1911-03-07

FIRST READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 133) to incorporate the Alberta Saskatchewan Life Insurance Company.- Mr. Ruttan.
Bill (No. 134) to incorporate the Canadian Inter-Mountain Railway Company.

Mr. Goodeve.
Bill (No. 135) respecting the Western Alberta Railway Company.-Mr. Douglas.
Bill (No. 136) to correct a clerical error Nin the title of the French version of Chapter 142 of the statutes of 1910.-Mr. Brodeur.

Mr. MONK.: Before the orders of the day are called, I would like to inquire from the government if the contract for the reconstruction of the Quebec bridge has been granted, and upon whose recommendation.
I understand there has been a division among the board of advisers?


Mr. GRAHAM.: The contract for the Quebec bridge has not been signed. When it is concluded, it will be on the recommendation of the board of engineers as established under order in council, and approved by this House.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Do I understand that the contract has been awarded for the reconstruction, irrespective of signatures?


George Perry Graham: There are details in connection with that contract that it would not be in the interest of the public to mention at the present time. The only reply I can give to my hon. friend is the one I have given, that the contract is not yet signed.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I would like to ask the government, because we understand that there has been a disagreement among the members of the board, whether the chairman of the board has been furnished with a copy of the recommendation made by his colleagues, and if he has been asked to have a report upon that?


George Perry Graham: The report of the board, the majority of the board, became part of the record of that board, and so long as the chairman was chairman he had full access to the minutes of that board, as full as any other member. Any report that has been made since he was chairman has not of course been submitted to him.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I beg leave to ask a further question in connection with the same matter. Was not the tender of the Imperial Bridge Company, the English Company, the lowest tender?


George Perry Graham: In a very short time I expect to have this matter closed up so far as the signing of the contract is concerned, when all papers in connection with it will be laid on the table.
THE FARMERS' BANK. *


Mr. FOSTER.: I am afraid my hon. friend the Minister of Finance has not understood my request. What I wanted was a transcript of the whole minutes of the Treasury Board of November 30, not simply the extract referring to the matter of the Farmers' Bank, also, all the component members of the Treasury Board, not simply those who were present at that meeting.


Mr. FIELDING.: If there were other minutes of the same date, I will be happy to bring down a supplementary return; and also to indicate therein the other members composing the board at that time.



INTERNATIONAL WATERWAYS COMMISSION.

Frederick Debartzch Monk: I have been requested to ask the government if it is true that Sir George C. Gibbons has been offered and has accepted the chairmanship of the International Waterways Commission; and also, if there have been any other appointments?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: My hon. friend is in rather an inquisitive mood to-day. I can inform him with regard to the question he has just put that Sir George Gibbons has not been appointed to the chairmanship of the Waterways Commission, and cannot be appointed, nor can any one else, until the Bill which is before the House has been passed into law.



WAYS AND MEANS-RECIPROCAL TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES.

[Stage Direction]
House again in Committee of Ways and Means.
['If there was any understanding among the whips, I shall not insist.\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 10.58 p.m.', 'Wednesday, March 8, 1911.']
Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Chairman, it is now a full month and more since my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) laid upon the table of the House the agreement which he and my hon. friend and colleague the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) had concluded with the President of the United States, for the improvement of the commercial relations which have long existed between us and our neighbours. From that date to this that agreement has been reviewed, discussed and canvassed, in the
press of the country, in meetings of public bodies, and in parliament; and unless I greatly misapprehend the trend of public opinion, unless I fail to read aright the signs of the times, I think I can venture the assertion that the policy which is therein involved has met with the approbation, nay, with the enthusiastic approbation, of a majority of the Canadian people.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh. Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: Against this statement of mine I understand that I hear some protest. I shall not stop, Mr. Chairman, to discuss the merits of the respective opinions on that point which we on this side and our friends on the other side of the House entertain. No word of mine, I am sure, would change their views, and I know full well that they will persevere in their views until the evening of the next polling day. I am perfectly aware that the policy has not been universally accepted, that it has met in some quarters, and I may say rather unexpected quarters, rather stubborn opposition. It is a well known fact that at present an organization has been created in the cities of Montreal and Toronto for the purpose of fighting this agreement. To this I have no exception to take, those who do this are perfectly within their rights. Neither will I underestimate the importance of such a movement, and still less the importance of the men who have placed themselves at the head of it. But even whilst fully recognizing the importance of that movement, I do not think there is any serious cause for alarm. General Grant in his Memoirs narrates that during the Mexican war he was in the army of the United States as a young lieutenant. He was riding towards the front in company with a friend, when all of a sudden they heard in front of them a most unearthly howling of wolves. His friend asked him how many he thought there were in the pack, and not wishing to exaggerate he said he thought there must be at least 20. His friend smiled and said nothing. In a few minutes they came in sight of the wolves and there were just two, which had made all that noise. General Grant observes that he thought of this incident in after life when he heard the noise made by some disappointed men, and he adds they were always more numerous before they were counted. I believe that what is true of the United States is also true of thi3 country. Of the objections that we have heard to this agreement some there are which seem to me to lack singularly in force or appositeness; others on the contrary are worthy of consideration, not from anv inherent strength, but from the circumstance that they are inspired by a strange misconception as to what would be the result and the consequences of the

the House and which was introduced in 1879 if put aside was immediately reproduced by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) in another form, Section 7 of the Act which my hon. friend's government passed in 1894 contains this disposition:
The whole or part of the duties hereby imposed upon fish and other products of the fisheries may be remitted as respects either the United States or Newfoundland, or both, upon proclamation of the Governor in Council, which may be issued whenever it appears to his satisfaction that the governments of the United States and Newfoundland, or of either of them, have made changes in their tariffs of duties imposed upon articles imported from Canada, in reduction or repeal of the duties in force in the said countries respectively.
Here, then, in the tariff of 1894, is an offer to the United States of reciprocity in fish and fish products. Here are other offers in the same Act: Section 8-eggs to be free, when free in the United States; section 10-shingles and pulp wood to be free in Canada when free in the United States; section 11-green or ripe apples, beans, buckwheat, pease, potatoes, rye, rye flour, hay and other vegetables to be free in Canada when free in the United States; section 12-barley and Indian corn to be free in Canada when free in the United States. Sir, this is the way my hon. friend turned his back upon reciprocity in 1894. This is the statute of 1894; and in 1896, when my hon. friend's government went out of office, that was the policy of himself and his party.
My hon. friend was also good enough to review our career, and he stated that in 1897, when we came into office, the old heresy of reciprocity had not been rubbed out of ourselves. It had not been rubbed out of his own composition either. But when he said that we abandoned the policy of reciprocity in 1897, I take issue with him altogether. We did not abandon our policy of reciprocity in 1897. We made application to the United States, but when we found that we had been rebuked, that our advances had not been received as favourably as we thought they should have been, then we thought it was consistent with our dignity not to make any further efforts to obtain reciprocity; and I stated then, speaking for the government, not that we had chauged our views on this subject, not that we had ceased to believe that it would be in the interest of the country to have reciprocity, but that we would make no more advances to our neighbours to gain that boon, but that if it came, it would come from them, and not from us. This is the explanation of the change we have had-no change of principle or policy, but simply a position which we thought to be more consistent with our own dignity.
Why, Sir, do I state these facts? Is it simply for the purpose of showing my hon.


Wilfrid Laurier: friend that his memory is at fault? No, Sir. I state these facts to show that the position taken by my hon. friend, that we have no mandate to negotiate with our neighbours, has no foundation whatever. My hon. friend tried to show, from certain words of mine, at the last Imperial conference in 1907, that we had abandoned our position on reciprocity. The words which he quoted were as follows:
There rvas at one time wanted reciprocity with them (the United States) but our efforts and our offers were negatived and put aside, and we have said good-bye to that trade, and we have put all our hopes upon the British trade now.
My hon. friend concluded from these words that there was an abandonment of our policy; but my hon. friend did not do me justice in quoting simply part of a sentence. No one knows better than my hon. friend that it is hardly fair to a man to extract a sentence from a whole passage and quote simply that. I will quote the whole passage, and then the House can draw its own conclusion. This is what I said at the conference:
Between the preferential tariff and the general tariff we have now an intermediate tariff. The object of this intermediate tariff is to enter into negotiations with other communities to have trade arrangements with them. It has been supposed that this was to hit our American neighbours. With our American neighbours we should be only too glad to trade on a better footing than at the present time. We are next door neighbours and in many things we can be their best market, as in many things they can be our best market. We should be glad to trade with them, but it never was intended, nor thought at the time, that this intermediate tariff could apply to the United States. There was at one time wanted reciprocity with them, but our efforts and our offers were negatived and put aside, and we have said good-bye to that trade, and we have put all our hopes upon the British trade now.
Sir, there is a different meaning in the words which I uttered at the conference from the meaning sought to be conveyed by my hon. friend. I was not surprised, however, at the attitude taken by my hon. friend on that occasion. He and I have sat opposite one another for a long time; he knows me and I know him. But I must say that I was more than astonished when I heard my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Sifton) the other day take exactly the same position. My hon. friend from Brandon, in the course of an able speech, for which everybody will give him his due, said that he had long ago had his doubts about reciprocity, that he had begun to doubt about it as far back as the campaign of 1891. I believe that my hon. friend's conversion has not been so gradual. It has been more sudden than he thinks himself, because

my hon. friend was at the Liberal convention of 1893, and he agreed to this resolution which was adopted as part of the policy of the party to which he then belonged:
That a fair and liberal reciprocity treaty would develop the great natural resources of Canada, would enormously increase the trade and commerce between the two countries, would tend to encourage friendly relations between the two peoples, would remove many causes which have in the past provoked irritation and trouble to the governments of both countries, and would promote those kindly relations between the empire and the republic which afford the best guarantee for peace and prosperity;
That the Liberal party is prepared to enter into negotiations with a view to obtaining such a treaty, including a well considered list of manufactured articles, and we are satisfied that any treaty so arranged will receive the assent of Her Majesty's government, without whose approval no treaty can be made.
My hon. friend from Brandon, like my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Poster), has asserted that we have abandoned that policy. I am not conscious of it. It has been dormant, I admit, because we had taken the ground that we would make no more efforts to obtain from our neighbours what had been refused to us. But I deny altogether tha.t there was ever any change by the Liberal party of the policy they laid down in 1893. My hon. friend from Brandon also took the ground, as my hon. friend from North Toronto had done before him, that we had no mandate on this subject from the people, in the last general election. It is true that in 1900, 1904 and 1908 the question of reciprocity was not an issue at all because at that time there was no difference of opinion between the Liberal party and the Conservative party upon that question. There was none so far as I knew, and so far as everybody knew.
I take issue with my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) and my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Sifton) when they tell us that the parliament of Canada is debarred from dealing with any question which has not been discussed at the previous general election. That is not in accord with the constitutional history of Great Britain or of Canada either, as I have read it. Let me ask my hon. friends what mandate had the government of Lord Elgin in 1853 when it went to Washington to obtain reciprocity? Had that question ever been put before the people? Had it been an issue the last time the people's representatives had gone before them? Not at all. Let me ask, further, what mandate had the government of 1864 to put through parliament the resolution which proposed confederation? Had the question of confederation ever been put before the people of united Canada? No, not a word about 150
it had ever been heard. The only question then raised was that of representation by population. Yet the government of Sir John Macdonald and the Hon. Geo. Brown -because the two men were united on that occasion-brought in a resolution which was nothing more nor less than a complete transformation of our then condition. When Canada assented, in 1871, to the fishery stipulations in the Washington treaty of that year, had that question ever been put before the people? No, it was unknown to them. It never had been debated before. In the face, therefore, of these precedents, it is childish for any man to challenge the right of this government to follow the course it is doing.
But, again, I ask what is the cause of the change of attitude which we see on the other side of the House? That cause cannot but be flattering to this government. The only reason given is that Canada today is prosperous as she never was before. If Canada were still in the position in which we found it when we took office in 1896, with its vast fertile lands still unoccupied and untilled, with its natural resources dormant as they had been since the early days of creation, with its transportation facilities still in the most rudimentary stage, with industry stagnant, with agriculture unremunerative-were Canada still in that position, I have no doubt that to-day the policy we are proposing would be received with favour and the air would resound with paeans of exultation. But instead of being in that condition the country is prosperous, extraordinarily prosperous, and we are told by hon. gentlemen opposite: Do not go any further, fold your arms and let well enough alone. Well, what is this country? What are we? Is this Canada, or is this China?


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: The Chinese have left well enough alone for 4,000 years. 4,000 years ago they were probably the first nation on earth, and so satisfied were they that they refused to move. They let well enough alone for 4,000 years. If a reformer showed his head among them he was ruthlessly put down and told to let well enough alone. It is said-and I believe it is historically true-that gunpowder was invented by an ingenious Chinaman, but the people of China never used gunpowder for the defence of their territory, though often exposed to invasion. They depended on the great dragon to sweep off their enemies from the face of the earth by the fire from his eyes. They let well enough alone. It was an ingenious Chinaman who invented the compass, but they never used it for navigation, and for 4,000 years their little junks circulated around their shores, never getting away from the sight of land. They let well enough alone.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: And we are asked to adopt this Chinese policy. But, Sir, this is Canada, and we shall have to go on whether hon. gentlemen opposite will follow or not. We will drag them on, even against their will.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is our policy. We must go on. Some years ago a young lady showed me her album, which, as a young girl, she had shown to Sir John Macdonald, and asked him to write in it the motto of his life. And he wrote on it this motto: Hope on, hope ever. How far the Conservative party is from that motto to-day!


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: But we shall go on with our policy. Our policy is ' advance,' and if it be wrong we shall submit willingly to the judgment of the Canadian people, and to the punishment which ought to be given every man who brings in a wrong policy. But this is our policy. Our policy has been, is, and will be, so long as the Canadian people continue to place in us the confidence they have shown us during 15 years-and that policy is to seek markets wherever markets are to be found. We are above all an agricultural people, our chief wealth is the growth of those products of the temperate zone, fruits, cereals and vegetables, and it is our boast-not an idle boast, but a boast founded on actual experience-that in cereals, vegetables and fruits we can, without exaggeration, beat the world.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: At the northern extremity of the temperate zone, our cereals have more strength, our fruit has better flavour, our vegetables have more delicacy than similar productions from other parts of the world, and under free competition, not barred in any way by tariff legislation, they will displace all other products on the tables of the wealthy. Our object to-day is to open the door of the American market, to open the door of a nation of 90,000,000, which has been closed to us for the last 50 years, and when we are now on the eve of reaching that long sought goal, we are met by objection after objection, we are deluged by a plethora of sophistry, we are told that if such an arrangement is to go into effect and Canadian vegetables, cereals, and fruits can cross the boundary line and be eaten free of duty by the American people it will be all over with the Canadian confederation. and even the British Empire will reel and rock upon its foundations.
Some h m. MEMBERS. Hear, hear.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER,


Wilfrid Laurier: Sir, let us discard these freaks of unreasoning panic, let us approach this question from the point of view of common sense, from the basis of first principles.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Wilfrid Laurier: Let us, I say, approach the question from the point of view of common sense-and I am glad that my remarks on that point evoke some response from the other side; we will see how far they will go. If, Sir, I were to state to my hon. friends on the other side that amongst civilized mankind, all those who work, work with the object of disposing of the product of their labour, I should be told, this is a truism that is running in the street. If I were to add that the man who wcrks has the legitimate ambition of getting the greatest possible remuneration for his labour, I should be told, this is a mere truism. If I were to say that the man who works, will be better remunerated the more clients he has, seeking the products of his labour, I should be told, this is a truism. And yet, this is the very thing, this very truism, which is embodied in the proposition now before you. All that we ask under these resolutions is to obtain for the man who works in the fields, the best possible remuneration for his labour. And does that proposition require any defence? Is it not simply on the line of common sense? Is it not the first of all principles? How, then, is it that it is not accepted at once? I will give the reasons. I will try to be fair in giving these reasons. But, before I proceed further, I must say that it seems to me that the House of Commons and the Canadian people at large, owe a debt of gratitude to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) and my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) for having obtained from our neighbours, such an advantageous arrangement, and having obtained it without the sacrifice of any Canadian interest. Mr. Chairman, here perhaps I may be permitted to say that, in my opinion, the discussion which has taken place up to this time, has been carried on upon a high level. Of course, I do not agree with my hon. friends on the other side who have taken part in this discussion, but I pay them the tribute, one and all, of having carried on the discussion in a fair manner, in a manner which, I think, deserve3 acknowledgment on our parts, and reflects credit upon themselves. I am sorry that to this I have to make an exception in the person of my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster). My hon. friend from North Toronto was not satisfied to eriticiste the

