1911-03-08

NEW DEPARTMENTAL BUILDING.

Mr. PUGSLEY.: Some time ago when the items of my department were under consideration, I promised to lay on the table of the House the plans for the new departmental block. I now ask leave to lay them on the table so that hon. gentlemen may have an opportunity of inspecting them. I would like it understood by unanimous consent that they are not to form part of the records of the House, but that when hon. gentlemen have had an opportunity of inspecting them they may be returned to us again.


Mr. TAYLOR (Leeds).: I thought that was a petition against reciprocity.


William Pugsley: No, if it were a petition relating to that subject it would be in favour of it judging from the size of it.


Mr. HAGGART (Lanark).: l^ould the hon. gentleman have the plans placed in one of the committee rooms, because I should judge from the size of them that we could not see them here very well.


William Pugsley: That is a very good suggestion, and I will ask one of the officers of the House to have that done.


Mr. REID (Grenville).: When are the tenders to be called for?


William Pugsley: Just as soon as the specifications can be printed. We are ready to call for tenders now.



TRENT VALLEY CANAL-FISH LADDERS.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day being called:
Mr. OWEN.: Mr. Speaker, some weeks ago I brought to the notice of the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) the fact that there were no fish ladders provided in the dams being erected on the Trent Valley canal between Hastings and

Trenton. He promised to look into the matter, and I would ask him with what success?


Mr. GRAHAM.: I have looked into the matter and have received a letter from the engineer in charge. I would not dare speak from memory but I shall get my hon. friend a copy of that letter.



QUESTIONS.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

*Mr. LANCASTER:: 1.	Referring to the item on page N-9, of the Auditor General's Report for the year ending March 31, 1909, as follows:-' Bristol, Edmund (special vote), Toronto, $2,500,' for how many days during that session of parliament was the said Bristol in attendance at Ottawa, as shown by affidavit required to be made by every member of parliament, and for which he received the said $2,500?
2.	Why was- a special vote requir'd in order that the said Bristol could obtain the said $2,500?
3.	What representations, if any, were made by the said Bristol in order to obtain the said $2,500, and in what country was he supposed to be during the said session of parliament?


Mr. FIELDING:: 1.	Mr. Bristol's statement furnished to the accountant of the House of Commons says he was present two days in April and during the month of May with the exception of one day, and that he was abroad during the rest of the session on account of health requirements and illness and by medical advice.
2.	There was no special vote to Mr. Bristol by name. There was a special vote to cover days lost by members who were absent through illness or on public business. Mr. Bristol's case came within the terms of that vote.
3.	We have no recollection of any particular representations being made in Mr. Bristol's case. Such representations usually come through the party' whips and probably did so in this case.


WHARF AT SEVEN ISLANDS.
Mr. MONK:: 1.	What is the total cost to date of the government wharf built at Seven Islands, on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrenec, P.Q. ?
2.	How far is the said wharf from the village of Seven Islands?
3.	What revenue has been derived from said wharf since its completion?
4.	Is the said wharf used by any one besides the North Shore Power and Navigation Company?
5.	Who ha4 been appointed as collector of revenue at the said wharf?
6.	Who had the contract for the construction of the said wharf?
7.	Who acted as government superintendent or clerk of works during the said construction?


Mr. PUGSLEY:: 1.	$101,442.89.
2.	7 miles.
3.	None.
4.	Apart from North Shore Power and Navigation Company, wharf is used by Holliday Brothers, and the General Navigation Company, carrying mails and passengers.
5.	None.
6.	The North Shore Power and Navigation Company.
7.	Mr. J. C. Tache, district manager at Chicoutimi.


FARMERS' BANK-REMOVAL OF WM. R.
*Mr. SHARPE (Ontario):: 1.	Was the removal of Wm, R. Travers, former manager of the Farmers' Bank, from Toronto to Kingston Penitentiary, made with the knowledge and consent of the government or any department thereof?
2.	Was the action of the sheriff in so removing the said Travers, before the prosecution had finished with his evidence in support of the charges then being investigated, taken with the knowledge and consent of the government or any department thereof?


Sir ALLEN AYLESWORTH.: The answer to both questions is, no.


QUEBEC BRIDGE.
Mr. LENNOX:: 1.	Have the plans and the specifications of the new Quebec bridge been submitted to the chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, pursuant to the agreement or statute? If so, with what result?
2.	Has the company heen consulted or referred to in any way about the bridge? If so, in what way and with what result?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	The plans and specifications of the bridge have not been submitted to the chief engineer of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, as the said bridge is not comprised in the eastern division of the Transcontinental railway, as covered by statute.
2.	The question of using the bridge has been discussed with the Grand Trunk Pacific, but it was considered premature to endeavour to make arrangements with the railway companies until the construction of the bridge was further advanced.


EXPENDITURE ON NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY.
Mr. LENNOX:: 1.	In a return brought down 27th February last, Sessional Papers No. 77, where the ex-

ptndiiture of the National Transcontinental railway to 31st December, 1910, is stated to have been $89,553,740.32, is this correct, or should the amount toe $93,920,956.16?
2.	In the order of the House requiring an estimate of the amount required to complete and fully equip, does the sum mentioned in the return, $55,785,959.68, include equipment or merely cover construction?
3.	Is any portion of the construction of the Quebec bridge included in the return?
4.	In the figures given, or in the corrected figures, is there anything included for interest during construction, or the seven years' period after the road is handed over to the company ? If so, for how many years, at what rate and what amount?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	$89,553,740.32 was the amount of money paid out to December 31, 1910, and $93j-920,956.16 was the cost to December 31, 1910.
2.	$55,785,909.68 is the estimated amount required to complete the road. The equipment, with rolling stock, is to be furnished by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. See clause 22 of agreement, schedule to National Transcontinental Railway Act, cap. 71, 3 Ed. VII.
3.	No.
4.	No.


IMPORTS OF MICA.
Mr. EDWARDS:: 1.	How many pounds of mica were imported into Canada in the years 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1910, respectively, and from what countries ?
2.	How many pounds of mica were exported from Canada to the United States in each of the years named?
3.	How much mica was exported from Ontario and Quebec, respectively, in the years named?


Mr. PATERSON:: 1.	The department has no record of the quantity of mica imported into Canada, as it is not separately enumerated in the classification of irpports.
2.	The quantity of mica (Canadian produce) exported from Canada to the United States during the fiscal years 1905 to 1910, inclusive, was as follows:
Pounds.
1905		 555,013
1906		 1,038,465
1907	(9	months)	 1,148,613
1908..		 634,570
1909		 338,824
1910		 829,340
3.	The quantity of mica (Canadian produce) exported from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, respectively, during the fiscal years from 1905 to 1910, inclusive, was as follows:


Mr. LENNOX.: Ontario.	Quebec.
	Pounds.	Pounds.
1905			691,654
1906			876,823
1907 (9 months)..	.. .. 284,625	1,040,807
1908			612,782
1909			377,922
1910		.. .. 175,507	676,301


THE CORONATION CONTINGENT.
Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe):: 1.	Who exercises the right to select officers to take part in the coronation contingent?
2.	Has the officer commanding regiments the sole right to say what officer shall be chosen ?
3.	Has the officer commanding a district the right to say what officers shall be chosen in his district?
4.	Have any non-military organizations or civilians interceded on behalf of officers seeking to be chosen for this service? If -o, what are the names and particulars?


Sir FREDERICK BORDEN:: 1.	His Excellency the Governor General in council.
2.	No.
3.	No.
4.	No, so far as the official records show.


MR. W. O. CREIGHTON.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. STANFIELD
1.	What position under the government did W. O. Creighton, of Pictou county, Nova Scotia, hold in the year 1910?
2.	For what length of time was he in the service of the government and between what dates ?
3.	What was his salary, how much was he paid for salary, and how much was he paid for expenses?
4.	Where did he carry on the work for
which he was appointed?	.
5.	Did he succeed in bringing any immigrants to Nova Scotia, or other parts of Canada?	.
6.	How many immigrants did he induce to settle in this country, from what places did they come, in what places did they settle, and to what classes, in regard to occupation, do they belong?
7.	What was their several occupations in Gieat Britain?
Mr. OLIVER:: 1.	Farmer delegate to Great Britain.
2.	From January 20 to April 15, 1910.
3.	Salary $100 per month. Was paid $300 for salary and $350.87 for expenses.
4.	In England.	'
5.	The government does not know. He was expected to interest people in Canada so that they would come, but was not expected to bring them.
6.	See answer to No. 5.
7.	See answer to No. 5.


PIG IRON IMPORTS.
Mr. SPROULE:: How mcuh pig iron used in the Steel Rail Mills, Sault Ste. Marie, was supplied from

sources outside of Canada for the year 1910, and how much was supplied by Canada for same year?


Mr. PATERSON.: 16,675 tons imported pig iron, valued at $263,884, were entered for consumption at Sault Ste. Marie during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1910.
The Department of Customs has no information as to how much of this pig iron was used in the Steel Rail Mills at Sault Ste. Marie, nor how much was supplied by Canada for the same year.


GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS BUILT PREVIOUS TO CONFEDERATION.
Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What part or parts of the Prince Edward Island railway, if any, did that province cause to he built previous to confederation?
2.	How many miles of said railway did the province build and pay for?
3.	In what years wras such construction carried on by the province?
1.	How much did the province expend on such work ?
5.	Was such expenditure paid to said province? If so, how much, when, and in what manner P
6.	Was such expenditure charged to the province on the arrangement of debt account with Canada? If so, in what year or years was it arranged and settled?
7.	Did any other province in Canada except the maritime provinces construct railways at their own expense, and transfer them to Canada without compensation? If so, what province or provinces, what railway or railways, and at what cost to such province or provinces, respectively ?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	From Charlottetown to Royalty Junction; from Royalty Junction to Summer-side; from Summerside to Tignish; from Tignish to Mount Stewart; from Stewart to Souris; from Mount Stewart to Georgetown.
2.	198i miles.
3.	From 1871 to 1875.
4.	$3,114,735.11.
5 and 6. Assumed as provincial (Prince Edward Island) debt account, 1874, 1875 and 1876.
7. No.


Mr. FRASER:: 1.	What part or parts of the Intercolonial railway, if any, did the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, respectively, cause to be built previous to confederation?
2.	How many miles of the said railway did each of said provinces build and pay for?
3.	In what years was such construction carried on in each of said provinces?
4.	How much did each province expend on such work ?
5.	Was such expenditure paid to said provinces, or either of them? If so, how much when, and in what manner?
6.	Was such expenditure charged against each province on settlement of the debt account between Canada and those provinces on entering confederation?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1. In Nova Scotia-
Miles.
Halifax to Truro	61
Windsor Branch	32
Truro to Pictou	52
Total	145
In New Brunswick-
Miles.
Moncton to Shediac	19
St. John to Rothesay	 9
Rothesay to Hampton	13
Hampton to Sussex	22
Sussex to Moncton	45
Total	  108
2. Answered by No. 1.
3.	In province of Nova Scotia, 1854 to 1858. In province of New Brunswick, 1856 to 1860.
4.	Province of Nova Scotia, $6,124,241.15. Province of New Brunswick, $4,642,484.39.
5.	Assumed as provincial debt account, years 1874, 1875, 1876.
6.	Answered by No. 5.


JAMES BAY FISHING LEASE.
Mr. THOBURN:: 1.	Is the lease of the exclusive right of commercial fishing in James bay granted to Archibald McNee, of Windsor, some years ago, still in existence? If so, to who was it assigned?
2.	What is the duration of said lease, and what is the annual rental?
3.	Have the rentals been paid regularly? If not, what are the arrears still due?
4.	Have any operations been cancelled under the lease? If not, is it the intention of the government to cancel it?


Mr. BRODEUR:: 1.	Yes. It is still in the name of Mr. McNee.
2.	Twenty-one years, $10 per annum.
3.	Yes, up to and for the year 1909. No further payments were accepted.
4.	No. Yes.



WAYS AND MEANS-RECIPROCAL TRADE WITH UNITED STATES.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. FIELDING moved that the House go into Committee of Ways and Means.
["I am quite willing to discuss that, but I think it is of small importance what it was. In 1866 the ' Empire ' tells us that the Canadian government sent in January, M. M. Howland. Henry, Galt", "and Smith to Washington to negotiate such a treaty as we now have, but they were not successful. In 1868, the year after confederation, a standing offer was inserted in our customs tariff of a reciprocity arrangement, to be proclaimed by order in council on the United States concurring. I ask what mandate had the Conservative party then to make that standing offer in their customs tariff. That offer had not been discussed at any general election.\nIn 1869 Sir George Cartier and Mr. Mac-dougall, two members of the Conservative government, being in England, urged the British government to try to obtain a treaty of reciprocity, and in June of that same year Sir John Rose, the Conservative Minister of Finance, was sent to Washington, and he met with no success. Was Sir John Rose sent single-handed to Washington to negotiate such a treaty-was he a less ' ordinary ' man than my two hon. friends of the present cabinet? Was he a ' simple-minded ' and only very ' ordinary ' man? Was he a disloyal man? And were Cartier and Maedougail, the two members of the government, who. in England, tried to get the British Government to make such a treaty, disloyal to Canada or to Britain and Britain's flag? And had Cartier and Mac-dougall any mandate from the Canadian people when, in 1869, they sent Sir John Rose to Washington? In 1871 Sir John Macdonald, the old hero of the Conservative party, when negotiating the Washington treaty, offered to exchange the rights of the fisheries for reciprocal trade arrangement, hut the American commissioners refused to negotiate. That was after a general election, but the people had not discussed the question on the hustings. In 1873, a further offer was made by a Conservative government. On this occasion boards of trade in Canada and in the United States had passed resolutions favouring a reciprocity, agreement, and then the Conservative government passed a resolution in favour of such an agreement. and the ' Empire ' refers us to the Canadian Sessional Papers, No. 40, of 1873 to prove what it states. In 1874 a Liberal government under Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, sent Hon. George Brown to Washington to negotiate such a treaty. He succeeded. The American Congress passed the treaty, but the American Senate refused to ratify it. In 1879, in adopting the National Policy, the. Conservative government of Canada placed, for a second time, upon the statute-books of Canada a standing offer of reciprocity with the United States in natural products whenever the United States declared for a similar reciprocity. Now, what were the conditions of that time? There had been a general election in 1878. And what was discussed at that election, and what did the Conservatives under Sir John A. Macdonald lay down as Mr. MILLER.\ntheir platform to be carried out if returned to power? What was discussed in that election was not a proposal to reduce the tariff, but to increase the tariff. But Sir John Macdonald prior to the election discussed the proposal to increase the tariff, and the first thing he did, after the election without a mandate from the people, -was to make a standing offer to the United States to reduce our tariff, in an endeavour to make such an arrangement as we are making to-day. Was he disloyal in 1871, when he made, or in 1878, when he repeated, his offer? In 1888, when the fisheries dispute was under discussion in Washington, Sir Charles Tupper, the old Cumberland war horse, another hero of the Conservative party, desired to settle this matter on the basis of a reciprocal trade treaty. But the American plenipotentiaries refused. Had Sir Charles Tupper anv mandate from the Canadian people in 1888 for such an arrangement? Had this matter been discussed in the election campaign? Not at all. Well, was Sir Charles Tupper disloyal, when, in 1888, he proposed such an arrangement as this? I have never heard it so stated. Then, in 1891, the tenth offer was made, this time by Sir John Macdonald again. He again offered to make a reciprocity arrangement, and representatives were sent in that year to Washington, and went again in the following year, 1892. The hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) was one of those who went to Washington in 1891. If hon. members will refer to ' Hansard ' of 1891, page 59, they will read the remarks of the hon. member as he tells of the desire of the Conservative government of that year to make a reciprocity treaty with the United States. And if they will turn to ' Hansard ' of 1892, pages 3301-2. they will read the account that was given by the hon. member for North Toronto of his journey to Washington, of what he sought to accomplish there, and they will read this statement of the hon. member, that he regretted that they were not able to make such an arrangement. The hon. member for North Toronto, who, as Finance Minister of Canada in 1891, had endeavoured to make a reciprocity treaty with the United States, and who in 1892 revretted that he had not been able to make such a treaty, in 1911 wTote an article to the ' Canadian Century.' That article appears in the issue of 18th February last, and in it the hon. member states that the present proposal will be the enemv of interprovincial trade. Now, I ask this question: If this arrangement will be the enemy of interorovineial trade in 1911, would it not much more have been the enemy of interprovincial trade in 1891? In 1911 we have railway communication, we have river and canal communication, between the several provinces of Canada that we had not in 1891. We have facilities for\n\ncarrying on interprovincial trade to-day that we had not then, and I repeat that if there is any danger of this arrangement being the enemy of interprovincial trade in this present year, it would have been twenty times more the enemy of interprovincial trade twenty years ago, when the hon. member for North Toronto endeavoured to make such an arrangement.\nThe argument has been made in this House before that the Conservative party from 1866 to 1891, and up to 1894, were willing to make such an arrangement with the people of the United States. That argument has been met with the statement that conditions have changed in Canada since 1891, but only in this way-every change in conditions indicates that, if such an arrangement as this would have been profitable to Canada in 1891, it will be much more profiable to Canada in 1911. There is not one single argument based upon the fear of annexation or upon the plea of loyalty that will apply to-day that would not have equally applied in 1891. There is not a single economic argument that could be applied as against this arrangement that would not have applied with even greater force to the proposed arrangement in 1891. It is not enough for my hon. friends who oppose the agreement to say that conditions have changed since 1891; they must show what are the changes and must show that these changes make an arrangement injurious to Canada in 1911 that would have been beneficial to Canada in 1891. They have not even attempted to do that, and they cannot possibly do it. And, let me say in passing, I am very glad indeed that conditions are as good in Canada as they are. While we are willing to trade with the people of the United States to-day, and to enter into this proposed agreement, I am very glad, as a Canadian citizen, to know that we do not have to go to the people of the United States, and do not go to the people of the United States, as suppliants; we do not go as a matter of necessity; we do not go asking for alms or charity; but we go to them as man to man. We meet them as they have come to us, business man to business man, to make, if we can, a trade arrangement that will be to our mutual advantage. If we cannot make such an arrangement with our neighbours, if the United States refuse to make such a bargain with us, then we will not feel ourselves crippled, or feel ourselves paralyzed. We will say, we might have got along better with this agreement, but still we can go on and develop our country and our interests; even without such an agreement we can make this a great nation.\nNow, Sir, I (call your attention to the manner in which the member for North Toronto complains of the ill-treatment\nwhich we have received from time to time from the people of the United States; and this is not only the argument of one gentleman, it is the argument of every gentleman who has followed him in this debate on the other side of the House. The hon. gentleman says in his speech:\nIt was the conquest of Canada aimed at in 1775; it was the conquest of Canada aimed at in the years around 1812, and since; it was the conquest of Canada and its incorporation with- the United States aimed at by the methods I have spoken of in respect to our trade and fisheries; and the dominant spirit in the United States that is pushing reciprocity through to a successful enactment is not economic, it is political. It is still the conquest of Canada. But it is conquest of Canada by peaceful means and large gifts.\nThe hon. gentleman says again:\nIn all this trouble and toil, when was the hand of the United States extended to us with helpful aid? Not in one single case.\nSir, in answer to that question of the hon. member for North Toronto I ask him another question; I say, when was the occasion, when was the time, *'that the people of Canada asked the United States to extend to them a helpful hand? I say not in one single case; and I am glad that the time never was when Canadians were so lacking in spirit, when Canadians were so lacking in confidence in their own ability, so lacking in confidence in their own country, that they went to the United States as beggars and asked them to hold out to us a helpful hand. Sir, the United States, through all these years, has been busy, as it had a right to be busy, in developing their own country, as we have been busy in developing our country. What is the good of any man to-day rising in this House to complain of the ill-treatment that he fancies we have received from the United States in 1775? The people who endeavoured the conquest of Canada in 1775 are dead to-day, they got their answer when they endeavoured to conquer Canada in 1775. The people who endeavoured to make trouble for us in 1812 got their reply, and they are dead. Why then endeavour to reopen old sores? Why then endeavour to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children. There are men who never forget an injury, there are men who never overlook a mistake, but these are not the best men. The member for North Toronto endeavours to incite and provoke the feeling of the people of Canada against the people of the United States by a comparison of trade, and he says:\nAnd there was, in the third place, the wide spread dissatisfaction with the condition of things imposed upon us by the United States of America in accepting a $104,000,000 free list", "from us and giving us but a $33,000,000 one in return, in buying from us a paltry $10,000,000 worth and of selling to us $223,000,000 worth; of meeting a Canadian tariff of 26 per cent by a United States tariff of 41J per cent. There was a feeling in the country that that was not a neighbourly thing for them to do, not fair business treatment, not what we would expect from a great and rich and powerful neighbour. These were the three things that were mooted as grievances in the country.\nSir, we make our tariff and the United States makes its tariff. We impose upon our people a burden of 26 per cent, the government of the United States impose upon its people a burden of 41 i per cent, and that is what the people of the United States are complaining of to-day, that they have been carrying a burden too great for them to bear. That is what has put the Republican party out of power in the United States, and brought into power the Democratic party. Sir, if the United States, through all these long years, have been patient enough to bear the burden of 411 per cent, while our people were only bearing a burden of 26 per cent, that is a matter for the people of the United States to regulate, as they are doing it to-day. It is perfectly true that we sold to the United States only $100,000,000 worth of goods per annum, while they have been selling us goods to the amount of $223,000,000 per annum. Is there any fair and just cause for complaint in that? When you analyse the figures what do they mean? They mean simply this, that every Canadian citizen, upon an average, sold' Canadian goods to the United States to the amount of $12.50 apiece, but that every American sold only $2.48 worth of American goods to the people of Canada; in other words, that the Canadians sold between five and six times as much Canadian goods j>er head to the people of the United States as they had sold to us.\nBut then we are met with this argument: Mr. Taft seeks relief from a nasty position, Mr. Taft is in a rather bad predicament in the United States. Why relieve Mr. Taft? Why should we, the Canadian people, relieve Mr. Taft from the nasty position in which he finds himself? They would not trade with us when we wanted to trade with them, now let us refuse to negotiate with them. Sir, I say that that is nonsense, I say that that is the talk of children, not the talk of business men. We are used to hearing a child, with frowning eye and with pouting lip, say: You would not play with me, now I will not play with you. But that is not the talk of a business man. Suppose^ desire to buy my neighbour's farm. I feel that if I bought that farm from my neighbour, I could use it to advantage. I go to the old man and make him a good Mr. MILLER.\noffer for his farm, he refuses t-o sell. I go to him a second, third, fourth and fifth time, and he refuses to sell. The old man passes away, his son inherits the farm. I go to him and make him an offer the sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth time, and be refuses those offers. I then say, I will not go back to that man again. I would like to have his farm, it would be profitable for me to have it, but he and his father before him, have refused nine offers, ten offers, I will not go back to him. But that man passes away, and a grandson inherits the farm. Then he comes to me and he says. Now I have not the same ideas that my father had and my grandfather had, I have not the same intentions or inclinations, I am willing to sell to you my farm, I would like to sell it to you. Now if I am a fool, I will say to that man, No, I tried to trade with your father, I tried to do business with your grandfather, and they refused to do business with me, now I will not do any business with you. But if I am a wise man, I will not talk like that, I will say: Now I am glad that conditions have changed, I am glad this young man looks upon the matter differently from what his father and grandfather did. If I can buy this farm now at a fair price, if I can make a reasonable bargain, I have now a good opportunity, and I will do so. That is the manner I think that we as business men should adopt in regard to this matter. We should not be children, we should approach the people.of the United States as we aTe doing, as man to man, in a business manner; and realizing that if we are to make a bargain with the people of the United States, it must be a bargain that will be an advantage to them as well as to us. No one can make a trade that will be a lasting arrangement unless it contains mutual advantage. This is true of school boys when they swap their jack knives; each one must hope to get an advantage from the trade or he would not make the trade, and as it is true of school boys swapping their jack knives, so it is equally true of nations when they undertake to make international treaties. Now, I have reached a point in my speech where I can conveniently step and as it as after eleven o'clock I beg to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.\nProgress reported.\nMr. FIELDING moved the adjournment of the House. He said: Before the adjournment I desire to say that there was an understanding that on Friday my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) would make a statement upon matters connected with his department. He de-\n\n. sires to vary that now and I therefore beg to say that on Friday my-hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) will make a statement concerning his department and the Minister of the Interior will postpone his statement until Monday. I would be very glad if hon. gentlemen who are interested in those two departments would be kind enough to observe the change."]
Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).: Mr. Speaker, before you leave the Chair, I desire to make a few remarks on the proposed motion in respect to the subject that has engaged the attention of the House for the last two weeks. I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech of the Prime Minister yesterday but I trust he will pardon me for saying that in the absence of any convincing argument contained in that speech I am more absolutely opposed to this treaty after hearing it than I was before. The right hon. gentleman is sometimes fond of epithets. He indulged in them yesterday to a very con-

