,000,000 during the past fiscal year, and as compared with $218,000,000 fifteen years ago.
Again, one of the truest indications of our prosperity is to be found in the Customs returns. The Customs duties collected during the year ending September. 1909, amounted to $53,868,671. During the past fiscal year there has been the unprecedented advance of 26 per cent on that sum, the figures- up to the end of September last being $67,783,680. Upon inquiry, I learn that there is no particular line of trade that is specially responsible for this enormous increase, but reports from every section of the country show that it is only the ordinary general growth of the nation's trade, commerce and industry which is responsible for this wonderful showing.
Let me give you another comparison, this time from the immigration returns. Take the figures for the m-onths of April, May, June and July, 1910, and compare them with the same months of 1909. The number of immigrants arriving for these four months of the present year was 155,549. as compared with 90,249 for the corresponding four months of 1909. The immigration from the United States in this time increased from 40,267 to 54,699, while the immigration by ocean ports increased from 49,982 to 100,850, an increase of 102 per cent. For the month of July alone, the total immigration to Canada was 26,218, as compared with 16,113 for July, 1909, an increase of 57 per cent. These figures are astonishing in many respects, and the government is to be congratulated on the pa-st year's- showing, which is, however, a continuation of the general prosperity which arises to a great extent from the sound and businesslike administration of the government. But there is -another reason for congratulation, and that is that the government is far-seeing in securing the very best means- of preserving the stability and insuring the future of our great country. This is being shown in many ways all through the different departments; but I would like to particularly mention the Commission of Conservation, which was organized last January. This Commission, which has the honour of having as chairman the Hon. exminister of Interior, the member for Brandon (Hon. C. Sifton), will study, investigate and advise on the minerals, the fisheries, the public health, the inland waters, the lands and the forests, so as to conserve for the best interests of the country what must now and in the future be the -sources from which arise the happiness, prosperity and wealttf of our people. But I should be remiss in my duty were I to overlook the great farming population and to fail to m-alse at least a passing mention of the Department of Agriculture, Which has- now for so many years been so

well and ably administered. The development of the great West and the growing demands for information from progressive farmers everywhere have taxed (the resources of the department. And that the agricultural population are alive to the great advantage offered them is seen from the fact that while during the three years ending in 1890, the number of letters received from inquiring farmers at the different experimental farms averaged less than 10,000, during the past yeaT they numbered 102,651. I need not detail the efforts made by the department to provide experimental farms in the new provinces, to improve the seed grain and fruit culture of the country and to clear the land from pests and weeds so detrimental to progressive agriculture, and to teach the farming population that by a wise system of crop rotation they may indefinitely prolong the fertility of the soil, which must he ever the basis of agricultural success and prosperity.
And now I come to a question which may yet become one of the greatest importance to our people. I mean the question of reciprocity with the United States. We are all more or less acquainted with the operation and effect of the Elgin-Marcy treaty, which was in operation from 1854 to 1866, and all are aware of the readiness, if I may use that word, on the part of Canada for .over thirty years thereafter to enter into a new reciprocal agreement until negotiations ended with the Joint High Commission of 1897-8-9. We know, Sir, that Canada in the past was ready to go to Washington: to-day, I am not far yrrong in saying the United States have come to Ottawa. Now, I do not mean by this that we are to a,ct arrogantly or vauntingly, but rather that, in the general development of intercourse with our neighbour, in trade, in travel, in movement of population and in a thousand ways, we have come to know one another better, to realize that we are two great nations on this North American continent, who, having been at peace for a period of a hundred years, can show the world the blessings of such neighbourly action.
Now, Sir, so far as I can judge, the action of the government in this matter is similar to that of any sensible business man. They welcome the representatives of the United States and say to them: We are pleased to discuss trade relations with you; if we can come to an agreement mutually satisfactory to both countries, so. much the better; if not, no harm will be done. To take the position that some newspapers in Canada have taken, that the government should not negotiate at all, is in my opinion absolutely unreasonable; because until the government know the particulars of any trade proposition, no argument for or against can be advanced The two Canadian representatives are the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Minister
of Customs; and I am sure we can feel that our interests are absolutely safe in their hands. Before leaving this subject, permit me to express the deep regret which I am sure we ail! feel at having learned this morning of the untimely death at Washington of the Hon. Mr. Hoyt, one of the United States commissioners on reciprocity.
The speech from the Throne also makes reference to the award of the Hague Tribunal concerning the Newfoundland fisheries. For many years the control of the North Atlantic fisheries, and conflicting rights therein, gave rise to many serious questions which at times threatened hostilities between the United States and Great Britain. We know the history of the situation. Arrangements were made, treaties were signed, working plans were agreed to, but ever and anon an open question here, an undetermined Tight there, gave rise to constant bickerings between the fishermen, and constant irritation between the governments. At last the question was referred to the Hague Tribunal, and we all know the result. Through the able and brilliant efforts of the Minister of Justice, Canada's representative at the Hague, these vexed questions were settled with the greatest honour and credit to our country.
Dealing now briefly with the National Transcontinental railway. I am sure that this House now freely admits the unquestioned justification for the construction of this work. We know the greatness of the west, we are learning much of the vast resources of the northern and central portions of Canada. New Brunswick and the east have a great future, and what could be so well calculated as this railway to develop the hidden wealth of the east, the west and the centre. I am informed that out of a total mileage, including yards and sidings, of 2,131 mile3, 1,106 miles are now graded, and the track is laid for over 800 miles. The New Brunswick section will be finished next autumn, and it is confidently expected that the road will be in operation in 1913. The commissioners are to be congratulated on adopting the most modern methods of railway construction. The old and cheaper plan of low cost of construction led to high cost of operation and consequently to higher freight rates. Invariably, in the course of a few years, large sums of money were added to capital account which were required in reducing grades and curves, constructing new bridges, and practically in rebuilding the whole roadbed. But as I have said, the commissioners have taken an absolutely different course, and n road is being constructed of the most permanent character in every Tespeet. Their policy will result in giving the greatest economy and efficiency in operation io a railway which means so much for the development of our country.

A new law on copyright will be introduced this session which will be of the greatest importance, as under its provisions Canada will have 'full control of her own copyright. This was agreed upon during the past, summer at a conference in London, when the Imperial authorities relinquished their rights to the self governing colonies in a matter that had been in dispute for some sixty years.
Referring to the Hudson Bay railway, I am very pleased to see that the construction of this railway and the opening up of a new great transportation route for the grain of the Northwest is one of the principal items on the government programme. The opening of this route means much to western Canada, in fact to the whole country. For just as we must conserve our land so that it may produce the highest average of crops, so must we legislate that our transportation should be the cheapest possible, the quickest, and the most direct to the markets of the world. This we confidently believe will be the result of the construction of the Hudson Bay railway.
The Bank Act also, in the usual course, will claim our attention. Canada, as we all know, limits her bank charters to ten years, -and they expire on the 1st of July next; hence the necessity for this legislation. This legislation will be under the guidance of the hon. the Minister of Finance, and in mentioning his name, let me express the hope which I know is echoed by every member of this house, and by the people of this country, that he will soon return to us restored to his usual good health.
There will also be legislation dealing with the all-important subject of labour conditions, and which will continue the policy of the Labour Department of investigating the conditions of labour and industry, for the improvement of the well being of our working people upon whose happiness and contentment depends so largely the prosperity of our country.
Before I conclude my remarks I wish to refer to one other subject. I am glad to see that the government's naval policy is being actively and energetically carried out, under the able and patriotic direction of the hon. the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. Much has been said in past years, both in this House, in the press of the country, and in general discussion, and various views have been propounded as to the best policy for Canada to pursue. Generally speaking, those views may be placed under three heads: First, a direct contribution in ships or money to Great Britain, second, to do nothing, either for this country or for Great Britain; third, to build up a Canadian navy under the expert advice of the British Admiralty. This policy includes the construction of Mr. McGIVERIN.
naval defences on our coast, the construction of dock yards where ships can be constructed in Canada for the navy and for a merchant marine, built by Canadian workmen and as much as possible of Canadian material. It also includes the foundation and equipment of a naval college and training ships, so that our young men can be educated and trained for the naval profession. These ships are to replace those withdrawn from our coasts by Great Britain in order to consolidate her fleet in home waters, so that our coasts and commerce can be protected, and a Canadian navy developed that will help the old empire in case of need. Our country is growing rich and prosperous, and well able to defend itself; and are we, the people of this great and prosperous country, so lacking in self confidence and independence as to say, on the one hand: We will pay cash for our protection, or on the other hand: We will do nothing to defend our country or the empire? No, Sir, the people of this country will never accept either of these propositions. The sentiment of this country is strongly behind the idea of a Canadian navy and that sentiment will increase in strength as the policy becomes better known and better understood; for, that policy is sane, sound, patriotic and in the best interests of Canada and the empire.
Now, Sir, in conclusion, it is only fifteen years since the right hon. the leader of the government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) first took up the reins of office. He surrounded himself with able and intelligent colleagues. Though time has changed the personnel of the government the high standard of efficiency has been maintained. What the right hon. gentleman has accomplished in the marvellous development of this country through the constructive work of his successive cabinets is patent to every one, but above and beyond that material and constructive policy is the policy, which has been his life work, carried out patiently and unselfishly, against misrepresentation by extremists, of treating the Canadian people with equal justice, without prejudice of race or creed, a policy which has resulted in building up a great and united Canadian nation under the British flag.


Mr. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Kamouraska).: (Translation.) Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to second the proposition which has just been made in such eloquent words by my honourable friend the member for Ottawa, I entertain the hope that your benevolence and that of the House may make it easier for me to fulfil the onerous task with which I have been entrusted. Since our last meeting the country has sustained a painful loss. The death of our beloved King Edward VII. has plunged into a deep mourning all the parts of this immense em-

pire over which waves the British flag. Never did a sovereign obtain to such an eminent degree tile respectful admiration and loyal affection of millions of subjects belonging to all races and creeds, who enjoy the privileges of British citizenship. The powerful and the humble, the rich and the miserable have mourned for him with equal grief; all had received numerous tokens of his benevolence; all had, oftentimes been favoured by his devotedness and his generosity. The nations of both continents have considered his death as a loss to the world, and he was accompanied to the grave with unanimous regrets. King Edward's wisdom, benevolence and patriotism have made him, during his too short reign, the arbiter of the destinies of the world. His lofty and broad policy of peace, harmony and conciliation has left durable traces in all foreign countries, and it is rightly that the great peacemaker shall ever be considered as a benefactor of humanity.
May I add, Mr. Speaker, that nowhere was the loss of the lamented monarch more deeply felt than in the old province of Quebec, by that population of French origin whose language and religious creed differ from those of the majority in the other provinces. We have had, on several occasions and under circumstances especially remarkable, noted proofs of his broadmindedness, of his munificent Kindness and of his incomparable tact.
May I be allowed to express the wish that, notwithstanding our differences of race, creed and interest, the name and the memory of Edward VII. be for ever a powerful bond warranting fruitful union in this country all the citizens of which were equally dear to him and have always been protected by him with generous impartiality.
To our new sovereign, His Majesty King George V., I wish to reiterate the homage of our most complete loyalty and of our affectionate respect. We know that he has inherited the high qualities of his illustrious father, and we firmly hope that his reign will be a period of union, of progress and prosperity for Canada and for all the British Empire. Indeed, as far as this country is concerned, the accession of our new sovereign takes place under the most happy auspices. At no period of her economical evolution did Canada enjoy such a great and fruitful prosperity. Agriculture, commerce and industry have felt influence of that great w'.ave of progress which seems to keep going forward with ascending motion. The commerce of Canada, during the last fiscal year, has reached the enormous figure of $693,161,865. In 1896, when the present cabinet came to power our commerce amounted to a total of $239,025,360; it is, then, three times more considerable to-day. From 1878 to 1896, during the eighteen years of the administration which preceded this
one, our commerce had increased by $66,619,906. Since fourteen years, under the present government, it has increased by $454,136,505, an average increase twelve times more considerable than during the eighteen previous years.
Such figures, however dry they may appear, have in the eyes of the Canadian people an eloquence, the force of which no effort of rhetoric could possibly impair. And it does not seem as if this forward movement was likely to come to a standstill.
Our receipts during the month of October just ended reached the sum of $9,666,192, an increase of $1,112,426 over the total receipts for October, 1909. During the seven months elapsed since the opening of the current fiscal year, our receipts aggregated $9,906,800 more than during the corresponding seven months of the preceding year.
Sir, this country we inhabit covers an immense area and has been generously endowed by Providence; the natural resources of Canada are beyond calculation; its agricultural, manufacturing and mineral wealth or possibilities are unlimited. To take advantage of these stores of latent energy, to ensure their rapid and successful development, it was necessary that we should have a strong, strenuous and progressive administration; we have had the benefit of such an administration since 1896.
Millions have been spent towards the improvement of our transportation system, our canals have been enlarged, our railway lines have been extended, our harbours have been deepened, our great waterwav. the St. Lawrence, has been made easier of access to those large sea-going vessels, and the country's population has doubled.
All this, Sir, has been effected without any recourse to further taxation. The average of customs duties levied on our imports has been reduced by twelve per cent, and loans are no longer resorted k>.
The endeavours of our farming community have been ably followed up by the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Fisher), through the providing of cold storage facilities on board railways and steamship lines the safe transportation of farm products has been ensured. The establishment of experimental farms at several points in the country has given further impetus to the teaching of agriculture, the results of which could hardly be overestimated. I am confident that in the near future the province of Quebec will be endowed with some such institution and that the hon. minister will find his way to meeting the requests which we had occasion in former years to submit to him in this connection.
Sir, the award recently rendered by the Hague arbitration tribunal has been a source of great satisfaction to the people of this country. For the past century that important question of the control and mastery of the teeming fisheries of the Atlantic