arrangement, in -which, indeed, he would have been within his right, -but he was unduly unfair in trying to depreciate not only the agreement, but those who had made it. He spoke of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, and my hon. friend the Minister of Customs, as being very ordinary men. He repeated this two or three times, speaking pointedly of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. Well, if my hon. friend from North Toronto has not learned it yet, he may learn it now, that if he had to his credit one-half the achievements of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, he would have reason to be more proud of his career than he can be. Then, he went over the members of the cabinet, this one and that one, and at last he came to my poor humble self; and of my poor humble self he spoke as follows:
Men of such fine financial mind and business acumen as the right hon. gentleman who leads the government and the party.
I have never posed as a man of fine financial mind or of business acumen; but when I see the pretensions put up by some men who dabble in finance and business, I am surprised at my modesty. If I had dabbled in finance and business, I am prepared to admit, I should have perhaps made a sad mess of it. But I could not have been worse than my hon. friend. If, after having posed as a business man and financier, I had nothing to show but a record of failures, I would go and hide myself for very shame, and be very chary to throw stone into other people's gardens, for fear they should be returned to me with compound interest.
I stated a moment ago that the agreement we made, is simply to get better prices for the product of the Canadian farmers. This is a proposition so obvious that I am surprised it should have received the treatment it has received on the part of our friends opposite. But the objections made to this agreement are not to be found within the four corners of the same; they are all based upon extraneous grounds. The opposition, the Conservative party, are against this agreement because, as they tell us, it will produce consequences which will be deplorable for this, country,-I have listened with some care to nearly all the speeches that have been delivered in this House on this question, and those which I had not the opportunity to hear, I have read with equal care; and I think I am fair in stating that the objections made to this arrangement are fourfold. The first objection is that the effect will be to deflect the carrying trade from Canadian channels to American channels. The second is that it will destroy our natural resources. The third is that it will imperil our industries. And the fourth-and certainly not the least-is that it will dissolve our autonomy and land us 150}
ultimately in the American Republic. I think I have there fairly stated what are the objections of hon. gentlemen on the other side; and the House will perhaps permit me to discuss them. Let us take the first-the objection that this arrangement is going to deflect trade from Canadian channels ino American channels. This question is to be discussed from two points of view; from the point of view of goods going from Canada into the United States for the purpose of being carried over to Great Britain, and goods going from Canada to the United States for consumption therein. Now, regarding the first, those goods sent from Canada to the United States, to be carried to Great Britain, in what way does this arrangement undo the system now in existence? It does not affect it one iota. At the present time, goods go from Canada to be shipped from Boston, New York or any American port without paying duty. In the same way, American goods come to Canada to be shipped out by-Montreal, Halifax, or St. John without paying duty. A cargo of wheat can leave Winnipeg for New York, and there be discharged and put on board ship without duty being demanded. A cargo of grain can leave Minneapolis to be taken to Montreal and shipped thence without paying duty. This is by virtue of the bondage privilege which has been given by each government to the other, for the purposes of transportation. It has been in existence for something like sixty years, and I have never heard a complaint, that it was unfair to one party or to the other. There was a time when I felt, nervous on reflecting that the bonding privilege was simply an act of good will on the part of the United States towards us. That was the time when we had no communication of our own to the sea. But now that we have a continuous communication on Canadian soil from sea to sea, we feel that the United States can remove the bonding privilege at any time they please, and if they do so, they will suffer more than we shall. But Sir, our condition in that respect is absolutely safe, whether this treaty passes or not.
Now, Sir, it does not follow that for my part I am opposed to the policy of retaining in our own channels Canadian trade; on the contrary, I am very solicitous in that respect, and I think I can show by the records of this government that we have favoured the building of lines through Canadian territory from east to west with the intent of keeping trade in our own channels. But I may say this to the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster), to the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden), and to the member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton) especially, that if they expect to keep trade within Canadian channels by legislative

enactment, by trade impediments, they make the greatest of all mistakes, a mistake which was tried once and had to be abandoned. Sir, when the Canadian Pacific railway was created in 1881 it was with the avowed policy of creating a channel of communication between east and west; the policy was to keep, so far as legislation could do it, Canadian trade in Canadian channels. Now my hon. friend from North Toronto commented upon the aspect of our policy rather severely, and with great force of language as to the results upon the credit of Canada, as to those who had invested their money in these enterprises, when they learn that by this legislation the lines east and west could be diverted from channels running east and west to channels running north and south. This is the language which the hon. member for North Toronto made use of on that occasion, and I quote it in view of what I shall say a few minutes later:
Take the capital invested in your east and west lines of communication: Was it ever dreamed in Britain, Sir, that the time would come when a change of policy would be inaugurated by the men who petitioned for the, money, who pled for the investment of capital and got it at long last? Was it ever dreamed that when this capital was severely fixed and invested, the long lateral lines of railway should be tapped every few miles by communication to draw off the trade intended for them to southern routes and do away with the long haul of the east and west lines?
My hon. friend should have had in his mind when he spoke that way the circumstance that in the contract with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company precautions had been taken to keep the trade flowing east and west. In that contract with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company the following clause was inserted as clause 15:
For twenty years from the date hereof no line of railway shall be authorized by the Dominion parliament to be constructed south of the Canadian Pacific railway from any point at or near the Canadian Pacific railway, except such line as shall run southwest or to the westward of southward, not to within fifteen miles of latitude 49.
Mark the words. The men who invested their money in that enterprise had this inducement, that the Canadian government would not for twenty years permit any railway to be built south of the line of the Canadian Pacific railway, and that for fifteen miles south of the boundary line there should be absolutely no railway at all. Therefore, under those circumstances, trade could not be diverted from Canadian to American channels, there could be no possible communication. That was the extreme precaution which was taken by the government of that day, that was a restriction npon the energy, Sir WILFRID LATJRIER.
upon the enterprise of the people of the west which was to last for twenty years. Under that restriction the capitalists of the world were invited to put their money into the enterprise, and they did it, upon the faith of the Canadian government. How long did this restriction last? Did it last twenty years? Sir, it lasted just six years, and at last, after six years, the Canadian government had to recall that legislation. And how did it occur? This is one of the most dramatic pages of the history of our country, and no one knows it better than my hon. friend from Brandon. I do not know if he Was then in the legislature, but I know he was a young politician, and he could not have been indifferent to what was taking place. There was a restriction put upon the energy, upon the enterprise of the people of the west, and of the province of Manitoba in particular. The people of Manitoba wanted power to trade north and south, they wanted to trade with their neighbours, the American people, they wanted to have railway communication with them. But there was a statute, there was an Act of parliament, there was the authority of the Canadian government which prevented them from trading with their neighbours to the south, and the Canadian government attempted for six years to keep that legislation in force. The legislature of Manitoba passed Acts chartering railways, allowing them to cross that zone of territory which the government was attempting to reserve from civilization and from the benefits thereof. The legislature of Manitoba wanted railways to communicate north and south, they chartered railways to that effect, and these charters were disallowed one after another, disallowed in 1881, disallowed in 1882, disallowed in 1883, disallowed in 1884, disallowed in 1885, disallowed in 1886, disallowed in 1887. Year after year the legislature of Manitoba petitioned this government, petitioned parliament, to do away with this restriction, and year after year that prayer was denied. At last in 1887, after this restriction put upon their energy, the government of Manitoba, with the assent of the whole people of Manitoba, passed another Act authorizing a railway to run from Winnipeg to the boundary line where it could reach the American system of railways, and this Act was disallowed. The province passed beyond that disallowance, and proceeded to build the railway, though there was no legislation empowering them to do so. It was practically an act of rebellion. My hon. friends from Manitoba, my hon. friend from Brandon, remembers that on a certain day in the month of October, 1887, when the Canadian Pacific Railway Company challenged the right of the province to cross their line towards the south, 200 citizens from the city of Winnipeg, mem-

bers of the government, members of the legislature, financial men, professional men, merchants, bankers, went in a body to the point of crossing determined to repel force by force, to allow the crossing of the Canadian Pacific railway by the provincial line. Then, Sir, the Canadian government came down, and at the following session the privilege was repealed, a privilege that had to be bought back by the Canadian government from the Canadian Pacific railway. Now I ask the hon. member for North Toronto, what became then of those investors who had put their money into the Canadian Pacific railway upon the faith of the Canadian government. Were they ruined by it? What became of this turgid rhetoric of my hon. friend which I read a moment ago:
Take the capital invested in your east and west lines of communication: Was it ever dreamed in England, Sir, that the time would come when a change of policy would he inaugurated by the men who petitioned for the money, who pled for the investment of capital and got it at long last?
No, they did not dream of it, but it was done all the same, and the result was that their stock, which was worth at that time 30, has now reached 213. I repeat, if you attempt to prevent the people from trading in natural channels, no amount of legislation will accomplish that object, but let nature alone, and then the trade will be carried on on Canadian lines. Why? Because we have the interior and the shorter and the better lines. Take the condition of things to-day; Winnipeg can trade with Europe by way of the United States, it can trade with Europe by way of Canada. The line of railway from Winnipeg to Montreal is 1,414 miles, and from Montreal to Liverpool 2,760 miles, a total of 4,174 miles. From Winnipeg to New York by way of Minneapolis, Chicago and the American lines, the distance is 1,790 miles, and from New York to Montreal 3,026 miles, a total distance of 4,826 miles. The American line is 4,826 miles, the Canadian line 4,174 miles, a difference in favour of the Canadian line of 652 miles. Do you require any legislation, I want to know, to compel trade to choose the Canadian channel? Is it not obvious that for very self-interest trade will alwayg take the Canadian line, because it is the shorter one? Well, Sir, that is not all. We have had experience as to what has happened, and our experience has been that our trade over the Canadian channels has increased by leaps and bounds as against the trade by the American channels. In 1900 the total amount of Canadian wheat exported from Montreal was 4,000,000 bushels; in 1910 it had increased from four million bushels to 14,140,000 bushels. Of American wheat the total number of bushels exported from Montreal in 1900 was 5,000,000 bushels, and in 1911 that
had increased to 10,000,000 bushels. So, therefore, there is no doubt on this point, the Canadian line must have the preference, because the Canadian line is the best and the shortest. But,'Sir, the question now has to be examined from the point of view of goods which are exported from Canada to the United States with a view to consumption in that country. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), when he spoke upon this subject, stated that our policy ought to be to favour interprovincial trade. To this, Sir, everybody agrees; we all favour interprovincial trade in preference to trade with other nations, and I am prepared to admit with my hon. friend that the home market is the best for all kinds of products. But I have to observe to my hon. friend that this whole amount of our natural products, and my hon. friend will not contend that the Canadian people can consume the whole production of our natural products. My hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Sifton) the other day stated that the home market would require about 80 per cent of our products. It is difficult to secure reliable statistics upon this point, so as to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion how much of meat, of eggs and of fruit is consumed by a population. This depends much on the means and wealth of the population, but it is possible to obtain not only satisfactory, but conclusive evidence and statistics as to the amount of wheat which is consumed by a population, and it is far less than 80 per cent of our production. Thirty years ago, or thereabouts, the opinion was held that the consumption of wheat was about five bushelsl per head, and to-day I am satisfied it is much larger. I discussed the matter some few weeks ago with a prominent miller, * and his opinion is that at the present time the consumption of wheat is between 6 bushels and 7 bushels per head. If that be the case, the Canadian consumption of wheat, assuming a population of 8,000,000, would be about 50,000,000 bushels. If that be the proportion of the consumption to the production of Canada, then Canada consumes only 50 per cent of her production of wheat. Where is the balance to go? My hon. friend will tell me we have the English market. So we have, the English market is quite ample enough to take the surplus production of wheat in this country for many years to come, although we are sure the production will increase tenfold by and by.
But, Sir,_ there are other products than wheat, which the British market cannot absorb, or cannot absorb with the same convenience as the American market can. The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton) snoke of hay in Quebec, and Tather hinted, although he did not sav so, that the sending abroad of hay is bad business foT the

farmer. I can tell my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Sifton) that no hay will be exported from the hillsides of the eastern townships of the province of Quebec, but as the Minister of Agriculture reminded my hon. friend from Brandon, we have in the province of Quebec natural meadows, which require no tillage, and upon which the best of timothy has been grown, not for 50 years, but for 100 years. Along the two shores of Lake St. Peter there are natural meadows a few inches only above the level of the water, which are yearly flooded, and which, to the knowledge of every one in the province, have been for a hundred years or more growing hay and nothing else. The counties of Berthier, Montmagny and St. Maurice, on the north shore, and the counties of Nicolet, Yamaska and Richelieu on the south, are so situated that they have a population of, perhaps, 1,000, who are growers of hay and for whom this treaty, if it becomes law, will be the most positive boon. To-day they cannot sell any hay in the United States because there is a duty of $4 a ton. Let the duty be removed and immediately there will be an immense trade in that section of the community, as there was some 30 years ago. The same thing applies in the case of eggs, poultry and mining products. For this reason it is to our advantage that we should have not [DOT] only the British market, but the American market also. The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton) made the argument that if you were to adopt this arrangement our present facilities for transportation to Great Britain would become useless. I differ from him altogether. The trade will go on just the same, but we will raise more of those commodities than we raised before.
Then there is the cattle trade. Years ago we had a cattle trade with Great Britain. We have some yet, but it is not as large as it ought to be, because everybody knows that it has been constantly retarded by the embargo put on it some 20 years ago or so, and, therefore, if we are not able to sell all the cattle we can raise in Great Britain there is a ready market in the United States.
Now, I come to a very important point. It has been stated in this discussion, and repeated in the press; indeed, the statement has been alluded to in Great Britain, that by this arrangement we were putting an end to every possibility of .mutual preferential trade with Great Britain. My hon. friend from Brandon made that argument, and I have heard it from the other side of the House. I take positive issue with that statement, and I say more: that statement does not bear criticism; it has only to be analysed for its falseness to be shown. Sir, we on this side of the House have never taken part, we have refused to take part, in the controversy which has Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
been long going on in England on the question of mutual preferential trade. We would not take any part in the contest between the tariff reformers and the free traders. We thought it would not be dignified, we thought it would not be any part of our business, we thought it would be an act of impudence for us to take part in this controversy, whether on the one side of the question or the other, and we preferred to remain silent upon that point, having laid our policy before the English people. And what was our policy? Our policy was set forth by the Canadian ministers in Great Britain at the conference of 1902, and it was in these words:
The Canadian ministers stated that if they could be assured that the imperial government would accept the principle of preferential trade generally, and particularly grant to the food products of Canada in the United Kingdom exemption from duties now levied or hereafter, imposed, they (the Canadian ministers) would be prepared to go further into the subject and endeavour to give to the Biitish manufacturer some increased advantage over his foreign competitors in the markets of Canada.
This was our policy laid down at the Imperial Conference of 1902. This is our policy in this year 1911 at the conference which is soon to take place. We have been told by the other side of the House that the action we have taken with regard to this agreement has made it impossible to implement the policy thus laid down. How can that be argued seriously? The Canadian ministers at the conference in 1902 stated that they were prepared to give to Great Britain a preference on manufactured goods in our market if Great Britain would give us preference on our natural products in her market. Great Britain does not export many natural products; on the contrary she is a large importer of natural products. We are exporters not of manufactured products, but of natural products, and we are large importers of manufactured products, and we have given to the Americans a free entrance to our markets only for their natural products as they have given us a free entrance to their market for our natural products and how can that affect the British Islands? Surely in no way at all can it affect our trade with Britain. The United States can enter our market with their natural products, but it is certain that England will never send a bushel of any kind of grain to Canada. However, England can give us a preference in her market for our natural products if she chooses to change her policy, and then we are prepared to give her upon her manufactured products a corresponding advantage. Sir, the policy of Canada is just the same as it was three months ago when this arrangement was made; nay, it is the same to-day as it has been for the last 12 years

and it will be the policy of the Canadian government at the next Imperial Conference which will open in May next. What then of all the shrieks and lamentations and imprecations we have heard from all sides upon this point? Surely the question has not been properly thought out for if it were it would have answered itself. Perhaps it is just as well now, since I am reviewing all the objections to this agreement, that I should take up another point which has been made against it and which has drawn many a tear from the eyes of some gentlemen sitting on the other side. I refer to the consequences of the agreement on what are known as the Most Favoured Nations. There are in existence certain old treaties between England and other countries in which it is provided that if England or any of her colonies should give a preference to any country in the world the same treatment shall be given to those nations with which England has these old treaties. These treaties were in the past of so little consequence that we never troubled about them. When in 1896 we found in our way the treaty with Germany and the treaty with Belgium we asked for the renunciation of these treaties. Similar treaties with other countries were not in our way, and, therefore, we did not trouble about them. However, all of a sudden these treaties have assumed enormous magnitude in the eyes of some, and a few days ago we heard .a gentleman on the other side of the House say that we were practically opening our doors to the whole world. Well, the whole world is a big phrase, but let us examine in detail what it is composed of in this sense. The whole world in detail, so far as these treaties are concerned comprises, Venezuela, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Russia, Japan, Denmark, Colombia Bolivia (and who ever heard of any trade with Bolivia) Austria-Hungary, and the Argentine Republic. Let us see what our trade is with these nations. All told last year we exported to Venezuela $14,000 worth and we actually imported from Venezuela $53,000 worth, a trade which would probably supply the next corner grocery. And, in this $53,000 worth of trade of Venezuela there is not included any of the natural products we mention in our agreement with the United States. Then from Switzerland we imported $2,633,000 worth and we exported to Switzerland $10,000, worth, and our imports from Switzerland were chiefly silks and cottons and manufactures of silks and cottons. Sweden our exports last year were $111,000, and our imports $207,000, and there was not a dollar's worth of anything included in the agreement. We exported to Spain last year $51,000 worth and imported from Spain $1,040,000 worth, and our imports included fruits, but they were oranges and tropical fruits of that character such as are not provided
for in the agreement at all. With Russia, our exports were $59,000 last year and our imports $138,000 and I cannot find among them a single article which would come within the scope of the agreement. To Norway and Sweden our exports were $487,000 and our imports $168,000, and amongst these there are some fish, and Norway would have the benefit of free fish under this agreement and that is the first item we find which is at all affected. Then, we have some trade with Japan, but does any one imagine that Japan will send us wheat or butter or cereals? With Denmark we had some trade, but not very extensive, our exports being $425,000 and our imports $86,000, and while Denmark is a butter exporting country not a pound of butter came to Canada from Denmark. Then, with the State of Columbia our exports were $42,000 and our imports $28,000, but they included nothing mentioned in the arrangement. Bolivia-we have not any trade with it; we do not import anything from it or export anything to it. Austria-Hungary- our imports are $1,410,000 and our exports $60,000; the imports are chiefly laces and things of that kind. Then I come to the last-the Argentine Republic; our total exports are $2,869,000, and our total imports $2,181,000; but I find that we have not imported from the Argentine a single article that is included in this agreement. The Argentine, however* is a wheat-growing country, and it exports wheat; but if ever the Argentine Republic sends wheat to Canada, there is no reason why Canada should not send wheat to the Argentine, so that objection is wholly exploded and may be dismissed without further reference.
Another objection which has been taken to this -agreement is -that it will destroy our natural resources. My hon. friend frim North Toronto was particularly indignant on this point. He grew eloquent and asked us what we meant by establishing a Conservation Commission for the preservation of our natural resources and then proceeding with ruthless hands to destroy their work. I have to say to my hon. friend that the Commission for the preservation of our natural resources was intended to deal not at all with questions of political economy, but with questions of physical science. My hon. friend -told us that we should preserve our natural resources for -our children and for our children's children; but I ask my hon. friend, what is the object of these natural resources? Soil, water, forests, minerals, have been given to man by the Creator for the use of man, and all civilized nations have acted accordingly. Why did our ancestors leave their respective lands and come to this country and take it from the Indians if it was not for the purpose of taking hold of the natural resources of the