siderable extent. The protests of the market gardeners and fruit growers, the protests of the men engaged in the packing and milling industries in this country, even the earnest views of many men in this country who have as good claim to the title of Liberal as he has, are described by him by no better term than the howling of wolves. I would like to say to the right hon. gentleman that wolves sometimes stand savagely at bay. I observe in the Montreal ' Gazette ' of to-day that another gentleman who had not before given his opinions very fully, Sir William Van Horne, has now written a letter indicating his views upon this subject. I suppose that the opinions of Sir William Van Horne as a man of great business experience and knowledge of the conditions of this country, a man who, as he says, has not taken any part in politics, ought to be entitled to some respect. I do not know whether the right hon. gentleman would regard him as an addition to the pack of wolves which he described yesterday, but I do want at the very outset to read one or two paragraphs from that letter which has been made public only to-day, to the end that we may have recorded in Hansard another expression of opinion from one of the leading business men of this country. Sir William Van Horne says:
To my amazement and distress and shame I now see the magnificent work of a generation traded away for a vague idea or a childish sentiment-the splendid commercial and industrial position we have reached and our proud independence bartered for a few wormy plums, and I feel it my duty to join in the protest which is heard from every section of the country.
To-day we are in an enviable position, with a commerce three times as great per capita as that of the United States, and without a cloud in our sky save the one which has just now been raised. Does not common sense tell us to stay where we are and to let well enough alone?
I suppose the answer of the right hon. gentleman to that protest would be some fatuous reference such as he made yesterday to conditions as they are in China. I had not been aware that this country, according to the claims of hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House had been governed during the past fifteen years by Chinese traditions and yet that is the direct logical result of the argument the right hon. gentleman made yesterday. I shall read also the concluding paragraph of the letter:
Let us not run away with the idea that if we make a mistake in this matter of reciprocity we shall be able to correct it at pleasure. We may not be permitted to do it. It should be remembered that there are such things as vested interests with nations as with individuals and corporations, and that Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).
tho vested interests of nations, real or alleged, are terribly binding upon the weaker party. When Mr. Hill has extended his seven or eight lines of railway into the Canadian northwest lines which have for some years been resting their noses on the boundary line waiting for reciprocity, or something of the kind, to warrant them in crossing-and when other American channels of trade have been established, affecting our territory, and when the American millers have tasted our wheat and the American manufacturers have got hold of our markets, is it probable that we shall be permitted to recede? Not a bit of it. We are making a bed to lie in and die in.
A very considerable part of the time of my right hon. friend yesterday was devoted to resuscitating very old speeches of himself and others of twenty years ago. Has the right hon. gentleman been asleep? Must we in future dub him Sir Wilfrid Rip Van Winkle. This is not 1854, this is not 18G6, this is not 1879, this is not 1897. Will the Prime Minister wake up and remember that this is 1911? The question is one of national gravity and the country is not very seriously concerned as to whether the member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) has a good memory or a bad memory. About twenty or twenty-five minutes *were devoted to that subject yesterday. The right hon. gentleman indulged in an occasional sneer in the course of his remarks; and he sneered at the business ability of the hon. member for North Toronto. It is not very customary in this House to go into criticisms of the private affairs of any hon, member; and I would like to say to the Prime Minister that if any man is unfortunate enough to make mistakes in respect to his own private affairs he bears the penalty, but if a man at the head of affairs in this country makes mistakes, he does it at the expense of the country and not at his own expense.
To come down to a question of reasonable business statement, where do we find the Prime Minister in his remarks of yesterday? Why, Sir, the Prime Minister of this country used as an argument in favour of his reciprocity proposals these statements-I do not know whether he intended them to be serious or jocular.
One thing is certain, one thing cannot be denied, that the relations which have existed between the two countries for the last fifty years, especially for the last twenty years, still more for the last twelve years, and which almost came to a crisis a year ago-those relations have been a blot upon the civilization of the two countries.
Mark what follows:
They have amounted practically to a proclamation of non-commercial intercourse between the two countries, so far as legislation could bring that about.
Later on, in the following column of * Hansard/ he reiterates the same state-

ment that there has been substantially a policy of non-intercourse between Canada and the United States especially during the past ten years. I take the last ten years and I find that during that period our imports from the United States amounted to $1,555,000,000; our exports to the United States during the same period amounted to $763,000,000, and the Prime Minister of Canada, making I suppose, a serious statement, tells us as an argument in favour of his reciprocity proposals that there has been practically no commercial intercourse between Canada and the United States during that period. Did the Prime Minister intend to be taken seriously? What does he say about the conditions between this country and Great Britain? Has there been a condition of non-intercourse between Canada and the mother country absolutely so, according to his own argument yesterday? Because if you take the total trade between Canada and the mother country during the past ten years, you will find it is about $300,000,000 less than the trade between Canada and the United States. If the Prime Minister desires to modify that outrageous statement to which I have just called attention, I will give him an opportunity to do so at this moment. Why, Mr. Speaker, last year the imports from the United States into Canada amounted to three-fifths of the total imports into this country; and yet the right hon. gentleman as the head of this government declares, as a serious argument that these proposals should be put through the parliament of Canada, that there has been a condition of practical commercial non-intercourse between Canada and the United States in the past ten years.
The right hon. gentleman went on to say that you cannot control trade, you cannot affect trade, by legislation. What, then, is the object of these proposals? Why, at the Imperial Conference of 1907 the Prime Minister referred over and over again to efforts made by legislation in this country to direct trade into British channels, a policy which he has absolutely departed from in bringing these proposals before parliament. At that conference he said:
So far as legislation oan influence trade, we have done everything possible to push our trade towards the British people as against the American people.
Then Mr. Asquith interposed:
May I say I did not in the least dispute that? My object was not, os I think I made clear, in any sense to complain of the Canadian preference; on the contrary, I recognize both its intention and its effect. My point was that natural conditions were such that it was inevitable that the Americans should get the best of it.
To which the Prime Minister responded, 'exactly.' He went on to say;
Not only have we done it by preference, by legislation, but we have forced our trade against the laws of nature and geography. If we were to follow the laws of nature and geography between Canada and the United States, the whole trade would flow from south to north, and from north to south. We have done everything 'possible by building canals and subsidizing railways to bring the trade from west to east and east to west so as to bring trade into British channels. All this we have done, recognizing the principle of the great advantage of forcing trade within the British empire.
To-day he is entering upon a policy which is absolutely divergent from that which he laid down at that conference. Trade cannot be controlled by legislation? Ask the millers of the western United States whether or not trade can be controlled by legislation. Look at the exultation of these men. I have their views under my hand, but I will not weary the House with them, as they have already been quoted. They point out the enormous advantage to the milling interest of the United States and to the industries associated with that interest which would be brought about by their having a supply of raw material from Canada. Ask also the American Newspaper Publishers' Association whether or not these proposals will have any effect upon the manufacturers of the United States in relation to our pulpwood. I will quote a memorandum of these gentlemen under date of January 28, 1911, and signed by Mr. John Norris, chairman of the committee on paper. These gentlemen say:
This draft is entirely satisfactory to publishers. It will provide for the immediate entry of print paper and wood pulp from Canada, The snarl with' the provinces of Canada has been completely avoided by an entirely new turn to the stipulations, which now follow the wood-not _ the province. If wood is free from restriction, such as wood from private lands, the products of that wood will come into the United States free of duty. A province owning land holds the same relation to the Dominion government that an ordinary land owner maintains. The province has no power to stop the exportation of wood from private lands in that province. Recent tariff legislation in the United States aimed to coerce provinces of Canada to part with Crown land wood and those provinces resented such coercion. In the reciprocity arrangement, each province can do with its own land as it pleases and can do this without affecting the immediate and free entry of paper and pulp made from wood cut on private lands in that province. The distinction between wood free from restriction of exportation and wood that is not free will show itself in various ways. Print paper made from wood cut on lands subject to restriction will he liable to a duty of $5.75 per ton of paper. That duty will be prohibitory in competition with paper made from wood cut on private^ lands. The provinces of Quebec and Ontario have been offering premiums and inducements for the transfer of American paper industries to Canada. Brown

Bros, of Berlin Mills, N.H., recently installed a plant at La Tuque, Quebec, and propose tr expand it materially. That plant depends on Crown lands for its timber supply. The International Paper Company bas been flirting with the Quebec government for similar concessions. The reciprocity clause will give no encouragement to such diversion of industry from the United States to Canada. A barrier of $5.75 per ton on print paper will confront such products until the Quebec government removes the prohibition. The revenues which the province now obtains on wood cut from its Crown lands and shipped in manufactured form to the United States will be diverted from the Quebec treasury to the owners of private lands. The pressure from holders of Crown lands limits upon the provincial authorities for an opportunity to reach the greatest market in the world, that of the United States, will be irresistible and a diplomatic victory in the removal of restrictions will have been achieved without harshness, or coercion, or ill feeling of any sort. Each side will obtain an advantage, and that is the element of a good trade.
Then the memorandum goes on to show in what respect each side does get an advantage, and I quote its concluding words:
Under the new arrangement, American paper makers will gain a large market for their products in Canada, especially in the higher grades of paper.
The ultimate outcome of the proposed reciprocity arrangement, if ratified, will be a tendency toward the concentration of the pulp business in Canada and the conversion on this side of those pulps into paper, with great growth and advantages for each side.
Every one knows what that means; the finished product is to be manufactured in the United 'States with a maximum of wages paid to the labouring men of the United States, and the minimum labour on that product will be expended in Canada with a minimum of wages to Canadian workingmen.
My right hon. friend says that present conditions are not really altered by these proposals at all-that we can now export in bond to the United States, and that everything will go on exactly as it does at present with respect to the export of our products through United States ports. I am not going into that subject to-day beyond saying this, that if my right hon. friend will consult any business man in this country who has had any experience in such matters, he will find that he never made a greater mistake than he did when he made that statement. Conditions have been entirely altered, and there will be facilities for exporting through United States ports which are unknown to-day.
My right hon. friend says that these proposals will not affect the possibility of a preference. How is it possible that American wheat can come freely into Canada,- and no restrictive conditions can be imposed under this arrangement-and that Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).
Great Britain can at the same time give an effective preference on Canadian wheat? I would like to see how the right hon. gentleman can work that out. That may be his opinion, but it is not the opinion of business men, who, in respect of a matter like this, ought to be able to offer a judgment entitled certainly to as great respect as that of the Prime Minister. Mr. James J. Hill, one of the shrewdest men on the American continent, puts the matter squarely as an issue between Imperial confederation and continental union The two, he thinks, cannot go together. He pays no heed to the effect of the latter on. Canada, but thinks only of its advantage to the States. A fifteen cent import tax on grain in England, he says, would retain the whole of the grain industry and all its allied industries to Canada, and develop the all red imperial lines of communication, and the building up of manufactures in Canada and the old country. But if this reciprocity treaty be accepted, such a duty will not be imposed. The grain grown in the central provinces of Canada will be shipped across the border, will be milled there, the flour will be shipped along American lines, and the by-products will be retained to feed and fatten American stock. And so with all other natural resources^ of this country. So with many articles which we could with advantage work up in this country into the finished product and export to the markets of the world.
Then my right hon. friend dealt with the question of natural resources, and here he was delightfully amusing. He referred to my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) as an Indian, because the Indians had not developed the natural resources of this country. I would like to call my hon. friend's attention to one or two other characteristics of the Indians. In days gone by they owned the whole of this continent, and there are traditions, and even veritable history, that some shrewd trader, with a few old muskets, some gaudy cotton, bright coloured scarves and attractive beads, would often acquire 20,000 or 30,000 or 40,000 square miles of land in exchange for them. Well, unfortunately for Canada, the political Indians of the country are on the treasury benches to-day. Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to depart in any way from parliamentary language; therefore I withdraw that expression, and apologize to the Indians, because I am sure that there are thousands ' of Indians in Canada to-day who would be too intelligent to have embarked this country on such an enterprise as that which is before this House at the present time.
My right hon. friend says that the proposals he has made do not in any way imperil our industries. Well, let us look at that for a moment. Let me read what the

right hon. gentleman says with regard to the matter:
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 the 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.


Mr. 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?


Sir 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.
What, then, will be the answer of the right hon. gentleman when he opens this country to the manufacturers of the United States? Exactly what is contained in the answer he has given to my hon. friend from Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell):-We have opened to you the markets, of the United States, and therefore, you have absolutely no ground of complaint. I am taking his own reason and even his very words. In fact, it is exactly along the line of what he said on 17th of November, 1891, in Boston, for I have his words as then reported, and they can be verified:
We are willing, therefore, whenever a new treaty is negotiated between the two nations that it shall not apply to one class but to all classes of goods, whether natural or manufactured.
Well, does the right hon. gentleman imagine for one moment that the farmers, of this country will submit to have competition with twelve or fourteen countries in the world, under a system of free trade in natural products whan they are called upon to pay taxes on every manufactured product that comes into this country? Will they be willing to undertake this 'burden for the benefit of our industries? I can best answer that question by a quotation which I will give .to my right hon. friend. This, is the view, not of farmers in Canada, but of farmers in the United States. It is a reasonable view from the farmers' standpoint, and I think it is much more convincing for the point it makes than anything uttered iby my right hon. friend in his long speech of yesterday, I quote from page 24t of the hearings before the committee of Ways and Means in the United States House of Representatives:
This Bill puts the farmers' products on the free list, and taxes the articles in the form in which they reach the consumer. Do you suppose for one single instant, gentlemen, that the farmers of this country who have
furnished the money, and are to-day furnishing the money for the best market of our manufacturing interests in this country, do not understand this argument? Do you believe they will ever tamely submit? No; never.
And again:
We insist that there shall be no free trade for the farmers and high tariff for the manufacturers, but that if the farm products go on the free list, manufactured articles must also be made free, and they will, inside of a very short time.
That argument, made by the farmers of the United States is precisely the argument which will he made by the farmers of Canada, and especially by those engaged in every one of these industries which have been injuriously affected by the proposals of the government.
Now, my right hon. friend dealt with the question of imports from the twelve favoured nations to whom our markets will be opened by these proposals. I am not going to spend very much time on that, but what the right hon. gentleman said deserves some .answer. What he says amounts to this: Because we have few imports under a protective tariff from these twelve or fourteen countries, therefore we shall have no greater imports when the protective tariff is abolished. What, then, is the object of these proposals? Will these proposals create no changed trade conditions between Canada and the United States? If they are likely to change trade conditions between Canada and the United States, are they not equally likely to produce changed conditions between all the countries I have referred to and Canada. Has the Prime Minister taken the trouble to investigate the products of these various countries? Has he any idea of the wages of labour and the cost of production in any one of the countries he mentioned yesterday? I have an interesting statement under my hand which has been compiled from official sources by my hon. friend from Grenville (Mr. Reid). I will not attempt to give the data with regard to these countries, but only one or two items with regard to one country, and the House can judge as to the value of the argument put forward by the right hon. gentleman yesterday. Argentine, in 1909, exported 461,595,818 pounds of frozen beef, the export value being $20,210,525, or an average of 4J cents per pound, when exported. The same country exported in the same year 146,555,326 pounds of frozen mutton, having an export value of $5,133,426, ot 3J cents per pound. What is tihe cost of transportation from Argentine to Canada? What will he the duties on these meats when .they reach Canada? Beef and mutton can 'be laid down from Argentine in Canada, freight and duty

paid, at between 6 cents and 7 cents per pound. And the Prime Minister seriously assured this House in his speech of yesterday that conditions in this country are not likely to lead to any competition with the products of Canada. Further than that, Argentine exported in 1909, 8,799,764 pounds of butter, the export value being $1,459,591 or 17} cents per pound. Under these circumstances, it is utterly idle for the Prime Minister to pTetend that trade conditions between Canada and the various countries which have been enumerated will not be altered by the consummation of these proposals..
Now, I come more particularly to the matter which is touched by my motion. The Prime Minister thinks that he has had a mandate for these reciprocity proposals. He admits that no election has been held at which that subject has been discussed, since 1891. He admits that his own government took off the statute book the standing offer of reciprocity in 1897. He admits that there was no discussion and no issue raised in the elections of 1900, 1904 and 1908. Yet, for some mysterious reason, he finds a mandate where no one else in the whole country can find it. I venture to say to the Tight hon, gentleman that he had a better mandate at every one of these elections to abolish the Senate than he had to make this arrangement so seriously affecting the business of this country. He says he merely discontinued his efforts for reciprocity. He never asked or received a _ mandate to renew them. Did he receive a mandate to restore the standing offer of reciprocity? That is what he proposes to do. He abolished it in 1897 and, in addition, as has been pointed out over and over again, in this House, he most distinctly gave a pledge to this country that there should be an investigation by royal commission before any substantial change was made in the fiscal conditions of this country. He proposes now a standing offer of reciprocity-because that is the result, now that the Congress of the United States has declined to ratify these proposals and to put them into effect. Would it be wise and dignified for us in this country to put out another standing offer of reciprocity, after having maintained one on the statute-book of this country without effect for more than twenty years? Congress has declined to carry out the proposals. Another party has come into power in Congress, and it is altogether uncertain that the special session will pass these proposals. Meantime, we are to pass them and to wait the pleasure of the United States, as we did in the thirty years between 1866 and 1896.
My Tight hon. friend the Prime Minister says that wre wore out a good deal of shoe leather between 1866 and 1896 in endeavour-Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).
ing to get reciprocity. He now proposes to wear out a little more. Well, I respectfully submit that the time has come when we should wear out no more shoe leather in endeavouring to obtain reciprocity, and that it is now the turn of the United States to wear out some of their excellent shoe leather in coming to this country for reciprocity if they desire it. What is the present situation? Is there anything to be lost by holding our hands? Let us look for a moment at the programme of the Democratic party in that country. Every one who has followed political events and political agitation in the United States knows that the Democratic party has been pledged for many years to a lower tariff. The platform of that party has been a lower tariff and a reduction of the high cost of living. What does their leader in Congress say on that point? I shall quote from Mr. Clark, of Missouri, who, I understand, will be the next speaker in the House of Representatives, and who is the virtual leader of that party in the United States Congress at present. Mr. Clark said on the 14th of February last:
I wish to suggest to my party fellows that if this Bill is passed it is not the end of the chapter, or the end of the world. At high noon on the 4th day of March. we shall come into the possession of this House, and if this treaty does not go as far as we want it to go, we can then make it go still further. (Applause on the Democrat side.)