*coast has been a permanent cause of trouble and friction between the British possessions and the United States. Again and again all the resources of expert diplomacy had to be summoned towards preventing the two countries from going to war. The rights of United States fishermen were recognized and limited by the treaties of 1818 and 1871, and later on by the modus vivendi temporarily agreed to in 1888. But Great Britain's sovereign rights over and control of the North Atlantic Fisheries were from the outset taken exception to by the United States. In fact, Senator Turner, one of the United States delegates, before the Hague tribunal, went so far as to contend that, under the terms of the treaty of 1818, Great Britain had relinquished her sovereign rights, that the United States henceforth enjoyed equal rights in the use of those fishing grounds, and to such an extent that the United States navy could unquestionably be sent to enforce such rights. Had these pretensions been acquiesced to, Canadian interests in the gulf and over the North Atlantic would have been in constant jeopardy. Fortunately, the decision rendered by the arbitration tribunal has dispelled all doubts in this connection, and British sovereignty has been clearly recognized. United States fishermen will have to submit to the laws and regulations, of the Dominion and Newfoundland governments.
The hon. Minister of Justice (Hon. Mr. Avlesworth) is entitled to the gratitude of the Canadian people for the zeal and ability he has displayed in vindicating our rights. The success which crowned his efforts brought forth encomiums from the press in all parts of Canada. We are thankful to the Imperial authorities as well for having appointed the distinguished chief justice of the country to represent Great Britain on that important tribunal, and for having helped and forwarded in every way the upholding of our rights.
That award of the Hague tribunal has finally disposed of our onlv serious cause of friction remaining with the United States. Is this not an opportune time for looking into our business intercourse with our neighbours to the south, and for finding out what means should be taken towards improving trade conditions? The United States government has made an opening. At its suggestion, and without any steps having been taken on our behalf, important negotiations have been started and are just now being pursued by authorized representatives of both countries. I am not in a position to foretell what will be the outcome of this conference, but I have a strong hope that it will turn out to the advantage of Canadian trade interests.
Sir, I am aware that a certain number of my fellow citizens think that we should refrain from entering into any trade arrangement with the neighbouring republic; such Mr LAPOINTE.
a viewr, though fully entitled to respect, should not prevail in this House or in this country. Why should proposals embodying reciprocal, reasonable and fair concessions be rejected? These countries have a common boundary line 4,000 miles in extent; railway systems connect their various centres; great lakes, rivers and canals ensure constant and direct intercourse between both countries; there is no geographical feature which does not tend to develop trade relations between these two great dominions. So much so, Mr. Speaker, that in spite of hostile and in many cases prohibitive legislation, business intercourse between Canada and the neighbouring republic has at all times been active. Of our trade at the present time, 50 per cent is with the United States; 50 per cent of our imports are from that source and 35 per cent of our exports are sent to that country.
Considerable activity is evinced in our trade with Great Britain, and our earnest wish is that such trade intercourse should be maintained and extended as far as possible. But', on the British market, we have as competitors all the nations of the world, of which several have over us an undoubted advantage. Germany, Russia and Trance are in closer proximity than is Canada to the British market.
In the United States market we are at an advantage, and there is in that country a population of 90 millions to supply. Would it be on our part an act of wisdom to reject any proposal making for the improvement of our commerce and trade relations with that immense country?
Canada has derived great benefits from the Elgin treaty between 1854 and 1866. Why should a new agreement portend greater danger? But the opponents of all negotiations appeal to our loyalty for Greart-Brit-ain, and claim that any trade arrangement with the United States would loosen the ties which bind us to the Empire. Sir, anything that makes for the progress and prosperity of the country can but help to enhance our appreciation of the political status which rendered possible such progress and prosperity. Any new departure in our economic legislation which will result in increasing the national wealth will necessarily turn out to the advantage of the great empire of which Canada is the most precious gem. Bonded warehouses and preventive officers cannot, to my mind, be made to serve as helps to loyalty, and their disappearance cannot in any way diminish Canadian patriotism.
Such was the thought which inspired all the prime ministers of our various provinces, conservative as well as libera], at the interprovincial conference in Quebec in the year 1887. A resolution was unanimously adopted favouring a policy of commercial reciprocity with the United States, and stating that such a departure, far from

impairing our feeling of loyalty towards Great Britain, would on the contrary increase it.
I may add, -Sir, that the interests of our country will be safeguarded by our representatives at that international conference. Last year, in the course of the negotiations which had for their object to prevent the enforcement against us of the United States maximum tariff, a Montreal manu-tacturer, and a conservative in politics, made in my hearing the following statement which I quote word for word: ' As long as Fielding is there, I do not fear.' I am confident that our business men have to-day as much confidence and realize that their interests will be well looked after
The carrying on of these negotiations with the United States are a further manifestation of Canadian autonomy. Already, in connection with the negotiation of the French treaty, it could be said that Canada had received its diplomatic baptism Today we are in a position to say that we enjoy the most important attributes of a nation, while retaining at the same time all privileges and prerogatives as citizens of the greatest empire in the world. But. Sir, if we are proud to exercise such rights, if we are happy to enjoy such prerogatives, we should on the other hand show our readiness to assume the responsibilities and discharge the duties which are inseparable from them.
We should bear in mind that the ill-usage of power is not yet entirely a thing of the past in this world of ours. International conflicts are not even nowadays settled in accordance with the principles of ethics and by _ means of peaceful negotiations, and it is the imperious duty of a country to make the necessary sacrifices towards protecting itself and safeguarding its interests.
Sir, in starting at once to carry out the provisons of the Canadian Naval Service Act, the government have shown that they realize the present greatness of our country and of the part it is called upon to play in the world.
That is not party legislation, it is not a makeshift with an eye on elections, or based on selfish motives: it is a constructive measure. In defending it vigorously and carrying it out energetically, the government have shown sentiments of natriot-ism which the country will appreciate. That act has been bitterly criticised. Every means have been resorted to in order to discredit it; even appeals to race prejudices have been made, a tactic so odious and despicable that even those who resort to it emphatically deny that they do so.
Sir, I confide in the common sense of the people at large; they will see to it that they are not carried away by sophistry and reckless statements. The people will realize that the legislation which ensures their
safety and their very existence and at the same time exerts a far reaching influence on national unity and solidarity, cannot be framed or decided upon in the course of tumultuous meetings and by the use of strong language. They will continue to confide in the moderate, wise and far-seeing statesman who, for fourten years, so faithfully watched over and safeguarded the most sacred interests of our country, and who yesterday reached the sixty-ninth year of a life devoted to promoting the welfare, unity and progress of the Dominion.
To those of my fellow-citizens who sincerely believe that the Dominion government should not have the power to help under any circumstances in defending the empire, I say that they misconceive the actual status of the country. They forget what are the distinctive features of our existence^ a_3 a nation. Our dearest interests, our religious and political rights are closely linked with the maintenance of the empire and the upholding of its supremacy.
Why should we refuse to lend a hand in upholding that power, especially when the means suggested are in perfect harmony with the dignity and autonomy of Canada? We have no right to allow ourselves to be turned away from the fulfilment of our duty and the assuming of our responsibilities by fantastical suppositions or the ghosts of imaginary dangers.
Sir, let me say in closing that in connection with this great issue which has to do with Canadian honour in its most sacred precincts, the government may rely on the sincere and unstinted support of all representatives of a party who have accomplished so much towards securing to this country union, harmony and prosperity.
We are conscious of our duties and responsibilities as representatives of the people, and we are intent on devoting all our energy and endeavours in this House, and outside of it, to bringing about the full recognition of the country's cardinal ideas, aspirations and interests.


Robert Laird Borden: Mr. Speaker, let me, in the first place congratulate the hon. gentlemen who have moved and seconded this address to His Excellency upon the very creditable way in which they have discharged that duty from their standpoint. I do not think they left anything unsaid that ought to have been said from that standpoint.
I desire to extend my congratulations to the country upon having had the services of His Excellency, Earl Grey, for another year. We know that in these days of rapid growth and development in this country there are many of us who are very enthusiastic Canadians, but I do not think among all of us there has been one more truly enthusiastic or more thoroughly Canadian than His Excel-

leney who has been with us for some years past. In everything that has concerned the interests of this country, in everything that has looked forward to the development of this country and of its best interests, Lord Grey has been to the fore, has been prompt and earnest, and as enthusiastic as the most demonstrative Canadian.
I join also with my hon. friend the member for Ottawa (Mr. McGiverin), in deploring the absence from this House of the Hon. the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) on account of the condition of his health. There is no one man in this House or in this country who will deny to Mr. Fielding the tribute of having given a most earnest and unremitting devotion to public affairs. From the time of his first entrance into public life in the province of Nova Scotia until to-day, I do not know of one man, whether a Liberal or a Conservative, who has consecrated to his duties as a public man, from his standpoint, a greater amount of energy than has Mr. Fielding. I regret very much that his nealth has suffered and I most truly hope and desire that he may be restored to perfect health and at a very early date, return to take his place amongst us in this House of Commons.
I join in what has been said by the mover of the address with regard to the lamented death of His Majesty King Edward VII. The hon. gentleman has expressed in eloquent terms what I am sure must have been the sentiments not only of every man in this House but of every one in this country upon that subject. It is true that the great note of the late King's character was his devotion to duty, his devotion to the service of the State, to which he owed a notable service. He gave that service to the State with all his energy, with all his power, with all the tact which made him so great a force not only for the good of this empire, but for the good of civilization, for the good of humanity, for the good of the world. I feel that in that devotion to duty which was exhibited to the people of this empire by the late King, we have a lesson for the humblest man in the empire as well as the greatest, because while it is true that the King owed a duty and a great duty to the State, to the empire which he governed, so well, according to constitutional usage, every man of us in Canada, every man of us in the empire, having a voice in the councils of the nation owes a somewhat similar duty to that State. This perhaps is a duty that too many of us are prone to forget, and I wish that the lesson borne in to us by the example which the late King gave, may not be forgotten by the people of this Dominion or by the people of the empire; and we have every reason to believe that that devotion to duty, so strikingly exemplified by the late King, will be displayed in no less degree by his successor to whom we in this country and throughout Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
the empire owe the same loyal and devoted fealty and allegiance. We have every reason to believe that His Majesty's rule in this empire will be characterized by the same devotion, by the same respect to constitutional usage as were so strikingly exemplified in the life of his father.
I join with my hon. friend who has moved this address (Mr. McGiverin) in congratulating both the British Empire and the American Republic upon the splendid result which has attended the deliberations of the Hague tribunal. In submitting this vexed question to the determination of that tribunal, these two countries have given to the world an object lesson which I hope will not be forgotten. The issue of that arbitration is very creditable indeed to both countries and I have no hesitation whatever in publicly offering my congratulations not only to the government, but especially to my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Aylesworth) for the very successful issue which has been brought about by the work of this tribunal. On some occasions in the past it may have been that difficulties arising between the United States and Canada have led to certain differences between the great republic to the south and the empire of which we are proud to form a part. I trust that this is not so to-day, I believe it is not so to-day and I trust that it will not be so in the future. Here lies Canada, a great and growing nation upon this continent, surrounded by very much the same conditions, confronted by very much the same problems, as those which present themselves to the people of the United States. We are bound to the great British Empire, by a loyal fealty, by a warm affection, by everything that stands for the solidarity of this empire, but we are also closely associated with the greai republic to the south of us, by a constant and increasing social and commercial intercourse and it seems to me in that way and for that reason that Canada should in the future come to be a bond of amity, of friendship between the republic and the empire. I am glad to know, at least I hope that both governments will lend themselves to the splendid movement which looks to the celebration of a centennial of peace between the empire and the republic. I trust that this will be done, and I join in the aspirations of those who have said that no better and more enduring monument of that centennial of peace could be established than to make continuous and permanent at all times to come that disarmament upon the great contiguous waters of both nations which has now existed for almost a century under the treaty of 1818. That treaty, as we are all aware, is liable to be determined on very short notice by either of the contracting parties. I (believe every man in this country .would like to see that condition made more enduring and

permanent. In that way this empire and the great adjoining republic would give to the world an object lesson which is very much needed in these days of great armaments and great preparations for war; and then we might look forward to a day, which may come, and which I hope will come, when the great republic and this great empire, acting together in the interests of humanity and civilization, can command and will command the peace of the world.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have spoken of the similarity of problems in the United States of America and some of those which confront us in this country, and to one of these I would like to address myself for a moment, in connection with the recent visit -I do not know whether it was political or non-political-which my right hon. friend the Prime Minister has made to that great western territory of Canada. We know that in the United States, not so many years ago, and perhaps even at the present day, there has been a supposed divergence of interest, and perhaps sometimes a real divergence of sentiment, between the great east and the even greater west. The physical conditions of the country accounted for that perhaps to some extent. There may have been other reasons upon which it is not desirable that I should dwell to-day. But it is well for the people of the east of Canada and the people of the west of Canada as well to remember and to realize that in this country we have an exactly similar problem to that which presented itself and perhaps still presents itself to the people of the United States. For my part, I would be inclined to say that in Canada that problem may be a little more accentuated than it has ever appeared to be in the United States. 1 say that for many' reasons which might be adduced. In this country, unlike the United States, we have a very considerable extent of territory at the present time not occupied by any considerable population, lying between the great east and the great west. I say that for the further reason that there is a very great problem of transportation in this country, as there has been in the United States. I say it also for the reason that there has been and is to-day in Canada a great fiscal problem which has to be solved as between the east and the west, and to which both east and west must give consideration. I say it because in the west to-day we are undertaking an immigration problem such as never has been attempted in the world before. I believe that my hon. friend from Medicine Hat (Mr. Magrath), in the course of a monograph on that subject demonstrated to the satisfaction of every thinking man who has read it that we are undertaking in the west of Canada a problem of assimilation of an immigrant population greater than any other country up to the present time has ever undertaken. We must not fail to bear that in mind.	We must not fail also to bear in
mind, having regard to the physical conditions of this country, and having regard to the fact that that immigration comes not only from the British Isles and the continent of Europe, but from the south as well, in great and constantly increasing numbers, that there is a certain pull which may tend to send our lines of communication north and south instead of east and west, where it has been the aspiration of all public men in this country to send them. These are some of the matters for consideration, not only by public men in this country, but by all the people of this country; and upon the consideration and the wise solution of these problems will depend very much the future of this country so far as its prosperity is concerned and so far as its potency and force as one of the great nations of the British Empire are concerned.
So I come for a moment to the visit of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister to the west. I observed that he was met in western Canada by some of these very problems to which I have alluded. One of the very first questions which he encountered in meeting various delegations and assemblages of the people in that country was that of the tariff, and I am bound to say that in some of the addresses which were presented to him, and in some of the speeches which were made to him by the spokesmen of these various delegations, the Prime Minister found, as I have no doubt, a very close and perhaps very interesting reminiscence of some speeches which he delivered in that great western country in the year 1894." So far as I was able to observe, these reminiscences did not prove in all cases to be highly agreeable to my right hon. friend, and he was very much disposed to put aside as considerations that might very well be left to the future some matters that he pressed upon the attention of those people with very earnest insistence in 1894. In considering the answers which my right hon, friend made to those delegations I was somewhat surprised to find that the old enthusiasm of 1894 for free trade as it is in England and for a revenue tariff had almost completely disappeared. I was astonished to find that there was not the same enthusiasm and vigour as had characterized his utterances and the utterances of my hon. friend the Minister of Customs in the good old days before 1896. I do not think my right hon. friend the Prime Minister made up his mind what he had better say on the subject until he arrived at Yorkton. There, on the 20th of July, about ten days after he had begun his tour, he spoke to the expectant west in these terms:-
If I had my own way I would have a free British tariff.