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: Although it was part of our policy to obtain reciprocity with the United States, we have acted carefully in so doing and have not injured any industry. The only industry affected is that of agricultural implements, on some of which the duty has been reduced from 174 per cent to 15 and on others from 20 per cent to 15 per cent. It would have been pleasing for myself at all events to have gone beyond that, but we considered that if we did, we would perhaps not do justice to the large number who have invested money in these establishments.
This government does not exist for the farmers alone or the manufacturers alone or for any one class, but for the manufacturers and farmers and for all the classes which compose our nation.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not admit that there should be any antagonism between class and class. 1 do not admit that there should be any antagonism between the manufacturer and the farmer. The manufacturer is the best Mend of the farmer, and the farmer is the best friend of the manufacturer. Let them walk hand in hand, let each profit by the trade of the other; but so far as we are concerned, for 14 years we have administered the government of this country on these lines, trying to do away with collisions between class and class, itrying to keep all abreast of one another keeping always in mind the motto: Freedom for all and privileges for none. That has been our policy and that policy we shall continue. There are men who believe that we are going to recklessly ruin industry, and capital. Capital is timid under all circumstances and the man who is at jthe head of affairs and the ministers who assist him, *would not be worthy of the public confidence if they were not always careful to see that capital will be safe, whenever it is invested in any industry in this country.


Mt. BURRELL.: Would my right hon. friend permit me one question ? Does not the very argument he has put up on behalf of the manufacturers apply with crushing force to the fruit industry?


Wilfrid Laurier: Not in the least. My hon. friend will observe that we have not obtained for the manufacturers a free market on the other side of the line, but we have obtained a free market for the fruit growers.


Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: Might I ask a question?


Wilfrid Laurier: One is enough,
I think.


Robert Laird Borden: I think so, too.


Wilfrid Laurier: I do not object to interruptions, but when a man has been on his feet for some time and is anxious to get through, he does not care to enter into a controversy which would force him to more exertion. But I may say to 'my hon. friend that when in committee, I shall be very happy to answer all these questions.


Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).: I understand that under the rules, when a matter is being discussed in committee, a minister of the Crown, if he is asked a question, is bound to answer, and has not the Tight to dispute the right of any member to ask a question.
I have never heard of such a thing; it is an innovation.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: There is no such rule. The hon. member who has the floor is the only one who has the right to speak to the question. No other member has the right to interrupt either with a remark or a question. Such interruptions are permitted frequently, and parliamemtar-inns have said that they are the spice of debate, but they are entirely limited to such interruptions or questions as the speaker who has the floor at the moment will allow. There is no distinction in that respect between a minister and an ordinary member.


Morley Currie: I am quite willing, Mr. Chairman, to bow to your ruling, but I say that it is an innovation in parliamentary practice.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: If the hon.
gentleman does not accept the ruling of the chair, he is at liberty to appeal to the House but not to discuss the ruling.


Wilfrid Laurier: I may say to my hon. friend that it is not an innovation and that of course a minister is bound to answer questions, but there is a time to answer them and when that time comes, I shall be happy to reply. Before I depart from this subject, let me say that to carry out this agreement, everything has been done, we were careful of all interests and followed in the line established in 1896, namely, that stability of tariff is one of the elements of success in all enterprises.
I now come to the last of the objections raised agains,t us. If it is difficult to find within the four corners of this agreement the latent, the insipient destruction of our industries it is still more difficult to find therein the fatal germ which

which to us has been, and is more than ever, the emblem of freedom. Eemember that if you have founded a nation upon separation from the motherland, we Canadians have set our hearts upon building up a nation without separation; remember that in this task we are alreay far advanced, that with our institutions, with our national entity as a people, and with everything that constitutes our national home we are just as devoted as you are to yours. Remember that the blood which flows in our veins is just as good as your own, and that if you are a proud people, though we have not your numbers, we are just as proud as you are, and that, rather than part with our national existence, we would part with our lives. If my voice could be heard that far, I would presume to say to our American friends: There may be a spectacle perhaps nobler yet than the spectacle of a united continent, a spectacle which would astound the world by its novelty and grandeur, the spectacle of two peoples living side by side'along a frontier nearly 4,000 miles long, with not a cannon, with not a gun frowning across it, with not a fortress on either side, with no armament one against the other, but living in harmony, in mutual confidence, and with no other rivalry than a generous emulation in commerce and the arts of peace. To the Canadian people I would say that if it is possible for us to obtain such relations between this young and growing nation, and the powerful American republic, Canada will have rendered to old England, the mother of nations, nay, to the whole British Empire, a service unequalled in its present effects, and still more in its far-reaching consequences.


Mr. J. A. CURRIE (North Simcoe).: Sir, it would be well if, upon a question of this kind, which touches the heart-strings of the nation, each one of us here in this House spoke his mind freely without partiality or prejudice. Some have done so, and have broken with their party. But, Sir, the great majority of us are swayed largely by personal interests, and perhaps more so by party prejudice. It will, therefore, remain for the electors of this country when they calmly enter the polling booth on next election day, to pass a sane and sound judgment on this question. Now a reference has been made by the right hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat to the defection among the members of his party; that reference was such as to classify those gentlemen who left his party as wolves.
I think that analogy was pretty far drawn, because it is a well established principle of parliamentary government that on all questions of a domestic character ot relating to home affairs a member of parliament is in duty bound to follow his leader, and his party, but it is as well established a Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
principle in the mother of parliaments to which the right hon. gentleman has appealed, that when a great question arises involving international or constitutional matters, a member of parliament is entitled to, and should of necessity pay his first allegiance to his country, and follow the dictates of his conscience. If I desired to delay the House I could give many examples of great men who have bulked large in the history of the mother land who have found occasions on which they have had to leave their party and turn their allegiance to another party. I could mention the names of Gladstone, and Chamberlain, and should I seek to enter into the Red Chamber, and into the very cabinet councils of the right hon. gentleman, I could also find a great name, and a great man who, on a certain occasion, left his party because he could not see eye to eye with that party on a great question. Sir, what happens when a man leaves his party on what is a national question, a question that touches the heart strings of the country? There is a duty on the other party in that case, it is their duty to support him, it is their duty to admit him, if he so desires, into their councils. I have read the history of the mother land very conscientiously, and consistently, and I have never seen anything but the highest respect paid by members on both sides to those men who have seen fit to leave their party on a matter of conscience, and national sentiment. It very ill became the right hon. gentleman to cast the reflections he did on those followers of his who cannot see eye to eye with him on this occasion. I think, Sir, this is one of the greatest questions that has ever come before this House or the country. The right hon. gentleman quotes ancient history. The situation today is entirely different. The men of the past are not the men of to-day, business is carried on in an entirely different way, and any man who reads and seeks to apply to present conditions rules derived entirely from the past, is bound to be mistaken. This question is one which involves principally the young men of the country, it is a question which involves a change of the entire trade relations of Canada; it is a question which endangers the national spirit and life, and every man is entitled to look on it in a new and original way. There is bound to be a great shifting of political views. I have no doubt in the world that there will be Conservatives in the country who will supplort the flight hon. gentleman, prompted by a selfish interest thinking that they are going to make a dollar to-morrow. But there are others in his party, as he can see if he reads the press to-day, and they are the leading men of this country, who are leaving his party and who tell him

they do not want any more of this reciprocity question. We read in the government newspapers immediately after defections of this kind that these men did not amount to anything after all. I like to take a cool, level-headed view of political questions, and I will give the party of the right hon. gentleman this credit that it must have had some very good men in it or it would not have lived as long as it has. These men who are leaving his party are the leading men of the country, and if the defection continues, there will not be many prominent men left in it, except those who represent it in parliament.
I have pointed out, I think clearly, that it is the duty of every man in this country on any question of this kind, not to be governed entirely by his ancient party allegiance. The question is a vital question, it is a national question and not a domestic question, and any man is entitled to take any position he desires on it. In so doing, he is following what has been known from time immemorial as the proper parliamentary practice.
The right hon. gentleman quoted history to point out that the treaty of 1854 was a very good thing and also that there was a very strong sentiment in favour of annexation previous to the enactment of that treaty. The hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) referred to that famous despatch of Lord Elgin, in which Lord Elgin pointed out that unless free navigation and reciprocal trade with the United States were granted, the people of Canada would Tebel and annex themselves to the United States. I have taken the trouble to examine carefully the history of that period. Any one who knows the contemporary events and conditions of that.day will understand the great difficulties under which Canada laboured. How were these difficulties brought about? For many years previous to that the Canadians had enjoyed the privilege of a preference in the British market for everything they produced. Their goods were carried to Great Britain in British ships, and in addition to that, there was. a bounty on a number of articles that they produced such as spars and potash and the alkalis which were large products of this country at that time, amounting to $4,000,000 or $5,000,000. In 1847 the Corn Laws were abrogated in England, which gave to the United States free access to the English market. It was not until 1849 that the Navigation Laws were abrogated, and during those two years the people of Canada had to compete with the Americans in price for their produce in the old country, and in addition, they had to pay excessively high freight rates to the old country for the stuff they shipped there, owing to the Navigation Law much
higher rates were paid by the Americans, who had free trade with Great Britain. Consequently this country was under a tremendous handicap and the statement of Lord Elgin was absolutely true ar that time.
Let us follow another little bit of history. I like to correct my right hon. friend's history, because I know he is a good historian, but sometimes he overlooks some aspect of the matter under discussion. During the course of his speech he asked the House what demand there was for a reciprocity treaty in 1854, what mandate had the Governor General of that day to go to Washington and carry on the negotiations? The right hon. gentleman must have known, certainly he should have known, that the then parliament of Canada, before the question was taken up at Washington at all, had passed an address to Her Majesty to permit negotiations to be opened. Would it not have been fair to the House to call attention .to .that fact? That was some eight years before the treaty was finally carried through. So during the eight years the matter had been amply, discussed by the people of this country, considered on every side .and everybody looked forward to the passing of that treaty with a great deal of hope.
From that he drew the lesson that all his government had to do was to ask to have a reciprocity treaty put through immediately because, he said that reciprocity had always been the policy of his party. To-day the right hon. gentleman gave us many selections from his former speeches, and good speeches they were, much better than those made by him since he formulated these proposals, because after all I think he has a soft spot in his heart in favour of his country, and possibly there may be some slight doubt in his mind-slight doubt mind you -that after all this treaty is not as good as it ought to be. The right hon. gentleman argued that the views of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) on the subject of reciprocity were the same as his own, but the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) has had fifteen years experience in opposition in this House to enable him to change his mind on the subject of reciprocity while the right hon. gentleman has evidently not studied out the question to enable him to come to a proper view of it yet. We all remember the occasion when Professor Bryce was sent to Washington as ambassador. Mr. Bryce is a well known free trader, a great friend of the United States; his principal income is derived from the sale in the United States of his book on the American constitution, and there is an American saying, that if you earn a dollar in America you ought to be an American. I do not say

that Mr. Bryce follows that example to any great_ extent, but there was a feeling of uncertainty in this country when he was appointed British ambassador, and a fear that as soon as he got to Washington, being a pronounced free trader, being a believer in the annexation of this country to the United States, and being in favour of continen-talism, that he would seek to carry out the same old plan that is embodied in this agreement. So strong was this feeling, and so loudly was it expressed in the newspapers that the Prime Minister of Canada thought fit, at a public dinner given to Mr. Bryce on April the 1st, 1907, to warn that gentleman. The right hon. the leader of the government spokeT as a good Canadian then, and he told Mr. Bryce where he should expect to get off at, and these are his words:
We are turning our hopes towards the mother land; we have introduced the doctrine and policy of preference to Great Britain and towards all the British Empire and this is the policy by -which we stand at the present time; not, for my part, that I do not value American trade


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Morley Currie: That's nice, keep on ' hear, hearing,' until I get through.
-not for my part that I do not value all that we would have to gain if our relations were on a better footing,-


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Morley Currie: Now, be careful, dont hear, hear too much.
-but this is a matter on which we shall have no more pilgrimages to Washington.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.
Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe)-continuing quotation :
This is the simple message I have to convey to our guest at the present moment.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Morley Currie: Now, I remembered that phrase vividly when the Minister of .Finance rose in this House to tell us he had been on a pilgrimage to Washington, and that Mr. Bryce had helped him to get the treaty. Does it strike anybody in this House as strange that there should be a total reversal of the view of the leader of the government on this question.


An hon. MEMBER.: Not a bit.


Morley Currie: Of course not. The right hon. gentleman cannot blame this House or the country if he is accused of not following out the principles of the Liberal party, and with not pursuing the path that was blazed by Sir John Macdonald, and Sir George Brown when they formed confederation. One point in this treaty which has been emphasized by the Minister of Finance is that this is concur-Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
rent legislation, and that it can be wiped out at any moment. That we are told by lion, gentlemen opposite, is one of the chief points in favour of this arrangement; it is the only thing they can bolster it up with, namely, that if it is no use we can wipe it out at a moment's notice. Well, there was something of this kind before. It is all wrong to say that the treaty of 1854 was a great success, but nevertheless when that treaty was abrogated the best elements in both parties formed a great coalition to bring about confederation as the antithesis of reciprocity. And, Sir, there is another great coalition on this occasion, and the evidence of it is that the leading Liberals of Canada are joining with the Conservatives in opposition to this policy. On the occasion to which I refer the leading men of both parties united and. in 1864 George Brown formed a coalition government with Sir John Macdonald and they accomplished confederation. A strange thing happened immediately after confederation, for George Brown the founder of the ' Globe ' newspaper resigned his office in the coalition government. And, Sir, the reason that great man left his party was because the government of the day had sent delegates to Washington to negotiate a treaty by) concurrent legislation good only for a short period, as this treaty is said to be. It may be well to put a few expressions of the founders of the Liberal party on ' Hansard ' so that Liberal members may cogitate over them. Mr. Mackenzie who later became the leader of the Liberal party, and Prime Minister of Canada, wrote a life of George Brown, and at page 103 I find this;
On tlie 19tli December, 1865, the Hon. George Brown resigned from the coalition ministry of George E. Cartier on account of the reciprocity negotiations that had been carried on at Washington the previous summer by Howland and Galt.
In discussing this incident Mr. Mackenzie says;
It was, therefore, with a sense of relief that he felt bound, a few weeks after the confederate council adjourned, to adopt such decided views on the question of reciprocity with the United States, against the views of his colleagues, as to render his resignation necessary. This was the immediate cause of his resignation. During Mr. Brown's absence from Ottawa on public business, Messrs. Galt and Howland were sent to Washington, and were negotiating there with the Committee of Ways and Means. The ministers subsequently agreed to accept the scheme of concurrent legislation for the interchange of commodities instead of a treaty. Commercial intercourse by reciprocal legislation would inevitably disarrange our trade relations with the United States. Stability is an element that cannot be dispensed with in commerce, and so Mr. Brown considered.