Mr.   DALZELL@: Will the gentleman yield a moment ?
Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. Yes.


Mr.   DALZELL@: The gentleman says his party will come into power after the 4th of March ?
Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. In this House.


Mr.   DALZELL@: Suppose this treaty does not pass at this session of Congress. What will his party do with it if it is put up to them at the next session of Congress?
Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Laughter and applause.)


Mr.   DALZELL@: Would you pass this Bill?
Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. I think we might amend it and pass it. The chances are that we would pass a tariff Bill that would very largely take the place of this Bill; a Bill that, to say nothing of this Bill at all, will go into every branch of the subject; a Bill or Bills. And I want to say that while I am in favour of taking a separate Bill for a separate schedule, in order to expedite revision downwards, in the end 14 separate Bills for 14 separate schedules would amount to an entire tariff Bill. The Democrats are committed to a revision of the tariff, and so far as this House is concerned, we are going to revise, wisely and thoroughly, according to promise.
Further on he says:


Mr. KENDALL.: I want to inquire if the gentleman is accepting this Bill as a substitute for a general tariff revision?
Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. Good heavens, no. (Laughter and applause on the Democrat

side.) I am accepting this for what it is worth, and no more, as a step in the right direction.
Then further on at page 2626:
Reciprocity is a good Democratic doctrine in spots, and until we can get a general Democratic tariff Bill perfected and put upon the statute-books I am going to stand by this treaty.
Further on in the same page:
In levying a tariff I am in favour of putting the highest tariff on the luxuries of life, except in those cases where the luxury is of such a character that it would incite smuggling. I am in favour of putting the lowest tariff, or none at all, on the necessaries of life. (Applause on the Democrat side.) And just exactly in proportion as things become necessary I would take the tariff off them and put them on the free list, or lower the tariff on them to the vanishing point. I do not think anybody can misunderstand that or misconstrue it.
It is perfectly plain, therefore, that the Democratic party in the United States is committed to a lower tariff, and it was most inopportune for this government to have entered into this treaty on the very eve of that change in the American tariff. As things now stand, the Democratic party has a majority in the House of Representatives, and they propose to bring in a tariff Bill, a general tariff Bill, on a lower basis. In those circumstances it seems to me that as this Bill has failed to pass Congress at the session which has just come to a close it would be absolutely inopportune for us to put on our statutes a second standing offer.
I desire now to make a general objection to this system of making tariffs. I am opposed to any system of secret tariffs. I am opposed to any system of making tariffs by convention with another country, which cannot be altered in this parliament. What is the difference in principle? In the one case the government brings down its tariff; it can be amended in parliament, with the consent of the government, when difficulties and injustices are shown to result from it which were not in the minds of those who framed it. But in the other case we must accept or reject the tariff as a whole. It is an ironclad scheme, not susceptible of any alteration. Such a tariff is not consistent with democratic government, and my right hon. friend has always claimed' that he stood for democratic government. Let me give the opinion on the subject of a man of great eminence who was speaking from his experience in South Africa, when he was high commissioner in that country. He was dealing with the conditions which had obtained in South Africa and which led up to the South African union; and he pointed out the difficulties which always surrounded the making of secret tariffs.


Mr. MACLEAN (York).: What name?


Robert Laird Borden: It is a state paper which Lord Selborne submitted to the Imperial Parliament in 1906. Speaking of the results of the conference in South Africa which had brought about the South African customs tariff, he said:
The proceedings of the conference were private and when it was closed, the strictest secrecy as to the nature of the results produced had still to be observed by some forty persons for several months. The new convention had then to be carried through five different legislatures, and each of these public assemblies were told that they might discuss the details, but they could not be allowed to alter one of them. The convention was cut and dried, and they must each and all take or leave it as a whole.
Compare this procedure with the process by which a customs tariff would be framed in the United Kingdom, if the government had decided to embark on a new fiscal policy. To begin with, it is probable that either the government would appoint a royal commission or parliament itself would appoint a select committee to investigate the question, and the whole proceedings of that body would be open to the public, the evidence placed before it would be the subject of public discussion. When the actual proposals were framed, they would be framed by the government itself, and the greatest attention would of course be paid to the claims of each business and industry and also to the views put forward by the various interests and parts of the country.
Then he goes on to deal with the other side of the case. He said:
A customs tariff, framed as a treaty between independent states, must not only be a compromise, but is likely to be one which its authors know to be in some respects bad in itself.
Further on:
If the conference succeeds in producing a unanimous result, the scheme is taken as a whole, and submitted to the various legislatures of the country, simply for acceptance or for rejection. Whatever may be the constitutional law on the subject, the elected representatives of the people have in practice no power to modify the details because the alteration of one item by one state would, unless agreed to by all the others, render the whole scheme unworkable and be tantamount to rejection by that state. The members of the legislatures know that the scheme must be taken or left as a whole.
Further on:
The details upon which the whole depends and which ought to be settled, and which could be settled by the representatives of the people themselves are taken out of their hands. It is difficult to imagine a less democratic, or indeed-
I invite the special attention of my right hon. friend to these concluding words of Lord Selborne:

It is difficult to imagine a less democratic, or indeed a more dangerously undemocratic method of dealing with one of the most important departments of public business.
Now, some reference has been made by lion, gentlemen opposite to an increase of the British preference. I do not know whether the gentlemen who spoke on that subject were inspired or not. I have expressed my views on this subject eight or nine years ago in this House, and I stand by them to-day. I stand, in the first place, for the empire as against the world, and within the empire I stand, first, for Canada. I believe that a mill or a factory in Canada is worth as much to this great empire as a mill or a factory in Yorkshire or anywhere else in England.
Our transportation lines run from east to west, and we are establishing many others. In connection with what Sir William Van Horne has said	in his letter
with regard	to	Mr.	Hill's lines of
railways, reaching up to tap Canadian trade, I would like to point out that he has very much understated the actual conditions. Here is a railway map of the west of Canada from the Great Lakes to the Pacific ocean, and looking over that, I find there are no less than 19 lines, all of them I believe controlled by Mr. Hill. A few of them have entered Canada, and the others, as Sir William Van Home says, are standing there with their noses resting on the Canadian bound-aray line, all ready to tap the traffic of this great western country. Well that was not the object with which we undertook this Canadian confederation, that is not the object for which we have poured out treasures untold in time past, that is not the object the Prime Minister had' in view when he used the words I have quoted at the Imperial Conference of 1907.
We have accomplished a great work in Canada. The project of creating the Canada of to-day was a great, even an audacious one. It has well been said by a great writer of modern times that as providence is on the side of the big battalions, so providence is always on the side of a great idea; and Providence was on the side of the great idea of building up a Canadian confederation on the northern half of this continent. Let us continue the work so well begun. The same writer to whom I have alluded has said that the United States have been fortunate in the possession of a great and constant tradition, compounded of an intense belief in their institutions, in their destiny and in themselves. An equal tradition is the birthright of every Canadian. I realize that Canada has a plain duty and a grave responsibility in one important respect. She ought to be, I trust that she will be, a bond of union and of amity between the empire and the republic. But I Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).
believe that this high mission can best be fulfilled when Canadians are inspired by a belief in their institutions, their destiny, their country and themselves as intense as that which pervades the people of the United States. Our strong determination to work out our own destiny with a firm heart by our own efforts and along our own lines, will most surely win the respect of our neighbours who have given ns therein an inspiring example. Let each country adopt towards the other a trade policy as generous as its true interests will permit; but let this be done without entangling engagements or indefinite understandings. No Canadian should be told that although he presents a substantial grievance it is too late to redress it, because a secret and unalterable tariff has been made at Washington. No Canadian should be told that our parliament is not free to redress the grievances of the Canadian people, because its hands have been fettered by an entangling trade alliance. Let our fiscal policy be worked out, not by secret diplomatic tariffs whereof no injustice can be redressed, but by the ordinary parliamentary methods which permit mistakes to be rectified and injustices to be removed. Thus and thus only can we preserve and maintain the true fiscal independence, and autonomy of the Canadian nation.
Now, Sir, I regard these proposals as reversing the policy of the people of Canada for the past thirty years, given by an unmistakably mandate at every election which has taken place during that period. What should be the course of the government at this time? Take the census, give the west its increased representation, then submit this question to the people of Canada and let them decide. We held out to the United States for twenty years a standing offer of reciprocity, and they did not accept it. It will not lessen their respect for us if we permit them 'for a few y-ears to put a standing offer of reciprocity upon their statute-book. We have worn some shoe leather in going to Washington; as I said before, let the Americans wear out some shoe leather in coming to Ottawa. They are submitting these proposals to a new Congress; let us in Canada submit these proposals to a new parliament. I therefore beg to move:
That all the words after the word * that ' in the proposed motion be omitted and the following substituted therefor :
The reciprocal agreement embodied in the resolutions submitted to this House by the Minister of Finance on the 26th day of January last was also submitted on the same day by special message of the President to Congress of the United States of America which was then in session.
That the said session has now expired and Ccngress has failed to approve and carry out the said agreement.

That a considerable length of time must necessarily elapse before the said agreement can be dealt with by Congress at a special session.
That the fiscal changes proposed by the_said agreement are of a far-reaching character and constitute a substantial reversal of the policy which has been approved by the people of Canada.
That in the opinion of this House, the said resolutions should not be proceeded with until the electors shall have had an opportunity of pronouncing upon their merits.


Hon.   W.@: Si. FIELDING (Minister lof Finance). It does not seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that the motion which my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden) has placed in your hands calls for that general discussion of the question upon' which he has entered at considerable length. We have been discussing this agreement day after day, we shall continue to discuss it, we shall continue to discuss it for a sufficient time, I trust, to give the people of this country the fullest possible knowledge of its contents. We are satisfied that there has been a vast amount of misunderstanding-I do not wish to say misrepresentation, it is too harsh a word-there has been a vast amount of misunderstanding as to the contents of this agreement; and we feel that day by day the people are being made acquainted with the facts of the case, and that every day is increasing the number of the supporters of this proposition. We have been proceeding with the discussion of the question in the manner which the hon. leader of the opposition himself desired and suggested. It was his suggestion that we should take up and discuss this matter in Committee of the Whole. We were proceeding, Sir, to debate the question while you were in the chair, but the hon. gentleman asked that you leave the chair in order that we might continue the discussion in Committee of the Whole. It was his proposal, we have assented to it, we have carried on the discussion for over a month, and why my hon. friend should again and again want to break away from that arrangement is difficult to understand, except upon the one theory that the hon. gentleman knows that the country is against him on this question, and it is the desire of some hon. gentlemen on that side to, if possible, dodge a vote on the main question. We want to say in all frankness that we do not sympathize with that object. We, on this side of the House, desire that the discussion shall continue soberly, quietly, regularly, for a sufficient time to have the question thoroughly threshed out. Then, we on this side, who believe in this agreement, want an opportunity to vote for it, and it is our intention that hon. gentlemen opposite shall place themselves on record. The motion that the hon. gentleman has made, I say, does not call for discussion of the whole question, and I am not going 153
into a discussion of the whole question at this stage. Much that my hon. friend has said to-day has already been dealt with effectively by hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, and that portion of it which has not been dealt with, that portion of it which may be deemed to deserve further consideration, will no doubt be dealt with in the usual way at a later stage. Again I say I do not propose to enter into the general discussion of the question to-day at this stage not even to oblige our respected friend, Sir William Van Horne, whose letter was dragged into the debate here in a way that was somewhat remarkable. Sir William Van Horne is a distinguished oiti-zen of our country and we are glad to have his opinion on any other question-on any question. This is not the first time we have had the misfortune to differ from our good friend Sir William Van Horne. There have been occasions when we have been obliged to differ from him in the past; I shall regret if we have to differ from him in future-I suppose it may be unavoidable-but, if this matter shall take such a shape that on the one side we have Sir William Van Horne and various other estimable sirs, and on the other side the toiling masses of the people of Canada, there is no question as to which side the Liberal party is going to be on. As I said. Sir, I think the moment is not opportune, but when you leave the chair, when we take up the consideration of this subject in the way chosen joy my hon. friend the leader of the opposition, and for which he seems to be so frequently sorry, when we get into the ordinary course of debate, I am sure that the whole matter will be threshed out thoroughly. At the present time it seems to me that the only thing to be considered is whether or not we shall proceed with the discussion of this question of vast importance, or whether, as the hon. gentleman suggests, we shall abandon it and throw it overboard. Upon that question there cannot be a doubt as to the wish of the people of Canada, or as to the wish of the members of this House. There was an agreement between the government of the United States and the government of Canada not only as to the details of tariff arrangements, but as to the manner in which this debate, this discussion, this negotiation should be carried on. In the official cony which I hold in my hand of the letters which created the agreement I find, in a letter addressed by my colleague, the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) and myself, to Secretarv Knox, and confirmed by him as a correct statement of the arrangement, the following:
13. It is understood that upon a day and hour to be agreed upon between the two governments, the President of the United States will communicate to Congress the conclusions now reached and recommend the adoption of such legislation as may be necessary on the



part of the United States to give effect to the proposed arrangement.
14. It is understood that simultaneously with the sending of such communication to the United States Congress by the President, the Canadian government will communicate to the parliament of Canada the conclusions now reached, and will thereupon take the necessary steps to procure such legislation as is required to give effect to the proposed arrangement.
The President of the United States has loyally lived up to that agreement. If the government of Canada, or the parliament of Canada which supports this government, should deviate one step from this arrangement it would be a breach of faith which would dishonour the government of Canada-


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Mr. FIELDING.: A breach of faith which would dishonour the government of Canada and through the government, the parliament and people of Canada.


Some hon. MEMBERS: No, no.


William Stevens Fielding: Yes. Whether or not this agreement is a wise one is a proper matter for debate, and the fact that so many hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House have differed from us is the best evidence that there must be a difference of opinion on that. But whatever our views may be with regard to the arrangement itself there should be no difference of opinion as to the obligation which the government of Canada entered into with the government of the United States to conduct this negotiation, to press it forward and to obtain the judgment of the Congress of the United States, and the parliament of Canada upon it.


Mr. COWAN.: Mr. Speaker, does the minister give the House to understand that he and his colleagues entered into an obligation to deny the people a free opportunity of voting upon this question?


William Stevens Fielding: I have read the obligation within the last few minutes, and I will leave my hon. friend with his knowledge of the English language to understand it. I desire to repeat that it would be a gross breach of faith. My hon. friend opposite (Mr. Borden, Halifax) has stated that Congress has declined to pass this agreement. That is not an accurate statement.


Robert Laird Borden: I said at the session just terminated.


William Stevens Fielding: The hon. gentleman says at the session which has just terminated.


Robert Laird Borden: I said that before. I said there was no action at the session just terminated.
Mr. FIELDING


William Stevens Fielding: Congress did not decline to pass the arrangement and when my hon. friend says that Congress declined to pass it he is not putting it fairly before the House. Congress has, I say, not declined. The President of the United States has loyally kept faith. The President of the United States sent a message to Congress cordially recommending the measure to the two branches of the National legislature.


Robert Laird Borden: Will my hon. friend permit me to interrupt him for a matter of personal explanation? The words of my motion are;
'That the said session has now expired and Congress lias failed to approve and carry out the said agreement.
That, I say, is absolutely correct.


William Stevens Fielding: I was not referring to the words of the hon. gentleman's motion. I was referring to the wrords of the hon. gentleman's speech. I quote him correctly. I took down his words and he stated that Congress had declined to pass this measure. My hon. friend will see upon reflection that that is not a correct statement of what happened.


Robert Laird Borden: What did happen?


William Stevens Fielding: Does my hon. friend say in view of my correction that he does not understand what happened?


Robert Laird Borden: I say in effect that Congress at the last session declined to pass this measure.


William Stevens Fielding: I am not talking about effect. The hon. gentleman's statement is that Congress declined to pass it. I say that the hon. gentleman knows that Congress did not decline to pass it. He knows that the House of Representatives by a substantial majority passed the Bill, he knows that, in regard to the case of the Senate, the Senate did not decline to pass it, he knows that by a system of filibustering, which may exist on that side of the line and which we have known in times past to exist here, what was understood to be the deliberate judgment of the Senate of the United States was frustrated by their not having a vote uuon it at all, and if they had never voted upon it how did they decline to pass it? The readers of the American press, the readers of our Canadian papers which pay any attention to American affairs, know perfectly well that it was generally understood that there was a majority in the Senate in the United States who were ready to pass the Bill but by the filibustering methods of a few senators, some of whom have left the Senate of the United States never to. return, a vote on the ques-* tion was prevented.


William Findlay Maclean: So they will in the future.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend should not be a prophot; it is not wise to prophesy, unless you know, and my friend's knowledge is no greater than that of the average of mankind. The matter does not rest there. I assure you the president of the United States has loyally kept his part of the bargain; we are asking the parliament of Canada to see that for the honour and good name of Canada, no matter what we may think of the details of this measure, this parliament will keep the engagement which in the name of -the Canadian people, we made with the government of the United States. What do we find? No sooner had it been determined that this filibustering movement at Washington was to be successful, no sooner had it been made apparent that the good intentions of the president of the United States were to be frustrated by that movement, then President Taft in his anxiety to keep faith with the Canadian government and people, called an extra session of Congress.


Mr. HUGHES.: The minister referred to something being frustrated by some movement. Would he tell us what movement?


William Stevens Fielding: 
Mr. AMES.: Do I understand that this special session is being called for the special purpose of dealing with this? Is- it not a fact that the new Congress may deal with any question and refuse to deal with this question?


William Stevens Fielding: This Congress is to be called for the special purpose of dealing with this question; they may deal with other questions -surely, -a- -thousand.


Herbert Brown Ames: And may they not leave this question entirely alone if they see fit?


William Stevens Fielding: They may leave it alone, Congress i-s -a free -body just as this parliament is, but as my hon. friend asked the special purpose for which this Congress was called, we will let the president speak for himself, let the document -speak for itself:



[Stage Direction]
The President's proclamation reads:
'Whereas, in a special message dated January 26, 1911, there was transmitted to the Senate and House of Representatives an agreement between the Department of State and the Canadian government in regard to reciprocal tariff legislation, together with an earnest recommendation that the necessary legislation be promptly adopted; and
'Whereas, a bill to carry into effect said agreement has passed the House of Representatives, but failed to reach a vote in the Senate; and
'Whereas, the agreement stipulates not only that the President of the United States will communicate to Congress the conclusions now reached and recommend the adoption of such legislation as may he necessary on the part of the United States to give effect to the proposed agreement, but also that the governments of the two countries will use their utmost efforts to bring about suc-h changes bv concurrent legislation at Washington and at Ottawa;
Now, therefore, I, William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the power vested in me by the constitution, do hereby proclaim and declare that an extraordinary occasion requires the convening of both -houses of the Congress of the United States at their respective chambers in the city of Washington on the fourth of April, 191-1, at twelve o'clock noon, to the end that they may consider and determine whether the Congress shall by the necessary legislation make operative the agreement.
All persons entitled to act as members of the sixty-second _ Congress are required to take notice of this proclamation.
'Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at Washington the fourth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and eleven, and of the independence of the United States, the one hundred and thirty-fifth.
„	,	„	WILLIAM H. TAFT.'
By the President.