I would like to ask my right hon. friend why he does not have his own way. He has been in power in this country for the past fourteen years, and he knows that he denounced protection as a curse and the ruin of this country during all the years from 1887 to 1896, and in the west he was confronted with these statements. He told us in 1895, and I think he has told us in the west recently, that while he could not abolish protection absolutely and at once, he would do it in fairly short metre; he would do it as they had done it in England, as Sir Robert Peel had done it in England. It might not take so long, he told us in 1895; I think it was at Massey Hall in Toronto-I have the extract under my hand, but I will not weary the House with it. He told the people of this country in February, 1895, that he would do it more quickly than it had been done in Great Britain, where it had been a long process. How was it done in Great Britain? Sir Robert Peel undertook the task in 1842 by a sliding scale of duties, and in 1846 he completed the task by the scale of duties which came completely into force in 1849. Therefore the process in Great Britain covered only seven years, and, as was stated by the mover of the address, my right hon. friend has been in power for nearly 15 years. What did he next say in the west? I come to his announcement at Saskatchewan on the 23rd of July, when he said:-
Further revision must be made, but before revision is ^undertaken, the government will again appoint a commission to investigate. This commission will consult with the grain growers, it will consult with the various interests concerned, it will aim, having in view the Common wealth of our common country, to go as far as may be justifiable toward the trade policy of England, the shining example of the world, although it cannot be expected that we can accomplish in one or two generations what it took in England eight centuries to arrive at.
So that the hopes of the freetraders of this country are stimulated and encouraged in this way, that having been 15 years in power and having had some control over the tariff in that period, the government undertake, as far as may be justifiable, to press that part of their policy so vigorously that it will come into force in about one or more generations. I do not know whether my hon. friend regards that as a very satisfactory implementing of his promise, but I am bound to say that it is very much an implementing of what he did prophesy on one occasion at least.
On the 5th of February, 1895, my right hon. friend was speaking in the city of Toronto upon the trade and other questions, and he held up to scorn and condemnation the conduct of the Conservative government of that day. In tones of biting sarcasm, he then described the very policy which he, Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
himself has been carrying out during the past 15 years. Let me read to the right non. gentleman the words he used on that occasion:-
When in power I think I know a way in which L can maintain my reputation-that ia when a question comes before me that is difficult to solve, to avoid it, to do nothing, and to look wise.
For instance, suppose when a Liberal government were in power they had to deal with the question of prohibition. There would be a possibility of alienating the sympathies of the prohibitionists if we dealt with it in one way, or the sympathies of the liquor men if we dealt with it in another way. Then it would be possible for us to appoint a commission, and that commission would go on for one, two or three years and it might cost $100,000 and more to the country; but our government would be saved in the meantime and the ministers would look wise.
Does not this extract indicate the absolute truth of the homely English proverb that many a true word is spoken in jest? But that was not all, there is more to follow, and I think what follows it even a little better than the last. I commend it especially to my hon. friends from the west, having regard to the utterances of the right hon. gentleman in the west to which I have just called attention:-
Suppose we have to deal with and to reform tlie tariff, which we certainly will have to deal with, we might appoint a royal commission, go about the country interviewing manufacturers in secret, interviewing farmers in public, lecturing farmers, browbeating them and showing them their stupidity because they do not acknowledge the beauties of the national policy.
This is the way in which men can maintain their reputation for capability and small cuteness.
Well, the farmers of the west were so much bewildered by what my right hon. friend said out there that they are coming down here 500 strong on the 16th of December to find out what it .all means. When they arrive I hope he will have something a little more definite to tell them than what he told them in his speech to which I have just alluded. Speaking of his policy, he said at Saskatoon:-
It will aim, having in view the commonwealth of our common country, to go as far as may be justifiable towards the trade policy of England.
That is exactly what the west complains of. It complains that his policy has only been aiming for the past 15 years and up to the present has not hit anything-certainly not hit anything at all in the shape of what the right hon. gentleman submitted as his policy in 1894. I would call his attention to the use of the word ' justifiable ':-

It will aim, having in view the commonwealth of our common country, to go as far as may be justifiable toward the trade policy of England, the shining example of the world, although it cannot be expected that we can accomplish in one or two generations what it took in England eight centuries to arrive at.
That word ' justifiable ' seems to me a fairly elastic word. I do not know any policy whatever which the right hon. gentleman might bring down regarding the tariff that he might not say was in consonance with the language I have just quoted. He found great fault with the term 'adequate protection.' But that was definiteness itself compared with the term my right hon. friend used in western Canada, when confronted with his own specific declarations as to what his policy would ,be when he came into power.
That there is protection in the tariff at present, even my hon. friend the Minister of Customs will not deny.


Mr. FOSTER.: I think he denies it.


Robert Laird Borden: If he does I refer him to the Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding) who in answer to myself, in 1907, when 1 asked him if there was not protection in the tariff, said frankly and manfully, that there was. The Minister of Commerce knows that it is there and he knows quite well that, when in opposition, he declared that the principle of protection was a curse to the country and that he and his friends would absolutely abolish it. It is these things which the farmers are considering at present, and it is some explanation as to these bygone promises and present indefinite utterances, which the farmers of the west will require when they come down here in December.
My hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. E. M. Macdonald) was in the west with the Prime Minister and no doubt enjoyed himself very much. I observed that he was frequently entertained by some of his old friends from the maritime provinces and I am glad that he was thus honoured. But on his return to Nova Scotia he presented the theory that the only freetraders in the west were a few Tories. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, says that the only protectionists in the east are a few Tories. So that the utterances of these two hon. gentlemen do not seem to square with one another.
In 1908 my right hon. friend was very willing to devote himself for an hour or two in this House to a certain speech which I made in Halifax in August, 1907, in which I undertook to lay down some principles of action and of policy for the Conservative party. He was exceedingly distressed because the word ' protection ' was not found in the articles of that policy as laid down. He said the thing itself
might be there, but it was writ very small, indeed. But I do not notice that my right hon. friend in the west emphasized that element of the situation There he was very desirous, indeed, to hold up the Tory party as a party which, in some mysterious way, had tied his hands during 15 years and prevented his bringing about the realization and fulfilment of the promises he had so frequently made to the people during the ten years preceding 1896.
My right hon. friend was exceedingly distressed and grieved, and almost ashamed, in 1908, because I had stated1 to the people of British Columbia that my declaration to them in 1904 that they should have a board of arbitration to consider the justice of their claims would hold good if we came into power.
I made that declaration to them then and I stand by it to-day. But what of the lavish promises of public works that decorated every speech of my right hon. friend from the time he started until the time he ended his tour. He had not gone *to more than about half a dozen meetings before he had emptied the public treasury for five years to come. At Fort Francis, on his return, I am told,-he will correct me if I am wrong-the people asked for some assistance toward a highway, He misunderstood and thought they asked for a railway, and promptly said that they should have a railway, for which they had never asked. And my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) joined in the chorus; and, needless to say, the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) was the very head and front of the offending on such occasions. In passing I may say . that I understand my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works declared in the west that I had been making statements on the public platform in Ontario that I would not dare to repeat in the House of Commons. Lest there be any misunderstanding, I tell him that I repeat every one of them now in the House of Commons, and the hon. minister is welcome to take any action he may see fit in regard to any of those utterances. But I was saying that the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals joined in this chorus of promises. One story was that we were to have a canal across the continent, I do not know whether it was to be extended across the Rocky mountains, but there are newspaper reports which would indicate that even that was not thought out of the way. The Minister of Railways and Canals put it upon the ground that this canal was a necessity to control the rates upon the Transcontinental. It is perfectly clear that something will be necessary to control rates on the Transcontinental, because,

notwithstanding our protests, they did not put a single line into the statute which would enable them to have any more effective control over rates on the Transcontinental than they have over rates on any other railway in the country. And I suppose that, after the canal is complete, if they have anything to do with the matter, either in opposition-where they are most likely to be-or on the other side of the House, the story will be circulated that they will build an aerial line of some kind to control rates upon the canal; and so we shall have the railway controlled by the canal, and the canal controlled by the air line.
But I must ask the Prime Minister to get down in sackcloth and ashes before this House and apologize for his conduct judged from the standpoint of his own high-sounding declarations of 1908. It was bribery, according to the right hon. gentleman, to tell the people of British Columbia that they might have claims that they believed to be just referred to the arbitration of honest and impartial men. Bribery, was it? What, then, will you say of the profuse promises of public works handed out by every man who stood upon the public platform in this western tour, handed out to every community and handed out with one object, and one object alone, as the Prime Minister knows, that object being to influence votes in support of this government in the next general election?
Mr. Speaker, the west presses certain claims, and is entitled to have those claims considered by this government. It presses for the construction of the Hudson Bay railway. As I understand it, both parties in this country have committed themselves to the construction of this railway. But the west asks for something more. It asks that the construction of that railway should be by the government and that the operation oi it should be such as to ensure absolute, thorough control of Tates, effective competition and no monopoly, and that demand on the part of the west seems to me eminently reasonable. The west asks also the redress of grievances in the operation of the terminal elevators. They declare that the farmers of the west are shamelessly robbed through these elevators-that sometimes ten per cent, of No. 1 wheat goes in and thirty per cent goes out, and so on all along the line.	They declare that this condition of affairs has existed to the knowledge of the government for many years and without redress. And I say that the government of this country ought to be responsible for knowing whether that condition of affairs does exist ot not. If that condition of affairs does exist, it ought to be brought to an end without a moment's delay, and this parliament can devote itself to no better object Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
than to bring to an end so disgraceful a state of things as that which is alleged by these western farmers to exist. And I say further that, if ownership by the state and operation by an independent commission is the only remedy, then, in my opinion, that remedy should be applied. But the farmers of the west say something more. They say there ought to be lower duties on agricultural implements, that they are paying higher prices for implements than are paid in the United States and higher prices for Canadian implements than these implements are sold for abroad. I say the government is derelict in its duty in not having brought down to parliament direct and positive information on this subject, and I say that if the claims that are made are true there ought to be a remedy. And I want to know from the government whether they believe them to be true or not. If they say that they do not know, I ask why they have not taken means to know; if they say that these claims are not true, I ask upon what evidence they base that assertion and what they propose to do in the premises. In the fourth place, as I understand it, the west demands that the government of this country should hand over to the people of the three western provinces their public domain to be administered by their own governments under control of their own legislatures. They say they are free men, and, being free men in a free country, they have as good a right to control through their own local legislatures and by their own provincial executive the administration of their public lands as have the people of any of the eastern provinces who enjoy and have enjoyed that right.
Now I come to another subject, that of the reciprocity negotiations now in progress between the government of this country and the government of the United States of America. I thought I observed a certain lack of logical sequence in the remarks of the honourable gentleman (Mr. McGiverin) who moved this address. He spoke of the wonderful development of this country and the great growth of our foreign trade. We are glad to acknowledge it and to congratulate the country upon it-though I do not know that the remarkable growth of the last fiscal year over the preceding year can be traced to any legislative or executive act of this government. The two principal Bills passed last year were the Bill for the establishment of'the naval service and the Bill for the investigation of combines, and I do not know that to either of these can be attributed the very marked increase in our foreign trade which has taken place. Therefore, I should be hardly inclined to accept the view which impressed itself upon my honourable friend. I would not agree that this growth is due to anything else than the splendid resources of this country and the industry and ability of the people in deve-

loping these resources. The honourable gentle man spoke of the desirability of reciprocity negotiations with the United States. But if we are doing so well as my honourable friend says we are doing, I do not exactly apprehend the reason why we should seek to alter conditions that, according to his view, are so eminently favourable at the present time. But as these negotiations are going on I would be inclined to think that the country ought to have some idea of the principles upon which they are proceeding, and of the policy of the government in respect thereto.
Now we know that under a system of party government, if any administration in Canada, whether Liberal or Conservative, brings down a treaty of that kind for ratification to parliament after the treaty has once been made, it stands a very good chance of being put through the House, because the fate of the government rests upon the fate of the treaty. I think, therefore, it is fair and right, not only to the members of this House, but to the people of this country, that we should know upon what principle the government proposes to act. We do not desire any confidential communications that ought not to be disclosed. We understand_ thoroughly that details, and pour parlers, and confidential negotiations cannot be disclosed to us. But we do understand that the government of this country ought to let us know what we may expect from any treaty which they propose to negotiate, what are the benefits expected, on what manufactures or products is there to be a lowering of the duty, or is there to be a system of reciprocity.
Let us look at the conditions as they exist at present. A very eminent member of the Liberal party, a man who is a member of the government to-day, said years ago, before 1896, that a certain condition of affairs as regards trade between this country and the mother country on the one hand, and between this country and the United States of America on the other hand, constituted a real discrimination against the mother country. I say that those conditions are intensified to-day, and I would like to tell my right hon. friend what they are at the present time. Take the past six years ending with the fiscal year 1910, and we find that our total imports from the United States of dutiable goods amounted to $581,279,255; and of free goods, $502,252,420, or a total of $1,083,531,675. During the same period our exports to the United States amounted to $505,453,965, an excess of imports from the United States over exports to that country during the six years of $477,077,710. In other words, we bought from the United States nearly $500,000,000 worth of commodities over and above what they purchased from us. Let us now look at another side of the picture. During the same period of six years we imported from 2
Great Britain of dutiable goods $341,721,022 of free goods, $112,670,727, a total of $454,391,749. Our exports to Great Britain during the same period were $725,475,473, showing an excess of exports over imports amounting to $271,083,724. That is to say the people of Great Britain purchased from us during that period nearly $300,000,000 in excess of what we purchased from them.
Now, let us look for a moment at the duties. The average rate of duty on dutiable goods imported from the United States was 24.26; the average rate of duty on dutiable goods imported from Great Britain was 24.78. I have had these figures made up, I have not verified them personally; and I would be glad to have them corrected if they are not accurate; I believe them to be accurate. The average rate of duty on the total imports from the United States during that period was 13 per cent; the average rate of duty on the total imports from Great Britain during that period was 18.64 per cent. Now I would like the Prime Minister to take those things into consideration, and to have my hon. friend the Minister of Customs also consider them in proceeding with these tariff negotiations. I would like to say to him that so far as I am concerned I would hesitate, I would be reluctant to believe that my hon. friend the Minister of Customs has it in his mind or within his heart's desire to emphasize that condition which in the opinion of a very eminent colleague of his amounted to a virtual discrimination against Great Britain some fifteen or twenty years ago.
We may perhaps have some information from our right hon. friend on this question, and I trust it will be more satisfactory, and more definite, and more to the point than the information he gave to the people of the west with regard to the tariff.
My right hon. friend informed the people of the west that when he came to Montreal he proposed to speak to the people of Montreal about the Hudson Bay railway. I observe that when he came to Montreal he found a more insistent and a more urgent subject claiming his attention, and he did not mention the Hudson Bay railway to the people of Montreal. But he did touch there upon another subject, indeed he dwelt upon it at great length, a subject which has been alluded to by the mover and the seconder of this address, that is the Naval Bill which was passed at the last session of parliament, and which became law, providing for a Canadian naval service. I would like to say to my right hon. friend that I think possibly he may have discovered before to-day that the advice we tendered to him last year was after all sound advice. We represented to him that a scheme of permanent co-operation by Canada in the naval defence of the empire was a very great question indeed, and one upon which he might well seek the advice and the mandate of