These were the view's of the two great chiefs of the Liberal party at that time1 the founders of the party led by the right hon. gentleman. I hope we shall hear not mpch more about concurrent legislation in reciprocity after I get through. The right hon. gentleman did not read his history, or he would not have gone on with this measure, for the whole sentiment of the Reform party, from the time George Brown resigned his seat in the cabinet until the right hon. gentleman took the seals of office, was contrary to concurrent legislation in this matter. Let us see what Mr. Brown himself said. Here is a letter which he wrote to George E. Cartier on December 19, 1865, which is to be found on page 104 of ' Mackenzie's Life of Brown ':
'The interests involved are too great. X think a very great Blunder has been committed in a matter involving the most important interest of the country and that the order in council you have passed endorses that blunder, and authorizes persistence in it. I confess I was much annoyed at the personal affront offered me, but that feeling has passed away in view of the serious character of the matters at issue, which casts all personal feeling aside.
'I desire to leave you in perfect harmony. I shall, of course, place in writing my grounds of resignation, but seeing the prejudicial effect their present publication might have on the negotiations, I propose that no reason be given for my resignation until the reciprocity question is settled one way or the other. I propose to state in to-morrow's 'Globe' that my resignation has occurred fiom a grave difference in the cabinet in which I stand alone on an important question; that the explanation will be given in parliament in due time, and that it would be inexpedient for the public interests that they should be given sooner. I make this suggestion, believing it the best thing for the public interest, and on that ground alone; but any other proper course of procedure I am ready to adopt at the wish of my late colleagues.
The next quotation which I desire to place on record is from GeoTge Brown's speech, delivered in the Senate in 1875, on the subject of reciprocity with the United States. In 1874 George Brown was sent to the United States to negotiate a treaty of this kind. He succeeded in negotiating a treaty, which was for a period of 21 years. The reason for that period being fixed was that ho realized that such a treaty must not be subject to the will of the American Congress to change it at a moment's notice. Mr. Brown, in his speech before the Senate, which can be found in the records of that House, said:
In the negotiations of 1865-6 for a renewal of the treaty, offers were made to the American government by our then Finance Minister, Sir A. T. Galt, which in my opinion ought not to have been made. The government then existing in Canada was the coalition government formed in 1864 for the special purpose of carrying confederation of the whole British North American provinces. I was a member of that government, and, as is well known, it was in consequence of the policy adopted by my colleagues and the conduct of the reciprocity negotiations that I felt compelled to resign my position as president of the Executive Council. I resigned because I felt very strongly that, though we in Canada denved great advantage from the treaty of 1854, the American people derived still greater advantage from it. I had no objection to that and was quite ready to renew the old treaty or even to extend it largely on fair terms of reciprocity, but I was not willing to ask for renewal as a favour to Canada; I was not willing to offer special inducements for renewal without fair concessions in return; I was not willing that the canals and inland waters of Canada could be made the joint property of the United States and Canada and be maintained at their joint expense; I was not willing that the customs and excise duties of Canada should be assimilated to the prohibitory rates of the United States; and very specially was I unwilling that any such arrangement should be entered into with the United States, dependent on the frail tenure of reciprocal legislation, repealable at any moment at the caprice of either party. I firmly believe that good as a reciprocity treaty had been for Canada, m the event of repeal, we had a commercial policy of our own open to us for adoption not greatly inferior to that we should be deprived of; and unless we got a treaty for a definite term of years and conditions of fair reciprocity, without such embarrassing entanglements as were proposed, I was willing that the treaty of 1854 should be repealed, and each country left to follow its own course. My colleagues, determined to proceed in a matter I deprecated, I could not be responsible for such a policy, and to avoid responsibility for it I resigned office. The government sent deputies to Washington to obtain, if possible, legislative reciprocitv- they did all they could to obtain it, but without success, and the treaty of 185-1 came to an end on the 17th March, 1866. I have not changed my opinions from what they were m December, 1865. I still believe that Canada largely profited by the treaty of 1854, but that the Americans profited by it still more, and we all know

for we have tested it -that Canada has a commercial policy of her own but little if at all inferior to that you were deprived of in 1866.
Does not that cover the whole argument of the Conservative party in regard to the present agreement? That was the policy of George Brown, and the policy of the great Liberal party for many years. I am free to admit that there were a few Conservatives who desired reciprocity at that time, just as there are, perhaps, to-day a few Conservatives who desire reciprocity; but this country hgs advanced very greatly since that time. Were it not that a great deal of stress has been put upon the history of this movement, I would not trouble the House with so much about, it Now,

the treaty of 1854, which it took eight years to negotiate, unlike this treaty, which took eight days, or, perhaps, eight minutes, did not bring about that great amount of prosperity for this country which it was expected to bring. In the very first year of the treaty the carrying trade of Canada from Sarnia to the sea was taken over by the United States. I have to ask the House .again to bear with me while I place on record some figures, because this is a subject on which a great many beautiful arguments have been framed upon a merely hypothetical basis. I have here a memorandum which gives the total trade of the St. Lawrence route in the year previous to the adoption of the treaty of 1854:
In 1849 the British navigation laws were repealed. Then this country had free trade and free navigation with Great Britain, and Canadian goods were carried by American vessels in competition with English vessels over the St. Lawrence route to Great Britain. There were no navigation laws to prevent that. Trade on the St. Lawrence grew enormously. In 1854 it amounted to $42,000,000. The first year of reciprocity- the Canadians gave the United States one-half the carryinig trade from Sarnia to the sea, and in "all likelihood history will repeat itself. Here are the figures:



[Stage Direction]
1854.	1855.
Trade	$ 33,633,128 $ 15,208,600
Ships	
1.416	742Tens	
618,926	348,800Sailors	
20,301	11,902
Exports and imports,
Montreal and Quebec	$ 42,000,000 $ 28,000,000
The total exports from Montreal and Quebec for 1854 were $42,000,000 in rough figures and in 1855 they had declined to $28,000,000. It is quite safe to say that the same result which occured in 1854 will occur once this treaty comes into force. Those figures were compiled, and recently published in the Canadian ' Century ' in an article by Mr. G. D. Griffin, a well known journalist of that period. So that the treaty did not in that way benefit Canada to any extent. If I desired to do so, I could show in 1857 there was great distress throughout Canada. You can turn up the files of the ' Globe * and read about soup kitchens, about the people being in a starving condition, and about suggested legislation to relieve distress; but the great year of Canada was the last year of the treaty. It is true there were good prices in 1861 because the war in the United States had caused a great demand for cattle, hogs, sheep and other products raised in Canada. The last year of the treaty was the year of reconstruction in the United States. The war was then over. The fields which had been left untilled during the war were be-Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
ing again brought under cultivation, and the abandoned farms were being restored to their former condition. The great waste in cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry and other farming stock which occurred during the war had to be replaced, and in addition there was the speculative element which arose at that time and increased the trade with this country, so that in that year the balance in our favour rose to very large proportions.
When we read the speeches of hon. gentlemen opposite delivered in this House and those spoken outside this House and many of the newspaper comments, which were made throughout the green and salad days of commercial union, we find that the great argument advanced was that the trade balance in favour of this country, while the reciprocity treatv was in force, was so great that we would be very foolish if wo did not secure another treatv of the kind. Well, in my investigations of the records of this House, and of the United States Congress, I discovered what I consider one of the strangest things in connection with this matter which has ever occurred in connection with an international question outside of that red line map which we are told Mr. Webster used when he stole from us the northern part of the state of Maine. I find that throughout the discussion a certain statistical table was used. That table was first published in Canada and most of the figures were supplied by Mr. Paterson, of the Montreal Board of Trade. That table showed a very large trade balance in favour of Canada and it has been republished by a gentleman in the United States for the benefit of the United States government, a Mr. Larned. He published that statement in a report he made to the United States Congress on the question of reciprocity. The Hon. George Brown had a vague idea in his mind-as anybody who reads his speeches will see-that the figures they were using were all false, but he could not apparently get at the true figures because I have not been able to find in the journals of this House, or the Senate, that the true figures of the trade were ever placed on the records of either House. But a strange thing occurred. About 1880 there was some talk of reciprocity, and for the first, time the actual figures were published in the journals of Congress. They were given by Mr. Nimmo, who was then secretary of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Treasury. The Americans have means for obtaining absolutely accurate statistics of their trade which we lack. If you ship anything out of the United States you have to make a sworn declaration and manifest as to its value just as if you were entering it at an American customs house, so that their figures of export and import must be correct. In this country we are supposed to give export value, but anybody who knows

anything about the business will not for one moment imagine that the figures in our blue-book of the exports of Canada are at all accurate. Take the figures of exports of the items mentioned in this schedule and compare them with the actual sworn fact. Suppose you take the Canadian figures of exports from Canada to the United States and compare them with the American figures and you will find a discrepancy. The United States have the exact figures and it is my intention to place on record in a few minutes both tables, I shall give the facts to show that the leaders of the Liberal party were entirely opposed to concurrent legislation such as we are now asked to enact, and now I am going to show that the figures of the trade from Canadian sources are all wrong. Let me now give the false statistical table of trade with the United States, 1854-1866 accompanying the report of J. U. Larned to the Secretary of the United States Treasury, July 3, 1871. These are the Canadian statistics used in the reciprocity controversy. Canadian figures were prepared by W. J. Patterson, secretary of the Montreal Board of Trade:
From Canada To Canada
to	from Balance.
United States. United States.
1854	$ 6,721,539 $15,533,090 -$ 8,811,551
1855...	.. 12,182,314
1856...	.. 17,488,197
1857...	.. 18,291,834
1858...	.. 11,581,570
1859...	. 14,208,717
1860...	.. 18,853,033
1861...	.. 18,645,457
1862...	.. 15,257,812
1863...	.. 18,670,773
1864...	.. 32,422,015
1865...	.. 30,547,267
1866...	.. 46,199,470
20,828,676 - 8,646,362 22,704,508 - 5,316,311 20,224,648 - 1,932,814 15,635,565 - 4,053,995 17,592,916 - 3,384,199 17,273,029 + 1,580,004 20,206,080 -	1,560,623
22,642,860 - 7,385,048 18,457,683 +	213,090
7,952,401 + 24,469,614 14,820,577 + 15,726,690 15,242,834 + 30,956,636
That is the false table. Now I intend to put the actual figures on record. It will take only a few moments, and I hope that before the House resumes at eight o'clock hon. members will think these figures over. The table is as follows:
Statistical table of trade between Canada and the United States, prepared by Joseph Nimino, junior, chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Treasury, May 25, 1880, presented 2nd session, 46th Congress, accompanying report 1127, part 2, House. of Representatives.
1554..
1855..	.
1856..	.
1857..	.
1858..	.
1859..	.
1860..	. 1861... 1862...
1863..	.
1864..	.
1865..	. 151
To	To
Canada. United States. Balance. $24,157,612	$ 8,784,412	-$15,373,20027,741,808	15,118,289	-	12,623,51929,025,349	21.276,614	-	7,748,73524,138,482	22,108,916	-	2,029,56623,604,526	15,784,836	-	7,819,69028,109,494	19,287,565	-	8,821,92922,695,928	23,582,796	+	876,86822,676,513	22,724,489	+	47.97620,573,070	18,511,025	-	2,062,04527,619,814	17,484,786	-	10,135,02826,574,824	29,608,736	+	3,034,11228,829,402	33.264,403	+	4,435,001To	To	Canada.	United States.	Balance.1866	.. 24,828,880	48,528,628	+	23,699,7481867	.. 21,020,302	25,044,005	+	4,023,7031868	.. 24,080,777	26,261,379	+	2,180,6021869	.. 23,381,471	29,293,766	+	5,912,2951870	.. 25,339,254	36,265,328	+	10,926,0741871	.. 32,276,176	32,542,137	+	265,9611872	.. 29,411,554	36,346,930	+	6,935,4761873	.. 34,565,113	37,649,532	+	3,084,4191874	.. 43,473,174	34,365,961	-	9,107,2131875	.. 36,225,735	28,271,926	-	7,953,8091876	.. 35,004,131	29,010,251	-	5,993,8801877	.. 39,374,180	24,277,378	-	15,096,8021878	.. 38,284,421	25,357,802	-	12,926,6191879	.. 30,843,702	26,133,554	-	4,710,148SUMMARY.	1S54-1866,	13 years-	Total balances, United States.. $66,613,712 Canada	
32,093,705
General balance. United States. $34,520,007
At six o'clock, committee took recess.
After Recess
Committee resumed at eight o'clock.
John Allister Currie: When the House rose at six o'clock, I had had the pleasure of placing upon the records two tables of statistics, giving the trade of this country with the United States during the period of the old treaty. I stated that one of those tables was absolutely false, and that was the table which had always been used in the discussion upon the question of trade relations with the United States from the time the old reciprocity treaty was abrogated. Now, the figures of that table, which table I would call the greatest statistical lie of the nineteenth century, showed that there was a balance of trade in favour of this country for that period of $31,955,131. On the face of it, that would appear to be a good thing for Canada, because in those days we did not have that heresy proclaimed that it is a good thing for a country to have a balance of trade against it. In fact, the doctrine used to be preached by those high priests of the Liberal party, by those great financial lights of the Liberal party, that if a country did not have a trade balance in its favour sooner or later that country would go to ruin; in other words, that commodity must pay for commodity, which is a doctrine of free traders from time immemorial. I find that that false statement was the statement upon which commercial union and reciprocity were fought, and which I may say was sanctioned by the United States, which published it in its records, showing that they deliberately intended to falsify the facts, I find that according to the true statement, the actual American figures showed, during the period of the treaty, a balance in favour of the United States of $34,520,007. So the treaty was not quite so good for Canada as it appeared on the face of it.
The right hon. leader of the House took



issue with the members on this side of the House, who declared that this government and this parliament had received no mandate from the people to negotiate this treaty. The Prime Minister took exception to that statement, and said that neither was there any mandate for the old treaty, that there was no mandate for confederation, in fact, that there was no mandate for any great piece of legislation that had been passed in this country. I pointed out in the earlier portion of my speech that before the old treaty of 1854 was arranged an address was passed by the parliament of Canada on May 12, 1846, which address was forwarded to Great Britain. Negotiations followed, with the result that a' treaty was concluded in June, 1854, ratification was exchanged at Washington on September 9, 1854, it was proclaimed September 11, 1854, and took effect March 16, 1855. Now, throughout the whole period of that treaty after it was consummated by the United States, the arguments were that it would only be a very short time until Canada became a portion of the United States. Did I wish to do so, I could take an hour in placing on the ' Hansard ' extracts to show that the leading American newspapers and writers took that view of the question. The prevalent view was expressed by the ' North American Review,' which was at that time the leading exponent of public opinion in the United States. The chief writer in the review laid down the doctrine that the treaty had been given to Canada in order that Canada might be led gently into annexation.
Now, Sir, we have had some experience of attempts to force us into annexation. Pour times, by force of arms, attempts were made to bring about the annexation of Canada to the United States. Those who visit Quebec can see a bronze plate beneath the ramparts of the city showing where Montgomery fell in the first great invasion. If you go to Niagara you will find a monument erected to Sir Isaac Brock, which commemorates our deliverance from the second invasion. You will find there was an invasion in 1837, at least an indirect invasion, backed up by the United States, to bring about the independence and ultimately the annexation of this country. I am not speaking my own words in recounting these facts, because any one who reads the chief authors on Canadian history will find these facts for himself. Read McMullen, or any other historian that is recognized as an authority, and you will ascertain the facts I mention. In 1866 there was a direct invasion; that, followed the abrogation of the treaty. Now, what occurred during the existence of that treaty? The American Congress was constantly threatening to abrogate it. Early during the existence of the treaty we had Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
to place a tariff on the manufactures of other countries in order to raise a revenue. Mr. Galt, who was then Finance Minister, framed that tariff, and he had a very hard time of it. He had to meet the opposition of the free trade element in Canada, who were largely pro-annexationists at that time. He had to meet the opposition of the English merchants, and if you will read the history of that epoch you will find that he went over to England and expostulated with the clothing merchants of Manchester, and excused Canada, and said it was impossible for this country to get a revenue unless they put a tariff on British goods as well as goods from other countries. He had also to meet with great opposition in the United States. The American papers discussed this question, and I find in the columns of the Toronto ' Globe,' which at that period was a very good journal, extracts time after time from the American papers. The Chicago ' Journal ' was one of them; it stated that unless Canada changed her ways and took the duties off American manufactured goods coming into Canada the treaty would be abrogated. I do not wish to burden ' Hansard ' with all these details, but I merely state what took place.	-
Now, I find that as the time approached for the abrogation of that treaty, which broke up the commercial relations existing between the two countries, it was found necessary, owing to the fact that there was a small number in the Conservative party and a small number in the Liberal party who were very noisy, and continually crying out for a reciprocity treaty, and even for annexation, it was found absolutely necessary, I say, for the great chiefs _ of both parties to forai a coalition to bring about confederation. I find, also, that it was the party to which I have the honour now to belong, and which then called itself the coalition or Liberal-Conservative party, that was chiefly instrumental in bringing about confederation. That party, Sir, bore the brunt of the struggle in favour of the confederation of Canada. It fought another great battle in 1878, and it fought a battle in 1891.
Whatever fault there may be with_ our leaders, and we are all weak men and liable to make errors, the dominant note in the life and history of the Liberal-Conservative party from that date has been Canadian-ism. Not going too far pro-British-why. Sir, Sir John Macdonald, on one occasion had to say that if a certain Act of his in the way of duties on British goods was going to hurt British connection, it was so. much the worse for British connection. Again, that policy has been constantly to prevent any shifting of the position towards the United States, constantly leading along the middle path that was blazed out by