[Stage Direction]
Secretary of State.
[Stage Direction]
I hope I have satisfied my hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) that this Congress is called in special session to keep faith with the government of Canada in this important matter. A duty rests upon this government. A duty we -believe rests on the parliament of Canada, so far as it is willing to give us its support; whether the members agree with this agreement or arrangement or not, there should be no division of opinion as to -the obligation which we, as a young nation, have entered into with the great nation beside ns. The president of the United States is loyally doing his part, it remains with us to loyally do ours. How? By throwing i-t overboard and saying we will have nothing more to do with it?
William Findlay Maclean: Yes, we have that right.


William Stevens Fielding: Shame on that suggestion. It finds no favour here. We desire that this matter -shall be discussed, as I stated in the earlieT stages of the debate, not hastily, not in a -rush, not unduly; we desire that every member of this House shall have abundant opportunity to form and express his views, we -desire that every member shall have -abundant opportunity to give his free and untrammelled vote, but we say we should, -day by day, not to the exclusion of all other business, but -to the exclusion of things of less importance, keep this measure -before us, and prove -to the people of the United States that we are going to keep faith -and to fulfil the contract we made with them. We believe, Sir, that that is the only true policy to adopt. Somebody must move first. It is childish to say that one side must wait for the other to move; if that policy were -adopted we could do- nothing. If the United States Congress had debated that matter and voted against it, if the Senate of the United States, after what had occurred in the House of Representatives, had declared it would1 not pass this measure, if there were good reasons to believe that the United States Congress were refusing to implement the president's engagement, that would be the time for us to consider what next. That time has -not arisen. The president has tried his best to have it passed in the Congress that has- just transpired; he means to do the -same in the Congress that is to meet very shortly. We say, let us put this measure on our statute-book, and then, if within a reasonable time the United States Congress fail to do their part, we shall be free to consider what nex-t. In the meantime, I say that the honour of the Dominion government and through the Dominion government the honour of the country, is pledged -to this arrangement with the United States. While I quarrel with no Mr. FIELDING
man for differing from us on the merits . of the agreement, I say there is no Toom for difference as to our condemnation of the motion which the hon. leader of the opposition has placed in yo-ur hands.


Hon. GEORGE E. FOSTER (North Toronto).: There is nothing, Sir, in the argument which lias been addressed to the House by the hon. Minister of Finance that calls for a reply from this side of the House. If there was needed any single indication of the position in which Canada was placed when my hon. friend and his colleague went to Washington and made this compact-if there was anything needed to show why these two men should not have gone, or more particularly why the present Minister of Finance should not have gone, it was amply supplied in the remarks he has just made. I can hardly trust myself to characterize my impressions and my feelings at the effort which has been made by the Minister of Finance. After the argument which was put up by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition, short, pertinent, and especially strong, we naturally looked for the Finance Minister to make some rebuttal of that argument- to at least attempt to answer it; but I leave it to you, Mr. Speaker, and to this House and to the country, if the hon. gentleman made any attempt to answer a single one of the strong positions taken by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition. Instead of attempting to argue upon the merits of the case, he has made three or four genera, assertions, and I would not have been on my feet at this moment if it had not been for the bad doctrine, the inadmissible doctrine, which my hon. friend has put forth. What are those assertions, in brief? In the first place, the general assertion was made, and not qualified, that it is quite sufficient on every occasion to give time for the discussion of a measure in parliament, and that if that is done the people have no right to complain that the matter has not been submitted to them for their approval. What does that mean, Sir? It means that once a parliament has been elected the people count for nothing. It means that mandates are not necessary. It means that two men in a government can bind the country by their sign-manuals, that they can deliver the goods, and that, provided you give parliament a reasonable length of time to discuss their proposal, the people have no concern in the matter at all, and ought not to be applied to. You only need to state that doctrine to see how untenable it is. Is my hon. friend afraid of the people? He was very brave in declaring that they were going to make every man on this side of the House poll his vote. Every man on this side is willing and ready to poll his vote; but, different from my hon. friends opposite, every man on this side is willing

that the people shall poll their vote too. The hon. leader of the opposition has put it up to my right hon. friend to go to the people as the final court of appeal, and let the votes be polled where the people are free, and not bound, as representatives of the people often are in the House of Commons. Now, that is the position which is democratic; that is the position which will appeal to the country, and again I state, and will state it to the end of this debate, instead of two men binding the country to a reversal of the policy of this country for 30 years, let the people say whether they wish to have that policy changed or not. It is arbitrary, it is tyrannical, it is the very opposite of responsible and free government, to take the position which my hon. friend has taken to-day.
The Finance Minister also said that the hon. leader of the opposition and other gentlemen on this side of the House knew that the country was against them. Well, Sir, whether the country be against us or not, we take the fair position that we are willing to submit the matter to the country to see what their real views are. In that we differ from hon. gentlemen opposite, who are not willing to submit it to the country, who fear of all things an appeal to the country on this matter at this moment. What folly it is to say that because 200 members of parliament, for ten days, twenty days, two months, three months, debate a matter in parliament, that gives the people sufficient knowledge, and that is sufficient to preclude your going to the people. Suppose that does give the people sufficient knowledge, suppose that the object of a two months' debate here is to give the people knowledge, why are you giving the people knowledge if not to know what the people think about it? And how are you to know what the people think about it if you do not submit the matter to the people and get their vote upon it? So that the very doctrine implied in the argument of the Finance Minister, that we should give leisurely time for the information to filter through the country, involves as a necessary consequence the conclusion that the reason for giving the information is that the people may know how to cast their ballots when they go to the polls to decide this question for themselves.
The Minister of Finance had so little thought of the dignity of his position and of what ought to weigh with him and other men on a question like this that he endeavoured to array the ' knights ' against the ' horny handed sons of toil.' If that is the issue, says my hon. friend, if it is Sir Van Home against the man with the smock frock and the cap on his head; if it is these ' estimable Sirs ' against the horny handed sons of toil, we welcome the issue. Well, it is onlv necessary to state this position to stigmatize it for what it is
worth. It is worth absolutely nothing; it is worth less than nothing. It is a bad doctrine, one which no people like the people of Canada will stand. For how long has my hon. friend had such a deep contempt for ' estimable Sirs '? He has eaten at their boards, he has sat beside them at their council table, he has even ridden with them on the public highway. But .to-day he has found out that these ' Sirs ' have no standing when compared with the horny handed sons of toil. I doubt if there is a man in this House, or a man in this country, who has put more hard work into a lifetime than Sir W'illiam Van Horne himself; and it does not remove him from the category of industrious and honourable citizens that her late Majesty saw fit to recognize his great services by conferring a title upon him. This appeal of the minister is to be characterized simply as an unworthy appeal.
Now, the minister lays down this doctrine; can we for a single moment adhere to it? Here we have this agreement : it is not for us to ask whether there was a mandate for the agreement, or even whether the agreement is a good one; it is not for us to ask whether it twists the destinies and fortunes of this country in the wrong way or not; all we have to look at is, was there an agreement between the government and Mr. Taft?-if there was we are not to look at the agreement, we are simply to be loyal to the gentlemen who have signed with the President' of the IJnited States. Why, then, are we discussing this matter at all? What was the necessity of having a single hour's discussion upon the merits of it? According to the Minister of Finance, the only question at issue is this: Shall we loyally carry out what two men promised Mr. Taft we would carry out?-it is this and this alone that parliament has to think about and vote upon. I deny this wholly, for my part; I deny it for gentlemen on this side of the House; and I think I can deny it for every man of common sense in the country. The question really is: By what right did these gentlemen make that agreement?-who authorized them to sign an agreement with Mr. Knox and Mr. Taft pledging the two countries to carry out this trade arrangement? These two gentlemen purported to sign something for the good of their country; but it was to be determined by this parliament in a constitutional way. Now, the minister tells us that it does not matter at all a3 to the agreement at issue; the only point is that the faith of the Dominion of Canada, is pledged. Who pledged it? And what mandate had they to pledge it? I thought we were discussing this agreement as to whether it was beneficial to the country or not. But now we are told-and the gov-

"eminent evidently stand behind the Finance Minister-that the thing we are discussing, the thing we are asked to decide, is as to whether we shall keep faith with Mr. Taft or not. Now, my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) did not do justice to himself when he quibbled on the point as to whether the Congress has passed this agreement or not. Has Congress passed it?-that is the only question. Before which Congress was this agreement? Before the 61st Congress, 3rd session. Did that Congress pass it or not? Is this session of Congress now in existence? The next Congress that comes into existence, will not be the 61st Congress. The 61st Congress is functus offico and can do no more legislative work. It is dead, and it has not passed the agreement. Therefore, just exactly as my hon. friend (Mr. Borden, Halifax) said, the Congress has declined to pass it.
Now, my hon. friend talks about filibustering tactics. As it happened, the matter got before the Senate of the United States in the late hours of the session, when there was a congestion of business, and the Senate declined to take this up in preference to other measures which had been sent it by the House of Representatives. Not ten minutes was spent in the Senate in the discussion of, or attempt to get a discussion of this question. Senator Gore attempted to get in an amendment when the Tariff Commission Bill was being passed through, but he was ruled out of order by the Speaker. The few minutes consumed by Senator Gore in trying to get his amendment before the Senate and the ruling of it out of order is all the time given by the Senate to this subject. So it was not talked out or filibustered out. But it makes no difference; the 61st Congress did not pass it, and the 61st Congress is dead. Now, Sir, there is just this difference.
If the Governor General of Canada had pledged himself to Mr. Taft, or anybody else, to call a session of this parliament and bring the measure before this parliament and do his utmost to have it passed, such a pledge would have some force in it. But Mr. Taft has no more power over the 62nd Congress than has any official in the administration of the United States. Their system of government is absolutely different from_ ours. Consequently, no pledge which President Taft can give need necessarily be implemented by the Congress of the United States. The next Congress will be one outside of the Republican party, to which the President of the United States belongs. It will take its own course and do such woTk as it pleases entirely regardless of any pledge President Taft may have given. Of what effect or force, therefore, has the proclamation of President Taft as read by my hon. friend the Finance Minister? Mv purpose in rising was to protest Mr. FOSTER
against what I consider to be two bad points of doctrine. One, that the people need not be consulted provided you give parliament a certain length of time to discuss the question; and the other, that because two or three members of the government, without a mandate from the people, choose to commit themselves to an arrangement with another country, this country is bound in loyalty and good faith to carry that out. It is for this parliament to go clown into the essence of the question itself, and if the thing itself is not good for this country to decline to pass it and throw the responsibility on the gentlemen who made the agreement without a mandate.


William Findlay Maclean: The question submitted to the House involves a great organic change in the constitution of this country. It involves the idea that hereafter the tariffs of Canada are to be made in secret negotiations with other countries. That is a change of the most momentous kind. It is an organic change so sweeping in its character that the people of Canada ought to be consulted before it is made. There is a proverb which says that he who gives quickly gives twice, but there is also a proverb which says that those who act hastily rush in where angel? fear to tread. Now, there is no reason under the sun why this matter should be rushed through. If this is a democratic country and the people ought to rule, should we not consult the people before we enact such an organic change in our constitution? I am ready to trust the people of Canada, but I am not ready to trust the three tailors of Tooley street, who say that what they propose is what the people of England want. There sits the master tailor and his two apprentices on either side. No harm can be done by the fullest deliberation of this matter, but a great deal may be done by rushing it through. In fact, the future of our country is at stake. If this measure be a good thing it will stand all the deliberation we can give it. We can go to the country on the question this coming fall if we wish. The people would be quite willing that a redistribution measure should be introduced and a proper representation given to the west and the cities of this country. We hear about the insolence of the cities and manufacturing towns in criticising this policy, but take Toronto and the suburban riding I represent; what have we there? We have a population of 400,000. With what representation? With six members only, or one member for each 60,000. The same in Montreal, the same in Vancouver, Winnipeg and the other cities of this Dominion. Yet the people who live in these cities are stigmatised as not being the equal of those who live in the rural paTts. Let us have a proper redistribution Bill; let us give repre-

sentation by population; then let us go to the country, and let every man's vote be as good as every other man's. What we want is deliberation. We do not want to be rushed into an agreement that .involves the very future of the country and our alliance with the mother land. What are we asked to do? We have had a National Policy in this country during a great many years, and that policy succeeded so well that two of the leading provinces have adopted it from a provincial point of view. The provinces of Quebec and Ontario have adopted the National Policy with regard to the pulp-wood and paper making industry, and have declared for a policy of their own to encourage that industry within their own respective provinces. And that policy has been successful.
What has happened on this occasion? Two men in the government of this country go to Washington and sign a secret treaty which puts a big stick in the hands of President Taft with which to club two of our provinces into making concessions to the United States. Is that patriotic? Is that a precedent to establish hastily? The President of the United States is given a club by two representatives of the government of Canada with which to coerce our provinces into any policy he may see fit to impose on them. Surely in a matter of that kind the fullest deliberation ought to be given. The people of Canada do not want to be rushed into this bargain. They wish to be heard before it is completed, and they wish to have full time to discuss it. They wish to have it discussed in the schoolhouses of the back concessions and townships. That is their right, but we are taking from them the right of public meeting and discussion. I say that we should have public meetings all over this country for the discussion of this measure before we decide to adopt it. And I pledge myself to do what I can to keep this question in this House until the people of Canada have had the opportunity of discussing it from one end of the country to the other. British Columbia wishes to discuss it in detail; so does Nova Scotia. I met some men from Nova Scotia interested in the fishing industry, who told me that after considering this thing a second time they thought it was wrong. But they are to be denied the privilege of sober second thought, according to the speech of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), and we are simply to be rushed into this thing because two or three members of the government made an improvident deal with the President of the United States. The honour of the country, I say again, is not involved, but the discretion and the.wisdom of those who made this bargain are in question. They talk about keeping their word with the United States, and about a breach, of
V
honour. But what about their disregard of the rights of parliament to fully discuss this matter and pass its opinion on any tariff Bill introduced into this House? One of the serious objections to a measure of this kind is that not even parliament can alter it. The people are to have no say about it, parliament is to have no say about it, even the followers of the government are to have no say about it, and the consequence is that Liberals all over the country object to going into a proposition on which they cannot be heard.
A while ago I was discussing a question in this House which involved the idea of responsible government. I believe it is the right of a government to assume responsibility upon matters which they introduce into this parliament. They may have to do it in matters of war; they may have to do it in matters of policy; but when a great organic change is proposed, when the relations of this country to the mother land are involved, then I say time must be taken, the people must be consulted, and an opportunity must be given them to pass upon it. To-day they are to be denied the privilege of passing upon this question, and they are asked to rush it through. Why this haste? Cannot President Taft deliver the goods he has signed to deliver? He is an important man. I had occasion to sav the other day that he is the only man in diplomacy to-day whose name and whose signature is not worth the paper on which it is written, because he cannot deliver the goods. AH he says is, I will undertake to do it, I will submit it to Congress. But Canada is bound to pass it through, according to lion, gentlemen opposite. All Mr. Taft undertakes to do is to submit it to Congress, but we are asked to put it through parliament. He has delivered the goods when he has submitted them to Congress, but according to the Minister of Finance, we have not finished our part of the contract until we have put it on,4he statute-book. President Taft has less power in the new Congress than he had in the old one. The new Democratic Congress is committed to reduce the tariff all round, amd they will do it. If we had only waited until the Democrats had had an opportunity of reducing the tariff, there would have been no need of this upset in our public affairs. Let the Democrats Teduce the tariff as far as they like, and after they have gone as far as they wish, we may get far more than we are getting under the present proposals. In fact, if hon. gentlemen want to get wider markets from the United States let them withdraw now and put the responsibility on the Democratic party.


Mr. KNOWLES.: Does the hon. gentleman want more? I understand that he is displeased at getting so much.


William Findlay Maclean: 
Mr. W. B. NORTHRUP (East Hastings).: Mr. Speaker, I would not have ventured to occupy the time of the House at this stage of the session had it not been for one observation made by the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), when he lately addressed the House. I differ from my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) who expressed his surprise that the Minister of Finance had no argument to advance in answer to the admirable speech made by my hon. friend the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax). I differ from my hon. friend from North Toronto in that respect; I did not expect any argument to be advanced by the Minister of Finance in answer to those supporting the motion when he would dare to come before parliament with the most important piece of legislation that has been presented in years, and not even pretend to advance any argument in its support except to offer the supposititious history of the negotiations touching reciprocity. This tragedy of errors, I think I am justified in calling it, has become more and moi'e complete, and perhaps the most remarkable feature of the minister's answer was that, in pointing out why the motion should not be adopted, he was very careful to throw away from himself the belted knight and to declare to this House, and the country that he represented the toiling masses. I w'rote down his exact words, and so I am prepared to pledge my faith that he said that in introducing and supporting this agreement- he was doing so in the interest of the tolling masses. I suppose that it is perfectly reasonable to say that when the Minister of Finance spoke of toiling masses he was speaking intelligently having reference to a certain definite class of people in his mind, or else he was talking unpardonable twaddle. I do him the justice to believe that he thought he was speaking of them in the former way. Who would the toiling masses be in the Dominion of Canada for whom he presumes to speak? Who would they be down in his own province of Nova Scotia? I suppose it would be fair to assume that the men who are toiling in the coal mines of Nova Scotia would be included among the toiling masses, and he stands here to show his love and devotion to them by reducing the duty on coal eight cents a ton in the interest of that portion
of the toiling masses who work in the mines of Nova Scotia. That is the way that he represents that section of the toiling masses. He will find in his own province men toiling in the iron industry. While the iron industry is perhaps not very much affected, yet rods are put on the free list and whatever protection there is in that item for the iron industry, and, therefore, in the interest of this portion of the toiling masses who are engaged in the iron industry, is taken away. If there is anything in this treaty, this pact, for the farmers of Nova Scotia it must be because they will get more for their products hereafter than they have been able to get heretofore. I do not say that will be the result, but if there is anything in it, it must be that, and so the hon. gentleman stands up here and assumes to speak on behalf of the toiling masses who are to be .benefited by decreased wages, and an increased cost of living. Then, we come westward to New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, dotted with manufacturing towns and cities, and I presume that any man who understands the English language will admit that the men who are working in our factories are a portion of the toiling masses.
I cannot imagine what justification the Minister of Finance has for standing up . here before this intelligent House, and saying that this pact is introduced in the interest of that portion of the toiling masses that we find in the workshops and factories of Ontario. Has there been anything coming over the ground from the various workshops and factories? Is it possible that he reads the papers? Has he received any communications, is he not aware, as I believe he must be aware, that the practical men who are working in the workshops and factories of Ontario are opposed to this pact? Then we go to the west; we go to the prairie farmers-the grain growers, perhaps I should say. I cannot believe that, as a matter of accurate description, he would be justified in calling the men who are becoming rich-as we are all glad to see by growing grain in the Northwest, the toiling masses. I am afraid that the farmers of my own province of Ontario, who are an industrious, prosperous and contented people, would be offended by being described as a portion of the toiling masses. In the far distant province of British Columbia again we have our mines, and we have a portion of the toiling masses at work in them. If my description be true-if not I hope to be corrected-I would like to ask what possible justification the Minister of Finance could have for saying that, in introducing this pact to this House, and in opposing the suspension of a consideration of it, he was standing up" for and supporting the interests of the toiling masses of this country. If the hon. gentleman had not the faintest idea whom he represented