the people before taking final action. I would like to recall to my right hon. friend the words that I used last year on this point, and words which I stand by to-day. In speaking in this House on the 3rd day of February, 1910, I said:
I am as strong as any man in this country in the belief that it is the duty of Canada to participate upon a permanent basis in the defence of this empire and to do our reasonable share in that regard. But I say that to attempt to force a policy of this kind upon the people of this country without giving them an opportunity to say yea or nay with regard to it, would be one of the worst mistakes that could be made by any man who really favoured that policy. If my hon. friend was able, in very short metre indeed, in 1899, to respond to the popular will, there seems no reason why he should not to-day be equally ready to respond to the popular will upon this question. What the people of this country want, as far as any man can judge who has observed currents^ of public opinion, what the people of _ this, country desire, is immediate and effective aid to the empire, and to have any proposals of a permanent character very carefully considered and matured, as they ought to be considered and matured, before any such policy is embarked upon, because there are a great many considerations that must be taken into account.
One of those considerations I may mention, and it must present itself at once to every thinking man in this country. When Canada, with the other great Dominions within the empire, embarks upon a policy of permanent co-operation in the naval defence of the empire, it ought, from every constitutional standpoint, from every reasonable standpoint as well, to have some voice as to the issues of peace and war within the empire.
Well, the right hon. leader of the government opened a county in the province of Quebec and his candidate did not succeed. I have said, in commenting upon that election what I repeat here to-day, that the campaign which was made against the right hon. gentleman in Drummond and Arthabaska was exactly the same campaign that was carried on by himself and his colleagues in 1896 against the Conservative party. Moreover, a gentleman who ought to know something of the Liberal policy during the last fifteen years, a gentleman who calls himself a Liberal, while he opposes the right hon. gentleman upon this question, stated publicly in the city of Montreal not so very long ago, that that campaign was made in Quebec not only with the knowledge but by the authority of the right hon. gentleman who leads this government.
Well, Sir, our position upon the government proposals of last year was embodied in a resolution which was proposed at the end of the remarks that I made on the 3rd of Mr. R. L. BORDEN. [DOT]
February, 1910, and that resolution was this:-
The proposals of the government do not follow the suggestions and recommendations of the admiralty and, in so far as they empower the government to withhold the naval forces of Canada from those of the empire in time of war, are ill-alvised and dangerous.
That no such proposals can safely be accepted unless they thoroughly ensure unity of organization and of action without which there can be no effective co-operation in any common scheme of empire defence.
That the said proposals while necessitating heavy outlay for construction and maintenance will give no immediate or effective aid to the empire and no adequate or satisfactory results to Canada.
That no permanent policy should be entered upon involving large future expenditures of this character until it has been submitted to the people and has received their approval.
That in the meantime the immediate duty of Canada and the impending necessities of the empire can best be discharged and met by placing without delay at the disposal of the imperial authorities as a free and loyal contribution from the people of Canada, such an amount as may be sufficient to purchase or construct two battleships or armoured cruisers of, the latest Dreadnought type, giving to the admiralty full discretion to expend the said sum at such time and for such purposes of naval defence as in their judgment may best serve to increase the united strength of the empire and thus assure its peace and security.
I am not going to-day over the ground that was traversed so thoroughly last year with regard to the existence or nonexistence of an emergency. I do not know as has been suggested, that the word ' emergency ' is perhaps a very _ happy term to express what was in the minds of a great many people in this country at that time and what is in the minds of a great many people to-day. If b,y the, word ' emergency ' is meant an immediate war, or a war within six months or a year, or within some early period, I do not think that is what- a great many people had in their minds. But, 'let us remember that the issues of any great naval warfare of the future will be practically determined before a ship is sent to sea or before a shot is fired. The work of preparation for the war will have been done beforehand.	The predominance of sonie
great naval power, or of a combination of several	great naval powers may
decide the event before a shot is fired or a step taken in active warfare. As far as we are concerned, our position of last year, was one which I think would have commended itself to the country if the government had adopted it. I do Jiot deny that there would have been an outcry.' but the people of the country as a whole, I believe, would have accepted it.

Our proposal was practically this:	We
said, in the first place, that the government proposals were dangerous, expensive and practically useless; we said, in the second place, that there should be an appeal to the people and that the people should be permitted to pronounce upon the proposals before any permanent policy should be entered upon, and we said, in the third place, that in the meantime there should be effective and immediate aid to the empire. I stand today wheie I stood a year ago in regard to this question. Not only in the interest of the government, but in the interest of some united action b,y the people of Canada along this line I believe it would have been infinitely better if the government had taken the people into their confidence and had not embarked upon any permanent policy until the people had had an opportunity of pronouncing upon it.
Now, 1 have just one more subject to which I desire to allude, and that is a matter upon which the papers have already been laid on the table of the House. It has been a noted characteristic of this government ever since it came into power in 18S6 to deny investigation by this House of Commons into maladministration in the several departments of the government. I do not make that statement without warrant for it. I have made some research over the past ten or twelve or fourteen years. I have not attempted to make an exhaustive research, nor do I pretend^ for one moment that the list of investigations refused which I propose to give to the House is an exhaustive one. I have no doubt but the list must be very greatly increased, and I have no doubt that very important omissions will be found by any hon. gentleman who is able to go into this question more thoroughly than I have been able to do. In 1899, three years after this government came into power, on the 13th April, as recorded in ' Hansard ' at page 1499, Mr. E. F. Clarke of happy memory whose death was a loss to this House and the country, moved':-
That in view of the widespread charges of incapacity, misconduct and corruption in public affairs connected with the Yukon, a judicial commission should make a thorough investigation and report the result.
The same year, on the 27th June, as recorded in 'Hansard' at page 6022, Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper moved:-
That two judges of the Supreme Court or two judges of any Superior Court be appointed with the fullest possible powers for a complete, effectual and extensive inquiry into affairs connected with the Yukon.
The motion provided that in case Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper did not prove his
charges he would forfeit not only his seat in the House but the right to hold any office in the gift of the Crown. Both of these motions, that moved by Mr. Clarke and that moved by Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, were voted down by the government majority of the day, although the press of this country and the press of Great _ Britain as well was teeming with suspicion and with disgraceful ~ statements respecting the administration of public affairs in the Yukon at that time. In 1906, on the 18th May, as recorded in 'Hansard' at page 3629, I moved that:-
A committee of seven members be appointed to inquire into and investigate the expenditure of public moneys in or by the Department of Marine and Fisheries from and after the 30th day of June, 1902, and to inquire whether any abuses, irregularities, improvidence or maladministration have arisen or occurred in respect of such expenditure, end whether any persons employed in or connected with the said department have profited thereby, and whether any additional safeguards should he provided in respect of the expenditure of public money in or by the said department and to report upon the matters aforesaid.
Was that a justifiable motion? Let the commissioners, Mr. Courtney and Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Bazin, in the report which they made to parliament, answer. Is there a man in this House, is there a man in this country who, in view of the disclosures both in that report and in the report of Mr. Justice Cassels afterwards, will deny that the government and their followers were absolutely recreant to their -duty when they denied the complete parliamentary investigation which I moved for at that time?
In 1906, on the 30th of May, as reported in 'Hansard' at page 4187, I moved:
That a committee of nine members be appointed to inquire into the management of public lands, and whether there have been any improper, unauthorized, or improvident dealings or transactions in respect thereof.
My hon. friend who moved this motion has spoken of the necessity of conservation in this country. Conservation is very necessary but it might well have commenced a little earlier than it did. There were disclosures in parliament, there were papers brought down which indicated that the public domain in this country had not .been administered in the interests of the people, that it had been administered in the interests of a great many members of the Liberal party, and was there any reason under Heaven why an inquiry, a prompt, thorough and searching inquiry into tile administration of the public domain in the west of Canada should not have been made at that time? Was this motion granted? It was not granted. Why was it not granted?

Because my right hon. friend and those who supported him, did not consider it consistent with their political interests that that motion should be granted at that time. So far as the public interest is concerned, I defy any man in this House or in this country to show what detriment would have been effected to the public interests by the most thorough and searching inquiry into the administration of the Department of the Interior at that time.
On the 20th of March, 1907, as recorded in ' Hansard ' at page 5046, my hon. friend from Hamilton (Mr. Barker) moved a resolution authorizing the Public Accounts Committee to inquire into statements of account presented iby the Grand Trunk Pacific Railwa/ Company for construction work on the western section, and also to investigate the disappearance of certificates and other public documents said to have been handed over to the company and destroyed. Again the motion was voted down, again the documents were withdrawn from the inquiry which should have been made in parliament with regard to those matters. Again my right hon. friend disappointed the people of this country, disappointed many right-thinking Liberals as well as Conservatives in his refusal to give a thorough, searching inquiry into a matter in respect of which grave suspicion had arisen in the minds of the people.
In 1908, on the 13th of February, as recorded in 'Hansard ' at page 3070 the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Blain) moved ;
The Committee on Public Accounts is constituted for the purpose of affording full and free examination and inquiry into the receipts and expenditures of public moneys v nd the circumstances in connection therewith..
That in the public interest the greatest possible freedom of investigation and inquiry should be enjoyed by the committee.
That any action of the majority of that committee in excluding evidence or restricting inquiry should be subject to appeal to this House, and upon request for the purpose the necessary report of proceedings ought immediately to be ordered.
The hon. member for Peel who has been a most devoted member of this House and a most valuable member of the Committee on Public Accounts moved that resolution and he supported it in a speech of great force and of well reasoned argument ; he pointed out that the proceedings in the Public Accounts Committee had, on more than one occasion degenerated into a farce for lack of a proceeding such as that suggested in his motion. The Prime Minister found no fault with his first two paragraphs but he objected to the last paragraph, which was the most important portion of the resolution, because it was designed to enable this House to pronounce at once upon the judgment of that commit-Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
tee or of the chairman of that committee in permitting any witness to refuse to give an answer to a reasonable question with regard to matters of public interest.
On April 30, 1908, as recorded in the ' Hansard ' at page 7534, I moved:
The investigation conducted by tfie Civil Service Commission was confessedly partial and incomplete.
That the proposed inquiry before Mr. Justice Cassels is unsatisfactory and insufficient inasmuch as it relates to only_ one paragraph of the report of that commission and touches but a portion of the administration of one department.
That this House regrets the deplorable extravagance, waste, inefficiency and maladministration revealed by that report and declares that immediate steps should be taken to reform and redress the same.
That the public interest imperatively demands the appointment of an independent commission with full powers to make a thorough and searching investigation into the several departments of the public service.
It has transpired since, not only in the very limited inquiry permitted by the government and carried out by Mr. Justice Cassels but in the recent inquiry into the affairs of the Department of Public Printing, that the motion I moved on the 30th of April, 1908, was one which the government of this country ought to have granted, and that they were recreant to their duty as public servants of this country in not acquiescing in it and carrying out that investigation.
On July 8, 1908, as recorded at page 12291, the member for Simcoe, my hon. friend (Mr. Lennox) moved:-
That the committee appointed to investigate into the charges of overclassification and. overpayments on the National Transcontinental railway be instructed to resume and complete the investigation.
I shall not go over the reasons for that, they were set before the House at that time. The government, denied any further investigation because Major Hodgins had made certain statements in the public press declaring that in his opinion this investigation might be conducted better by another tribunal. Apart altogether from the statements which had been made by Major Hodgins, there were at that time before that committee and before this House, statements of engineers of the Grand Trunk railway which demanded in trumpet tones the most thorough investigation into every matter of expenditure in connection with the construction of the National Transcontinental railway, yet the motion was voted down. My right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) in the west on one occasion spoke of the enormous expenditure on the National Transcontinental railway and he had the courage, I would almost be inclined to use the word audacity, to tell the

people of the west that he challenged investigation; yet three times in this House he and his followers had voted down any effective investigation whatever into these matters. Moreover, he challenged comparison, and we have heard the statement made by him and bv the Minister of Railways and Canals and by other members on that side of the House and repeated in then-subsidized press throughout the country, that the building of the National Transcontinental railway must be accompanied by this huge expenditure, at least three times greater than that stated by the government in the first instance, because all government undertakings are so accompanied. I desire to inform the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister that this has not been the experience of the people of Ontario in connection with their government because I have the authority of members of the Ontario government not more than six weeks or two months ago that the estimates which they made for very extensive works in Toronto and elsewhere have been verified, nay, that the expenditure in more than one case has been well within the estimates submitted to parliament by the Ontario government. So it is idle to tell the people of this country that this huge increased expenditure is absolutely necessary, and it is idle to tell the people of the west, or the people of the east of Canada, or the members of this parliament, that my right hon. friend challenges investigation. He has been challenged over and over again to give investigation, and on not one of the three occasions has he ventured to accept the challenge.
Then, on the first of April. 1909, as recorded in 'Hansard' at page 3723, my hon. friend from St. Anne (Mr. Doherty), in a moderate and reasonable speech, urged upon the government a further inquiry into the several departments. I will not go over the arguments which he used. He quoted from leading Liberal organs, and showed from their statements that while the election of 1908 was in a certain sense a tribute to the Prime Minister's personality, it was not intended or desired by the Liberals of this country to choke further investigation or to put aside any efforts to purge the public departments of that cloud of suspicion which was hanging over them. One of these journals referred to the Prime Minister as the Canadian Hercules, whose duty it would be to cleanse these Augean stables, to restore to the country and to the departments of government their good name, and I think one journal said that in this humbler work the Prime Minister might find as high a tribute to his memory as in any work in which he had been engaged during the twelve years in which he had been in power. My hon. friend from St. Anne referred to all this, and made almost a personal appeal to the Prime
Minister to have an investigation, and concluded by moving this resolution:
That in order to lift the cloud of suspicion that rests upon the administration of the various departments, to satisfy the demand of the country for honest and businesslike methods, and to purge the public service of inefficiency, reckless waste and corrupt practices, it is advisable and necessary in thei public interest that a thorough and untrammelled investigation be made by a competent business commission into the workings of all the great spending departments of government.
What was the answer of the Prime Minister? It was-no answer at all-rather a mere quip. He said he was surprised at the hon. member for St. Anne, that to the pure all things are pure, and therefore my hon. friend from St. Anne must put aside all these suspicions and regard all the departments of the government as absolutely pure; and he called upon his followers to vote down the resolution, which they did-Then, on the 15tlh of April, 1909, as recorded in 'Hansard' at page 4313, my hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Daniel) moved:
That in the opinion of this House in view of the serious character of the matters aforesaid, the allegations contained in the solemn declaration and all relevant matters touching the said dredging contract ought to be referred to a committee of this House to inquire into and investigate the same and to report thereon in order that the truth or falsity of the said allegations may be determined, and that any public moneys improperly paid out in connection with the said dredging contract may be recovered and restored to the public treasury.
My hun. friend from St. John, by means of that motion, of which I have read the concluding paragraph, brought to the attention of this House and the country certain very grave incidents, to use a very mild expression, in connection with certain dredging contracts in the harbour of St. John. I need only recall to members of this House that according to a sworn declaration produced in parliament, and laid on the table of this House, it was alleged that a prominent Liberal of the city of St. John was receiving, without being interested in the contract in any way, a very considerable proportion of the money that was being paid out by the people of this country for dredging and not for political influence. If I remember rightly, the contract -was 50 cents per cubic yard, and of this some 10 per cent, or 5 cents per cubic yard, went, not to the contractor who was doing the work, but to the leader of the Liberal party in the city and county of St. John, a man who had been for many years the leading guide and organizer of the Liberal party in the province of Newt Brunswick. No less than $35,000 was paid out of