George Brown and Sir John A. Macdonald. That is the path, we are treading to-day, and that is the path you will find the young men of this country are going to follow. They are not going to follow any by-roads towards reciprocity of tariff or anything else, they stand first for Canadianism and they intend to remain Canadian. As one of the younger element it shocks me to think that gentlemen will get up in this House and plead that 50 years ago this desire was so and so, that it still remains strong, and that it is hoped to accomplish it now. I heard the Finance Minister and his colleague, the Minister of Customs speak. What was the burden of their speeches? That a duty had been laid on the Liberal party many years ago and also on the Liberal Conservative party to bring about reciprocity of trade between the United States and Canada and the Minister of Finance says: I am pleased to say I can now come into this House and say that my labours are done, I have paid my debt. It reminded me very much of the story so eloquently told by Balzac, the great French novelist, of the young couple who were married. The young man had received an appointment under the government, and they were invited to a ball. The bride was anxious to appear as handsome as possible at this official ball, and borrowed from a friend of hers a diamond necklace. Terrible to relate, at the ball, or on the way home the necklace was lost. The young couple discussed the matter and decided not to say anything about it to the friend who had lent the necklace, but to go to a jeweller's purchase a similar necklace and mortgage their whole life's work to pay off the debt. They carried out that programme. Throughout their whole lives, they starved and slaved and saved every dollar. They did not have sufficient food or clothing, and finally when they were both old and decrepit, the day came when at last they had paid their debt. And then the lady thought she would go and tell her friend the whole story. She told the whole story and her friend after hearing the story of her life work and sacrifice, informed her that the diamonds she had lent her were paste, an imitation, and that the necklace was worth only 35 francs. We have here a tragedy of a similar character. Here are two honourable gentlemen who all their lives have been slaving, struggling, labouring, saving up every copper, waiting every moment patiently for a call to come to Washington to accomplish a treaty of this kind. They come back to this House and the Minister of Finance says: The debt is paid, I have finished my work for the right hon. gentleman as he also wanted to finish his work. These hon. gentlemen are no doubt staggered and shocked to find that the country does not appreciate that sacrifice, that this House does not appreciate that tragedy, and that everybody 1514
is really laughing at them for being such fools as to go over to the United States and bring back what is in reality a pinchbeck, an imitation treaty. From the time that the first treaty was negotiated until the negotiation of this treaty there was1 not a moment when the United States would not have given concurrent legislation in this matter of trade. Why? Because they have failed four times to annex this country by force of arms. The people of this country having suffered the torch, the destruction of their homes, the death of their nearest friends and relatives, and failed to accede to the demand for annexation. The Americans had decided to adopt other methods. I am not waving any old flags, but I will try to place before the House the reason why thinking men say that this treaty will ultimately lead to annexation. I acknowledge the fact that on the face of it a person will be very much inclined to say: What harm is there to trade between these two countries; there can be no question, but it will be a benefit to both of them. That is a sensible question to me. But I find that on every occasion when an attempt was made to bring about a crisis in the commercial affaire of this country, the Americans had in view to coerce us commercially which is the method adopted by the United States so successfully to coerce other countries to come into the union. They succeeded in the case of the Sandwich islands. There is one man in the United States Congress, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Champ Clarke, who, whilst he may have the reputation from the hon. gentlemen opposite of being a humorist, has the reputation of being the best posted man in history in the whole United States. Without exception there is no man who knows the history of the operation of congressional and state government in his country better than Mr. Champ Clarke. When this matter was under discussion in the Senate of the United States, Mr. Clarke let fall one simple remark which the newspapers of this country published but which very few people recognized, as being of importance. This is what he said, speaking of this treaty:
The agricultural schedule is largely a humbug, a delusion and a snare. We had a reciprocity treaty with the Sandwich Islands, because from the first, we intended to swallow them.
Now, Sir, what are the facts of the case.
I am going_ to tell you the facts, to recite them to this House, in order to show you that there is a very strong analogy. A reciprocity treaty was made with the Sandwich islands in 1875. Sugar is one of the principal products of the Sandwich islands, and one of the principal products of the United States. There was no necessity for reciprocity in that case any more than there is

necessity for reciprocity in wheat, but a reciprocity treaty was established. The treaty was for seven years, to be abrogated on twelve months' notice, xn 1887, after a great deal of grumbling, President Cleveland said he would not grant a new treaty because he was opposed to a reciprocity treaty on principle. But he had a sudden change of mind, and granted a new treaty without any reason being given. But here was a reason of the treaty of 1887. The United States was given a harbour on the Sandwich islands known as Pearl River harbour in perpetuity. In that way they got the first small portion of land from the Sandwich islands. The treaty expired in 1891. Its abrogation was subject to one year's notice. I wish to tell the House that during all the time that that treaty was in force there was not a session of Congress in which some blustering Senator or representative did not threaten to dissolve the treaty between the United States and the Sandwich islands.
There was a continuous panic all the time in the Sandwich Islands; sugar lands [DOT]declined in value, and property generally was depressed, because they could not tell what moment their chief market would be [DOT]destroyed. Talk of analogy, is not that analogy enough. Before the McKinley Bill was passed we had a trade with the United States in barley, but when the duty was raised our farmers suffered, and there was a tremendous dislocation in trade and hard times. Well, in the Sandwich Islands reciprocity organizations were formed but the United States would not annex the Sandwich Islands off the bat because they would not honourably accept the bonded indebtedness. Their plan was to let the trouble go on, and there was a revolution, and a protectorate government was formed which disavowed largely the debt of the island, and, after the process had continued long enough to tire out the bondholders the United States quietly annexed the Sandwich Islands. We are told by writers on the subject that with the single exception of Spreckles, the Americans came over to the Sandwich Islands without a shinplaster and they were no sooner there than they married natives, grabbed all the lands and property, seized all the banks, and when the protectorate came they were in possession of the whole situation. We see in that instance a short term treaty; we see constant threats of abrogation; we see commercial coercion more successful in the Sandwich Islands than a straight war would have been. Now, let us see what, about Cuba. At one time Cuba and Porto Rico belonged to Spain, and I do not now refer to the Philippine Islands because they were conquered by force of arms. In 1891 there was an agitation in Cuba for the enlargement of the sugar market; something similar, Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
only stronger to the agitation xve have had for this treaty. The sugar planters and the tobacco planters had a splendid market in Britain, and all the better grades of tobacco were purchased in Europe, as they are purchased to-day, only second grades reaching the United States and Canada. The planters had a market in Great Britain but they wanted a wider market, just - as our farmers in the Northwest seem to want two markets where now they have one. At last in 1891 a reciprocity treaty was consummated between the United States and Spain, but it was not long in force before there were threats in the American Senate to abrogate it. The sugar interests in the United States were all the time looming up on the horizon, and as soon as the trade had been established by American traders and Hebrew dealers in tobacco, the question arose among the Cuban planters: are we going to lose the American market? But, agitation did not go swift enough; arms were sent from the United States to the half black natives; blacks there sent from San Domingo as workmen and were no sooner landed than they were prepared to fight, and a revolution was fomented. And what for? To bring about annexation to the United States in order, as they said, that Cuba should have a free market in the United States. The Spanish American war followed. Spain ceded Cuba to the United States, and the United States turned Cuba over to the tender mercies of a native government. Why was this done? It was because if the United States remained in possession of Cuba the foreign bondholders might have come on the scene to ask that their bonds be paid, but by turning the country over to a provisional government the debt of the country was discharged by that very act, and when the foreign bondholders are all dead and forgotten, inside of possibly ten years, Cuba will have the same destiny as the Sandwich Islands. A writer on this question, Mr. Lawrence Laughlin, of Chicago, pointing out the ultimate end of the Sandwich Islands, states that what had been foretold from the first, viz., that the reciprocity treaty would bring about annexation, had come true. Here we have two outstanding examples; _ we have a reciprocity treaty, connection is formed between the two countries of a commercial character, commercial coercion from the United States follows, and the national entity of the other country is wiped out. Now, in our own country, why did they seek confederation in 1866. I will pljce upon the records of the House an extract from the speech of a great Liberal of those days, and it is an argument against this treaty more eloquent and potent than anything I could say. I quoted from the same authority this afternoon, I quote

him again, so that his remarks may sink deep into the heart of my free trade friend from Nova Scotia. And, that reminds me of the great convention of the boards of trade of Canada and the United States held in Detroit in 1866, and at that convention speeches were made by prominent Americans in which they invited Canada to join the United States and partake of the pleasures of annexation and the free markets they could afford. There was at that convention a great Nova Scotian, Joseph Howe, and when he rose to speak on that occasion he told the Americans present how his son had gone to the United States when the civil war broke out, and how he had fought for the union, and how he had come home with an honourable discharge, and Joseph Howe said: I tell you gentlemen that if I should do anything to bring about the annexation of my country, and to haul down the British flag that floats over Canada, the very first man to blow out my brains would be my beloved son who fought so gallantly for your union. Well, Sir, we have not such Nova Scotians to-day.


Mr. McKENZIE.: Why not?


Morley Currie: I cannot understand why; they are largely free traders. Let me tell you something about the Nova Scotians we have to-day. Nova Scotia came into the confederation in good faith, but unfortunately for that province there has always been a free trade element among its people; a free trade element that believes in the doctrine' that what money is made by one industry must be lost by somebody else, because they cannot understand that there may be a profit at both ends of the bargain. The hon. gentleman who went to Washington to negotiate this treaty is one of these men, and I say without any hesitation whatever, that Nova Scotia with her splendid harbours, and her wealth of coal and iron, and her intelligent population, had she the proper men to lead her in her legislative halls, would be to-day greater than any state in the union, for not only would she be manufacturing goods for Canada and Canadians but she would be manufacturing goods in competition with Germany and every country in the world. But, that narrow spirit which keeps constantly agitating against the condition of things that exist, that narrow spirit has dominated Nova Scotia and its politics and it is only within recent years that successful industries have been established in Nova Scotia, and which today I am happy to say are so prosperous.
Now, let us see what confederation has done for Nova Scotia. We men in the middle west are not narrow or provincial; we are willing at all times to hold up our end d the log. and when it comes to paying the
piper, we are willing to pay our share fairly and justly. The workingmen of the province of Ontario, whose children eat the bread that is baked with soft coal, have been paying three and a quarter millions of dollars a year in coal duties-why? In order that their brethern in the coal mines of Nova Scotia might have protection and labour. They have paid three-quarters of a million dollars a year in bounties on iron and steel in order that the men who work in the iron mills of Nova Scotia might have protection and labour. Is that selfish? Have hon. members ever read a word in the newspapers of my province against that proposition? But Nova Scotia continues to send to this House, free traders, men who are constantly attacking the best interests of this country, and seeking to destroy its industries and to prevent our workingmen in the Central West from having employment, men who believe that what is good for one part of the country must be injurious to the other. If Nova Scotia continues to send such men to this House-and there is no doubt, from the signs of the times, that there will be a change in the next parliament-I for one, staunch protectionist as I am, will have to consider whether it will be worth while for the rest of the country to grant a duty of 50 cents a ton to Nova Scotia on soft coal, and a bounty on her steel in order that she may send free traders to the parliament of Canada. I think that is a fair proposition, and, I say it unreservedly, that if such a state of affairs occurs after the next election, and I belong to the dominant party, I shall be one of the men to stand up in this House, and say: No, Nova Scotia does not want protection; take the duty off her coal-she sends free traders here; Nova Scotia does not want protection on her steel-she sent here a man, a free trader, who threw the markets of Canada open to American farm products. Let Nova Scotia play fair in this matter and send men here who are more in touch with the true interests1 of Nova Scotia, not men who come and talk free trade and practice protection at the expense of the rest of the country. I hope the hon. gentleman has now heard enough about Nova Scotia. He can take that and find out if he can get elected on it in Nova Scotia after this; because he is elected by the coal -workers of that province.
There is one thing which I very much deprecate in discussions of this kind, and that is, that the tone of the discussion should be lowered to any personal note. I was deeply grieved this afternoon to- hear the right hon. gentleman who leads this House, and who happens not to be here at the present moment, state that the members of his government were great financiers.


An hon. MEMBER.: Ask him.


Morley Currie: I do not think he did. He could mot tell us of any treaty in which there was one. I would like to hear from him so that we might test his knowledge of this treaty making clause. When a man sets about making treaties, he ought to be acquainted with the treaties of other countries. Can the hon. minister tell us off-hand of one or two in which this reciprocal form is used?


William Stevens Fielding: I much prefer to let my hon. friend keep on with his argument. He is doing remarkably well.


Morley Currie: Yes, I have evidently floored the hon. gentleman on the simple question of treaty making.


William Stevens Fielding: He shall see


Morley Currie: had a similar experience with the fisheries in Ontario and in Manitoba. And this government stands supine, and by its supineness enables the Americans, by their regulations, to come in, throttle our fishermen and squeeze the last drop of blood out of them. They come in and virtually take possession of our fisheries as if in fee simple, and compel our men to slave for them, paying them the price that goes to the mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, and as middle men they make enormous profits. They are the master's and we are the peon's. This is the condition that exists in our Atlantic fisheries. All this would be remedied if the government would form co-operative societies amongst our fishermen, organize our fisheries in the proper manner, put in freezers and give these men a chance to get their fish to market; and, above all, put an export duty on every pound of fish that went off the banks or out of the country except in a Canadian bottom. The application of the good old navigation law-that is what would build up this industry. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) laughs. He would not raise a hand, as did the knight in the other chamber, Sir George Ross, who, when Prime Minister of Ontario, declared to the Americans that they were not to take our logs out of our forests unless they manufactured them in this country. These men do not understand the principle of a great national policy developing industries of size and consequence.
I pass on now to other industries. I have pointed out that the strength of the nation lies in iron and steel. And all honour to the men, I say, who have established great iron and steel works in Nova Scotia- mostly western men, it is true, but also including eastern men, who have made money out of it, as we are glad to- know. So we have the example not only of the Nova Scotia iron and steel works, but of the car works, of the stove works and many others. And yet these men of the east send men to represent them in this House, a majority of them rank free traders, as I regard them.
The hon. member for Carleton, New Brunswick (Mr. Carvell) told us that it was too bad the duty should remain on shingles, and said that he was interested in a shingle mill and a lath mill.


An hon. MEMBER.: And in pretty nearly everything else.


Morley Currie: Yes, I suppose in nearly everything in the province he is interested in some way. He told us that they could get so much more for their stuff if they had the stuff on the American side. Why, let him follow the natural course of the policy of this government that he supports-move his shingle mill across the line and then ship the logs over and cut Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
them there. There is no string on the logs, and this exportation of logs in an unmanufactured state is the very thing that- this policy is intended to bring about from start to finish.
There are other articles on the free list, such as talc, asbestos and gypsum. There are vast deposits of gypsum in New Brunswick and around the Bras d'Or lakes in Nova Scotia-the best, possibly, in America -and some in Ontario also. Now, a strange thing about this gypsum situation is that we shipped $221,000 worth of gypsum last year out of this country in the raw state, and we brought back $75,000 worth of-not gypsum-but of plaster of Paris, which is gypsum under another name. That tells vou the whole story. Then, if you read the 'Mineral Industry,' published in the United States-if the House requires I will send to the library and get a copy-you will find that they have great hopes of the gypsum industry in the United States, because the Payne tariff had reduced the duty, and they hoped to get gypsum from Canada. And they expected to be able to mine it cheap, because they could employ labour in these mining operations at $1.20 and $1.35 a day -that is what they wanted to pay our men for mining. I give these figures in the hope that the miners and labourers in Cobalt will read them.
Now. we come to asbestos, another item we are going to be given the privilege of sending free into the United States-a most marvellous thing, that the United States will allow our asbestos to go in free. As a matter of fact, statistics show that 85 per cent-80 per cent at the very least-of all the asbestos of the whole world is produced in Canada. The figures also show that 95 per cent .of the asbestos consumed in the United States is brought into that country from Canada, The Minister of Mines (Mr. Templeman) is in his seat, and I. will ask him to correct me if it is not so.


An hon. MEMBER.: He does not know.


Morley Currie: Then, again, I have to fall back on myself as an authority.


Mr. TEMPLEMAN.: What would you do with it?