as he has not, if the hon. gentleman "who made the bargain has not the faintest idea what his bargain is, I ask, is it not a reasonable proposition that other people who have not had the same opportunity that he has had should have au opportunity of studying so wide-reaching and far-spreading an agreement as this? When I say that the hon. gentleman does not understand his own bargain I justify that statement by his own speech in which he introduced the bargain to the House. After the Minister of Finance had used up column after column of ' Hansard ' with an historical retrospect, very interesting, but unhappily inaccurate, he, in a half dozen lines at the end of his speech, referred in a rather contemptuous way to a few old musty, almost forgotten treaties which Great Britain had made, and which would allow a few countries other than the United States to enjoy the advantages of this pact. Ought not any man, as honest as I am sure the Minister of Finance is, as appreciative of his responsibilities to this House as I am sure he is, as regardful of- his reputation in the country as he must be, in introducing any important piece of legislation of this kind involving an agreement between Canada and the United States which also brought in twelve other countries at a cost to them of not one penny, and to whom we open our doors, to have called the attention of the members of this House to that fact, that it might honestly and intelligently consider the question, especially in view of the circumstance thqt by reason of this pact, whatever we might receive from the United States, we could by no possibility receive anything from these other countries to whom our doors are thrown open. I feel that I am all the more justified in assuming that the Minister of Finance was acting honestly, but under a misunderstanding of his own bargain from what the right hon. gentleman said only yesterday when he pointed out, that, even if the Argentine Republic had the advantage of the Canadian market, and could send her wheat into Canada, Canada on the same principle could send her wheat into the Argentine Republic, and that was an ample and a perfectly satisfactory explanation in the mind of the hon. gentleman.
When I hear such statements I feel justified in saying that no wiser motion could be made than that the consideration of this important measure should be postponed for at least a time in order that the Finance Minister might learn that in the Argentine Republic labourers are content with about 45 cents a day, and until we are ready in Canada, as the government has declared it is ready, to reduce^the wages of the men employed on our farms to 45 cents a day, we cannot compete with the Argentine Republic. And even when Mr. NORTHRTJP.
we have reduced our wages to a point where we can compete, we are met with a duty when our wheat reaches the Argentine, which their wheat does not when it reaches .Canada. So under no possible combination of circumstances can we deal in wheat with the Argentine Republic. The Minister of Finance pointed out that President Taft had agreed to recommend this -pact to Congress ,that Congress had died without discussing it and he had recommended it to a second Congress and he said that therefore we were in honour bound to keep on with the consideration of the case. Does it not strike him, if his argument is sound and his logic worth listening to, that if our American friends discuss this and do not actually kick it out of doors, if the Democratic party choose to go on with its own measures without refusing to consider this, we are bound to stay here until Doomsday to keep our faith or else must pass this enactment without having the faintest idea of what they intend to do. Would not one think that when such an opportunity was offered to the government of reasonably postponing the decision of the question, they would have discovered that no other party in the world but the present government would have made such a bargain as this with a high tariff party, already defeated when their successful opponents were elected, pledged to a low tariff. When they had once made the mistake of having a bargain with the high tariff party instead of with the low, if the interests of the country appealed to them, they would be only too glad now, the President having done his part and failed, to carry out all he agreed to do-for all he agreed to do was to submit the matter to Congress and recommend its adoption-the President having failed in what was expected on his side, one would expect that the government would have taken advantage of these facts and if they were bound to make a bargain would have made it with those who would be a thousand times more willing to make a bargain than the Taft administration were before the present Congress came into power. That would seem self-evident and if the government had been acting in the interests of the country instead of from some motive I cannot explain, they would have adopted the course I have suggested.
I do not pretend to say why they have acted as they have done but it is common report from one end of Canada to the other that the only reason the pact was made was in order to divert the attention of the people of Canada and particularly of the right hon. gentleman's own province of Quebec, from the unhappy naval policy to which this country is pledged. I cannot vouch for that but from end to end of

the country it is said that this is another price we are paying for our Canadian navy. Knowing the feeling of the people of Quebec and other provinces against this extraordinary expenditure of $22,000,000 on the army and navy, the government wished to draw a herring across the scent and so sent ambassadors to the United States to make a bargain. By doing so, they have attracted a good deal of attention for a little while, the people have forgotten the navy, although when an election comes on they will remember it again; but would it not be worth while for the government to abandon for a while their personal interests and consider the interests of the country and if they are bound to make a bargain make it with the party pledged by Champ Clarke, in the House of Representatives, to reduce the duties on the necessities of life as soon as they came into power to the vanishing point or remove them altogether. If they removed the American duties on the necessaries of life we would have all we have got to-day and more. The Canadian farmer would have better access to the American market under what Champ Clark promised to the House of Representatives under this agreement. Strange to say there are gentlemen sitting behind the government who, after carefully avoiding listening to the debates, up to ten minutes ago actually had not the faintest conception of what the objection of Canadians to this agreement is. The hon. gentlemen seem to think that as long as Canadians get access into the American market they should be satisfied. No one >on this side of the House is objecting to any admission of Canada to the American market. The Americans have control of their tariff and can remove the duty on everything tomorrow and we would have no reason to object but surely even some of the hon. gentlemen opposite should be able to under stand the difference between getting' access to the American market and the Americans and 12 other nations getting access to the Canadian market. I apprehend that before the country has finished discussing this question, many hon. gentlemen opposite will find that the constituents who sent them here perfectly understand the difference between getting admission to the American market which the leader of the winning party in the United States says they are obliged to give us anyway, and giving the Americans and 12 other countries, for nothing, admission to our markets. If hon. gentlemen could only for once take their eyes off the foreign country and fasten them on their own they would see that the interests of Canada are as they have been admitted to be by this and preceding governments, to keep the Canadian markets for the* Canadian people.
Although I do not pretend to stand here on behalf of the toiling masses, I do represent an agricultural constituency and therefore, I am prepared to support the motion made by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden) because I stand here to protest, as the representative of an agricultural constituency, against the compact made in 1878 and renewed in 1897 being violated by the hon. gentlemen opposite; I stand here to protest against the bargain by which the province of the Minister of Finance gets a duty on coal and iron which is of no benefit to my province of Ontario and by which Ontario is given a duty on her breadstuffs being violated, it being understood that the duty on breadstuffs was a sort of bargain. Nova Scotia being given one thing and Ontario another. I warn the Finance Minister that if he is as regardless of his own province as he apparently is of the Dominion as a whole, the farmers whom he has selected as the particular objects of his animosity, who, of all people, are to be deprived of protection, whose markets are to be given not to the United States but to the world, I warn that hon. gentleman that if he really is true to his newly found and oft-professed although rarely acted-up-to belief in the doctrine of protection, the day is not far distant when the farmers of Ontario will say:	We only
bear the duty on coal and iron in consideration of a duty on our products and sinice that was the direct bargain made in 1878 and renewed since, as you have broken the bargain, and removed our duties, we will insist that the duty on coal and iron be removed in order that justice may be done. I, as a protectionist, would be exceedingly sorry to see a movement of that kind on the part of the agricultural element of this country. I think perhaps the most dangerous feature in this measure is the unhappy setting of one class against another, for nobody can possibly argue, even the Finance Minister, and the Prime Minister know it is impossible to argue this agreement on any platform without denouncing the manufacturers and appealing to the farmers. If it is to the interests of this country to set class against class, let us proceed with this discussion, but if not, let us know that the true basis of our national prosperity is a protective policy, then let all classes enjoy it, or as the farmers say, either all shall have it or none, and I am sure there is no man in Canada so rampant a free trader, except possibly the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), as to believe that it is the true interests of Canada that all protection should be removed from all industries.
One other word. It seems to me that the Minister of Finance threw out a hint that while he intended to give ample op-

portunity for every member to discuss the question, the House was not to sit here indefinitely. I take his hint to be that if necessary a closure would be applied in order to secure a vote on this important question. I sincerely hope that I misunderstood the hon. gentleman. I am not going to ask him whether I understood him rightly or wrongly. If I understood him rightly, I would be sorry to have him repeat the statement and be bound by it. But in the discussion of a question like this, on which the people of this country are more excited than on any other, because there has perhaps been a time when their pockets have been so immediately touched, whether we are right or wrong, if the discussion were to be shut off by the application of a closure, I am inclined to think that we would come nearer to a rebellion in Canada than we have been for many a day. It is bad enough to have the rights of this House taken away; it is bad enough to have two gentlemen go to Washington and sign a treaty which binds every man in this House, which for the first time in Canada compels us to vote for items whether we like them or not

Sime hon. MEMBERS. Oh, oh.


Mr. TALBOT.: How is the hon. gentleman going to vote against it if he is compelled to vote for it?


William Barton Northrup: If I were able to vote for such a measure as this, I would not think it necessary to call attention to myself in public. I would retire to the remotest privacy, and would hope that I would not be discovered. I was appealing to those who have to accept this measure as a whole or oppose it as a whole. Surely hon. gentlemen opposite can see if they lay aside party feelings and apply their common sense to the question, that it is a monstrous thing to be placed in this position, when deliberating in the interests of the country, for each man here, though elected by a single constituency, represents the whole electorate of Canada. Therefore it seems extraordinary that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, who represent British Columbia, are obliged to vote to kill one of the greatest industries of that province, or else refuse to accept the bargain as a whole. If this House undertakes to amend a single clause in the agreement, the whole thing has to go back to the United States again for their ratification. The right hon. the Prime Minister represents the fruit growers of British Columbia as much as the hon. member for Yale-Cariboo, and the Minister of Finance represents the milling interest just as much as any man from Manitoba; and they must either vote to kill the industry which is interested, or to take back this agreement as a whole. I, therefore, hope that the government will see that there are advantages, Mr. NORTHRUP.
and very great advantages, in withdrawing, the measure for a time, as it is quite possible that the American Congress may not agree to it all. If this House should pass this measure, in the opinion of many of the best financiers in this country-and surely they are more competent to judge of a question of finance than even the toiling masses whom the minister so much respects -the very passing of it by this House would have an injurious effect on the country. This measure affects the banks, the transportation companies, the investment of capital from the mother land and even capital from the United States, which has been coming here so rapidly of late; and if it is true that the mere passing of the measure by this House, irrespective of carrying it out, is liable to cause tremendous injury to Canada, why not let it stand until we see whether the American Congress will pass it? ' If they fail to pass it, we shall have done no harm; and if they pass it, the right hon. the Prime Minister will still have an opportunity to have it dealt with by this House. It must be borne in mind that the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives, and that while the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, it is a very uncertain one, being only eight or nine, including the insurgents; so that it is by no means certain that this measure will pass the Congress of the United States. It cannot be too well remembered also that their system of government is very different from ours. If the right hon. gentleman insists, this Bill must sooner or later pass this House, but it is not so in the United States. The President might use every means in his power to secure the passage of the Bill, and yet it is not certain that it will pass. For these reasons I appeal to the right hon. gentleman to let the measure stand at all events until the American Congress decides what it will do. If it should pass that body, I can quite understand that the right hon. gentleman might feel bound to endeavour to have it passed by this parliament. But in the meantime the country will have an opportunity to consider it; and if the measure is, as he seems to think, so transparently in the interest of this country, and the people express their approval of it, he will then be able to have it passed by parliament, supported by a majority of the people of this country, and all criticism from this side of the House will of necessity be closed.


Mr. DEVLIN.: If action is delayed here, and the United States Congress passes the measure, will the hon. gentleman then favour the proposal before the House?


William Barton Northrup: Most certainly not. I would not act so illogically, I hope.


Mr. H. GUTHRIE (South Wellington).: Mr. Speaker, the question before the chair seems to be a simple one, and not one which

invites a general discussion of the main issue. Therefore I think we might limit ourselves to discussing the single question whether, in view of what has recently transpired in the Congress of the United States, it would be well for the parliament of Canada now to halt, or whether we should proceed. I believe the wording of the motion is that in view of the failure of the United States Congress to approve of the proposed trade agreement, the discussion of the matter in this House should be postponed, and the matter should be referred to the people. Now, we must all agree that the question is to-day fairly and squarely before the parliament of Canada. I think it came properly before us. It was the result of negotiations which took place between Canadian ministers and negotiators on behalf of the United States government.
It does come before us 'and is launched in the regular form, and we are discussing it, I assume, as a serious matter and one on which we expect to reach a definite conclusion one way or the other. Is it not more dignified to discuss this as a matter pertinent to Canada and Canadian interests, independent altogether of what in the meantime Congress may or may not do. The fact that the 61st Congress has not seen fit to deal with the matter ought not to influence this parliament. If this pro-nosal be a good proposal for Canada, why halt in the discussion? If it be not a good proposal, then let us refuse to entertain it; but to my mind, no proper logical reason has been offered for postponing that discussion. The 62nd Congress will be just as powerful and potent as the 61st. Its session will probably last- two, or three, or four months. True, it may deal with other questions besides the tariff. That is the privilege of a special Congress of the United States; but it has been convened for a single purpose, the trade arrangement with Canada, and it is very probable that that arrangement will be given precedence. We can, therefore, reasonably expect that the Congress about to be convened will pass upon that arrangement one way or the other within a very limited range of time. Then why should we halt or hesitate in dealing with it or discussing it? There has been no attempt on the part of this government to limit the discussion in any way. I have heard no threat of closure, and I think I am correct in saying that there is no rule of closure really applicable to the proceedings of this House. We can, I think, fairly say that it is the desire, not only of the government, but of all members on this side, to have this matter most fully threshed out before a vote is taken, and we are having a most full discussion of it, not only here, but throughout the country, and in the press of the country, so that all the people and their representatives, if they pay any attention to what is
going on, will be fully aware of all the aspects of the proposed bargain now before parliament.
My hon. friends opposite, however, give as their reason for delay that they want to submit the question to the people before this House passes on it. Well, I am just as thorough a believer in the voice of the. people as any hon. member of this House, and, perhaps, just as often as any other hon. member have I consulted my constituency with regard to matters which come up in this parliament, and I would have no hesitation in submitting this matter to my own constituents at any moment.
I am satisfied that there is a very strong opinion, in that part of Ontario at least, in favour of this proposal. But is it proper or necessary that in so many of these questions the will of the people should be directly taken? I submit it is not. I cannot accept the doctrine that we are mere delegates of our constituents. I believe that we are here in a representative capacity to_ exercise our own judgment, after discussion and deliberation, and we are in a position to do this more fully and effectively than our constituents, and we are consequently in a better position in all probability to pass on this question. But if we are mere delegates to register the wishes of our constituents, there is no necessity for our being here at all. A letter would serve the purpose just as well as our presence. We are here, however, as representatives, and as such we have the right to deal with this matter if we see fit so to do. During my experience in this House I remember that when the Transcontinental railway question was up it was said that we should have had a mandate from the people. Again, when the new northwest provinces were being established, it was said that we should wait for a mandate from the people. And, lastly, when the naval proposals were before the House, we were equally told that we should have waited for a mandate from the people before submitting them to parliament. Why, if appeals to the people had been granted in all these cases, we would have had a succession of general elections and no time to discuss the business of the country. For these reasons I submit it is not necessary that on a question of this kind we should go back to the people for a mandate. Surely we have a mandate with regard to the regulation of trade, the raising of taxation, the arrangement of our fiscal policy. Surely the arrangement of our fiscal policy is one of the first reasons for sending us here at all. On this matter, therefore, if on no other, we have authority from the people to act as in our best judgment we feel warranted in doing. I think that is about all that can fairly be said on the motion before the Chair. Are we to postpone or go

ahead? I see every good reason for our going ahead with this discussion without curtailing it in any way, and I see no good reason for postponing it. It is said that when the 62nd Congress of the United States meets, in all probability we shall receive better terms from that country than under the proposed arrangement. Well, if I understand the arrangement, better terms will not affect it so far as Canada is concerned. The tariff may be lowered, the free list may be as much more extended as the United States Congress may see fit to enact, but so long as we get what we have agreed for the agreement will stand. In other words, there may be as much plus as possible, but no minus.


Herbert Brown Ames: Does my hon. friend realize that by this arrangement we allow all parts of the British Empire and 12 of the most favoured nations in on the same terms? Whereas if the United States, of their own volition, give any of these privileges, we do not have to extend them to other countries.


Hugh Guthrie: I , realize that situation quite well, but I really have so little regard for that favourite argument of my hon. friend that I pay absolutely no attention to it. I think that this objection has no weight. I was surprised to hear the hon. member for Hastings (Mr. Northrup) talk of the Argentine Republic and the 45 cents per day labour in that country and ask how Canadians could compete against that labour. I do not know the rates of labour in the Argentine Republic, but I do know that the chief exports of that country are cattle and wheat, and that we are competing with them and beating them every day in the British market, and I do not expect to see the day when cattle or wheat from the Argentine Republic, or Bolivia, or Colombia, or the eight or ten other countries mentioned will ever come into Canada in serious competition with the products of this country.


Mr. CAMPBELL.: Might 1 interrupt? What authority has the hon. gentleman for stating that Canadian cattle are beating the Argentine cattle every day in the British market? In stating this he is stating what is absolutely not the fact, and I would refer him to the hon. member for St. Lawrence division of Montreal (Mr. Bicker-dike).


Hugh Guthrie: I can answer my hon. friend that the county of Wellington sends beef to the English market labelled Wellington beef, and it commands the highest prices in that market to-day. I have never discussed the question with my hon. friend from Montreal (Mr. Bickerdike), who is well up in the cattle business, but I do say that the general price of cattle, as between Canada and the Argentine, is regulated in Mr. GUTHRIE.
Liverpool, or, at least, in Great Britain, where we are selling our cattle, day after day, in competition with the Argentine and with the world. I suppose that, in regard to the general grades of cattle, prices will be about equal. But my point is that this 45-cent-labour which my hon. friend from East Hastings (Mr. Northrup) states will be ruinous to Canada has never been ruinous to us in the past.


William Barton Northrup: We have always had a tariff.


Hugh Guthrie: Not in Great Britain- we have never had the benefit of a tariff there, and yet we compete in that market, and compete successfully. And, if we can compete in the market of Great Britain, three or four thousand miles away from Canada, surely we can compete right here at home where we save that long haul. I have more faith in the Canadian farmer, and the Canadian stockmen than to be afraid of the competition with which my hon. friend from East Hastings threatens us from the Argentine Republic. Now, to come back to the question immediately before the committee, and avoid discussion on the general issue, what is the dignified course for Canada at the present moment?-to cry ' Halt! * or to go ahead? We have launched on the consideration of this question, and not any action of the United States short of refusal should terminate these proceedings in this House. To take the other view, it seems to me, might be called accepting the dictation of the United States. I think our proper course is to go ahead-either to enact the arrangement or to refuse the arrangement; at all events, do not let our action be dominated to the extent suggested by possible action of the United States. If they give us what we think they will give us on this arrangement, well and good; if they do not, as I understand it, the arrangement falls to the ground. There need be no unsettling of trade, no uncertainty about the matter. If it should be that we approve this arrangement before Congress approves it, as my hon. friend from East Hastings well knows, it will not come into force until this government is assured that it has received the sanction of Congress. So, there need not be any uncertainty or any unsettling of trade about the matter. Why should we hesitate? It is possible, if not probable, judging by some statements we have seen in the newspapers, and even statements made in this House, that this discussion will be a long one. It may be that Congress will decide this matter on their side before the House decides it on this side. If I am to take serious meaning from the statements of the hon. member for East Hastings, we are almost face to face, in this country, with something like

rebellion. I do not like the idea of rebellion against the anthority of the Crown coming from any member of this parliament of the standing of the hon. member for East Hastings. My solution of the matter would be a simple one. I think we should proceed. I have not the power my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) has in regard to those members on the other side of the House. I cannot turn around on this side and declare that every man will stand up and support this agreement as he announced that hon. gentlemen on that side would vote against it. I have no doubt that the real idea of the hon. member for North Toronto and of his leader (Mr. Borden, Halifax) is to obtain what might be called a snap verdict in this matter without experience or full consideration; and what they most fear is that there will be a ratification of this arrangement between Canada and the United States, and that the arrangement may have one or two years to operate and bear fruit before there is a general election. And,' while predictions do not count for much, I can at least give my prediction that, if an election comes on only after this agreement has been ratified, and has had a fair opportunity of working out as between these two countries, there will come back to this parliament after the next general election only the wreck of the Conservative party.
Mr. FOSTER, I wish to correct my hon. friend (Mr. Guthrie) on a point of fact. If he-questions-it,-J -suppose- we shall have-4o-leave it to ' Hansard ' to-morrow. I did not undertake, in my own right, to say how hon. gentlemen on this side would vote. What I did say is that every member on this side of the House would be ready to cast his. vote


Mr. BELAND.: On the measure?


George Eulas Foster: On the merits. We never cast our vote on anything but the merits.


Wilfrid Laurier: Before I address myself directly to the motion of my hon. friend (Mr. Borden, Halifax), I think it would not be amiss if we had a word of discussion upon the assertion which has been made several times in this debate by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), and repeated, I think, by almost every one on that side who spoke after him to the effect that, in asking parliament to ratify this agreement, we are departing from true constitutional principles. It was stated that we had carried out a new idea, the idea that tariffs could be made in secret and brought before parliament to be ratified or rejected. If there were anything in this statement, you would have to come to the conclusion that this is the first time in any British parliament in which a treaty of commerce was
ever presented for ratification. The treaty of commerce necessarily implies a change in the tariff of the country. Well, is it the first time that such a thing has happened? You have to-day twelve treaties, which have been spoken of in this House, and which are still in force. These at one time or other have been negotiated by Great Britain as this treaty was, and presented to parliament and accepted by parliament.


George Eulas Foster: May I ask the Prime Minister how many of them defined specific duties and contained tariffs?