tlie treasury of Canada, not for dredging, but to this gentleman, Whose influence in the ranks of the Liberal party was very great. And my right hon. friend the Prime Minister thought there was no call to investigate that. I believe, if I remember correctly that that was the occasion on which he said, taking all these matters into consideration, he was prouder of Pugsley than ever.
Then, on the 25th of January, 1910, my hon. friend the member for South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox), again taking up the matter of the expenditure upon the Transcontinental railway, moved:
That a committee of seven members be appointed to investigate the said charges (Lumsden) and all other matters connected with or relating to the construction of the eastern division of the National Transcontinental railway and the expenditures of public moneys thereon.
That motion was voted down. A motion to suit the occasion was substituted for it, and under that motion the investigation developed into such a farce that hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, seeing that they could not profitably expend their time in the interests of this country by lending themselves to that farce, departed from the committee and the remaining members did not even ask a question of the most important witness brought before it, one of the engineers of the Grand Trunk Pacific Kailway Company concerning his most serious statements over his own hand with regard to over-classification on that road. On the 28th of April, 1910, my hon. friend from South Simcoe again moved:
That a royal commission should be appointed to make inquiry into all the facts and circumstances connected with the Transcontinental railway project, the conduct and efficiency of the various persons acting for the government, the manner in which contracts have been entered into and payments made and a thorough investigation into all matters connected with the building of the railway.
This, like the eleven other motions which I have enumerated, was voted down. So my right hon. friend will see that there was very little warrant for him to state to the people of the west or elsewhere that he challenged investigation so far as the expenditure upon the National Transcontinental railway was concerned or otherwise.
I repeat that one of the great characteristics of this government, from 1896 up to _ the present time, and particularly during the_ past eight or ten years, has been its persistent refusal to permit committees of this House to inquire into matters of grave public concern-to inquire into the administration of the public departments of this country where grave suspicion has been cast upon them.


Mr. K. L. BORDEN.: I do not propose this afternoon to enter into a discussion of the recent scandals which have developed in the Printing Bureau. The fact that there is an enormous admitted loss to this country in connection with the administration of that department, the fact that there is admitted inefficiency and maladministration in that department, that fact that there has been stealing and looting and grafting in that department, the fact that ^,11 these things existed in that department from the time I moved' my motion in 1906 down to the time my hon. friend from St. Anne moved his motion in 1909, asking for a thorough cleansing of all these departments, ought to bring a blush of shame to this government, if it has any sense of shame. We will have a discussion of these conditions later on, and I say here, as I have said upon the public platform, that the government of Canada, in respect of the loss to the people of Canada which has taken place since my hon. friend from Montreal (Mr. Doherty) moved and I moved for a thorough inquiry into all the public departments of government -T say that for all that loss, inefficiency, maladministration, stealing, looting and grafting, the government of this- country is not only politically but morally responsible. Although the mills of the gods grind slowly they grind exceeding fine, and the day of retribution is not far distant when the disgrace now cast upon the country and its public service will be justly laid upon the shoulders of those who are responsible.


Rt.   H@: (Prime Minister.) We can all agree in certain things. At all events, however, we may disagree in other matters, we can all agree in the sentiment expressed by His Excellency the Governor Genera], and so eloquently referred to by those who have preceded me, that we are meeting under the shadow of a great calamity. The demise of His Majesty King Edward VII. was indeed a calamity-a calamity felt, not only within the breadth and length of his vast empire, but amongst all civilized nations. It is simply anticipating the verdict of history to say that the late king was endowed, as few men ever were, with sound and brilliant judgment, with tact and exquisite delicacy, and those graces and charm of manner which inspire confidence and win hearts. It is indeed but anticipating the verdict of history to say that while he was, in every possible way, a model constitutional sovereign, while he never exceeded, not even by a hair's breadth, the limit which, under the British system, is assigned the king, still he wielded in all questions of domestic and foreign policy an unobstrusive yet most beneficent and effective influence. And that influence was always exerted towards the lifting up to a higher level the good

will and friendship between nation and nation. In this the late monarch not only followed, but also improved, upon the example of his illustrious mother. I think it can be said that, although many years have elapsed since the day when the young girl of 18 became queen-in 1837-the world has not yet appreciated fully the beneficent influence she had upon the history of civilization. It has been said, and truly said, that with her accession to the Throne an old era was closed and a new one opened. That which was closed was the era of selfishness and gross indulgence in high quarters of society; but when she came to the Throne, she at once introduced a purity and refinement at her court, a dignity in all the relations of the Crown with its subjects, a dignity without harshness but with kindness and benevolence and a constant endeavour to promote among nations peace, harmony, goodwill and friendship. These traditions were maintained by the late king, and they are to-day the glorious heritage of the Royal family of Britain; and of that Royal family it can be said that, as men and women there are few like them in any part of the world, and as princes and princesses there are none whatever.
I heartily join my hon. friend in what he has said of the efforts of the mover and seconder of the address, my hon. friend-from Ottawa (Mr. McGiverin) has told us that this is the first time a representative of that city has been called on to move or second the address. It may be said, without any disparagement of any of his predecessors, that perhaps the city of Ottawa was never before so well represented. As to the speech of my hon. friend from Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) a stalwart member of this House, representing one of the stalwart counties of the province of Quebec, my only regret is that the speech he delivered could not have been heard throughout the length and breadth of the country and particularly throughout the length and breadth of the province of Quebec. For depth of thought and courage of conviction, no utterance has ever been heard in this House which would rank superior to this. Let me offer him my sincere congratulations.
I am afraid I cannot go very far with my hon. friend opposite (Mr. Borden) in the observations he has favoured us with. There are certain things as to which I thought he started quite well but did not end well. When speaking of the west, to which he referred in language I could not find fault with, he said there existed in Canada at present, as in the neighbouring republic a certain divergence between the two sections of the community. It has been observed in the United States that for many years there has been a difference of opinion, or a clash of interest, between the east and the west, and my hon. friend observed the same thing with us. Well, if there is a divergence of opinion in this country between the east and the west, if there is danger in that connection, he has done nothing at any time-and certainly not to-day-to remove it.
My hon. friend referred to immigration as introducing alien elements into our country. Well, I speak within the hearing of members who represent the west, and I say that if there be any danger to Canadian nationality or British connection in the immigration which is pouring into our western provinces from all parts of Europe chiefly from the British Isles as well as the American republic, I did not find any trace of it during my visit to that country. On the contrary I was gratified to find that, under the aegis of British laws and institutions as applied by the Canadian authorities, every man who has settled in our country has been proud to become a Canadian and a British subject. There are, 1 am told, hundreds and thousands who came from the neighbouring republic, filled with the pride of American citizens, believing in their hearts of hearts that there was no country with institutions equal to those of the United States, but they have had to admit that the institutions of Canada are in all respects equal and in many superior to those they left behind, and they have had no hesitation in taking the oath of allegiance to His Majesty. They find there is just as much liberty and protection for life and property under British as under American laws, and are eager to take the oath of allegiance and take part in our municipal and provincial life.
It is evident that my hon. friend wished to put me in contradiction with myself on the subject of the tariff. I do not intend, on the present occasion, to go very deeply into the tariff question, for it is not a question to be decided now. Everybody realizes that it is not in a debate on the address that the tariff should toe discussed. But there are certain phases of this question on which I do not hesitate to speak on this occasion. My hon. friend knows that his own friends in the west do not at all favour the policy which has been the shibboleth of the Conservative party. My hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) interjected that remark that our chickens were coming home to roost. Why, Sir, I visited the west in 1894, sixteen years ago. We have been in office since 1896, a period of fourteen years. Chickens that come to roost only after fourteen years are a little late. When we came into office we endeavoured to redeem the pledges which we had made two years before to the people of the west and to the people of Canada generally. If it has taken the people of the west fourteen years to realize that they were unfairly treated, the wrong to which they were subjected cannot have been a very

grievous one. But the country moves. I have never pretended, nor has any one on this side of the House pretended that the tariff made in 1897, and which has been in force ever since, should be like the laws of the Medes and Persians and never changed. On the contrary, we are Liberals, we are Beformers, and we believe in moving forward with the times. The tariff made in 1897 has been its own justification. The proof of the pudding is the eating, and never did the people of Canada have such a pudding on their table as that placed before them by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) in the tariff of 1897. But the people of the west are now asking for a reduction of duty on certain articles which they consume. That is a very proper subject of investigation, and we intend to investigate it : But at the proper time. My hon. friend (Mr. B. ,L. Borden) is very impatient. We who have been in office for a certain number of years know that if there is one thing more than another essential to the business prosperity of a country it is stability of character. And my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) who has special charge of these matters on his side of the House will not dispute this although when in office, he was delinquent on this point-he tinkered with the tariff year after year. But with the warning before us given by his course, we were particularly careful not to fall into his error. It has been our policy to have a revision of the tariff periodically, but not year after year. I stated to the people of the northwest during my recent trip that it would be our duty to consider their requests and to deal with them in the spirit in which we have always dealt with requests from the people. And I repeat that now. I stated, and my hon. friend (Mr. B. L.' Borden) quoted my words, that we would have a commission of investigation before we undertook a revision of the tariff, I noticed that that evoked a cheer on the part of hon. members on the other side of the House. And may I be permitted to say without offending my hon. friend, and with every hope that he will pardon my pride in the matter, that the parts of his address that were most applauded were his quotations from my speeches. I trust that this flattery will not make me vain ; I mention it only as a fact which is within the knowledge of all who heard the hon. member's speech. The statement made iby mvself and quoted bv the hon. gentleman that we would have an investigation iby commission before we altered the tariff called forth a special cheer from hon. members opposite. Does any hon. member on the other side take issue with the promise I made? Would any of them advocate rushing into a revision of the tariff without previous investigation?


Sir WILFEID  LATJRIEB@: Some hon. MEMBEBS. Oh, oh.


Sir WILFEID LAUEIEE.: Hon. members may laugh at that, but they will not dare to say that they would favour such a course. This work of investigation will be carried out at the proper time.
At six o'clock. House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Speaker, I have had occasion to observe already that it was not my purpose to follow my hon. friend fully in the remarks with which he favoured the House; not that those remarks are not worthy of being reviewed, but because I think this is not the proper occasion for doing so. My hon. friend has told us, am-ongst other things, that he intends at an early day to move the House upon the subject of the Printing Bureau scandal. In view of that statement of his I think he would have done better to reserve the remarks he made on that subject for the promised occasion.
If I gauge accurately the temper of the Canadian people at this moment, the one question which they expect to hear discussed in this House, the one question which is engrossing their thoughts, is that of commercial relations with our neighbours to the south. In. this connection my hon. friend this afternoon made some statements which I was sorry to find afterwards he did not follow out to their logical conclusions, He made some statements, however, which I heartily commend. When he spoke of the friendly relations which have existed for so long between Canada and the United States, resulting from a community of origin, to a large degree, resulting from our geographical position, nothing could be more admirable than the sentiments which he therein expressed. When he spoke of the hundred years, or thereabouts, of . peace which we have enjoyed with our neighbours, and expressed the hope that we might, enjoy another hundred years of peace with improved relations, thereby setting a good example to the world, nothing could be more admirable than the sentiments which he therein expressed. May i say, however, to my hon. friend that if there is one thing which is conducive to peace and harmony between nations, it is free and friendly commercial relations. There has been an impression in this country, nay, a positive conviction in this country, which has been expressed more than once on the floor of this House, that the attitude of our American neighbours towards Canada was not. worthy of a great nation. More than once we have heard the complaint voiced in this House that while the Americans were unwilling to buy from us, they would sell to us; that they would not take our products