Morley Currie: We have an absolute monopoly of asbestos-and the great thing has been accomplished of getting asbestos into the United States free. And the minister asks me: ' What would you do with it?' What would I do with it? I would try to manufacture it. Let me tell the minister exactly all about that: If you look through this treaty you will find that a long, lean, dark, hairy hand has manipulated every part of it. I wonder whose it is. Let me put the House onto it. You find its work in the pulp schedule, but not in that schedule alone. Sixty per cent of the asbestos that goes into the United

(States goes to be manufactured into paper. The Minister of Mines asks me what I would do. I would say to the Americans: Gentlemen, there is going to be an export duty on asbestos, and if people want asbestos paper to line their walls, or put under their floors to make their houses fireproof so that they can save one-half of one per cent on their insurance, they will have to come to Canada to get it, and if they want to tax themselves 50 per cent on the import, why, they will add just that much more to the cost; that would be the effect under the economic law which everybody knows and which even Adam Smith himself, strange to say, acknowledges.
And then there is the talc industry. The hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) is not in his place. He was asked what talcum was used for. He sits at the receipt of custom, he knows what goes in and what goes out, what everything is used for and what duty it ought to pay. He said that he understood that talcum was used for 'dressing for the person.' I do not need to turn up ' Hansard ' tci verify that-fortunately my memory is pretty good; I do not think the minister would deny what I have said, even if he were here. I find that they have talcum mines in the United States.' They have very large mines of this material in the state of New York, one in Michigan and Texas, and others in other states of the Union. And the funniest thing about these talcum mines in the United States is that they are all controlled by one corporation. What corporation? The American Paper Company. What do they use talc for? The Minister of Customs evidently did not know, for the talcum used to make what he sees advertised on the blind walls- ' Jones's Borated Talcum Powder '-is all imported from Italy; there is nothing on this continent that is fine enough and white enough for this purpose. That talcum is worth $60 a ton, ours $3.50.
The American Paper Company makes asbestos roofing paper. That great American paper trust figures there again. So in respect to all these minerals that are going to make us all happy, all these great industries in which our workingmen are allowed to make $1 a day and board themselves in mining, they are all really controlled by one great trust on the other side of the line. How much do you think Canada is going to get out of it? I agree with the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Poster), that this policy, in spite of anything that is said by the Prime Minister, is going to be a disastrous one. He tried to teach the chairman of the Conservation Commission his duty, and what a foolish and silly way he used in trying to teach him. He said his business of Chairman of the Committee on Conservation was political science, but that the things we discussed in this House pertained to political economy.
Now I have a recollection of reading in books that nobody has yet decided whether political economy is a science or not, and I would like the right hon. gentleman to explain, if he were present, the difference between political science and political economy.
Well, we all know that the true policy of this country is not to allow anything to go out of the country that is not manufactured, when it can be manufactured in this country, more especially those articles of which we possess an absolute monopoly. We have virtually a monopoly in fish, and still this government invites all the nations of the earth to come in here and fish, to deplete our fishing waters, and destroy this great article of commerce in order that we may worship at the altar of some free trade fetish. We have a monopoly of all the asbestos in the world, but it is going to be sent out of this country, and none of our young men are to be trained to grind that stuff up and manufacture it into paper. The same with gypsum, that also is to be taken away from us; so with our salt mines, they are to be closed down although we had hopes of a great industry from the by-products of salt, and all that will be left for us are the by-products of the salt. We are to be allowed to send away the raw materials for the benefit of the foreigner. The right hon. gentleman said that his ancestors came to this country and dispossessed the Indians of their lands, that the Indians were the true conservators of the land, and the settlers were those who noshed to use them. He drew the analogy to represent our conservation idea, as opposed to his pro-American idea. Now let us follow the analogy out. We are to be the Indians, and we are to be treated as savages and barbarians, and allow those gentlemen to the south to come in here and take away our raw materials, to take them over to the United States and manufacture them. If that is the policy, then I say what is the use of encouraging our young men to study engineering science in order that they may oversee the development of our industries? What is the use of McGill? Why is there a technical school in Nova Scotia? Why is there a technical school in New Brunswick? What is the use of Laval and McGill, with their hundreds and thousands of young men studying technical science in order to become engineers? Yes, and what is the use of our Toronto university, which has the greatest number of young men attending scientific classes of any school in the world, except one, that is the scientific institute in Glasgow? What is the ambition of these young men? They live in hope of achieving the scientific knowledge which will make them leaders in the industries of this country, enable them to superintend the

poor foreigners who come here to use the pick and shovel, building our railroads and developing our natural resources. I say if this policy is to be carried out, then shut the doors of all these scientific schools, throw the keys into the sea, and let all these young men go back to the woods and prepare to handle the pick and the shovel themselves. That is the way this policy impresses itself on my mind. There is nothing in it for this country, either for the present or for the future.
Now let us come to the province of Quebec. Great stress has been laid on the fact that the people of Quebec can export their hay. Well, now, in regard to hay, I have a distinct recollection of reading in some musty text book of English law that in the old country for many years no leases were made unless they contained a clause forbidding the tenant to take a pound of hay or a pound of straw off the land. Hon. gentlemen here who are members of the legal profession will tell you that the same thing obtains in the province of Ontario, where the tenant is not allowed to take a pound of straw or a pound of hay off the farm. Quebec has a great future before it as a farming country, it has a tremendous future before it as a manufacturing country. It has resources of cheap power much greater even than that of the great province of Ontario from which I come. It has a skilful class of people; no people in the world are so deft with their fingers, or so skilful in handling machinery, so quick to learn, so studious and faithful, as the men of Quebec. The forest from which they used to get their livelihood is Tetreating farther and farther back, and little villages are deserted for six months in the year while the fathers and sons leave their homes in order to work in the forest. Would it. not be the proper policy to encourage industries for these villages so the people would not have to leave their homes for employment.
And let me point out that another question arises here. I have shown that the men who organized confederation did it with a set purpose, which purpose is the very antithesis of the policy which underlies this reciprocity treaty. I say that so far as I am concerned, I have not lost faith yet in confederation. Men who have lived in Canada for forty years find that the constitution under which thej' are living is becoming more and more dear to them. There seems to be something in it which touches our hearts. It meets every varying condition of our life, it deals fairly and squarely with all classes. Whilst we may grumble once in a while, I do not think there is anybody who could draw up a better constitution than that which was drafted by the fathers of confederation. Under that constitution certain privileges were justly granted to the French Canad-Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
ians, their language and their religion, the same as certain other privileges w.ere granted to the people in my province, and to other provinces. Now, Sir, I assert that confederation is directly challenged by this reciprocity agreement, it is the first great challenge confederation has received since it was consummated.
I would ask these men from Quebec if there is analogy, if there is anything to show them what would happen to them if confederation is set aside. I say yes there is. At one time the state of Louisiana belonged to France. It was sold by Napoleon to the United States. It contained a population exactly of the same race and of the same people as the French Canadians. They spoke the same language, they observed the same doctrine and had the same rights and the same social customs, and they bore about the same proportion relatively to the population of the United States as the present population of Quebec would bear to the population of the United States if Canada were annexed. What has happened to Louisiana? Why, Sir, you can go on the streets of English Toronto and you will hear more French spoken than you will hear on the streets of New Orleans. What has happened to those parish churches built by the fathers ? The Yankees in the south used those old churches for what purpose? To search their registers so that if a man with French Canadian blood attempts to rise in politics or otherwise, if they can find from the register that there is a drop of black blood in an ancestor, ten or twelve generations back, the man is put into a Jim Crow car. Many of these French Canadians came from Demerara, Martinique and Dominica, and to-day every one with a French name who cannot show a clean bill of health is under suspicion as to nis colour and we all know how strong the colour feeling is in the south. It would be the same here. If a French Canadian who voted for this agreement, bartering away the rights of confederation for a bale of hay, asked me to vote for him and I were a French Canadian, I would say, if you think that I would vote for you after you have done that, you must think I am only fit to don a pair of long ears and eat a bale of hay.
Now we come to the great province of Ontario. That province can pretty .nearly take care of itself so far as any Americans are concerned. We are not afraid of them, we will welcome them, we will take them in on any deal from a game of poker up. Some of our best men from the province of Ontario are building their great railways. Jim Hill, who is from Ontario, taught them how to build railways, and he was the first man who taught the United States

managers how to manage railways, the first to teach them railway statistics. I could point to other eminent men in the United States from my province. This arrangement touches my province closely. The one thing about the treaty is that there is not a single word from end to end as regards the working men. That is a serious thing. We will take one class, the truck gardeners. Possibly there may be other gentlemen in the House who can deal with that better than I can, but having lived in the south of the United States for a while, and knowing the conditions, perhaps I may be pardoned if I enlarge a trifle on it. Many people have asked why the Ontario intensive farmers or truck gardeners are opposed to this arrangement. They say that our truck gardeners can grow stuff as cheaply as in the United States. On its face that seems a plausible argument, but let us examine it. The man in the south, in Florida, starts growing his truck in January. He does not have to pay any big money for a house for himself and family. I have ridden along in the Southern States and counted the pickaninnies through the chinks in the logs. He has not to buy expensive clothing, he has not to sit in the house for six months while the soil is covered with snow, and he has nqt to buy coal. He starts things growing on his truck farm early in January and he can get coloured help, men, women and children at fifty cents a day or less. They grow their truck in every month in the year, they get three or four crops a year, because there is no snow, and the conditions . for growth are ideal. You ask me, can a man in Ontario do that. The grower in the south does not have to pay for glass or hotbeds or steam, but the man in Ontario has, and the only profit which the Ontario man makes is the little profit off the first three or four weeks of the early crop; the rest of the time he is simply turning his crop over and perhaps paying expenses. You take away his little profit, his means of livelihood. I have had to make my livelihood and I know what touches the heart of every worker; and the man who has worked for hire, when he sees one of his fellows injured, says: That injury is to me also-and that is why Ontario is against this agreement. If it hurt only that one class of man, every worker in my province in his heart feels sore. He would say: Why should we injure these men and deprive them of their livelihood? It may be my turn next. We have not heard any promise here to-day that it would not be our turn next. We were told by the right hon. gentleman who leads this government that these ambassadors had not gone as far in the way of taking duties off manufactured goods as
he might have gone. That, I take it, is a plain intimation of what he may do if he had another chance at it. We have heard a great deal about transportation systems. We have two roads that can take care of themselves. Who is going to be hurt? Not the two big railway companies, because the two chief men have said that they will take care of themselves and no doubt they can, they have the money and resources, they are building lines to Duluth to-day, endeavouring to meet this crisis. It is the thousands of men employed on the railways of Canada who are now deriving a living from this traffic who will be hurt; they will be deprived of their labour, they will have to sell their houses for nothing and leave the country and go to the United States if this traffic goes to the United States, as it will, because, as I have shown, the moment a treaty of this kind comes into effect, 50 per cent of our traffic will go south of the St. Lawrence. It was so before, it will be so again. As I said, there is nothing in this for the working man, who sees his fellow touched all along; he is told this is going to make the prices higher for the farmer, but that means that living will cost more to him. He will not get more wages, because his wages are dependent not on protection or free trade to any large extent, but largely upon the situation of the labour market itself. I have said that the livelihood of these men will be taken away. The moment the labour of a man in Ontario is displaced by that of a man in the United States we initiate a period of hard times. If you take away a quarter of the work given in a factory in Canada and give it to the United States you may not hurt the man who owns the factory but you hurt one-quarter of the workmen, and they are the people who are the ultimate sufferers. That is the secret of the whole thing.
We hear a great deal about the cattle trade in Ontario. The hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) told the House with a great deal of chest beating, that he would warrant that the statistics of the ' Mail ' were very reliable, and that if one opened the ' Mail ' he would find that at any time in the last ten years the price of beef cattle was higher in Chicago than in Toronto.
That seemed strange to me, because when I wras a young newspaper man I used to write the market reports for the ' Mail,' and I knew a little about the business. However, I went to the library and I hunted up the files of the ' Mail,' and I took the prices at haphazard during May in these several years, and I have prepared a table, and that table shows among other things that when a profes-

sional man talks to an intelligent audience like this he ought to speak the truth, because I never heard, in all my life, so many absolutely improbable and untruthful-if that is a parliamentary expression-statements made with regard to any question as have been made about this treaty. To get these prices I took the steer weighing about 1,100 pounds, which would average about 70 per cent of the cattle. Of course, there may be a high priced bunch that would fetch a dollar a hundred weight more than the ordinary animals, for Christmas beef or something like that, but I took the prices for the standard animal in Toronto and Chicago, from the files of the 'Mail and Empire,' from 1901 to 1910, and this is the result:


TABLE OF PRICES, 1901 TO 1910.
[Stage Direction]
Toronto. Chicago.
May	4,	1901	$ 4.25	$ 3.95May	14,	1902	5.25	5.00May	13,	1903	4.90	4.06May	11,	1904	4.80	4.90May	9,	1905	5.70	4.50May	9,	1906	5.10	4.00May	17,	1907	5.12|	4.00May	15,	1908	5.50	5.00May	25,	1909	5.75	5.10May	13,	1910	7.00	6.25Now,	I will quote the	following	paragraph, which will show the kind of accurate reports you got in the ' Mail and Empire ' in these days, and I merely take this paragraph as a sample of several others of the same sort:
I quote from the 'Mail' of May 13, 1903:
Mr.  W. H.@: Dean stated to the 'Mail and Empire' that he had bought several carloads (of steers) in Buffalo at about twenty cents per cwt. less than he would have to pay for the same cattle here.
In the face of the wild general statements made by gentlemen on the other side, the best answer is to put these figures on record. Now, with reference to the price of barley before and after the McKinley tariff, I quote as excellent evidence the following letter from the secretary of agriculture for the province of Ontario, who has the facts and figures at his fingers' ends: Toronto, February 2, 1911.
Dear Major Currie,-I herewith beg to forward you the figures in regard to barley production for which you asked in conversation a few days ago.
The production in 1890 was 15,600,169 bushels from 701,326 acres, value $7,831,285. Then came a big drop in 1892 following the enaction of the McKinley Bill. The low mark was reached in 1893, when the production was 9,806,088 bushels from 467,315 acres, value $3,932,241. After that date, as farmers began to find new markets for their barley, the crop increased. In 1910 there were 19,103,107 bushels from 626,144 acres. While the figure*-of value are not officially available, it is safe to estimate it at about $13,261,864.


Morley Currie: Hoping this will be of some assistance, I am, yours very truly,


W. BERT ROODHOUSE,
[Stage Direction]
Secretary to the Dept.
This shows that the production of barley in Ontario, instead of decreasing, has increased by nearly four million bushels per year, and that the increased production is gathered from a less area under cultivation, which shows that the Ontario farmers are fertilizing the soil and improving its productive powers, and that the value of the crop per acre to-day is greater than it was before we lost the United States market for our barley. The facts with regard to our production of barley were set out very clearly by the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Middlebro), but I would emphasize that the barley quotations given in the United States newspapers are for what is known as malting barley, which grades No. 1, while out of the three or four million bushels of barley grown in the northwest and Ontario over 90 per cent of it does not grade up to No. 3, and there is the additional fact that if the barley is fed to hogs and cattle it is worth one dollar per bushel to-day under any condition of market, as compared with 85 cents paid in the United States for malting barley. Now, this treaty will be -a serious injury to -the horse trade in Ontario, which does a very large trade in .horses with the northwest. The best explanation of the injurious effect of the treaty op the horse business comes to me from a gentleman who is not exactly a dealer, but who (as did his father before him) has done more to improve horse breeding in the province of Ontario than any man I know of; I refer to Major Wm. Hendrie, of Hamilton, who, when he learned about this reciprocity treaty, sent me a note, in which he says:
Free entry of horses into our Northwest will put horse breeding back 20 years and will destroy that market for the Ontario farmer.
That is what Major Hendrie has to say about it and he has put the whole thing in a nutshell. A word about the effect of this treaty on our transportation interests and especially with reference to the carriage of freight on the Great Lakes. Anybody who knows anything about the Great Lakes traffic knows that 15 years ago our freight carriers on the Great Lakes consisted of a few wooden scows of the type of Dr. Drummond's ' Julie Plante.' To-day we have over 70 fine steel vessels engaged in that traffic, none of them less than 2,000 _ tons capacity, and probably 20 of them built in Great Lake ports, where employment is afforded every day in the year for 1,200 men. That traffic has grown and increased enormously, until now it is estimated that there are over 5,000 men employed on these boats, and from 12,000 to 15,000 men em-