Wilfrid Laurier: These treaties are tariff legislation as affecting relations with these countries, with which they are made. I will go further -and call my hon. friend's attention to a treaty which was negotiated by Mr. Cobden, in 1863, between England and France, and which certainly affected the wine duties of England. It was negotiated just as this was, secretly- if you choose to call it so-and brought to the parliament of Great Britain and by that parliament ratified. We have even heard in this debate of the treaty of 1854, which was accepted unanimously by the parliament of Canada. Was this treaty negotiated by Lord Elgin and Mr. Hincks in any manner different from this arrangement which was made by my horn. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) and my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson). The procedure was exactly the same. In the face of these historical facts, whichuafeTnown" to "every-schoolboy, it is idle to say that we are introducing any new departure in constitutional government. And I am reminded by my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) of a case which applies, if possible, even more directly. My hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster), when he .was acting Prime Minister, was one of those who ratified a treaty which had been negotiated by Sir Charles Tupper, in secret-to use the _ words of hon. gentlemen opposite-with the French government.


George Eulas Foster: May I ask a question? There must be a limit somewhere


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


George Eulas Foster: What I want to ask is this: If the right hon. gentleman claims that right in regard to the items of the tariff changed by this agreement, does he claim the right in this- way to change the whole tariff? For instance, would he make a treaty in the same way, including manu-fatures as well as natural products?


Wilfrid Laurier: All this is subject to parliamentary approval. And what we have done has been done again and again, and done by my hon. friend him-

self, although he has forgotten it in a moment when he is served by a treacherous memory. But he knows he did this very thing in 1893, which he now reproaches us for doing. But my hon. friend knows that they did this very thing in 1893 which he now reproaches us with doing. There was a treaty, not a secret arrangement, tout an actual treaty negotiated in secret toy Sir Charles Tupper with the French government, which was brought here and accepted by the whole Conservative party. So I say that it is childish to _ present such an argument at the present time in opposition to this agreement.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.
House divided on amendment-(Mr. Borden, Halifax).

Messieurs
Ames,
Arthurs,
Barker,
Barnard,
Beattie,
Best,
Blain,
Blondin,
Borden (Halifax), Boyce,
Bradbury,
Broder,.
Burrell,
Campbell,
Crocket,
Crotbers,
Currie (Simcoe), Daniel,
Donnelly,
Edwards,
Elson,
Foster,
Gilbert,
Goodeve,
H'aggart (Winnipeg), Harris,
Henderson,
Herron,
Hughes,
Jameson,
Kidd,
Lake,
Lalor,
Lancaster,
Lennox,
Lortie,
Macdonell,
Maclean (York, S.), McCall,
Maddin,
Marshall,
Medgben,
Middlebro,
Monk,
Nan tel,
Northrup,
Owen,
Paqnet,
Perley,
Porter,
Price,
Reid (Grenville), Roche,
Russell,
Schaffner,
Sexsmith,
Sharpe (Lisgar), Sharpe (Ontario), Sifton,
Stanfield,
Staples,	!
Stewart,
Taylor (Leeds), Taylor
(New Westminster), Thoburn,
Thornton,
White (Renfrew), Wilcox,
Wilson Lennox & Addington) and Wright.-70.
Messieurs
Allard,	McColl,
Allen,	McCraney,
Aylesworth (Sir Allen) McIntyre, Beauparlant,	McKenzie,
Beland,	McLean (Huron),
Black,	McLean (Suntoury),


Wilfrid Laurier: Messieurs
Ministerial.
Brodeur,
Templemam,
Emmerson,
Pardee,
Stratton,
Low,
MoGiverin,
Guthrie,
Bickerdike,
Sinclair,
Chew,
Roy (Dorchester), McMillan, , Turcotte (Nicolet), Ethier,
Delisle,
Gervais,	.
Lanctot (Richelieu).
Opposition.
Haggart (Lanark), Magrath,
Fraser,
Smyth,
Gordon (Nipissing), Wallace,
Osier,
McCarthy,
Rhodes,
Crosby,
Chisholm (Huron), Lewis,
Bristol,
Clare,
Armstrong,
Cowan,
Doherty,
Sproule.	I

Amendment negatived.
Motion agreed to and House went into Committee of Ways and Means.


Mr. LLOYD HARRIS (Brantford).: Mr. Chairman., I think that the question before the House and the country is perhaps the most important question that we have had to consider in Canada since confederation. I have one of the hardest tasks of my life allotted to me to-night, for the simple reason that I find I am not able to support the government on this important proposal. I have reached this conclusion with very considerable regret. It is not easy, I think every one will admit, to cast off party ties on an important issue of any kind, and I deeply regret the fact that I have been forced to the conclusion that I cannot support the government in this proposal, because I do not think the proposal is in the best interests of Canada. Ever since the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) made his announcement in this House, I have been endeavouring to get a sane and safe view from a Canadian standpoint as to the effect of this proposal on our present national life and on the future development of the national life of Canada. When the announcement was first made, I had a very strong impression that it wa3,.a departure from a policy which I had thought had been the policy of the Liberal party, but I also thought that it was a departure which would lead us into ways and in directions which _ would not he for the. future best welfare of Canada. At that time I was apparently alone on this side of the House because the announcement was greeted, I thought, with considerable enthusiasm on the part of members on this side, but since I find that the views I formed at that time are shared very largely by very many people throughout the country. I do not consider that all the brains of Canada are confined within the four walls of this room. I think there are men engaged in large undertakings who are just as good Canadians, who have just as good, and perhaps a great deal better opportunities of sizing up the real conditions in Canada and the real facts of an issue of this kind as we have in this House.
I have purposely refrained from making any public utterance on the question until I had an opportunity of listening to the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). I listened to him yesterday with a very great deal of interest and with a very great deal of pleasure. I think I might say that I have always been an admirer of the right hon. the Prime Minister. I have been very glad indeed to serve under him, because I think that he has done as much for Canada as any man whom we 154
have ever had here, and I listened yesterday with perhaps more admiration than I have ever had for him before for the simple reason that he made certainly a magnificent speech; he aroused the enthusiasm of our friends on this side of the House. He covered every aspect of the subject, excepting the one important one. I was glad to see the right hon. the Prime Minister very frank about this, because he frankly admitted that he was not a business man. I must confess that the only training I have eveT had has been along business lines and perhaps I look at things from too practical a standpoint, there may not ibe enough sentiment in my makeup. However, I think what we need in this country is a good practical business consideration and discussion of a measure of this kind before we allow it to become law. I had intended saying a few words on the amendment, which was introduced by the hion. the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden) before the recess; I thought an opportunity would have been given for the members to speak on that after dinner.
Apart entirely from the economic features of this case, I have four good and sufficient reasons, at least they are sufficient for me, for opposing this measure. First of all I do not think that this government has any mandate from the people. The main arguments that have been advanced in favour of this measure have been the fact that this is an historic policy, a policy of both parties in Canada for the last 50 or 60 years. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) in making his announcement reviewed the history of the different negotiations which have taken place between Canada and the United States with reference to reciprocity between the two countries. Other speakers have done the same thing. I am not going to weary the House by going into the details of these different negotiations, but all the speakers who have touched upon the subject, have brought down the history of these negotiations from 1854, the time of the first treaty, to 1896. Since 1896 I do not think that any case has been made out. For my own part, I can only say that unfortunately I was. absent from Canada from 1889 to 1900 and have only been familiar with Canadian conditions and politics in the last 11 years, and I know positively that in that 11 years reciprocity has not been an issue with either party in this country. I have no mandate from the people of my own constituency to support this measure. If I go back to my own constituency and tell the people exactly what I think of the effect this is going to have on that particular constituency, and say that I have supported it, I do not think they will have any use for me in future.


Mr. CHISHOLM (Antigonish).: Have you a mandate to oppose it?


Lloyd Harris: That is am easy question to answer. A man always has a mandate to oppose anything he has not a mandate to vote for. I have been a little surprised that no authorities have been quoted on this subject. I have been looking up the question, and I find in. a work entitled ' The Government of England,' by Lovell, who, I believe, is a recognized authority, under the head, ' The Doctrine of Mandate,' the following:
Another sign of the times is found in the doctrine, now sanctioned by the highest authority, that parliament cannot legislate on a new question of vital importance without a mandate from the nation. The theory that the individual representative is a mere delegate of his constituents, so that he is hound to resign and submit to re-election if he changes his views, has long been a subject of discussion; but the idea that parliament as a whole exercises a delegated authority in the sense that it is morally restrained from dealing with questions that have not been laid before the people at the preceding general election would formerly have been regarded as a dangerous political heresy. Yet during the recent agitation in regard to fiscal policy, Mr. Balfour, while repudiating the suggestion that the existing parliament, having been elected on the single issue of the South African war, ought to be dissolved when peace was made, refused to grant time for a debate on free food on the ground that it would he constitutionally improper for parliament to act on the question until it had been submitted 'to the people at a general election, and that it would he unwise for the House to discuss a subject on which it could not act. I
I think we are wasting time in discussing this question, because we have not any mandate from the people of this country with regard to it.
My second reason for opposing it, is the method of doing it. If the government had a mandate, the method would have been quite correct, but the government having no mandate, the very fact that we in this House, who have been elected by our several constituencies to represent the people of this country, have never even been called into consultation, that we have never been asked to express our views on a measure which is perhaps the most radical departure in policy that we have ever had in this country, and the fact that two men went to Washington and made this arrangement and have come back to this parliament and aTe practically trying to force this measure through the House, is a method which I, personally, cannot support. Let us consider for a minute the procedure in the case. It has not been brought out in the debate, I think, up to the present time, what tppIIv has happened. As I under-Mr. HARRIS.
stand it, a year ago representations were made by President Taft through Mr. J. A. Macdonald of the Toronto f Globe,' to this government, that he found himself in a difficult position, owing to the Payne-Al-drich tariff having in it a clause which required him to penalize Canadian importations into the United States. I do not know whether it is known or not, but I have heard, and I think it is quite correct, that this clause in the Payne-Aldrich Tariff was copied from the Canadian tariff. We had such a clause in our tariff for some dime. We had it several years ago when Germany found it necessary to- .attack us in its tariff, and what was the answer that Germany got? We simply put the Act into force as it was, and we said to Germany: Very well, if you want to penalize us, we will penalize you, which we did; and I think that action had the support of everybody in this country. And when the United Slates made representations that it was necessary to have legislation put through at Ottawa to save the president of that country, I think we should have given them the same answer that we gave to Germany. Now, what consideration has been given to this arrangement? I have been very much interested in these negotiations ever since they commenced; and as far as I can find out, the two ministers returned from Washington on a Wednesday, and at that time apparently the other members of the cabinet, or at least those that I spoke to, knew no more about the conditions of this compact than I knew myself. The council evidently met on Thursday for an hour-if I am wrong in this, I hope I shall be corrected; this proposal was evidently considered by the council for one hour, at three o'clock this House met, and at 3.30 the hon. Minister of Finance came in and laid the agreement before the House. "I am ..only speaking for myself, but personally, I do not think that any man should be asked to support a measure which is forced through in that way, and which means so much to this country.
The third reason which I have for opposing it, is the one to which I attach the most importance. No donbt all of the hon. members of this House have had the same experience that I have had while these negotiations were in progress. I had letters and interviews, and when I went to western Ontario, I met a great many people who expressed their anxiety that something might happen which would effect them or their interests adversely. To one and all of such requests for information, I said: You need have no fear whatever, because there will be no revision or alteration of the tariff of thisi country without a thorough investigation. I want to state my reasons

for having given that -answer, -and if I make a longer quotation from ' Hansard 5 than I would like to do, I hope the House will bear with me. The right hon. the Prime Minister, on the second day of this -session, speaking in the Debate -on the Address in reply to the speech from the Throne, referring to his visit of last summer to the west, made this statement-:
The people of the west are now asking for a reduction of duty on certain articles which they consume. That is a very proper subject of investigation, and we intend to investigate it- Bnt at the proper time. My hon. friend (Mr. It. L. Borden) is very impatient. We who have been in office for a certain number of years know that if there is one thing more than another essential to the business prosperity of a country it is stability of character. And my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) who has special charge of these matters on his side of the House will not dispute this, although when in office he was delinquent on this point-he tinkered with the tariff year after year. But with the warning before us given by his course, we were particularly careful not to fall into his error. It has been our policy to have a revision of the tariff periodically, hut not year after year. I stated to the people of the northwest during my recent trip that it would be ou-r duty to consider their requests and to deal with them in the spirit in which we have always dealt with requests from the people. And I repeat that now. I stated, and my hon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) quoted my words, that we would have a ccmmission of investigation before we undertook a revision of the tariff. I noticed that that-evoked a cheer on-The-part of hon. members on the other side of the House. And may I be permitted to say without offending my hon. friend, and with every hope that he will pardon my pride in the matter, that the parts of his address that were most applauded were his quotations from my speeches. I trust that this flattery will not make me vain; I mention it only as a fact which is within the knowledge of all who heard the hon. member's speech. The statement made by myself and quoted by the hon. gentleman that we would have an investigation by commission before we altered the tariff called forth a special cheer from hon. members opposite. Does any hon. member on the other side take issue with the promise I made? Would any of them advocate rushing into a revision of the tariff without previous investigation?
That I consider a statesmanlike utterance. I was perfectly satisfied1 with it. I took it as a distinct and definite promise, and I made other promises on the strength of it.
The fourth reason that I have, is one which may not perhaps appeal to some members of the House, but I do not think we should look upon this reason in too light a way. It is that it has hurt the pride of Canadians. Some of my hon. friends laugh.
I think a glance over the history of Can-1544	-
ada since confederation will prove my point. For many years we felt that we were absolutely dependent on the United States, and we had these pilgrimages to Washington, for the purpose of negotiating free trade relations. But every time that we went wearing out our shoe leather, as one hon. gentleman has put it, what was the result? We simply met with one rebuff after another. Every time we knocked at their door, we were refused admittance; and the load we had to carry in Canada for a great many years seemed greater than we actually could bear.
Had we got, however, what we wanted at that time, the whole course of Canadian history would have been changed. We would not have had a country such as we now have. Our maritime provinces would have been connected by trade and commerce with the eastern states; Ontario would have been dealing entirely with the state of New York and the adjacent states and in the Northwest of Canada, I doubt if we would have built a railway around the north shore of Lake Superior. But not having been able to get what we wanted, we were forced to initiate a policy of our own, and that was to take off our coats and seek to bind this country together and create a nation. We have done this. We have done perhaps what no other country in the world has accomplished. You all know what it means for a man when he feels he has done something. It makes him a better in every respect. One of the good things That has come to us in recentr yeaTS is The knowledge that we have a separate and distinct entity. The word ' Canadian ' stands to-day for something. Years ago it did not stand for much. At present, however, it means that Canadians have done something that they have accomplished things, and that means a great deal to a people just as it does to an individual.
I claim that this measure-the method of doing it, and the measure itself-is one that will have far reaching consequences on Canada perhaps more than anything that has ever happened. I give these four reasons for opposing it, which perhaps will not be considered sufficient by my hon. friends on this side. But for these four reasons alone I have made up my mind that I cannot support the government in this measure. I propose now to deal with its economic features, and shall have to do that in my own way. Each one approaches all these questions from his own standpoint, but I think every one will agree that we should approach the discussion of a measure of such importance as this in a sane manner. I cannot say that some of the arguments and remarks of the advocates of this measure are made in that spirit. I was Teading in the Toronto ' Globe,' of March 4, an account of a meeting at Woodstock the other

night at. which the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. King) was present. The article is as follows:


VOICE OF CANADIAN TRUST.
[Stage Direction]
In this agitation against the agreement we find the beginnings of the subtle and skilful manoeuvrings of the Canadian trust. We are being warned to-day to beware in this arrangement that we do not deliver ourselves into the hands of the American trusts, but I sometimes think that we hear in this warning the voice of the Canadian trust speaking not so much for the Canadian people as for its own selfish interest. What is the first principle of a trust? It is monopoly of tha market, complete control of the sources of supply. What is one of the most effective weapons in combating that influence? It is the opening of new markets, the giving co those who have products to sell other and wider markets in which to make their sales.
I wonder if the so called Canadian trust was responsible for the unanimous resolution of the Berlin Board of Trade condemning the proposal.
Mr. KING.: Will my hon. friend permit me to say that the Berlin Board of Trade did not pass the resolution attributed to it, according to a statement made subsequently by the secretary of that board.


Lloyd Harris: I think I got the information in both cases from the Toronto * Globe.' I did not read that, however, to in any way belittle my hon. friend the Minister of Labour. What I read it for was to contrast the utterances of one of our Canadian ministers with those of one of the American ministers, which were delivered a few days ago at a public meeting in Chicago. At a dinner given by the Chicago board of commerce on the 15th February, at which one of the speakers was Mr. James J. Hill and Mr. Knox, Secretary of State for the United States, the latter spoke to this large and important gathering of Chicago's best business men on the question of reciprocity as follows:


BUSINESS KNOWS IT WANTS RECIPROCITY.
[Stage Direction]
This function could cease now and here without a moment of speech, and still go down in history as almost epochal, because when has it occurred that a matter of such grave economic significance as the one which is now not only being considered by the Con-giess, but by the people, has gathered together such an assemblage as this, men whose hands are upon the throttles of great enterprises for the development of our country, and who are worth more to its ultimate and its present prosperity than a thousand times as many politicians going up and down the land demanding that something shall be done for fear something will happen.
The point I was making was this, that there is a great deal of opposition to this measure throughout the country, not confined to any particular class. The opposi-Mr. HARRIS
tion to it is not restricted by any means to the business, manufacturing, financial and commercial interests, but it also extends to the farmers.
Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Lloyd Harris: I have been interested in following several of these ballots which have been taken by different newspapers. In one Canadian Agricultural journal which 1 was reading to-night, I find that the number of votes throughout Canada apparently in favour of this measure was about 1,000 and against it 600, so that the opposition to it is not, as some hon. members would have us believe, coming from the one quarter. But even if it did come from one class, every Canadian has the right to make up his mind on any important question, and in so doing he shoulld not be subjected to the imputations of unworthy motives. We have in Canada all classes of people. We are not purely and simply an agricultural country. Manufacturing is a necessity. At least I think that we require manufacturing industries, but if it be not the policy of the Liberal party to have manufacturing, I suppose I shall have to remove myself from Canada. But I submit that one man in one industry in Canada is just as good as a man in another industry. We are all Canadians working together for the general benefit.
I have listened with a great deal of interest to all the arguments which have been put forth in defence of this measure. I listened with great pleasure to my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark), the other night-I always listen with pleasure to the hon. member because he always says something good, something of interest. But, in reading his speech next day, I found that it was one of his characteristic speeches. He quoted Peel, and Cobden and Gladstone. I am interested, as much as anybody possibly could be, in the free trade history of England. The men who inaugurated the policy of free trade in England were doing exactly what we at the present time in Canada are trying to do. They were trying to frame a policy which will make England a great country. Their policy, I believe, was the best that could possibly be pursued for that country at that time. But the fact that that policy was a good thing for England seventy or eighty years ago is no reason why we should accept it as the policy for Canada in 1911. We have to study the conditions of our own country.
I have given a great deal of thought to what I suppose is the real policy of the Liberal party. When the present government came into power, the existing policy was one of protection to all industries. That policy, I think all will' agree.	has	been retained. It