in exchange for theirs, but they insisted upon being paid in gold. If I correctly interpreted some of the observations of my hon. friend, he gave himself instances of unfairness to his country in the relations which have existed between ourselves and our neighbours-not through any fault of ours, I am sure; but the blame, if blame there is, and I think there is, rests upon our neighbours and not upon us. Now, strange to say, while there is a better feeling appearing on the horizon which seems to indicate the dawn of a better day, men there are in this country who tell us, Stop! stop! don't go any further; put an end to these advances towards remedying a condition of things of which we have been complaining so long. This is the question which, in my estimation, engrosses at the present time the attention of the Canadian people, and this is tire question which I think they expect to hear us discuss on this early occasion after the meeting of parliament for business.
To-day we have a new condition of things. The House is aware that last session my hon. friend the Minister of Finance communicated to the House a request which had been placed in our hands from the President of the United States, suggesting that there should be friendly negotiations with a view of improving those commercial relations of which wre have been complaining so long. The House will pardon me, I am sure, if I give this part of the correspondence which was exchanged at that time between the Secretary of State for the United States and my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. In a letter addressed to my hon. friend by Mr. Knox, Secretary of State, on the 26th of March last, these words are to be found:
The President is confident that the policy of broader and closer commercial relations with Canada will receive the hearty support of the large majority of the people of the United States, and he has learned with much satisfaction of the existence of a similar sentiment in the Dominion. It may be added that the conditions of the present day, as contrasted with the traditions of the past, are bringing into clearer light the truth that not only mutual trade interests but ethical and social considerations of the highest moment reinforce this common sentiment.
Let me, then, take this opportunity to express, by his direction, the desire of the President that your government will find it convenient to take up with this government, at such time and in such manner as may be mutually satisfactory, the consideration of a readjustment of our trade relations upon the broader and more liberal lines which should obtain between countries so closely related geographically and racially, as indicated by the President in his recent public utterances.
Consequent upon this invitation delegates visited the city of Ottawa a few weeks ago, and there has been an interchange of views between them and the commissioners appointed by the Canadian government. The Canadian commissioners were my hon. friends the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs. They met the American commissioners, not under the rigid rules of a protocol, not by formal and official communications, but simply for the purpose of exchanging informal pour parlers and general views, so as to find whether it was not possible to reach a common basis upon which they could act, and to devise a new policy for these two countries which have so much in common, and between which there should prevail better commercial relations than we have had in the past.
In the meantime advice to us has not been wanting. It has come to us in different forms, by letter, by resolution of public meetings, and in the various manners by which the public voice expresses itself in these days. All our enemies-and some of our friends-have been very emphatic in telling us that we should have absolutely nothing to do with these American commissioners, that we should eschew them as we would eschew a pestilence, that we had nothing whatever to gain by improving our present trade relations with them, that nothing could be expected which would conduce to the welfare of Canada. My hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) has gone further in this respect than anybody else. In a speech which he delivered a few weeks ago in Toronto, with characteristic exaggeration, and with a serene disregard for truth, facts and common sense, said that at this moment there were only two men in Canada who were anxious to have commercial intercourse with the United States, and these two men were the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. Sir, my hon. friend from North Toronto, if he will permit me to tell him so, on that occasion paid my hon. friend the Minister of Finance and myself a high compliment, unconsciously of course, and unwittingly, but none the less effectively. My hon. friend perhaps will not find fault with me if I tell him I did not expect that from him, I did not expect such a compliment as he paid me. My hon. friend is not given to paying compliments. His tongue, glib on whatever subject he treats, is more glib when he pours vinegar than when he pours oil. On that occasion my hon. friend paid me a compliment which I accept with all modesty, but notwithstanding this incentive to my vanity, my modesty refuses to believe that out of eight million people there will be only two men-two only-who would appreciate the great advantage it would be for these eight million people to have access to a market of 90,000,000 men which has been denied to them up to the present time by a most rigid tariff.

Ever since we have been in office, for the last fourteen years, it has been our constant endeavour to force Canadian trade in all possible directions and to find an outlet for the energy of our people and for the great and accumulating volume of our business. We have spared no efforts to find new markets and in this I believe we can claim that we have been reasonably successful. But there is at our doors, alongside of us, a nation of nearly a hundred million people to-day, which, man for man, is perhaps the wealthiest to be found on earth, which, man for man, consumes more of the necessities and luxuries of life than any other nation on earth, and which, by deliberate policy, up to the present moment, has refused to have friendly commercial intercourse with us. When my hon. friend tells us that there are only two men who appreciate the boon to this country which will result if a new leaf were turned in the history of these two nations, if the door were to be unlocked, my hon. friend pays us a very great compliment indeed. But rather I would put it in this way; it is not so much a compliment to us as a reflection upon the blindness of the man who can utter such a sentiment as this.
At the present time there are in the United States nearly fifty cities of more than 100,000 population. There are nearly fifty -certainly more than forty-five. Out of these forty-five and more, three alone-New York, Chicago and Philadelphia-have a population almost equal to the population of Canada. Counting those cities of over 100,000, all those under 100,000 and all the towns and villages, you have an enormous urban population that has to be fed. We have the food product in this country; our granaries, our elevators, our warehouses, are groaning under its weight. There is on the other side to-day a powerful party which has risen up in opposition to this policy of exclusion and in the face of all this my hon. friend says to us:	Stop, do not
allow this food product to be exported to the United States; let it rather rot in our granaries than allow the Americans to have the benefit of it.


George Eulas Foster: Is my right hon. friend wishing to be understood literally when he makes use of an expression of that kind.


Wilfrid Laurier: Do I unfairly represent my hon. friend when he stated that there were only two men in this country who would appreciate this change?


George Eulas Foster: I allude to the last expression of my right hon. friend where I had stated, as he gave this House to understand and would like to give the country to understand, that the grain had better rot in the bins than go to the United States.


Wilfrid Laurier: Did my hon. friend undertake to speak literally when he Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
said that there were only two men who were in favour of reciprocity with the United States?


George Eulas Foster: I will answer that.


Wilfrid Laurier: Perhaps there was a little exaggeration on the part of my hon. friend, and if I follow a little of his rhetoric he should not be so tender about it. But, I may say to my hon. friend, when he tells us that there are only two men who are in favour of better commercial intercourse with the United States, that I think there is another one, I think there is a third one and that third one is the Hon. George Eulas Foster, now member for North Toronto in this House and who was once Minister of Finance in the Conservative administration. At that time we had a fiscal system in this country which was known as the National Policy. It is now forgotten, now buried, now as dead as an Egyptian mummy, but in those times which were the days of the glory of the National Policy, my hon. friend pretended to be an admirer of that fiscal policy. He will not deny that, I am sure. In season and out of season he lauded it, extolled it to the skies, but at the same time he was quite willing that it should be so changed that there should be an increase in trade and commerce between Canada and the United States. I am sure that those days have not been forgotten by my hon. friend. He remembers that in 1891, about the month of February, the people were surprised to find that parliament had been dissolved. They were surprised still more to hear the reason why parliament had been dissolved, and the reason was that parliament had been dissolved in order to facilitate negotiations with the United States with the view of obtaining reciprocity of trade. On the 2nd or 3rd of February, 1891, there was an official communication given to the ministerial press of the day in which it was announced that parliament was dissolved and the reasons were given as follows:
In view of the foregoing important statement the question will naturally, be asked, what are the reasons which have induced the government to appeal to the country at the present time? It is understood that the Dominion government had, through Her Majesty's government, made certain proposals to the United States for negotiations looking to an extension of her commerce with that country. The proposals have been submitted to the President for his consideration, and the Canadian government is of the opinion that if the negotiations are to result in a treaty, which must be ratified by the parliament of Canada, it is expedient that the government should be able to deal with a parliament fresh from the people rather than with a moribund House.
In order to have the negotiations untrammelled it was advisable that they should deal with a fresh parliament and not with

a moribund house. The government carried the election which took place on the 5th March, 1891, and as soon as the election had taken place and the verdict of the people had been made known, my hon. friend and two other commissioners representing the government of Canada made a dead line for Washington. They sought admission to the office of the mighty Secretary of State of that day, Mr. James G. Blaine, they were shown in, they were shown out-and they were told to come again. My hon. friend was equal to the occasion with more charity, than I, for my part, would have supposed him capable of, but which can be explained by his zeal for reciprocity, he went again to Washington and came back empty handed as he had gone. I mention this in order to show that after all there may be another man besides the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister in Canada who would be anxious for reciprocity.
But, I must say to my hon. friend that times have changed, in so far as we are concerned, at all events, and he can speak for himself as to whether times have changed in so far as he is concerned. We have a fiscal policy which has been in existence for thirteen years and which will live in history as the Fielding tariff. I think that tariff has been reasonably successful and that under it we have been more prosperous than ever before. But, while we have every confidence and every pride in the Fielding tariff we are not above improving the condition of things if it be possible to improve it; not that we have anything to complain of, not that we are not satisfied with our conditions as they are, not that the country has not been more prosperous than ever it was, but in all human affairs, it is always possible to do better and I think a great deal would be gained both for Canada and the British Empire if our relations with .the United States were more friendly than they are at the present time.
What would be the conditions under which these negotiations would be carried on? My hon. friend has been very particular in this regard, more particular than it is the generally admitted rule to be. If two nations enter into negotiations it is not generally the case that they will put all their cards on the table before the House. They will reserve something for the negotiations themselves. I have no hesitation, however, in saying that there are certain principles which are going to guide us in this negotiation, and these principles are just as well known to my hon. friend as they are to myself, because they have been more than once expressed on the floor of this House and elsewhere. There is in the Fielding tariff a cardinal principle, it is the principle of the British preference and that preference will not be interfered with by
anything we do with the United States. But this condition has arisen as to which we have to take due care and as to which I believe that full confidence can be reposed in the negotiators that we have appointed- my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) and my hon. friend (Mr. Paterson) who sits next to me here. If there is above all others, a man who can be trusted to make no sacrifice of any kind, a man who while guided by generous instincts will at the same time be influenced by prudent reserve, that man is the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). And, not second to him in these qualities and in the confidence of the Canadian people is his colleague the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) who sits beside me. When these two gentlemen come back with a treaty-,-if they do come back with a treaty-I believe they will be able to say as Lord Beacons-field said, when he returned to England with the Treaty of Berlin, that he had brought peace and honour. Even more than that, I believe that my two hon. friends will not only be able to say they have brought peace and honour, but prosperity as well.
That there is another question which at this moment is engrossing the public mind, and to which every hon. gentleman who addressed the House this afternoon, has alluded, and now I refer to our naval policy. My hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) told us a moment ago that last year he offered us advice and we did not follow it. That is true, but he might also have added that in the previous year 1909, he also offered us advice which he did not follow himself. He chose to go back upon his advice because the voice of the tempter was to strong for him. He gave good advice in 1909 but he listened to the voice of party advantage when we harkened to the voice of the advantage to the country. My hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) alluded also to the fact that there was recently an election in Drummond-Arthabaska, and that the ministerial candidate failed of success. Well, Sir, at this moment I have only to say that history teaches us that defeats there are which are more honourable than victories. The gentlemen on the other side of the House are welcome to all the comfort they can get out of the Drummond-Arthabaska election. That election was not won by His Majesty's loyal opposition; and were it not for certain recantations which have been made by the victors since the election, I would say the election was won by His Majesty's disloyal opposition. That election was won by a combination of what is left or what was left of the once great Conservative party in the province of Quebec, and certain young reactionaries who were brought up in Liberal principles but for

whom, as it turned out, Liberal principles were too broad and too generous. That election was won by appeals so desperate, that when the smoke of battle had cleared the public conscience was aroused to shame and indignation. Can any one here pretend, does any one assert, that the policy which was adopted by parliament last session and which was embodied in the statute was condemned by the electors of Drummond and Arthabaska? I say no. I say that the verdict given on the 3rd of November last in the electoral division of Drummond and Arthabaska is in no sense a condemnation of the naval policy as embodied in that statute. That can easily be disposed of because it is easy in the full light of da,y to know exactly where we are upon this question. Everybody in this house knows, every one within Tange of my voice knows, that there are two things and two things only which are provided for in that law. It provides that a naval service should be created, but nowhere within the four corners of that law is it stated that that naval service is to be created by conscription or by forced enrolment. Everybody knows that the service is to be purely voluntary, and there is not a man in this House who can stand up and deny that proposition. Everybody in this House knows also; every man within the range of my voice knows that the full control of this parliament is maintained over that naval system. But, is that the law which was attacked and denounced in the Drummond and Arthabaska election? No. Did those who attacked the law tell the electors of that constituency that there was to be no forced enrolment, that there was to be no conscription, and that the service was to be purely voluntary?


Mr. PAQUET.: I said that,


Mr. MONK.: I said that also.


Wilfrid Laurier: I take the word of m,y hon. friends and I am glad to know that there are two of the oppositionists who told the truth in that election. But, if my hon. friends did tell the people that, they were given the lie by those who assisted them in that election. There are men in this House who heard it stated on the platform dur-1 ing the election that if this law was to be maintained conscription would be applied to the naval service. Did my hon. friends hear of a certain pamphlet which was circulated in the county of Drummond and Arthabaska and did he hear of this paragraph in this pamphlet:-
But to return to the question; when the volunteers shall have been sunk in their old tubs of war and the law shall come and claim from the mother of the family, after the Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
sacrifice of the eldest son, that of the husband and of her last child; tell us then, Mr. Laurier, if conscription shall respect her tears and sorrow.
Who is the author of that pamphlet? The man who wrote it was ashamed _ to put his name to it; the man who published it was ashamed to acknowledge the publication, but we know that it was circulated by the connivance of the Conser+ vatives and Nationalists. This pamphlet anonymous as it was, was only a repetition of what was told to the electors of the province during the last summer. I do not know' whether my hon. friend from L'lslet (Mr. Paquet) will deny that or not. I say that this pamphlet was a repetition, a condensation of the speeches that were delivered by the leader of his party during all last summer. This anonymous presentation, even the endor-sation of the leader, might not perhaps have done a great deal of harm; but will my hon. friend deny also that at_ a certain meeting which took place in the province of Quebec during last summer one of the leaders of the party to which he belongs spoke as follows:-
When fifteen years hence your wives will see the agent of the government, having in liis hands this accursed Act, and, addressing each one of them, he will say: ' Good mother, thou must give thy sons not to defend their native soil, but to fight on all lands and seas on behalf of the English flag.' Then, when your wives will learn some months later that an Austrian shell, a Japanese cannon ball, or a German bullet will have disembowelled their children, and that they have fallen over precipices or collapsed on the deck of a ship, do you think they will then say: ' Very well, my husband was Rouge, and it is Mr. Laurier who passed that Act. He did well.' No; they will curse you, and it will be only right.
Does my hon. friend deny that? That was said by the leader of the party, and in naming the leader of the party I may say that I do not name my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier. That appeared in the organ of the party, Le Devoir. But, Sir, there is worse than that to come. Men there were, members of the Legislature and members of this House, who went so far as to resurrect the old passions and the old hatreds of former ages, when Englishmen were our enemies, and bring them to life again. A member of the Legislature said in so many words that French Canadians would not have a rib broken-to help England. A member of this House went further than that. He said this:
England has gone so far as to grind down (pressurer) the colonies as did imperial Rome of old. The only liberties which we enjoy have been snatched. England has not conquered Canada for love or to plant the cross of Christ as did France, but to establish trading posts and make money. She has sowed the world with hatred, quarrels and wars.

We have had enough of England and the English.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My right Ron. friend ought to cite everybody, and quote his own speakers, who said that our Canadian navy would enable us to pound England if she deserved it.


Wilfrid Laurier: Will my hon. friend give me the name?


Some hon. MEMBERS: Name, name.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I will give plenty of names.


Wilfrid Laurier: Silence is enough.


Mr. GAUVREAU.: Give the name. He can't do it.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: You will get them in due time.
Mr. GAUVREAU You know it is a lie; you are lying to the House.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Take it back.


Mr. SPEAKER.: Order.