ployed in the trade altogether, from stevedores to captains. The Minister of Customs pointed out that a certain amount of grain automatically found its way to Buffalo at any rate, and asked: ' What does that mean? It does not mean that there is going to be anything to hurt thi§ trade.' But I notice that while there is reciprocity in agricultural products in this treaty, there is not reciprocity in the coasting laws which are in force on the Great Lakes, and once the grain goes south of the line before it reaches Fort William, a Canadian vessel will not get a pound of that freight, but it will go to Chicago or Buffalo, and most of it will be ground into flour. It will act simply as a displacement, that is to say, you will put in so much Canadian wheat at one end and they will send out so much American wheat at the other end. The Americans will use our wheat simply to improve their grades, and they will benefit by it. They will benefit to the tune of exactly $30 a car on every carload of our grain that they take their way, because the only places where they grow No. 1 hard is in Dakota and in other states bordering on Canada, and as these states do not supply the whole market they have a monopoly, which enables them to raise the price above that of our No. 1 Northern in Manitoba. But No. 1 Manitoba wheat is superior to any other class of wheat in America, and the moment we give the Americans access to our market. No. 1 Manitoba wheat will come down to the price of ordinary American wheat, and will not grade higher. At the same time, the moment this treaty goes into force one-half the St. Lawrence trade will be cut off and we will not have one-half the ships built in our shipyards that we have now, and that is something which affects me very seriously. We all hoped to see the shipbuilding industry grow up on all our coasts, but this treaty will prove to be a great disaster to that industry. You might as well dump the elevators at Fort William and Port Arthur into Lake Superior, because our grain, instead of going to these ports, will find its competitive point at Duluth, .and the elevators there will get all the benefit of it, and if it can be shipped via Duluth without having to be bonded, the shippers are not going to ship it by Fort William or Port Arthur when they can ship it by a route 70 miles shorter. That is what is going to happen to that traffic.
The whole appeal to the people in support of this compact is that if it is put into force prices will go up. I think it is important for us to know what the prices of farm products in the two countries are before this treaty goes into force, and I quote the following prices on January 2, taken from the ' Mail,' of Toronto, and the ' Tribune,' of New York respectively:
Toronto. New York.
Brail, per ton	$24 00	$24 00Hay, No. 1	18 00	16 00No. 1 dairy butter, per lb.	0 30	0 22Eggs, new-laid, per doz.	0 50	0 35Ducks, per lb	0 17	0 10Chickens, per lb	0 10	0 121Turkevs, per lb	0 22	0 181Geese, per lb	0 14	0 14Apples, Spy, per bbl.. ..	4 50	3 50Onions, per bush	1 00	0 75Potatoes, per bag	0 90	0 73The hon. member for	Red	Deer (Mr. Clark), in the course of liis speech, stated, and it was one of the chief points he made, that in a protected country there were two prices, the export price and the home price, and he gave some quotations to show that iron was sold at a higher price in the United States than in Great Britain or elsewhere. That argument would have a great deal of force with an ordinary individual who did not understand the statistics of the iron trade. If the hon. gentleman had taken the trouble Jo. examine the statistics on the subject he would have found that free trade England, in nearly everything it ships abroad, has a home price and a foreign price. A few years ago a well known British iron firm was fined heavily for dumping into Canada. The ' Ironmonger,' the official organ of the iron trade in Great Britain, gives prices current for iron and steel in every issue under the heading of ' For Home Trade and for Export.' The following were the figures given in that paper for October 2, 1909, being prices current in the northeast district of En&l and:Home	Exportprices.	price.£ s.	d.	£ s. d.Crown bars (iron) per ton.	7 0	0	6 0 0Best, bars, per ton	7 7	6	.676Angles (iron) per ton	7 0	0	6 0 0Ties (iron)	5 15	0	6 10 0Steel-	Bars	6 2	6	5 10 0Angles	5 7	6	5 5 0Ties	5 17	6	5 15 0Channels	5 12	6	5 10 0Plates (ship)	G 0	0	5 17 0Plates (boiler)	7 0	0	6 7 6Rails	5 5	0	5 2 6
Thus we see that in free trade England the system of a home and a lower export price is practised openly. To use this fact as an argument in favour of protection or free trade is consummate folly. The reason for the difference in price is plain: it is all a matter of the cost of production. The Tariff Reform Commission in Great Britain took the trouble to inquire into this system, and they had before them as a witness a man in the iron trade, who worked out the whole question in the best way. and I do not think I can do better than put on ' Hansard ' what he said as to how they happen to have a home price and an
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export price: The phenomena of selling at a lower price for export than for home consumption is not due to any influence of home tariff. An English manufactu. >r of ship plates who was examined by ti. ' Tariff Commission, in fact the first witness told how this was worked in free trade England. He explained that if his works were running to their full capacity they could turn out ship plates at £5 per ton, while if the mills were running only half time the cost was £6 12s. He presented the following statement to the commission:
Working half time-
Weekly output 500 tons sold at £7
per ton	 £3,500
Less cost of production at £6 12s.	3,300
t	Profit	 £ 200
Working full time-
500 tons sold at £7 per ton at home. £3,500 500 tons dumped abroad at £4 10s. per ton	 2,250
£5,750
Less cost of producing 1,000 tons at £5 per ton	 5,000
£ 750
Profit full time dumping half product at a loss	 £ 750
The above figures will explain why factory managers when times get a little dull at home prefer to maintain the home price and sell at a loss abroad.
It is not a question of free trade of protection at all, but of economics and common sense, and if those gentlemen who talk so much free trade, would talk a little more common sense, they would not be such impracticable theorises.
We heard something to-day from the right hon. gentleman about the home trade. He said he realized the importance of that trade, and he indulged in a psychological calculation. He could not understand how it was that when, as free traders told him, every man consumed five bushels of wheat, every Canadian consumed six or seven bushels. But he forgot altogether that in growing these five bushels of wheat two or three were planted annually increasing our acreage -which accounted for the other two.
He also tried to make some calculation about the home trade. Well, I have taken the trouble to go into the home trade question. There are no statistics available to show the interprovincial trade. That trade does not cut any figure. It is a question of the ton exchange unit. If a ton is moved it is sold and bought, and the ton is the basis of the home trade just as it is the basis of the foreign trade. I find that every ton moved by rail or canal means a ton unit of exchange because every time it is moved it is bought and sold once. These distinctions of foreign tonnage moving Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
through the country, local or interprovincial do not, therefore, cut any figure in the tonnage business of the country at all as regards its trade generation. There is a table of statistics published by the Railway Department called canal statistics. It is rather venerable and moss grown and not . cry reliable, and we have to take these statistics as we do sausages. There are also several other publications, among them the Year-book. From these I compile the following statistics:
HOME VS. FOREIGN TRADE Statistics of Canal Tonnage.
Tons.
Canadian, 1899	 3,363,906
Canadian, 1909	 13,371,014
Canadian, up, 1909	 3,758,827
Tcfcal Canadian and foreign,	1899..	6,225,924
1909..	33,720,748
Grain via canal to Montreal, 1909.	652,742
Grain via C.P.R. and G.T.R. to Montreal, 1909	 285,262
Total grain to Montreal	 938,004
Out of 13,321,004 tons moved via canal only
938,004 tons were grain.
Railway statistics of home trade for 1909 show as follows:
Tons.
Grain moved	 6,837,506
Manufactured goods	 7,902,258
Total tons moved of freight.. .. 66,822,258
Total canal tons	moved	 13,321,044
Grand total tons moved home trade by railways and canals up and
down.. .:	 80,163,302
Foreign tonnage, ocean-
Outward	 4,001,678
Inward	 2,250,797
Grand total foreign tonnage.. ..	6,252,475
The home trade is thus 13i greater than the foreign trade. The total foreign trade of Canada, represented by the foreign tonnage in and out equals $286,003,050, or $45 per ton. Estimating the home tonnage at $30 per ton although it is just as valuable as the foreign tonnage, the home trade is worth two and one- half billions.
Home trade	$2,500,000,000
United States trade	 $285,265,717
Our domestic markets and trade are therefore, worth to us ten times as much as our trade with the United States.
The dollar in domestic trade is exchanged ten times oftener.
Why then are we so anxious to get another market when we have now a market worth ten times as much. Adam Smith said in his ' Wealth of Nations,' that a pound in domestic trade was turned over twenty-four times as often as a pound in foreign trade, so that it makes a profit that many times more employed at home than employed abroad. In his day of sailing ships domestic trade, he said, was twenty-four times as much exchanged as foreign trade, but with

the fast steamships and railways of to-day the comparison of the trade is reduced, as I have shown in this table, from 24 to 10. I have shown you clearly that the difference in favour of the home trade is as ten to one. That is to say for every dollar you put into the home trade, it turns over ten times faster than if put it into trade with the United States. Consequently it would be far better for us to increase and foster our trade at home than to seek foreign markets.	.
If I desired to follow this question longer, I could show you how every country in the world tried protection before Great Britain did. Adam Smith and the anti-protectionists wrote, towards the close of the Eighteenth century, and their doctrines were promulgated throughout all the countries of Europe, and free trade was ajdopted and tried by every other country long before Great Britain adopted it.
It was not until 1847, as I have already told you, that they adopted free trade, and they did not adopt it on many manufactures until years afterwards. They always wanted other countries to give them free trade; and as soon as they got free trade in those countries, they stole their markets and took away their business. They did that with Portugal, by what is known as the Methuen treaty. They offered Portugal free admission for its wine in consideration of free admission of British woollens and other goods. Portugal at that time, had a magnificent trade with hex colonies, almost as great as that of Great Britain. Great Britain seized this- trade, and not only that, but took away the accumulated gold of Portugal. She bought silks in India and China and sold them in Germany, where they had1 free trade and put the silk trade of Germany and France out of business, bringing immense profits, into England. They are pretty keen traders.
To-day you will find that every country in the world has repudiated free trade. Except Great Britain and Turkey. What is the use of any one trying to deny that land to make pretension of being a free trader? If you axe a free trader, you must be a cosmopolitan one, who believes that his own country should throw out lifelines to every other country in the world. But if you are a nationalist in tariff matters, you want to help your own country first. And, so far as this country is concerned, I believe it is better for us to be more nationalist. Did I desire to take up the time of the House, I could give quotations of figures for different countries of the world when they had free trade and when they had protection. I could give figures comparing wages in England with wages in the United States and Canada. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) said that
wages_ were as good or better in England than in any other country, except the United States. I grant you that the trade unions have made wages good in the old country. But the real test of a nation's greatness in industrial progress is the test of unemployment, and England has a greater percentage of unemployed than any other country in the world. There is only one other country that can rank with England in regard to pauperism, and that also is a free trade country-Turkey. When you findthatfrom twfenty-seven to thirty persons out of a thousand in England are receiving charity, in order that they may live and not starve, you find a condition of things which we here wish to avoid. We want to grow up and be left alone, and to develop our own resources along the old line of confederation. The best analogy that I have ever seen given of an industrial nation is a hive of bees. Protect the bees, give them a good hive, and they will look after themselves; they will thrive and lay up plenty of honey and will live through the winter and do their work perfectly. But allow some one to come along and knock a few slats off the hive and what happens? You have a disturbance, and in a few days after free trade has been established with other bees, you have a raid on that hive and the honey is stolen. And that is- what will occur in this case. We are getting along very nicely. We had our own walls up and the slats of our hive nailed down tight-. We were doing business along our own lines and were learning every day how to do it better. Why, we were learning more political economy in a few yeays than Adam Smith and all these other fellows eveT thought about. You could go to one end of our country and find there the hunter, the earliest economic producer. You could find! the hunter giving place to the herdsman, the herdsman giving place to the man who wanted to till the whole earth, the extensive farmer, and you could find the extensive farmer giving place to the intensive farmer. These oldi professors in the old country who wrote about political economy told about something like this that they thought had occurred three or four hundred years before. Why, we saw these things going on right under our own eyes. We learned, for instance, the lesson of land values as they never could learn it. We have seen western towns grow in a few years from little collections of shacks to great cities. We have learned banking in the same way. We have made the mistakes that led to busted banks, and we have seen them bust. We have learned about wages;- we have learned all these elements of political economy by hard practical experience. And when you come down to hard fact,
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there is not an educated farmer in Canada, but knows more about practical economy, its facts and its laws, than all the writers that ever came out of Manchester and all the soap box orators that ever came out of Hyde Park. Why, it makes me feel cold to hear these men who have come here preaching to us what we ought to do. It is much the same as if a mandarin from the paddy fields of his native China, were to come over here with his button cap, go into a harvest field in the Northwest, and tell the farmer how to run his reaper; or as if a school teacher who had been instructing a class in physics five hundred miles from the sea, were to go down to an ocean port, go aboard a ship like the Mauretania, and undertake to instruct the chief engineer how to run his engines. These men come over here and from organizations of every kind, and start shouting. In some places they talk on the street corners-and the policeman comes 'and gently moves them on. But after a while the good wages they get have an effect on them. They become contented, and when they do, they make the best citizens. But I am afraid that in the Northwest the climate has not agreed with some of them, and they have formed organizations there and are trying to show the good old farmer from Ontario how to manage their own affairs and how to be economical.
Let me say to the right lion, gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) who leads this House: After all, the one great thing on trial here, is not so much this trade -arrangement as the great compact made between the various portions of the country. Confederation itself is on trial. We have to decide whether we will vote confidence in the constitution that was -adopted so many years ago or whether we will vote want of confidence. For my part, I am going to vote confidence in it, and I think the bulk of the men of all parties in this country, whether Liberals or Conservatives, will hack up -that old historical party that has always stood for the Canadian idea; and, when the day comes to decide on this question -at the ballot box, you will find these men voting this government -out of office, and you will hear no more of this reciprocity for the next hundred and fifty years.
William Templeman: I trust my hon. friend from North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) will not deem it discourteous of me, if I do not attempt to follow him in his very interesting and very discursive address. That address contained many statements that would require correction, many that would require further illustration and explanation; but if I were to attempt to deal with the hon. gentleman's Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).
argument and -also to refer to the question with which I wish to deal. I should be compelled to go far beyond the limited time for which I -desire to ask the attention of the committee and. would need to take up as much time, as the hon. gentleman (Mr. Currie, Simcoe) himself, has occupied.
* My purpose in speaking on this question at this time is to direct the attention of the committee to the attitude of the province from which I come towards the trade arrangement that has been made between Canada and the United States. I also desire to point out what, in my opinion, will be the effect on the trade of British Columbia when that trade arrangement goes into force. Many of the speeches which have thus far been delivered by hon. gentlemen opposite have been confined almost exclusively to the denunciation of the agreement because its effect has been to remove customs taxation. They have argued that the effects of this agreement would impair the loyalty of Canadians, that it would cause a deflection of trade from east and west to north and south, and ultimately lead to the annexation of Canada with the United States. Now from the standpoint of the province of British Columbia, I can assure this Ho-use that the -loyalty of our people does not depend upon commercial relations with the United States. Long before confederation, and after confederation, there was in British Columbia a very extensive trade from north to south, there was no trade whatever from east to west. During the old days there was absolutely no trade east and west, but all the trade of British Columbia was transacted with the state of California. Yet the pioneers of that day did not waver in their allegiance to the British Crown, they were quite as loyal then as they are now. The argument that Canadian allegiance and Canadian aspirations of nationhood under the old flag are such fickle things that they must be kept in the straight and narrow path by the imposition of penalties in the shape of trade restrictions, does not seem to me to be one that will meet with the approval of this House, or of the public opinion of Canada. That argument, or something of a similar character, has been made to do duty in Canada for as long as I can remember. The argument has been used for the purpose of discrediting the Liberal party, for purely party political purposes, but always unsuccessfully, as I am sure it will be on the present occasion.
In confining my remarks therefore to the consideration of the question how this agreement will affect British Columbia, I do not ignore the vaster question of how it will affect all Canada. I simply prefer dealing with one phase of a many-sided question, a phase also which I think is of sufficient importance to merit a little special consideration at my hands. After a

careful study of the opinion of British Columbia, as expressed by the press of that province, by public meetings, by letters and telegrams received, I am as confident as one can be that the consensus of opinion in British Columbia is that this agreement is a good thing, that as a business proposition it will be advantageous to that province, that it will accelerate the development of British Columbia, and add very greatly and rapidly to its population. I wish to indicate the opinion of British Columbia in respect to the effect this trade agreement will have on the fruit industry. My hon. friend the member for Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) delivered a very long and interesting speech a few days ago, in which he dwelt altogether upon the effect of this agreement upon the fruit industry of British Columbia. He placed on ' Hansard ' a number of strong petitions from boards of trade, from members of fruit associations and others, and I believe the member for New Westminster (Mr. Taylor) also read several warm protests against the agreement. Now I have in my hand a large number of opinions from prominent men. 1 will not read them all, but I desire to give the names of those who sent them and the purport of what they say. I think it is important that the House should know that, even in the great fruit growing district of Okanagan, the opinion is not unanimously opposed to this agreement; I rather think that the majority even of the people of the Okanagan country will be found favourable to the ratification of the agreement. I will briefly state the results as I have them. I have in my hand a telegram from the Nelson Liberal Association.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


William Templeman: I do not know why a Liberal should not express an opinion upon the effect of this agreement as well as a Conservative. The Nelson Liberal Association state that they believe:
That the reciprocal arrangement means the greatest boon that Canada has received in years, and will result in great benefit to the Kootenay district, and we heartily endorse the act of the government.
Also a telegram from the Liberal executive of Ladysmith; another from the Liberal executive of the city of Nanaimo; another from the Grand Forks Liberal Association; and as Grand Forks is the home of the hon. member for Yale-Cariboo, I will give it in full;
The Grand Forks Liberals believe the welfare of the large majority of our people will be well served by the proposed changes in the tariff, and heartily endorse your course of action.
Grand Forks is the centre of a very prosperous fruit growing district. From Cran-brook, British Columbia, I have a telegram 152
from Mr. E. H. Small, president of the Liberal Association, which I will read:
At a meeting of the Cranbrook Liberal Association the following resolution was unanimously adopted, after receiving the full contents of the proposed trade agreement, be it resolved that we heartily endorse the same as being entirely in the best general interest of British Columbia and Canada, it undoubtedly now is admitted to be most beneficial to the lumbering, coal-mining and coke industries. While there have been some fears as to the effect upon our young and growing fruit industry, we see no occasion for alarm, but on the other hand gratification. The result will clearly be that our local market will be greatly increased by the stimulating of the above industries, and the demand will, as always heretofore, far exceed the supply. Further the new regulation will be a incentive to the better picking and packing of the home produce. Viewing the whole situation we feel that those engaged in the fruit industry have no well grounded fears as to the operation of the proposed treaty, but we might respectfully urge that the regulations governing fruit entering Canada be rigidly enforced.
E. H. SMALL, President.
Also a telegram from the Merritt, British Columbia Liberal Association; another from Victoria, another from the Vernon Liberal Association-Vernon is the heart' of the Okanagan district; another from Prince Rupert, and as Prince Rupert is the newest city we have in the west I will read it:
-Resolved that- this meeting of citizens at Prince Rupert, held under the auspices of the Prince Rupert Liberal Association, do hereby express our strong approval of the reciprocity or freer trade agreement so skilfully framed by the representatives of Canada, covering tlie policy approved by both political parties since confederation, the ratification of which we helieve will increase the material and financial welfare of all Canadians, while in no way interfering with Canada's autonomy or imperilling the imperial preference which Canada at the instance of the Liberal party has freely given to Great Britain.
There is also a resolution from the New Westminster and Chilliwack associations. I know that my hon. friend probably does not set much store by these, but all the same, even Liberal associations may represent public opinion in the province of British Columbia. I have one from Alberni, another one from the district of my hon. friend from New Westminster, and a letter which I have received from a fruit grower in Grand Forks. It reads:
Dear Sir,-I take this opportunity of placing before you my views in connection with the proposed new tariff and the British Columbia fruit growers. I helieve it would help us for the following reasons:
The new tariff would open up a larger and better market for the fruit growers of British Columbia, as the fruit growers of Washing-



ton get better prices for No. 1 apples than their neighbours to the north.
The fruit growers of Washington have never been competitors of British Columbia fruit growers in the Northwest markets with No. 1 fruit, but with the new tariff the British Columbia fruit growers can compete with them in their better markets at Chicago, New York, &c.
It has always been conceded that Kettle Valley fruit growers could get a better price for their No. 1 fruit if they had enough apples to interest the large buyers. Under The new tariff the larger buyers in the United States could operate in Washington and in southern British Columbia, and get a very large quantity of fruit operating in a very small radius, thus placing the Kettle Valley fruit on equal footing with the Washington.
Yours very sincerely,
thomas a. McIntyre.
Mr. McIntyre is a fruit grower who lives very near my hon. friend from Kootenay. As I know my hon. friends are prepared to denounce the opinions of Liberal executives in British Columbia I desire to call attention to a meeting of the board of trade in the great city of Vancouver. The board of trade of Vancouver met for the purpose of discussing the proposed tariff agreement, and for the distinct purpose of passing a resolution condemning it. The matter was submitted, a resolution was proposed, moved and seconded and discussed very fully. The board failed to agree and they adjourned for another meeting; they again discussed the question and the motion to condemn the agreement was voted down, thus showing that the board of trade, probably the most important commercial and non-political body in Vancouver, is in favour of the agreement as proposed. Now a peculiarity of the discussion at this board of trade was that the mover of the resolution condemning the treaty was an ex-president of the board of trade, and I want to read you a portion of his argument in moving that resolution:


Mr.  H. A.@: Stone, mover of tbe resolution, gave a resume of the principal features of tbe proposed agreement. He pointed out that on the majority of farm products the United States would forego a larger duty than Canada, and thus Canada would secure a greatly extended market for her products, as well as fish, lumber and coke. As regards pulpwood, it was entrusted to the provinces to protect their natural resources. The speaker thought the Dominion should have adopted a policy so important as the conservation of natural resources without leaving it to the provinces. The cancellation of the duty on fish, he said, would give Canada a commanding preference to the halibut trade, and the speaker did not think that the cancellation of the duty on apples would he very dangerous to fruit growers, while the opening of a large market could not hut prove beneficial. On the whole, the agreement on the face of it seemed beneficial.