has been changed to suit the conditions arising from time to time-I do not believe in a hard and fast policy of any kind. Added to that fiscal policy, however, the government immediately inspired a new faith in the future of Canada. They undertook a vigorous programme of development of our natural resources. We advertised in a large and comprehensive way, and in the proper places, our potentialities. We undertook in a large way additions to our transportation facilities. We have followed a policy of encouraging agriculture, the growing of products for our available markets; and, what was more important, a policy of transportation facilities which would carry our surplus products to the best markets of the world in the best possible condition. The government granted the imperial preference. They made very large expenditures on agriculture, in order to give information to the farmers of this country of the best methods of growing and putting up their products so that they might command the highest price. This, I consider, has been the policy of the Liberal party, and that policy has been eminently successful. I can remember twenty-five or thirty years ago-though I am a young man yet- when the farmers came on our market in Brantford and sold chickens at 10 cents each; to-day they are getting in the neighbourhood of 75 cents. They would sell butter at 10 cents to 12 cents a pound, we are paying 30 cents to 40 cents per pound to-day on the Brantford market. Eggs were sold in those days from 8 cents to 10 cents a dozen; now we are well off if we get them at 50 cents to 60 cents at certain seasons of the year. What is the reason of this? The first reason is that we have built up a consuming population in Canada which is the best market our farmers have, and any surplus products can be shipped and delivered and sold in the best markets of the world where they will command the highest prices. We have done all this without any assistance from the United States. We were forced to do it on our own account. Now we have got the home market, and, what I have always felt as to the future policy of this country-and this is the crux, I think, of the economic situation in connection with this measure-is that our agriculture should be put in such shape that nothing should go out in its. crude condition. I do not want to see the wheat of our Northwest go through United States channels. If it must go out of Canada in its raw state, I want to see it go through Canadian channels. But I want to see as much of it milled in transit as possible. That is building up our own country. I do not want to see that second1 grade wheat they have in the west sold on the market at all
-it is not going to give us a good name for our Canadian wheat. I want to see the meat industry established in such a way that such wheat should go out of the country in the shape of dressed meat, bacon, hams, and other similar products. In the province of Ontario, where we are at present growing $200,000,000 worth of field crops,-first, I want to see that raised to $1,000,000,000,-I do not want to see one dollar's worth of it go out of' Ontario in its crude state, but in its most highly finished condition. And that, I think, is an ideal worthy of any Canadian, and a policy that any paTty should be glad to maintain.
A great deal has been said to prove that the effect of opening up our market in this country to ninety millions of people in the United States and to other nations which can send in their products here on the same terms as the Americans can, will have no effect on the farm produce of this country. First, I wish to take up the question of our own, production and export. Many hon. members who have spoken on this subject, ridicule the home market. They want to know what the home market is worth anyway. Well, here are some figures which I think will be of interest to the members of the House. In the year 1908 the estimated value of the field crops of Canada was $432,534,000. In the Trade and Navigation Returns for the year ending March 31, 1909, the total exports of field products from Canada for the year- which would be the crop to which I have just referred-were $82,718,926, leaving a total of $349,815,074, which was consumed in Canada. In other words, for every $1 of field produce raised in Canada, 80 cents worth was consumed and only 20 cents worth exported. That is what all this noise is about- to get markets for that 20 cents worth. Now, included in the exports are the following which have gone through a process of manufacture-I wish to show how closely agriculture and manufacturing must come together in this or any other agricultural country:	[DOT]
Flour	$ 7,991,517
Indian meal	 4,818
Oatmeal	 535,963
All other meal	 58,104
Cereal foods	 1,380,507
Bran	 858,900
Canned berries	 204,246
Total	$11,064,055
Those products all went through a certain form of manufacture. I use those figures for comparison. In the following year, 1910, the amount was much larger in every way so far as crops in Canada were concerned. The total value of the crops was $531,690,000. The exports were $102,747,694; consumed in Canada, $229,342,406, or exactly the same percentage as the year be-

fore, notwithstanding the fact that the value of the crops was $100,000,000 more than the year before. Our home market increased in one year from $349,000,000 to $429,000,000. The total amount of exports which had undergone a partly manufactured state, was $19,866,653 as against $11,000,000 the year before. That is what our home market consumed in field crops alone. Now in animals and their products, in 1909, the exports were $52,026,710, and of that sum $38,144,107 went out of this country in the form of finished products, leaving only $14.000,000 which went out in the raw condition. I will submit the following tables in support of the remarks which I have just made:	i
BEPORT OP TRADE AND NAVIGATION FOR YEAR ENDING MARCH 31st, 1910.
Exports.	1909.	1910.
Animals and their products	$ 52,026,710 $ 54,696,630
Agricultural	products.. 82,718,926	102,347,694Minerals	
37,257,699	40,528,998Fisheries	
13,332.871	15,760,391Forest	
39,867,387	47,688,256Manufactures	
28,711,944	40,331,467Totals	$253,915,537 $301,353,436
In the item ' animals and their products ' are included many articles which have gone through a process of manufacture, viz.:
	1909.	1910.
Butter	.$ 1,575,877	$ 1,010,274Cheese	. 20,398,482	21,607,692Furs, dressed	. 69,077	35,371Furs, undressed	. 2,504,878	3,680,949Grease	. 197,299	171,363Glue stock	. 7,239	8,872Hair	. 147,407	172,583Hides	. 4,034,343	5,430,591Horns and hoofs	. 5,459	8,924Honey	. 1,188	621Lard	. 35,883	133,268Bacon	. 8,415,247	6,431,359Ham9	. 422,851	416,886Game	. 3,330	6,244Tongues	. 3,356	264Canned meats	. 195,917	193,479Condensed milk	. 91,388	541,372Tallow	. 34,880	16,279Totals	.$38,144,107	$39,866,391It has been stated	that the	favourednation clause would	have no	effect on
prices in Canada for farm produce. It is a very peculiar thing, but it is a fact, that every country in the world with the exception of Denmark, which is known as an agricultural country, has high protection. I have schedules here showing for several of these countries the duties on the different articles of produce going into them. As I interpret the Act, Australia is not a favoured nation country, I do not think they get favoured nation treatment that other British colonies get.


An hon. MEMBER.: All British possessions.


Lloyd Harris: 


Lloyd Harris: As I interpret the Act, I do not think Australia is included, New Zealand is.


Mr. EDWARDS.: In answer to a question I put the other day, the Minister of Finance said that all British possesions came in.


Robert Laird Borden: They do not come in under the favoured nation treaties, but under a policy which the government has announced.


William Stevens Fielding: The policy which Canada has always adopted is not to give to a foreign nation any advantage which is not given to the whole British Empire.


Lloyd Harris: Then Australian produce comes into Canada free of duty.


Herbert Brown Ames: If the hon. gentleman will allow me, I will read the clause in the original resolution which refers to that. It will be found in the motion moved by the Minister of Finance on the 26th of January to go into Committee of Ways and Means:
That the advantages hereby granted to the United States shall extend to the United Kingdom and the several British colonies and possessions with respect to their commerce with Canada.


Lloyd Harris: Australia has a very high protective tariff on all articles of farm produce:


RATES OF DUTY ON CANADIAN PRODUCTS ON IMPORTATION INTO AUSTRALIA.
[Stage Direction]
Articles and tariff rates of duty.
Cattle, $2.43 per head.
Swine, $1.22 per head.
Sheep, 48.6 cents per head.
Wheat, 36.5 cents per 100 pounds.
Barley, 48.6 cents per 100 pounds.
Beans, 36.5 cents per 100 pounds.
Potatoes, 21.7 cents per 100 pounds.
Butter, 6 cents per pound .
Cheese, 6 cents per pound.
Eggs, 12 cents per dozen.
Hay, $4.34 per ton.
Then I have a table relating to Austria-Hungary which I will not take up the time of the House by reading, but will hand it into the ' Hansard '.
William Stevens Fielding: The other day the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) objected to anybody handing anything into the ' Hansard ' which was not read. Therefore I hope my hon. friend will read it, because I would like to have it on * Hansard '.


Lloyd Harris: I may say that I have not had time to get information about aP the countries, merely about those which are the largest exporters of agricultural products.


Samuel Hughes: I think the same courtesy should be extended to the member for Brantford (Mr. Harris) that has been tre-

quently extended to the Minister of Finance on many occasions.


William Stevens Fielding: I will withdraw my objection.


Lloyd Harris: Then I will hand the table for Austria-Hungary to the ' Hansard '.


RATES OF DUTY ON CANADIAN PRODUCTS ON IMPORTATION INTO AD STRIA-HUNGARY.
[Stage Direction]
Articles and tariff rates of duty.
Cattle-
Oxen, live weight, 86.6 cents per 100 lbs.
Bulls, $6.09 each.
Cows, $6.09 each.
Young cattle, $3.65 each.
Calves, $1.02 each.
Swine-
Weighing up to 10 kilogs., 30.5 cents each.
Weighing up to 120 kilogs., $2.44 each.
Weighing over 120 kilogs., $4.47 each.
Sheep, 50.8 cents each. '
Lambs, 30.5 cents each.
Wheat, 58 cents per 100 pounds.
Barley, 25.8 cents per 100 pounds.
Beans, 22.1 cents per 100 pounds.
Potatoes, free.
Butter, natural, fresh, $2.21 per 100 lbs.
Butter, natural, salted, $3.22 per 100 lbs.
Cheese-
Stracchino, Gorgonzola, fontina, montasio, and grana (Parmesan, lodigiano, re-giano); also sbrinz cheeses in the shape of millstones, $1.11 per 100 pounds.
Other fine cheese for the table, $5.52 per 100 pounds.
Hard cheeses in the shape of millstones-
Weighing each 50 kilogs. (110 lbs.) or more, $1.11 per 100 pounds.
Weighing Less than M-kilogs., $1.29_per-100 pounds.
Other hard cheese, $4.60 per 100 pounds.
Eggs, free.
Hay, free.
Then I comp to Denmark. Denmark is practically the only agricultural country which admits agricultural products free. Probably Denmark is the most highly educated country agriculturally in Europe, or possibly in the wmrld.
Their agriculture is carried on under the most perfect system. The Technical Education Commission propose to visit Denmark and they will find so much of interest and gain so much information that will be of importance to Canada that I hope that when they come back with their report the people of Canada, the government, and this parliament will recognize the necessity, up to a certain point, until we get our agricultural and technical education thoroughly well established, of protecting the agricultural industry. With the permission of the House, I will submit the following tables:

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Articles and tariff rates of duty
Cattle, swine, sheep, wheat, barley, beans,
potatoes, butter, free.
Butter in hermetically sealed vessels, $4.86 per 100 pounds.
Cheese, $2.43 per 100 pounds.
Eggs and hay, free.

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Articles and tariff rates of duty.
Cattle (fat cattle excluded)-
Oxen, cows, bulls, steers, bullocks and heifers (live weight), $1.75 per 100 lbs. Calves (live weight), $3.51 per 100 lbs. Swine-
Pigs (live weight), $2.20 per 100 lbs. Sucking pigs weighing 15 kilogs. or less, 77 cents each.
Sheep-
Rams, ewes and wethers (live weight), $3.51 per 100 lbs.
Lambs, weighing 10 kilogs. and less, 77 cents each.
Wheat, 61.4 cents per 100 lbs.
Barley, 26.3 cents per 100 lbs.
Beans, 26.3 cents per 100 lbs.
Potatoes, 3.5 cents per 100 lbs.
Butter-
Fresh, $2.63 per 100 lbs.
Salted, $1.75 per 100 lbs.
Cheese-
Hard, known as Dutch or Gruyere, $1.05 per 100 lbs.
Fine (affine) soft, $1.75 per 100 lbs. Medium hard (demi dure) and other, $1.32 per 100 lbs.
Eggs, 52.7 cents per 100 lbs.
Hay, 4.4 cents per 100 lbs.
RATES OF DUTY ON CANADIAN PRODUCTS ON IMPORTATION ______________INTO ITALY.	________
Articles and tariff rates of duty. Cattle-
Oxen, $7.33 each.
Cows, $1.93 each.
Bullocks and calves, $1.54 each.
Bulls, $3.47 each.
Sheep and lambs, 58 cents each.
Swine-
Weighing up to 20 kilogs., 58 cents each. Weighing over 20 kilogs., $1.93 each. Wheat, 65.8 cents per 100 lbs,
Barley, 35 cents per 100 lbs.
Beans, 10.1 cents per 100 lbs.
Potatoes, free.
Butter-
Fresh, $1.32 per 100 lbs.
Salted, $1.75 per 100 lbs.
Cheese-
Hard cheeses-
Formaggio dolce, formaggio dell della paglia, also Emmenthal, Gruyere, Bernese, saanen, sbrinz, spalen, 35 cents 100 lbs.
Other hard cheeses, 87.7 cents per 100 lbs. Soft cheeses, $1.32 per 100 lbs.
Eggs and hay, free.

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Articles and tariff rates of duty. Cattle, 10 per cent.
Swine, 25 per cent.
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Sheep, 25 per cent.
Wheat, 21.46 cents per 100 lbs.
Barley, 16.94 cents per 100 lbs.
Beans, soja, 16.18 cents per 100 lbs.
Beans, red or white, small, 16.94 cents per 100 lbs.
Beans, (vicia faba), 13.93 cents per 100 lbs. Potatoes, 43.29 cents per 100 lbs.
Butter, $10.02 per 100 lbs.
Cheese, $6.40 per 100 lbs.
Eggs, $2.18 per 100 lbs.
Hay, 6 cents per 100 lbs.

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Articles and tariff rates of duty.
Cattle, $2.43 each.
Swine and sheep, free.
Wheat, 18.2 cents per 100 lbs.
Barley, 48.6 cents per 100 lbs.
Beans, 18.2 cents per 100 lbs.
Potatoes, 21.7 cents per 100 lbs.
Butter, 20 per cent.
Cheese, 20 per cent.
Eggs, 20 per cent.
Hay, 20 per cent.
I have a few figures showing the exports in 1908 of domestic produce from the following large exporting countries:
Exports for year 1908 of Domestic Produce from following Countries:
Argentine Republic	$353,195,154
Included in above-
Wheat	$124,333,118
Flour	 4,953,668
United States-
Animals	$ 34,101,289
Animal products	 156,915,293
Breadstuff s	 216,494,100
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Lumber (unmanufactured)..	..
Denmark-
Butter	
Eggs	
Dressed meats
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New Zealand-
Meats (frozen)	$ 15,517,449
Wool	 25,952,866
Butter	  5,699,752
Cheese	 3,812,688
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Australia-
Breadstuffs	$ 20,295,332
Animal products	 23,599,894
Wool	 111,513,145
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France-
Animals	
Butter	
Cheese	
Eggs
Lloyd Harris: 8,536,183
11,686,122
4,183,724
2,694,296
Potatoes.. . Wool (raw)
Fish	
Raw hides..
8,678,921
45,709,754
7,531,960
21,597,771

The United States are producing exactly the same class of agricultural products that we produce, and in 1908 they produced over $400,000,000 worth. I do not think the area of Denmark is as great as that of our maritime provinces. With reference to Australia, included in the item of animal products is $5,932,987, which is the value of the frozen mutton which was exported during that year. In Australia sheep are grown for wool and not for meat. The meat is really a waste product. In so far as the sheep industry is concerned, with our farmers trying to grow sheep for the wool and the meat as they do in this country, the sheep industry would be wiped out of existence. It may be said that the sheep industry does not amount to anything any way. I know it does not at the present time, but I would like to see it properly developed as well as other branches of agriculture. France is not regarded by us as an agricultural country, but it really is one of the greatest agricultural countries in the world. I have only given these figures to show the competition that we will have in agricultural produce, not only from the United States, but from a great many other countries. At the present time New Zealand buttter is finding its way to this market, and if the duty should he off New Zealand butter I am thoroughly satisfied it will reduce the price of butter in Montreal by at least four cents a pound. The price of New Zealand and Danish butter in England at the present time is from 21 to 22 cents a pound, and in Montreal it is from 26 to 27 cents a pound. It can be brought over here for about one cent a pound.


George Taylor: Has my hon. friend a table showing the imports into Canada from these countries for the last year, of butter and eggs?


Lloyd Harris: No, I have not. I cannot prophesy what will really happen from allowing ninety millions of people access to our market, but if it does not mean very strong and keen competition with the farmers of this country I do not know anything about the business.
Then, there is another point. The treatment we have had from the United States in fiscal matters has been of such a character that we have resented it at different times. I think, of course, that they were doing exactly as they had a right to do. They were engaged in exactly the same problems that we are engaged with at the present time. From the time they started in the development of their country un-

til they reached what is practically at the present day their maximum development they brooked no interference from anybody, they allowed no one to come into that country and have their markets, they insisted that the people of the United States should have the markets themselves. As a matter of fact, the home market is the only market that any nation has absolute control over. We have not any control over the United States market. Now, when they come to a point in their development when it is to their interest to allow Canadian goods to come in they are willing to let us come in. But, we are in the same position that they were in-I do not know just how many years ago it would be-but we have got' started in our development, we have not reached our maximum development, and will not reach it for a great many years to come. I have the highest kind of regard for my United States friends, I have a great many friends over there, and I have had a great deal of business to do in that country.


An hon. MEMBER.: You are still loyal?


Lloyd Harris: I am still loyal. I am not dealing with the loyalty feature of this question; I am dealing with it from the business standpoint. I think our best plan is simply to keep as closely as we possibly can, and as closely as we dare to the plan that they themselves have laid down. While they were developing they would brook no interference from us; while we are developing we do not want them to come in and interfere with us. When we get to the state of development in this country where we have given our agricultural population and the people generally every facility to acquire the best, the most scientific and the most intelligent methods of agricultural production so as to enable them to turn their products out in the most highly finished condition, I am perfectly willing that we should trade with the world.


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: How long will that be?


Lloyd Harris: I do not know, but we certainly are not there yet. My hon. frimd the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) made a very excellent speech the other evening, and I think he has been the only speaker on this side of the House who has attempted at all to touch with any detail on the economic feature of the different articles which would naturally pass from one country to the other. The minister in his statement the other night said that the farmers will get the American price for wheat. What is the American price? I have here an extract from a speech made by Mr. J. J. Hill, in Chicago, the other night, at the Chicago Chamber of Commerce dinner. He said:
The price of any commodity of which a country produces a surplus for export is fixed in the market where it must be sold. The demand of the whole world for wheat meets the supply of the world in the Liverpool market. To that, Russia and Argentine and Canada and the United States all send their surplus. The visible supply is noted, the piobable demand computed, the prospects of growing crops taken into account, and these automatically determine the price.
The Farmer Gains Either Way.
This Liverpool quotation regulates wheat prices in all the markets of the world. It is cabled daily to New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Duluth, Winnipeg and the other primary markets of wheat-exporting countries. The price in each of them varies daily with the Liverpool advice. It is, therefore, impossible that this price should be affected by the trade relation of any two of the countries to each other. It can make no difference in the total stock of wheat for sale, which fixes the price, over what route it goes to market. The quotations would not he changed by the fraction of a penny if all the wheat of Canada went abroad by way Of Minneapolis, Chicago, Duluth and New York

Which Heaven forbid.
-instead of by way of Winnipeg, Port Arthur and Montreal. But every bushel milled in transit helps the price, by withdrawing from the visible supply, on which prices are based, the wheat that has been turned into flour.
That is exactly the situation so far as wheat is concerned. Everybody knows that, so that any advantages that our western [DOT] farmers may gain- in price- of wheat are purely imaginary.
I wish to emphasize the point that I want to see every bit of wheat exported from this country sent out in no form less crude than flour.
I now come to barley. The minister stated that on account of the McKinley tariff our farmers lost a great deal of profit. He quoted the amount of profit they have lost by taking the figures that they had received in a certain number of years for their barley. I know something about the barley country in Ontario; I know that when the McKinley tariff was put into effect the farmers along the north shore of Lake Ontario were almost stunned, the blow had been so heavy. But I also know that since that time those same farmers have changed their methods of farming and are producing crops at present which give them more money than they got for their barley, and in addition their land is in much better condition.
Now the meat trade. The minister apparently would be glad to see the whole of our meat trade thrown over to the control of the United States packers. I do not take this view of it at all. I want to quote a resolution which was presented to the government by the farmers' deputation in December on the chilled meat industry:

Whereas it is of very great importance to the whole of Canada that prompt government action be taken towards establishing a complete chilled meat system on a sound and permanent basis, with the interests of the prcducers adequately protected; and
Whereas, the live stock industry of Canada has been neglected, and if the neglect is continued it will soon result in impoverished farms, and the live stock industry of the country will make no headway until it is made worth the farmers' while to produce and furnish more and better stock; and
Whereas the farmers are on account of the unsatisfactory market going out of the meat producing business, and will not again take it up until the market is placed upon a stable basis, and further that under the present system of exporting there is always a danger of the markets of the world being closed to us, which would result in ruin to many; and
Whereas on account of the danger of encouraging monopolies the farmers cannot be satisfied with anything short of a meat curing and chilling process inaugurated by the Dominion government, and operated in such a way that will guarantee to the producers the value of the animals they produce.
Of all the memorials they presented, I was most in sympathy with that one, because if we are to build up a big meat industry in the west and assist the farmers in getting the prices they should it is necessary that this industry should be carried on by either private enterprise or government assisted enterprise. I do not believe in the government going into the meat business, but no private company or firm or individual can attempt to establish a meat industry in the west at the present time on account of the enormous amount of capital it would require. I think it is an industry that we should encourage, and it should be under Canadian and not under American control.
Now take the packers. They came to Ottawa, they presented their memorial. They were practically told that they did not know what they were talking about, that they would not be hurt. I do not know much about th-e packing business. I did have a large investment in a packing house once, and lost it all. But the packers of Canada have done good service. They have spent large sums of money in good faith, they have done as much as any other class of people to make a name for Canadian farm products, and they should be considered; they should not be left in such a position that their business is going to be jeopardized. The present situation, if this goes through, is that the American packers can come to Canada and get all the hogs they want, while our packers cannot bring over a single American hog, as every hog coming to Canada must be held at least 30 days in quarantine and must be accompanied by a certificate.
The minister also mentioned hay. I quite Mr. HARRIS.
agree with him that it is good farming to grow hay on certain kinds of land, just as it is good farming to grow wheat on certain kinds of land, but I do not think it is good business to grow hay and ship it out as hay. I think it is better to encourage the farmers who do grow hay to feed stock and ship it out in a finished state. That is the argument I am trying to make all the way through.
This question of competition is also dealt with by Mr. Knox in that same Chicago speech. He says :
In making a reciprocity agreement it is proper and right that we should consider the market which our neighbour has to offer us as well as the market which we offer her. Thus, we provide that the agricultural classes of a great section of our country should have the benefit of the free admission of cotton 6eed oil into Canada. We also obtain the exemption from duty of all fruits and vegetables and various other agricultural products of which some sections of the country as widely separated as California and Florida have a surplus at certain seasons, while we are not unmindful of the producers of the border states who at times have large quantities of surplus products which will be benefited by free entry into the Canadian market.
Mr. Knox himself thinks that this will be of assistance to the American farmers along that side of the line. He also says:
The free admission of grain from Canada thus meets the present situation and provides against contingencies when the Canadian surplus becomes greater by placing the control in the hands of our own grain growers.
In the hands of our own grain growers!
They have no cause to fear a demoralizing influx under the conditions which result from the reciprocity agreement.
The proposition with which we have dealt is economic, not political.
The horse industry is a very important industry. Every farmer in the province of Ontario at the present time is following the system of mixed farming. Every farmer is raising one or two colts every year, and they bring a good price in the Toronto market, which, I believe, is the best market for horses on this continent. We have greatly improved the breed of horses in the province of Ontario, and our horses are very much superior to those we would naturally get from the south. The horses we would get from the south would have a deteriorating effect on all Canadian horses in the west if they were allowed to come in free.
Now, to sum up the result of this change of policy, as I see it, so far as agriculture is concerned. It causes us to send out everything in the crudest possible state instead of in the most highly finished state.