Wilfrid Laurier: Silence is quite sufficient on the part of my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier. I would have supposed that, having risen in his seat to interrupt me, he would have been able to support his interruption by naming the parties who are guilty.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If my right hon. friend insists, I can tell him that it is that notary who was brought into the county, and who was the leading man in the county of Richmond. My right hon. friend knows him perfectly well. He came there and made that statement.


Wilfrid Laurier: Who is that notary?


Some hon. MEMBERS: Name.


Wilfrid Laurier: I can only speak of things I know. I was not there, but when my hon. friend tells me that he knows a notary who goes to the county of Richmond, I can only say that I know no such notary.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My right hon. friend knows him perfectly well.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is possible, but what is his name?


Some hon. MEMBERS: Shame, shame.


Wilfrid Laurier: A moment ago, Mr. Speaker, I said that there are certain defeats more honourable than victories, and this is one of them.


Mr. CROTHERS.: Would my right hon. friend allow me to ask him a question?


Wilfrid Laurier: Yes.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Does the right hon. gentleman desire us to understand that there are any voters in his native county *who would be influenced by such rubbish as he has been reading?


Wilfrid Laurier: I have to say to my hon. friend, first of all, that it is not my native county. It is the county of my adoption. I have to say further that in my province, and I believe in the province of Ontario also, a lie travels much faster than truth.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I would like to state to my right hon. friend that the name of that notary is Begin, a well-known political worker.


Wilfrid Laurier: All I have to say to my hon. friend is that I do not know Begin at the present time.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: He is my right hon. friend's strong supporter ; he gave evidence of that.


Wilfrid Laurier: We shall hear of that later on. I have only this to say at the present moment, that already there is a silver lining to that cloud ; already there is a reaction against what has taken place, and were it not for the fact that a most honourable gentleman, a young man of great ability, Mr. Perreault, has been deprived of the seat which he would have had if the contest had been fought on fair lines, I would be disposed to look on this defeat as a blessing in disguise, and why? Because already there is a reaction. As some of the gentlemen who carried the day in Drummond and Arthabaska came back to Montreal and Quebec, and were in the midst of their English fellow-citizens, they commenced to deny, explain and protest. The member of the legislature who said that the French Canadians would not have their ribs and limbs broken for England spoke in Quebec at a banquet which was tendered to him, and there he said that French Canadians would fight for England. And some days afterwards there was in the city of Montreal a grand demonstration in celebration of the victory. My hon. friend from Jacques Cartier was there, all the leaders of the party were there and they one and all protested their devotion to the British flag. True they put a qualification to it but as to their words, nothing could be said against them. But while they protested their devotion to the British flag, if they were against the navy, if they were against the construction, if they were against lifting a single finger for England, it was all for the unity of the British empire.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If my right hon. friend will open a constituency in the city of Montreal, we will enable him to hear a little more plainly.


Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Speaker, all these protestations should be taken for what they are worth. They are at all events a recantation, if an ungracious recantation, of a most dangerous agitation, and already my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier has learned this lesson, that whenever we open a constituency in Montreal or elsewhere, we shall ibe able to put side by side the speeches made in Drummond and Arthabaska, and the speeches made in Montreal, Toronto, Quebec and elsewhere. Already my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier has learned that the policy of segregating Quebec from the rest ..of the Dominion will not pass, either in Quebec or elsewhere.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If mv right hon. friend will try an Ontario constituency-


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Wilfrid Laurier: My hon friend has already learned what I said a moment ago, that we must in this country be national, not in the small sense of the nationalists, but in a larger and broader sense-that we must have the same policy for all the provinces of the Dominion, the east as well as the west, anj must profess in them all the same sentiment. That is the only policy which will triumph. It is a policy which will triumph in Quebec as everywhere else.	.
The electors of Drummond and Arthabaska may not at this moment appreciate the necessity of a navy. They are an inland division. They are not familiar with the conditions prevailing on the sea shore, and it may be that they look upon any expenditure connected with the navy as waste of money. That may be their opinion to-day, but such is not the opinion of the provinces by the sea. When, a few days ago, the ' Niobe,' sailed into the port of Halifax, it was received .with acclamation by their whole population. Everybody went down to the harbour to have a good view of the good ship. When the ' Rainbow,' came into Vancouver, it was received with, if possible, greater enthusiasm. Everybody in this country must understand that the conditions are not exactly the same in all its parts, that there are variances in the different sections, but all must understand that the burdens of one must be the burdens of all, just as the disability of one must be the disabilities of all. We are constantly developing as a nation, we are discovering new sources of revenue, portions of our continent, which we considered inaccessible or barren and of no account whatever, we are beginning to find abounding wealth. We are finding resources promising prosperity in most unexpected sections. We are building a railway to the shores of Hudson bay, hundreds of miles from the fortifications at Halifax. We are building a railway across Mr. MONK.
the continent to the northern waters of the Pacific at Prince Rupert, six hundred miles at least from the fortifications at Esquimau. Will any one say that we are to leave these distant portions of our country absolutely unprotected? No, the common sense of the people will come to the conclusion that these distant parts of our country, where so much wealth is being developed, must be protected either by fortifications or ships. The policy we have adopted, and to which my hon. friend assented in a previous session, may not be altogether appreciated now, but the time will come when those who oppose that policy will be ashamed of their present attitude just as the time has come when those in Arthabaska and Drummond who opposed it are ashamed of the methods whereby they achieved their victory.


George Eulas Foster: I do not propose to expend much time in what would be a reiteration of the pleasant things which have been said in appreciation of the mover and seconder of the address, nor do I intend to repeat in other words what was so well said by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden), and the right hon. the leader of the government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), with reference to the death of our late King. With respect to the first, I have but one word to say in congratulating the mover of the address (Mr. McGiverin) on his plain, straightforward statement and his avoidance of many of the extravagances into which former movers of the address have fallen. Naturally the created feel that they must say something in favour of their creator, but the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. McGiverin) has certainly not passed beyond the limits of fair, friendly appreciation of the leader. One thing I was looking for from jny hon. friend, which I failed to perceive. I had wished for a clear, strong note from him as to the evils of the patronage system, as developed under this government, and especially illustrated in the city of Ottawa. I know that if, out of the depths of his nightly and daily experience, he would tell us just exactly what has happened to him during the two or three years he has been member for Ottawa, he could a tale unfold that would convince even the stony heart, of my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), that civil government patronage is something unspeakably bad. '
I am sorry I cannot congratulate the hon. member who seconded the address (Mr. Lapointe) because though he spoke, so far as I could judge, forcibly and eloquently, I could not catch everything he said. Perhaps he will allow me to make my comments after I have read his speech in the ' Hansard.'
I congratulate my right hon. friend the Prime Minister on his 69th year and I wish

that I could congratulate him upon the possession of a temper that improves by age. But I am afraid his years have not brought him a calmer frame of mind. They have not cured him of certain exaggerations which, when he was younger, might well have been excused him on the score of youth. But with 69 winters and summers over his head, to have given an exhibition of such temper as he has just displayed, is what neither the House nor the country had the right to expect; and I cannot congratulate the country on having a Prime Minister who cannot be more discreet and more under self control on occasions of this kind. Why should he have allowed a defeat by one of his own chosen children and disciples to so ruffle his equanimity that he vented his anger on the unoffending member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) and made such a charge on my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) that evidently he would leave not a particle of my hon. friend, either mental or physical, in evidence, if it were possible for him to do so? Now I am not going to follow the example of my right hon. friend. I am going to show my usual good temper and my usual desire for fair argument.
The mover of the address (Mr. McGiv-erin) cited many things that were gratifying to every member of this House and every lover of his country. If the trade of Canada has increased to $690,000,000, that is something of which every Canadian has a right to be proud. However, it requires a little more than that mere statement of fact to cover everything. There is an increase of trade which cannot be counted to the credit of the country if the value of that increase is>
due to heightened prices. There is an importation into a country like ours which may be cause for regret rather than for congratulation-that is, if these imports displace the labour and capital of this country which might otherwise be employed in producing that which we import and for which we send out the money. However, allowing for all these things, we are all glad that there has been this increase in our trade. The hon. gentleman also mentioned the subject of immigration. We are glad that immigrants are coming into this country. I do not think the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) was quite fair to the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) in the way in which he took up the allusion made by that hon. gentleman to this question of immigration. The Prime Minister, with that spirit of fairness and lack of the politician's art which characterises his high statesmanship, sought to give the impression that the leader of the opposition had some quarrel with the Americans who are coming into our Northwest, or was afraid that the institutions of this country would not have merit enough to win the favour of these immigrants. What the leader of the opposition did mention is
the task which now faces Canada and which for many and many a year will face Canada, a task which any man who thinks for a moment will agree, will require for its solution the best brain and the best heart that Canada can command and to the performance of which every man who loves Canada should bring his best powers-the task of receiving people from eveTy country in the world, bprn under different conditions from ours, indoctrinated and filled with ideas of constitutional government, social life and civilization which may be vastly different from ours, and of assimilating these new-comers so that they may become good citizens of Canada and promoters of her truest interests. That task, as I have said, is a tremendous one. That task as it is laid upon the United States of America is recognized by statements there, yes and even by politicians, as a tremendous one. But, in this respect the United States of America have a less difficult task than Canada. In that country, ninety millions of people are asked to assimilate about a million of immigrants a year: here, less than eight millions of people are asked to assimilate two hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty thousand, three hundred and fifty thousand -the number soon, no doubt, to rise to something like half a million a year. It needs but little arithmetic to tell which of the two countries has the harder task. And my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), if he will take advice from me, will, in this matteT, think less of trying to deftly turn a point against the leader of the opposition pud will address himself to the task before him as Prime Minister of this country and thereby render real service to this parliament and this Dominion.
I will not, however, take the time to go over the different points which were so well enumerated by my hon. friend (Mr. MeGiverin) who moved the address. I come to the remarks which were made by the leader of the government to some of which I will briefly advert. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden) spoke, and I think, spoke w'isely and well, of one of the cardinal difficulties of Canada, which is to bring together the different sections of her vast and widely extended country and all their different interests into amity and unity. That is a great task. It was a great task when the fathers of confederation outlined the articles of union and undertook the primary work of bringing together into something more than a paper union the four old diverse and separated provinces. The task was still greater when we added to the territory, large as it was, of the four provinces the immense area now within the boundaries of Canada. These are separated by many miles, yes and hundreds of miles of what seems to us even to-day unproduc-

tive country. It may be that, some day, we should find that there is in these areas much that is of value. But to-day we have the disadvantage, which was so clearly brought out by the leader of the opposition. Between British Columbia and Sydney is a long stretch of country and sparsely settled, and until the country fills up and the means of transit, and the production of wealth bring all parts of it into closer union and fellowship and give them the warmth of neighbourhood, there will be burdens to be borne by every section, which that section may well wish to be rid of, but which it is impossible for any section to be rid of, if we are to be a united country, and build up a great nation. There is no greater enemy of this country than he who will strive, for the sake of political effect, to set one section of this country against another


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


George Eulas Foster: I am very glad to hear that that is generally approved. I do not see why it should not be, but silence would have been as good approval as this applause which I did not expect. And there is no greater friend of this country than he who will make it his cardinal principle, and will work day and night in support of that principle, to bring all sections of this country into accord, and, in the spirit of selfsacrifice which must be exercised by a nation as well as by an individual, to bear the burdens of to-day for the sake of the wealth, progress, unity, and power of the future,-bear	them even though the
shoulder may be galled and the back compelled to bend under those burdens. That was the spirit of the remarks made by my hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden); I would like to have seen that spirit better and more thoroughly appreciated by the leader of the House (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). He says to the leader of the opposition: We have been in power fifteen years, true; you have been in opposition fifteen years; what have you done to smooth away these divergences between the east and the west? Now', that is either a pertinent remark or an impertinent remark-I mean, impertinent in the old sense of being not pertinent. And the right hon. gentleman turns to his following of level-headed men and asks them to swallow a statement like that as an argument which they should applaud.
You, as leader of the opposition, have been there for fourteen years, what have you done to assuage those conditions? Well, does my hon. friend think that is a pertinent remark? Does Be think that an opposition, without the pow'er of carrying a single item of legislation, without the power of instituting a single reform, with only the power of protest and suggestion; because he, during his fifteen years, has done little Mr. FOSTER.
to assuage that condition, does he think he has answered the case against himself when he asks what the opposition has done during that fifteen years? The leader of the opposition and the opposition itself have tried to do much which would have made the west better off than it is to-day. The leader of the opposition and the men behind him stood for an unshackled sisterhood of provinces in the Northwest, with all the powers that their elder sisters possess, with all the powers that the British North America Act conferred upon them. And who shackled that sisterhood of provinces, shackled them for ever, so far as he could? He sits there as the leader of the government. The leader of the opposition and the men acting with him on this side of the House tried their best, w'hen those provinces were set apart with slender means, to give them the most favourable start in the work of progress and advancement. My hon. friend and his coadjutors on this side of the House tried to put within the power of those provinces the great natural franchises that were theirs by nature and theirs by neighbourhood, and which they should have been allowed to operate. That they did not get their lands, or their forests, or anything else of those dowers of nature, is due to. the fact that the right hon. gentleman who leads this House decreed that it should not be done. Then exploiters, and grafters, and land hunters were carrying out their delectable operations in the interests of their country and for the public good in those Northwest provinces. The leader of the opposition and his co-helpers Qn this side of the House were doing the' best they could to their progress to hunt them out, *and to preserve for the Northwest all that it was possible to preserve as a trust to be conserved for the good of the country, and not for the wealth of the spoilers. Whilst that operation was going on year after year, my right hon. friend, who is so testy in his temper to-night, stood straight behind every grafter, and every land hunter, and every backstairs man who wanted to get the people's patrimony for nothing. That they were successful and got it, is not due to any co-operation on this side of the House, but to the protection given them by my right hon. friend. These are some of the things that the leader of the opposition and his followers have been trying to do for the Northwest. Does my right hon. friend think now that that was a pertinent remark, that he had answered everything, everything, when he put me question as to what the members of the opposition had done towards the amelioration of the Northwest? Well, my right hon. friend left the Northwest, and I am told that he did not leave the Northwest in very good temper. Perhaps that had something to do with the testy nature of his remarks to-night.