William Templeman: I submit that that argument having been made in favour of the condemnation of the agreement will indicate to the committee that even those who voted for the resolution disapproving of the commercial agreement were not very enthusiastic in favour of the course they took. Mr. R. H. Alexander, a very prominent Conservative, in supporting the resolution said this;
Looked at simply as a bargain, Canada's commissioners succeeded iu this agreement.
Ex-Alderman Hepburn, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Keenleyside, Mr. A. G. McCand-less all spoke very strongly in favour of the agreement. Right in the middle of the constituency of my hon. friend for Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) a resolution was passed approving of the reciprocity arrangement now being negotiated.
That this meeting approve of the reciprocity treaty now being negotiated. That as fruit growers of Summerland we have no fear of American competition; and as Canadians we would gladly see an increased preference given to all British goods.


Martin Burrell: What association was that?


William Templeman: The Summerland Liberal Association. My hon. friend knows that association, and will agree that they are competent to express an opinion on fruit growing.
I have here an editorial in the Summer-land ' Review/ published by a Conservative, a supporter of the member for Yale-Cariboo, on February 21. The editorial is arguing in favour of the agreement and reads as follows:
And yet, our fruit men have had to put their fancy fruit on a demoralized market in competition with the 85 cent and $1.25 article shipped in from the States. Has the tariff been of one whit benefit? Could any reasonable tarifi be of any lasting benefit in view of the conditions above referred to?
Strictly high-class fruit, such as that produced iD the Okanagan, should be sold only on a strictly high-class market. Steinhardt and Kelly, of New York, the most extensive operators of high-class fruit perhaps in the world, buy the entire output of apples of the noted Hood River, and the price paid, we understand, is $2 per box to the Hood River Apple Growers' Union. Apples from the Hood River do not have to seek a market, for there is a high-class market built up, where the demand for this quality of fruit is in excess of the supply and buyers seek the fruit and pay spot cash on delivery.
Without a tariff either way our fancy fruit could find a home on the fancy market of the States at a fancy price, and the product of our orchard which is not up to the fancy standard could be put upon the slough market of the Northwest and Manitoba. There is, after all no sentiment in the matter of markets. The producer will sell in the market, where he can get the most for his pro-

duct at the least cost to him, and the consumer will buy where he can get the quality desired at the least cost to him.
The editorial goes on to argue that the duty on fruit will not do injury to the people of the Okanagan valley.
I have another authority who I am sure [DOT] my hon. friend will know, and who I am sure the hon. member for Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) will not deny is an authority, who has a right to speak for British Columbia fruit growers. The writer of this is the Hon. J. H. Turner, agent general for British Columbia, in London, for many years, and a man very well known in the industry in that province. As agent general, in London, it is part of his duty to further the interests of the fruit growers in that great market, and he has taken a personal and very intelligent interest in doing so. He concludes a letter published in the ' Standard of Empire,' as follows:
'My view of the situation is that the important large fruit growers of British Columbia have so far advanced and so control the market that they will not suffer materially from reciprocity, and as I think it is generally considered that the fruit grown in British Columbia is of better quality than that grown in the country to tho south, the farmers of the province may look for continued prosperity.'
I submit, Mr. Chairman, that my hon. friend from Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell), who made a very lengthy speech deploring - - ThatThis "government "haft inflicted a smashing blow, as he said, upon the fruit industry, will agree with me that some of these authorities are worthy of credence, and that they cannot be laughed away and sneered at. No one knows British Columbia better than the Hon. Mr. Turner, and no _ one knows better-I will not say the fruit growing industry, but I will say that no one knows better the marketing of the fruit grown in British Columbia than he does. Now, British Columbia is the largest importer of foodstuffs per capita of any province in the Dominion. I have not the statistics for the other provinces before me, but I can hazard the statement that British Columbia imports more food products per capita than any other province. The population of British Columbia is probably one-fifth the population of Ontario, and yet British Columbia imports a great deal more of foodstuffs than does the province of Ontario. In 1901 the population of British Columbia was 178,000, and the occupiers of farms who would be the producers of these days only numbered 5,900, or less than 4 per cent of the total population, and, therefore, it is not surprising that with such a large percentage of consumers and such a small percentage of producers there should be such a very large importation of food products. Of course, since the census of 1521
1901 was taken, the population of British Columbia has probably more than doubled, and it is not unfair to estimate that it is to-day 400,000 or more. We will assume that producers have increased in about the same ratio, and that there are to-day in British Columbia perhaps 10 per cent of the total population, or 40,000 people engaged in agriculture and horticulture, which, of course, is an assumption, but it is based upon the figures of the census of 1901. The Hon. Price EJlison, Minister of Finance for the province of British Columbia, stated the other day in his budget speech, that British Columbia last year produced of live stock, dairy products, meats, fruit, vegetables, &c., some $14,390,000 worth, and that during the same period the importations of similar products amounted to over $14,900,000 worth, or, in other words, British Columbia really imported more food products than she produced. Now, if this consumer pays the duty, then I submit that when thgse goods are imported from a foreign country, and when the consumers in British Columbia number 90 per cent of the total population they are paying duty to the extent of $2,500,000 upon the $14,900,000 imported.


Martin Burrell: Were not these food products imported largely from eastern Canada, and not from a foreign country?


William Templeman: The importations were very largely from the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.


Martin Burrell: And there was no duty on them.


William Templeman: The people of British Columbia paid $2,500,000 either in duty or in enhanced price caused by the duty on the importations into the province. 1 assume, of course, that the duty in the majority of instances enhanced the price to the consumer, even on the home product, and it is not unfair to say that if a ton of hay was brought in from Washington and paid $2 a ton duty, hay coming from Alberta would be sold at the same price in the Vancouver market, and, therefore, that the amount of money contributed by the consumers of British Columbia on imported food products was two and a half million dollars, and that, without any reference whatever to the enhanced price which the producers in British Columbia may have obtained for the $14,000,000 worth of products they produced. These figures are sufficient to show that the cost of living in British Columbia, due to this duty and the enhanced price in consequence of the duty, must be high, as we all know it is, and it may be and in all probability will be very materially reduced through the fact that this agreement will remove the duties on agricultural products.
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I desire to say that this agreement, on the other hand, will be of enormous benefit to the industries of British Columbia. We have extensive areas of timber lands, probably the most valuable in Canada, pr on the continent, and the lumbering industry is possibly the largest of our industries. For many years the lumbermen of that province have been petitioning this government, and I presume the previous government. to impose a duty upon rough lumber coming into Canada. The duty on rough lumber was removed some 18 or 20 years ago, and since that time rough lumber has entered Canada free of duty, and no government has ever seriously thought of r.e-imposing the duty so long as lumber was such an indispensable article in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan. This agreement proposes free trade in lumber, and it removes from the United States tariff the $1.25 per thousand on rough lumber going into the United States, and reduces the duty on shingles from 50 cents to 30 cents a thousand. The effect of this will be to give to the Canadian lumbermen the United States market. When this announcement was first made the mountain lumbermen in British Columbia misunderstood its full purport, and came out with a statement against it, but since then, having better information, they have withdrawn their first declaration with respect to the agreement and now approve of it. Let me quote briefly the authorities I have in support of the agreement from the standpoint of the British Columbia lumbermen, and it is from that standpoint alone that I am speaking. Mr. A. D. Macrae, the manager of the second largest sawmill in the world, which is located at New Westminster, makes the statement, and I think my hon. friend from New Westminster (Mr. Taylor) knows Mr. Macrae, and will say that he is a man of splendid .iudgment, whose opinion is of great value. Mr. A. D. Macrae, managing director of the Canadian Western Lumber Company, says:
The British Columbia lumbermen would benefit greatly by reductions made by the United States.
Senator King, of the province of New Brunswick, who is largely interested in the lumber trade of that province as well as the province of British Columbia, has expressed himself as strongly in favour of the agreement. Mr. J. O. Cameron, of the Westholme Lumber Company, who operates in the Island of Vancouver, with headquarters in the city of Victoria, has published a long letter explaining the agreement and strongly endorsing the same. In that letter he says:
The lumber operator who is not pleased at the prospect of having such a market as that of the United States thrown wide open to him must be afflioted with a perpetual 'grouch.'


William Templeman: Mr. Alexander McLaren, of the Barnett Lumber Mills, a very prominent lumberman of the city of Vancouver, with very extensive interests in British Columbia, says:
The agreement will place the lumber business of all Canada in a much better position than before. The removal of duties on ther products consumed in our lumber camps and at our mills, which are at all times very higli-priced in British Columbia, will have the effect of reducing the cost of production. We do not manufacture shingles, but the reduction of 20 cents a thousand in the American tariff will be a great gain to shingle manufacturers in British Columbia.
While I am uncertain to what extent it will enable British Columbia lumbermen to send their lumber into the American market, I have no doubt that the effect of the agreement on the lumbering industry of that province will be highly beneficial. As it was found impossible to put a duty on American lumber coming into Canada, for the benefit especially of western mills, the next best thing was to secure the free admission of British Columbia lumber into the United States.
That is the opinion of Mr. Alexander McLaren, a member of one of the largest lumbering firms operating both in the Ottawa valley and in the province of British Columbia.
It would be interesting, but I do not wish to weary the House with quotations, to turn to the American side and see the opposition which exists against this agreement both in Congress and in the city of Seattle, because of the disastrous consequences which are going to result from the importation into the United States of British Columbia lumber. The Hon. Wm. E. Humphrey, representative from Washington in the House of Representatives at Washington, spoke in very strong terms in opposition to the agreement, pointing out that it would be very injurious to the lumbermen of the state of Washington. In Seattle the other day there was a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce to consider this question and Seattle bankers, building owners, lumbermen and shingle manufacturers, individually and collectively, sent telegrams to the members of the Washington delegation at Washington urging them to do all in their power to prevent the passage of the measure now before the Senate. A telegram signed by sixteen prominent bank officials, said:
The banking and business interests of Seattle deem the reciprocity measure of especial menace to the Pacific coast industries. Lumber, coal, fish, fruit, shingles, wheat and the Alaska trade are seriously jeopardized, without any compensating features from Canada. The lumber trade in California, worth $20,000,000 a year to us, is jeopardized because our lumbermen must ship in protected American bottoms, as

against lesser wages on Canadian bottoms from Canada.
The Canadian wheat territory is the best in the world and will seriously compete with Washington.
Seattle's Alaska business will be divided with Vancouver and Prince Rupert.
The fish business will be diverted to the Fraser river, and. eastern British Columbia apples will affect Wenatchee, Yakima and Hcod river. British Columbia will harm our coal mines. We are simply turning over the resources of this country to Canada without recompense.
The British Columbia lumbermen, with the opening of the California market, can just as easily send lumber from Vancouver or New Westminster or Victoria as from a Puget Sound port. It is evident that the lumbermen will derive great benefit from the free admission of their lumber into the United States.
Another industry in which British Columbia will gain is that of coke. That province produces something like 250,000 tons of coke every year. Most of that is used in British Columbia, but some 60,000 or 70,000 tons have been shipped to the United States. There is a large market in the United States for coke, while we have unlimited quantities of good coking coal on Vancouver island, and in the Crow's Nest Pass. Many of the coke ovens have been idle, particularly those on Vancouver island, for several years. This agreement removes the American duty of 20 per cent, or about $1.20 a ton, and the producers of coke in British Columbia will certainly benefit to that extent, as there are a great many smelters south of the boundary line which will use coke from British Columbia. The coke producers, then, stand to benefit to a very large degree by the removal of the duty.
But probably the most important feature of this agreement to British Columbia is the removal of the duty on fish going into the United States. British Columbia is unquestionably the largest producer of fish in the Dominion of Canada. Last year it headed all the provinces with an output of some $10,000,000 worth. We have on the coasts of British Columbia immense banks of halibut, cod, herring and other fish. Consider for a moment the halibut industry. The banks of the halibut were exploited for the first time about ten years ago by the New England Fish Company, an American company which operates on the west coast of Vancouver island, in Queen Charlotte Sound, in Hecate Straits, Dixon Entrance, and on the west coast of Queen Charlotte islands. The catch was shipped to the Boston market from Vancouver in bond. This company has been taking out on the average 10,000,000 pounds of halibut per year. I believe that their outlay for transportation and express charges, the outfitting
of the steamers, and the paying of their crews, would approximate nearly $1,000,-
000.	They, at all events, pay the Canadian Pacific railway alone, over $300,000 a year for carrying their halibut to the Boston market. That Canada has gained because we gave to this American company the privilege of bonding their fish through Canada to the American markets. The duty of 1 cent per pound imposed by the United States on halibut is prohibitive. With that duty, no fish caught in Canadian bottoms can be sent to the United States. Numerous companies in British Columbia did try the experiment. The first to try it was a Victoria company, but it did not continue the business more than a few months, because it found there was no profit in it. But now what is the case? The success of the New England Company encouraged many other companies and to-day there are at least 200 boats going out of Puget Sound ports, fishing in precisely the same ground, that is, outside the three mile limit of the coast of British Columbia, capturing from 50,000,000 to 75,000,000 pounds of halibut, and shipping it all over the United States. That great industry should be in Canadian hands, and could be very easily placed there once this treaty goes into force. Our Canadian ports are from 200 to 300 miles nearer the fishing grounds than Seattle, and besides, the American fishing vessels have no right to fish inside the three mile limit, or use our harbours for any purpose; and it is very expensive for them to catch the halibut in the open sea and then go to Seattle to discharge their cargo. That entire industry can be monopolized by our Canadian fishermen, and scarcely a year will elapse after this agreement comes into force before the entire halibut fishing industry in British Columbia will be in Canadian hands. If the catch of the New England Fishing Company is anything near as valuable to the country as it is said to be, approximately something like $1,000,000, surely the addition of the catch now going to Seattle of five or six times as much, will be of incalculable benefit to British Columbia.
So I say that on all points, on the ground of the improvement in the coke industry, on the ground of the great improvement that will result in the lumber industry, and on the ground especially of the enormous benefit that will accrue to the fishing industry of British Columbia, this proposed arrangement should commend itself to the province. While my hon. friend from Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) fears there may be some disturbance in the fruit industry and while quite a number of other very respectable men are of the opinion that that industry will be injured, yet from the facts as we

know them, and from the evidence I have, I am bound to believe that their fears are groundless and that the results they anticipate will not follow.
I am sure that whatever may be the opinion in other parts of the Dominion, there is not one good sufficient reason why any representative from British Columbia should do anything else than vote for this resolution. I have purposely, because my voice is seriously impaired, cut my notes very short and put many of them aside But I feel very strongly that this agreement is one of the very best policies that has ever been proposed so far as the province of British Columbia is concerned. That province is not a manufacturing country but a producer of natural products almost exclusively. We are a very small fairming country, we are growing fruits to a considerable extent, we have very large lumber, fishing 'and mining industries, and surely, with the addition of a market of 90,000,000 people for all these products, the result cannot fail to be veTy advantageous to all those engaged in these industries. I desire to repeat that I think my hon. friend from New Westminster (Mr Taylor), who knows the fishing 'business much better than I do, will have great difficulty indeed in explaining his conduct to his electors if he does not support this agreement. My hon. friend from Victoria (Mr. Barnard) whose constituents stand to gain enormously by the carrying out of this agreement, will 'also have hard work to explain to the electors of that city, why he voted against it. But I have no reason to know that these hon. gentlemen are going to vote against it. I can understand the fears of my hon. friend from Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell) because he is right in the centre of a fruit growing district, and there is some apprehension there, that competition from the United States may lower prices and injure that business. Nevertheless, I think that all the representatives of British Columbia, should, for the reasons I have offered, give their support to the reciprocal agreement made by the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) with the United States.


Mr. GOODEVE.: With the consent of my hon. fripnd the Finance Minister, I would like to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.


William Stevens Fielding: Is there not still time for another speech? It is still quite early. If we are going to adjourn every night at 11 o'clock, we shall be here until October, and we hope for am earlier prorogation.


Arthur Samuel Goodeve: I understood from the whip that the speech of the hon. minister Mr. TEMPLEMAN.
(Mr. Templeman) would end the debate for to-night, amd for that reason I have not got my papers here. If my hon. friend insists, of course I shall go on.


William Stevens Fielding: If there was any understanding among the whips, I shall not insist.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at 10.58 p.m.

Wednesday, March 8, 1911.