He then took up the tariff. With my right hon. friend the tariff is a very hot instrument, and he dropped it almost immediately, with the sage remark that he did not intend to go very deeply into the subject. I appreciated that remark, I appreciated the state of mind of my right hon. friend when he made that remark, if he thought back for a little. The query which arose in my mind was this: Suppose my right hon. friend had attempted to go very deep into the tariff, where in the world would he have come out? We have memories, history has not vacated this country of Canada. We remember ourselves, and if we do not we can brush up our history, and find out the devious wanderings of my right hon. friend on this matter of the tariff and the fiscal position of the Dominion of Canada. Shall 1 recall a few of them? My right hon. friend did not care to go into it very deeply, may I assist him? How many years was he wandering through this sandy desert, setting up false gods, and bowing down to the golden calves of continental free trade, of commercial union, of unrestricted reciprocity, and of discrimination against the mother country, to which he is so effusively loyal to-night? How many years was he wandering there, worshipping first one, then throwing it aside, worshipping a second with even greater ardour and throwing that aside, then bowing down on all fours before a third one, and worshipping that with still greater fervour? No wonder my right hon. friend does not care to go very deeply into the tariff.
Then he may have pictured himself in the city of London, in the province of Ontario, at a certain time before the elections of 1896, when, in order to go Sir Charles Tupper one better, he pledged his word of honour as a man and as leader of his party, that if he got into power he would immediately send a delegation to England, and try to get what he had lauded as a very great benefit to this country, namely, mutual preference between Great Britain and Canada, on the lines of Mr. Chamberlain's proposition. Does he rememebr that episode, and does he remember, too, when he stood before this House and this country and declared that they had redeemed their promises, that instead of attempting to redeem that promise which he made on his honour as a man, he went over to Great Britain and the very first time he mounted a platform he declared to that country: We do mot want any return preference from you ; we are going to give you something, but we will give it as a free gift; protection is a bane, a curse ; do not put it upon the necks of the people of Great Britain. Does the right hon. gentleman remember that? If he had gone deeply into this matter of the tariff would he have retraced the history of himself in that transaction?
He has brought up to-night the question
of 1891, when the Liberal-Conservative government was not too proud to seek for reciprocity at Washington. That was somewhat of an unfortunate reminiscence for the right hon. gentleman. It shows two cardinal differences between him and the party he leads and Liberal-Conservatism and the party that the Liberal-Conservatives lead. We did not go down to Washington in 1891 to negotiate for a treaty of reciprocity until we had appealed to the country, told them that we were going and got their mandate for going. To-day the right hon. gentleman proposes to conclude, if he can, a treaty of reaiprocity with the United States of America as to which he has not asked a mandate and for which the country has given him absolutely no instructions at all. But worse than that for my hon. friend ; when he went to the country in 1904 and when he went to the country in 1908, he went with these words on his lips : I do not think that Canada wishes for reciprocity with the United States of America. There was a time when I was anxious for it, and would have given anything for it, but to-day I do not think Canada wants it; as for me I have turned my back on Washington and I have set my face -towards England. I ask the right hon. gentleman if, with these words on his lips passing up and down this country appealing to the people on political platforms, I am not justified in saying that the mandate he got in 1904 and 1908 was to leave reciprocity with the United States alone and to devote his superabundant energies to the cultivation of better trade relations with Great Britain and the empire of which we form a part.
More, Sir, I will refresh my hon. friend's memory, as long as he did not wish to go deeply into the tariff, on another point. We went to Washington in 1891, we met their men, we talked over the matter of trade relations and after a long series of conferences we came to the final conference in which Mr. Secretary Blaine, who spoke for the United States, said to us : We are willing to trade with your country on a better footing than to-day ; we are willing to give you in our country certain reductions on natural products and on manufactured goods, but we will give them on one condition and one condition alone ; that is that you should discriminate against Great Britain in our favour and so confirm us in your market to the extent of the reductions which you make on manufactured goods. That is the demand plainly stated. We will treat with you on a reciprocal basis, but it must be on the understanding that you will give us a better footing in your market than you give Great Britain. That was the proposition made to us. We thanked Mr. Blaine for the proposition, but we told him that it was absolutely imposible to con-

ing to him, and puts up a fence, in this case a commission, which may last till the next election is over and hold out this promise of future betterment-that is, unless the Northwest farmers are less keen than I think them to be. But to my mind they will be hard-headed enough to say to themselves: 1894 taught us a lesson, and in 1910 we have the same old jollying; but before he goes to the country, we will get a categorical answer out of him, yes or no. That I think will be the spirit of the Northwest. But my right hon. friend was not enamoured of commissions in 1895. Does he remember his speech in Toronto in that year, when he was seeking for power, and when he despised commissions, ridiculed them, spoke of them in the most sarcastic terms, and declared: Put us in; we will revise your tariff; we know exactly what the country needs, and we will give the country what it needs. When he got into power he found that he did not know as much as he thought he did about the country, and he had recourse to commissions, and he has had recourse to commissions since, and I suppose he will continue to have recourse to commissions.
A word or two, Mr. Speaker, with reference to the after-dinner remarks of my right hon. friend. He declared that he would not follow the leader of the opposition in much ' of the matter which was -referred to by my hon. friend. The large matter which was referred to strongly by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition was the matter of public administration in this Canada of ours. That is a most important matter. I am not guilty of saying what is not absolutely true when I say that alongside _ of honest, decent, respectable administration in this country, reciprocity is not in it at all. The question of administration to-day is, I believe, the most important, vital question with "which we have to deal and with which the people of this country have to deal. The arraignment of my right hon. friend by the leader of the opposition this afternoon was one which demanded an answer at the hands of my right hon. Mend. It. was a powerful impeachment of him and his ministers as trustees for the people blocking every attempt on the part of the people to find out how their money had been expended-blocking it in the face of humiliating exposes and scandals without number proved to. the hilt. My right hon. friend had no answer to that; he said he would not follow the leader of the opposition in that respect. He would have done better to have met that charge the red-hot instant that it was made. The people will do their own thinking, when a man who ' leads a government has it put up to him as it was put up to him "this afternoon, and has not a word to say. but promises in a sort of indefinite way that at some time or other he will take it up and discuss it. But Mr. FOSTER.
he was not so punctilious with reference to another question that could have been just as well discussed on another day as it was to-day-the question of reciprocity. And so he made the statement that the question of reciprocity was the most important and urgent in the Dominion of Canada to-day. Will my right hon. friend pardon me one remark? If the question of reciprocity is exciting any interest to-day in this country, it is due solely to the fact that my right hon. friend, without mandate or warrant from the people, nas undertaken to change our fiscal basis and to bring about some arrangement which will affect every business and every great interest in this country. That is the only reason why there is any interest in the matter, and it is an interest prompted by trembling and fear. Would I be considered impertinent if I asked my hon. friend what warrant he had from the country for undertaking reciprocity negotiations? If I should ask him to lay on the table all the requests that have come in the shape of petitions from boards of trade, associations or corporations of any kind, or from individuals, begging him to hasten a treaty of reciprocity with the United States, how many documents could he produce? Could he furnish half a dozen? Where did he get his mandate for disturbing every financial interest in this country, for running counter to his own express statement of two years ago, and traversing the policy of independent Canadian development which we have been following for the past 25 years. Surely my right hon. friend should give some answer to that question. Either there is or there is not a demand in this country for reciprocity. Will my right hon. friend indicate whence the demand comes and lay on the table any documents which -will show any such demand? I have most diligently sought for indications of Canadian opinion in that matter, and to my mind the trend of public opinion in Canada is absolutely opposed to any reciprocity treaty with the United States. _	_
There is another question which I think pertinent, and that is as to the opportuneness of the time and of the conditions for entering into reciprocity negotiations. When one looks dispassionately over the ground, it would seem that the time and the conditions are absolutely inopportune for any such negotiations. If there be not good trade relations between us and the United States, there is absolutely good feeling and friendliness. I object most emphatically to the dictum laid down by the right' hon. gentleman that free trade relations are essential to the existence of friendly intercourse between different nations. Honest, upright dealing I grant is absolutely necessary, but free trade is not. Free trade relations may make for still warmer friendliness, but the man who has no right upon you cannot feel aggrieved if you stand by

our own rights and say to him I am your friend as you are mine, but my policy is in this direction, and I cannot admit you to a share in it. No reasonable man could take objection to that ground, but let me ask, if the trade relations between the iwo countries are to-day unsatisfactory, on whose side is the fault? Perhaps I might refresh my hon. friend's memory. What do I find in the last records of the United States? I find that the duties on dutiable goods in different years were as follows:
Per cent.
In	1887	
47 08"	1892	
48-69"	1894	
50"	1899	
52"	1902	
49"	1908	
42"	1909	
43J
Now take the Canadian duty upon dutiable goods. During all those years it did not exceed an average of 28 per cent. Are the negotiations proceeding on this basis? Are they proceeding on the basis of our telling our neighbours that they have not given us a fair deal, that they have practically prohibited our trade, and that while they have done all they could to prevent our goods going into their country, the duty we charge upon American goods is lower to day than it was some years ago? But the story is not all told by the general duty. Here are some figures with reference to the groups of articles. Animals going from Canada into the United States have to pay an average duty of 25.23 per cent.; bread tuffs 32.65; manufactures of cotton 52.41; iron and steel manufactures 38 per cent.; leather manufactures 36.27; meat and dairy products \34i56; sugar and .confectionery 60.36; vegetables 40 per cent.; woollen manufactures 90i per cent.
Those are the duties that meet us when we bring our exports up to the United States borders. Now contrast our tariff with theirs. For the last 25 years to go back no further, we have been levying on their goods a tariff about one-half the rate which they imposed upon ours. Does my right hon. friend think that we are responsible for the lack of freer trade relations? But what is to be said of the common sense of undertaking reciprocity negotiations with a country which is just changing its politcal control, and in which the party which is about to take possession of the White House has, as its cardinal principle the lowering of the duties imposed by the United States upon foreign goods, especially upon raw materials, foods, bread stuffs and the like. When conditions are in likelihood of being changed by the country which in all good faith, ought to change them because their duties have been so unneighbourly
high, when the whole trend of political opinion in the United States is running in that direction, why, in the name of common sense, if there is no mandate from our people, cannot we wait in patience until we see the result of this struggle and know which party to that struggle is to be in control.
It does seem to me, taking all these things into consideration, that it has been an imprudent thing, to say the least, for my right hon. friend to undertake these negotiations. Why were they promised in 1910? It was not a neighbourly act when the United States, in February, 1910, notwithstanding the treatment given us by them and the treatment given them by us, to raise the big stick and flourish it over Canada threatening that, even after the long continuance of such unfair conditions, they would fine us 25 per cent of the value of our dutiable goods going into their country unless we gave them more. That was enough to show my right hon. friend the attitude of the United States and to enable him to judge whether that country was animated by the most neighbourly and friendly sentiments toward us. I do not think that such action does manifest a neighbourly spirit. I should like to see some fruits mete for repentance brought forth before quite trusting the .good feeling in this matter of those in control of the administration of the United States.
I do not propose to follow this further, except to make one remark: trade is one thing, nationality is another. There are strange and mysterious relations, however, between trade with its tariffs and nationality. The time often comes when trade must be burdened for the sake of nationality and that burden bonie with equanimity, aye, and with ardour. I would urge my right hon. friend to remember that, for twenty-five years we have been putting our hands deep in our pockets, we have been spending our treasure and our energy without stint, to build up a progressive and permanent nationality. And it does not consist with that policy and that self-sacrifice that, at this particular juncture, we should entangle ourselves in a binding and formal treaty with the United States. My right hon. friend made the statement that he was going to give us much light on the subject of how they were carrying on these negotiations. And the light he gave us was the statement that one principle laid down was that there should be no interference with the British preference. I have heard my right hon. friend say that before, and I have seen him whittling away at the British preference as industriously as a mischievous school boy at his school desk. No interference with the British preference? Why, your French treaty shore away a part of it. No interference with the British preference? Your capitulation to the big stick

last year whittled off another part of it. No interference with the British preference? Your gift to Holland and Belgium for nought in return whittled away a portion of the British preference. And Holland, after having received this gift at your hands, decides to adopt a protective tariff and will very soon tax *' your goods that go into that market. Your arrangement with Italy helped to interfere with the British tariff. Your arrangement with France had not to do with France only; it let in twelve or fifteen countries on the same basis and to that extent whittled away still more of the British preference. With these assertions made by the Prime Minister year after year, and with the record of performance standing opposite to them, I confess I am a little doubtful as to whether he would stand by this latest utterance of his about not interfering with the British preference. Sir, within the last twenty years changes have taken place in this empire, changes which have come about with astonishing rapidity, changes which have not yet all matured but which are all in the line of co-operation between the various parts of the empire and of progressive and helpful work for the expansion of trade, the extension of means of communication, the placing of capital and the building up of industry. Even within the last ten years there have been such strides forward on the part of the British Empire in this direction as would have astonished any man had they been prophesied to him ten years ago. And, so far as Canada is concerned, what is the trend? East and west carriage for the products of Canada and for what comes in and for what goes out; our own seaports to handle our imports and exports; our own subsidiary occupations and pursuits to cluster about the great east and west transportation; our own mills to grind our wheat; our own labour to make up what we want ; our own capital and capital that becomes Canadian to give power to the arm of the labourer. That is the ideal toward which Canada has been working. And, that being the case, I view with apprehension any entanglements of a binding and formal treaty which will tend by a single iota to interfere with that policy which, I believe, was properly conceived and has been nobly carried out so far and upon which our future so greatly depends. A cent a pound more on butter, a cent a pound more on cream, two or three cents more on wheat- all that is something and I appreciate the force of such an argument. But the nationality that we are building up with selfsacrifice and with all the power that we possess and with the expenditure of an immensity of money is something more even than the profits of trade. In the end the great benefit for us lies in the other direc-Mr. FOSTER.
tion. In that other direction are our friends, our own people. They have given us our liberties ; they have protected us ; their children have gone out to the uttermost parts of the earth and with us are building up subsidiary nations within the empire. Surely we are safer in the hands of our friends and relatives than we -are in the hands of strangers. With these considerations, which I cannot help bringing to the front, I voice my apprehension, and I voice more than my apprehension, I voice my opposition, in so far as I can see into this matter, to any formal treaty with the United States. Keep this legislature absolutely free to do as it likes in this connection. Do we know what two years will bring forth ? This is a day of rapid development in Canada. No one knows what ten years may bring forth. Why, after we have gained these powers and rights, should we put hobbles about our limbs and manacles about our hands? There are other considerations deeper yet, and which will probably be brought out before this session is over, which incline me to be apprehensive with reference to this matter. If you want better trade relations with the United States, persuade them to give us fair tariffs for our fair tariffs. Let them make their tariffs and conserve their liberties; then let us make our tariffs and conserve our liberties. But why in God's name tie ourselves up by a ten years' treaty with the trusts, and combinations, and mighty industrial powers and interests of the United States of America? I do not know, and I cannot find a satisfactory answer. Mr. Sneaker, I was going to say something with reference to the navy, but I will defer that to another time.


Mr. GUTHRIE.: As the hour is late, I merely rise to move the adjournment of the debate.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned.
On motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, House adjourned at 10.10 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, November 22, 1910.