It is a serious blow to several important branches of agriculture. It seriously injures the hog industry. It prevents the development of the chilled meat industry under Canadian control. It gives a premium to the farmers to export hay instead of sending it out in the finished product. It bonuses the cheese factories and creameries to close up. It causes the farmers to send out their cattle in frames rather than finished. It kills incentive to more intensive farming. It puts a premium on the mining of the lands of the west rather than farming it. It destroys our hopes and ambitions for better technical agricultural training. It destroys the salt industry. In other words, I look upon the whole measure as a raw deal for Canada-we get the husks and they get the substance.
Conservation has not been spoken of very much during this debate. I was reading the other day in the Ottawa ' Citizen ' a report of a speech which had been made by Professor Robertson before the Canadian Club of Ottawa, and some of the things that he said placed this conservation question, so far as farming is concerned, in a much better light than I could do it. We have heard of conservation of our natural resources, but there is conservation of farms as well. Hon. members may not know that there is a department of our Conservation Commission which deals directly with farm conservation. Professor Robertson said:


FARM CONSERVATION.
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I happen to serve as chairman of the committee on lands. Let me tell you of two instances that came out in our investigations. On 100 farms surveyed in Manitoba, every man reported that the wild oats were had and getting worse. There is a how-d'ye-do-wild oats in the land where grain growing is the staple occupation of the people.
You must conserve the land by intelligent methods. I offer two instances of conservation. One farmer came before our commission who was working a farm settled from 68 to 72 years ago under old Col. Talbot. He told us that he had 103 acres which he had been farming for 23 years, and his crop now was more than twice as much in a year as when he began. He told us, if he could get the right kind of labour, he could again double the production in ten years. There is conservation. (Applause). Then in Prince Edward Island a farmer from near Summer-side testified. We asked this farmer how long he had been on the place he then held. Twenty-two years. He had 97 acres. Twenty years ago he had a mortgage of $1,100 on the farm. For ten years he just held his own. Then he learned to grow clover, keep cows and make butter. There is conservation- land, cattle and the family. The previous year, 1909, he had sold $900 worth of butter and $300 worth of pork, and he sold a horse every second year. There was no mortgage on his farm.
That is conservation of the farm.
I do not know anything about the fishing industry, so I am not going to deal with that subject.
Much has been said of the fact that this arrangement will change the transportation" routes of this country. I think it is absolutely necessary that we should have legislation which will as far as possible keep the trade and commerce of this country within ourselves. I do not mean to say that I would put up a high wall, so that no one could come in ; but we must provide every possible encouragement for the people of Canada to trade with each other. I do not know why it should be a hardship to the people of the west to trade with us in Ontario; I do not know why it should be a hardship to the people of the maritime provinces to trade with us in Ontario; but apparently it does not mean anything to have the pleasure and privilege of living in a country like Canada. I think that all the statements which have been made about the effect which the measure will have upon our east and west routes cannot be too lightly put aside.
Now, I do not want to conclude my remarks without touching upon the subject of agricultural implements. Some members of this House attribute my opposition to this measure to the fact that I am unfortunate enough to have an investment in a business which manufactures agricultural implements. I hope that the members of this House will give me the credit of not allowing any reduction of the duty on agricultural implements to influence me on this matter in any way, shape or manner. The fact that I happen to be interested in the manufacture of agricultural implements does not, I think, make me any worse a Canadian. Much has been said on the subject of implements, and much has been done that I do not think has been altogether fair to the implement industry of this country. It is strange that any government should pick out one industry and make a political football of it; but I think I have to charge both political parties with having done that with the implement industry. The duty on implements was reduced by the Conservative government from 35 to 29 per cent, and I do not think there was any investigation held. The government simply thought that the reduction was a good thing to catch votes with in the west.
William Stevens Fielding: Did they have any mandate?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes, they had the National Policy mandate.


William Stevens Fielding: To reduce?


John Dowsley Reid: Certainly.


Lloyd Harris: Then, when this government came into power, they thought they might get some more votes by hitting the implement industry another crack of 24 per cent. Well, I have no objection at all to the government doing anything with the tariff, provided they know that what they are doing is right and proper and just to the thing done.


William Findlay Maclean: And give every one a chance to be heard.


Lloyd Harris: Yes. So far as protection is concerned, I am not a high protectionist and never was. I do not think any one has ever heard me make any utterance in that behalf, but I do think that we require a tariff in this country. I think it is the only practical way of raising our revenue. If any government would even make the suggestion to change our system and raise revenue by direct taxation, I do not believe it would last 24 hours. We must have a tariff and raise our revenues under it. The agricultural implement industry is perhaps one more indigenous to the soil than many others, and therefore should not enjoy so high a tariff. But the inconsistency of our tariff is this, that when the duty 'was reduced on agricultural implements from 35 per cent to 20 per cent, the manufacturers of these implements were still paying as high as 50 per cent on their raw material. When the duty was reduced from 20 per cent to 174 per cent the government took the ground that 20 per cent was a revenue tariff and made a concession on the raw materials for implements on which the tariff was reduced -there were only two or three of them. Binders, mowers and rakes. The government made a concession in the duty on the raw material of these implements which compensated the manufacturers to some extent for the reduction from 20 per cent to 174 per cent in the duty. At present these same implements are being manufactured, and the manufacturers are paying duty on all the raw materials, with a few exceptions, as high as 50 per cent although they only get a protection of 174 per cent.
Again, the manufacturers of implements in this country have to pay 271 per cent
duty on every bit of machinery which they import for their plant and on all the materials which go into the construction of their plant. About 40 per cent I think would figure out as duty on their coal because I do not think coal is worth more than $1.10 at the mine mouth; and on their factory supplies, which would amount _ to a very large aggregate, they pay duties varying from 25 per cent to 35 per cent.
My hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) introduced a motion this session to which he and some other hon. members spoke. I intended following him if I had had the opportunity, but not having that advantage, I would like to make a few explanations and corrections with regard to the statements he then made, and perhaps I may be able to give my hon. friends on this side a little more satisfaction than I have given them so far. The bon. gentleman made the statement that under the late Conservative government, the binders imported into Canada came in at a fixed valuation of $80. He quoted the imports of binders in 1897, 1907, and 1910, and taking these three years he made an average valuation of the binders and the average duty. I might say now, for his information, that the statement he made was not correct. The late government never had a fixed valuation of $80 for Minders imported into 'Canada. In 1907 he said the average valuation was $144.44. The hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) thought that in this he had made a mistake because he questioned him about it. He evidently did make a mistake in his arithmetic because the figures themselves show that the average valuation of the binders that year was $109.70. I have gone to the trouble of looking up this question, and I have a statement here showing the average value of binders from 1890 down to 1910.


Mr. MEIGHEN.: Would the hon. gentleman be good enough to put on ' Hansard ' the total valuation of the imports of binders for that year and the total number of binders so that I can check the figures. Since making my speech, I went to the trouble of rechecking my figures and found them absolutely correct.


Lloyd Harris: 
Samuel Hughes: In the debates in the United States House of Representatives, the statement has been made over and over again that the American agricultural implement manufacturers do not recognize the Canadian manufacturer of agricultural implements as a quantity to be considered. They say that they can export into Canada against the duty without fear of competition from the. Canadian manufacturer.


Lloyd Harris: I was just coming to that. I have been investigating tha conditions of the plough business because I am not interested in that line and have been looking it up more than the others. The American manufacturer of ploughs at the present time, with a duty against him of 15 per cent, is in just about as good a position to supply the Canadian western trade as will be the manufacturer in Ontario with freight and other things against him. I represent a constituency where we have 6.000 men employed in the factories, and, of these, I suppose 5,000 are engaged in the agricultural implement industry. These

men are the best class of mechanics, I believe, that we have in any factories in Canada. This arrangement is going to mean that the development of the agricultural implement business in Canada will stop. We are not going on to develop the agricultural implement in Canada. The concerns I am connected with have found it necessary, on account of the agitation and the trouble which they think will come, to remove part of their works to the United States. They do not want to do that. '


Mr. MILLER.: May I be allowed a question? Did they remove any part of their Canadian works, or did they simply acquire works in the United States?


Lloyd Harris: They find now, and have known for many years that, for their foreign trade, which is 50 per cent of their entire trade, they could manufacture in the United States cheaper than in Canada. They have preferred to manufacture in Canada, and, with the concessions that the government gave in the way of drawbacks of duties on rawr material, they have up to the present time, been able to continue their industry in Canada. But my own conviction is very strong that from now on, the development of this particular industry will not take place in Canada, but will be on the other side of the line.


William Stevens Fielding: Did not they secure this plant in the United States before this treaty was negotiated?


Lloyd Harris: They did. But they secured it because there had been so much agitation on account of the implement duty. I have no objection, if the implement duties are too high, that the government should lower them. If the duties are too high on anything let the government lower them. I do not believe in a protective tariff that will create conditions under which one man or group of men can get rich at the expense of the people. I do not care very much about discussing this question, but I thought I ought to put myself on record in connection with it in this debate.
Now, Mr. Chairman, my people in Brantford are in a different position perhaps from those in almost any other constituency. We have, as I have stated, large implement industries; we have two flour mills; we have one large pork packing industry. On looking over the list of industries of the town, I find that nine of them are directly affected by this proposed change. Therefore, I do not think that you can expect them to look with a great deal of favour on this agreement. I have had a great deal to do with the getting of American concerns established in Canada. I have many friends in the United States, and Mr. HARRIS.
these men, several of them, at my request, have come over and looked into the conditions existing here, and have established plants. I had a long letter from one of them early in November last, and I would like to read it, so that hon. members will know what opinion on this question is held by some of our American friends who at present have interests in Canada:
I read newspaper accounts and hear considerable talk in Brantford regarding the proposed revision of tariff between Canada and the United States. We are not students in political economy, but as manufacturers and employers of labour in Canada and also manufacturers of the same class of work in the United States it appears to us that it would be disastrous to our Canadian interests to make any change in the tariff. From Buffalo we can reach all the important points that the Brantford plant reaches for a less freight rate than from Brantford. We can also manufacture malleable iron very much cheaper per ton in Buffalo than in Brantford. The above are absolute facts relating to onr business and it appears to us that should the tariff on malleable iron or agricultural implements be removed it would necessitate closing our Brantford plant and transferring the business to Buffalo.
Looking at the whole thing broadly Canada is where the United States was fifty years ago. The Canadian farmers can buy better implements much cheaper than the States farmer could when this country was at a corresponding period in their development, and they certainly can sell their products for more money, making a very attractive net income. On the other hand, if the manufacturing industries of Canada are given proper support, we feel that it would tend to increase the population and thereby increase the welfare of the country at large.
That is a sample of several letters I have had. This same party sent me a wire on the 27th of January, this, I think was the day after the announcement was made in this House of the proposed arrangement:
Kindly wire my expense your opinion as to the possibility of the proposed reciprocity agreement going into effect. We have an option to take over property in Canada for our business employing four hundred people. This option expires on Monday. Should not accept if duties going to be modified. The courtesy of your opinion will he greatly appreciated.
This plant, the purchase of which he had In prospect, was for the purpose of supplying implement manufacturers in Canada with parts of their raw material. I had to advise him that, on account of the reduction of duty from 20 per cent to 15 per cent, I thought the government, in justice to the implement manufacturers, would necessarily have to make reductions in the .steel schedule, and, if they did that, he would have to consider it and deal with it himself. As a result, he gave up his optioo.

I think the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) has stated that he does not intend to do anything with the duties on manufactured goods. I believe that is his firm intention, but I tell you that no power on earth can keep any government from giving the farmers, who are now going to have every vestige of protection taken away from them, their .just claims, when they come down here and demand that every other interest be put on the same footing. It would not be fair, it would not be right. The farmers are not asking for this reduction in duty on their products. The very class of farmer whom we in Ontario, at any rate, think most of, the people who have been literally practising the doctrine which we have been spreading throughout this country that the man who will make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, is doing the most for agriculture in this country, come down here, and what do they demand? They do not come to ask for a reduction in the duties, but to ask the government to give them fair and moderate protection on their investment and on what they are producing. Now, my friend Eugene N. Foss is a manufacturer and a very capable, .clever business man. He is now governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Foss and myself have discussed the question of his establishing a factory in Canada, at different times during the past ten years, I have done everything I could to get Mr. Foss interested in establishing in Canada a branch of their large works which are situated outside of Boston. I believe that Mr. Foss, at the present time, would not consider for one moment following out that advice, because he knows-and every American manufacturer knows-that the government having gone thus far, are bound to go further. And Mr. Foss has stated that:
The present tariff system has resulted in sending approximately $300,000,000 of American capital to Canada to build up branch industries which compete with American factories in foreign markets. It has resulted in stifling the growth of Massachusetts and kept us out of the business and commerce which belongs to us by every right. It has kept the great Canadian railroads from our ports.
That is exactly what I want the Canadian policy to do. I want the American manufacturers to be forced to establish plants on this side of the line and provide work for our Canadian workmen if they want to have the advantage of supplying our home markets.


Mr. BEST.: Are there any producers in Canada to-day except the farmers who have to pay a duty on everything they consume, and have no protection whatever on what
they produce? We have to pay a duty on everything. Is that right?


Lloyd Harris: That is absolutely right, and that is the point I was trying to make. Now, I want to refer to one other memorial which was presented by the farmers' deputation in December last. I was acquainted with one member of that deputation, a gentleman who came from my own county, and I want to place on record my opinion of the memorial which he presented to the government on that occasion, in which he attempted to give the facts existing with regard to agriculture in Brant county. This is from Colonel Fraser:
Treating on the question of turnips, I have frequently seen paid in customs and freight dues nearly four dollars for every dollar paid the producer. This is only one of the many like instances I could enumerate. It is no wonder then that the farming interests in my district are depressed; that the bailiff's business is largely on the increase; that merchants are unable to collect their bills, and that the general conditions of the farmer call loudly and piteously for a change. The conditions as outlined in the contemplated changes of the tariff would, I believe, largely eliminate the existing conditions and place on a sound foundation our agricultural interests, on whose prosperity the condition of all classes so much depends.
As the government has apparently taken this statement as literally true, I want to say that it is not at all correct in regard to the county of Brant, and I think the Minister of Customs will bear me out in saying so. I do not think there is a farmer in the whole county of Brant that will subscribe to what is said there. Now, Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I want to say that I have tried to impress upon the House the fact that we are all working together to build up a great nation. We want everything of the very best. We want our peopl.e equipped with the best educational knowledge; we want them to turn out the best goods of every kind. We want our farmers to be the best farmers; we want them to turn out their products in the best possible condition; we want them to pay more attention to quality than to anything else. If we can build up the country along those lines we shall succeed in making of Canada a great nation. But if we follow the policy of sending out of our country all its raw materials in the crudest possible condition we shall never succeed in building up a great nation.


Henry Horton Miller: The hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean), in speaking this afternoon, said that we were rushing in where angels feared to tread. I see in front of me many men who are filled with fear; I see two or three such men about me on this side of the House. But while the fear is very apparent, I have not discovered the angels among them.

They are filled with fear, and yet I find their fears do not run along the same line. For instance, my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Harris), who has just spoken, is filled with fear lest the manufacturers of agricultural implements are not getting enough protection. My hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) is filled with fear to an equal degree, because he thinks the manufacturers of agricultural implements are getting too much protection on what they manufacture. Let us analyze the fears of these gentlemen, and see whether anybody in connection with this whole proposal has anything really to be afraid of. Sir, in speaking to-night. I purpose meeting the objections to this proposed trade agreement as I find them contained in the speech of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster), not because it was that hon. gentleman who made the speech, but because, after speaking for four hours and a half, he travelled over the whole ground, and made, I think, all the points that have been contained in the speeches of those who have followed him on the other side of the House in opposition to this agreement. I find it more convenient to take all the objections from the one speech than to take them from several speeches. The hon. member for North Toronto said in the first place:
The situation is one of extreme gravity. I may be wrong, but I have given a great deal of thought to this matter in the course of my political life, and the conviction that is within my heart is that we have never had in Canada any question quite so important as this present one-no issue upon which hang larger and greater consequences.
Sir, the hon. gentleman has had a longer political career than I have, and has had a somewhat remarkable political career. I am not willing to say with him that there never has been in Canada any question quite so important as this; I think there have been other questions of even greater importance. Yet I am willing to say with him that if this cannot properly be termed a question of extreme gravity, it may, indeed, be termed a question of great importance. It is a question so important to the people of Canada that I think we may well brush from our eyes the cobwebs of partisanship and refuse to allow any party feeling to warp our judgment on this matter, but simply consider the question from a large, broad and lofty national viewpoint. The hon. member for North Toronto began his speech by making some rather belittling remarks as to the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Minister of Customs. Now, Sir, if I thought that the member for North Toronto meant those remarks as a personal slight and a jeer, or as an insult to those two gentlemen i would not notice his remarks at all. But I do not think that his remarks were intended in Mr. MILLER.
any such way; I do not think that he intended to be personal in his remarks further than that he intended his statements as a logical argument upon this question upon the principle : Do men gather grapes of thorns, or fig's of thistles ? The hon. gentleman proceeded to argue that because this was a trade arrangement made by two estimable men, yet not by any extraordinary men, but two simple-minded men, it could not be an agreement that would be of advantage to Canada. The hon, gentleman said:
Two men started out of Ottawa, two very estimable men but not in any way extraordinary.
Again he said:
These two men, consulting with nobody, except with fourteen or thirteen other equally ordinary men-or I might say not more extraordinary men.
And again the hon. gentleman said:
Why, when this pact was made I can imagine the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Justice, two good men, two simple-minded men, two men of fair but limited knowledge, with two clerks with them, facing the trained men of business at Washington, going down there with fear and trembling, wondering if they could get a little bit of a slice so as to justify their going.
The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Sif-ton) makes use of language very similar when he says:
I do not believe that in the recent history of Canada anything has happened which has given to the thinking people of Canada so painful and so sudden a shock as the sudden realization that four or five gentlemen who, by reason of their ability, their years of service and their high position in their party, are in control of the affairs of the dominant political party, can suddenly, of their motion, without discussion, without debate, without the knowledge of the country, commit the country to a radical change of fiscal policy.
Now,. Sir, the fact that the hon. member for North Toronto three times refers in his remarks to the lack of ability or of capacity upon the part of Canada's two r commissioners shows that he was endeavouring to build up such a logical argument as I have stated. Mr. Chairman, I am not intending at this time to give my opinion as to the business ability of the Minister of Finance or of the Minister of Customs. I may say to the House that not long ago I was talking with one of the sanest, shrewdest, most successful, most influential business men of the city of Toronto, and that gentleman made the statement that he did not think that there is upon the American continent to-day another man so well informed upon the tariff question as the present Canadian Minister of Finance. I have said that this is not an opinion that I give as my own. It is the opinion I quote of a

man better able to judge than I, but this I do -say arid I say it without any intention of being offensive to any one, that the Minister of Finan-ce and the Minister of Customs were much better able in 1911 to negotiate such an arrangement as his than was the hon. member for North Toronto when in 1891 he endeavoured to make a similar arrangement with the people of the United States. When I say that I do not endeavour to compare the natural ability of the hon. member for North Toronto with the natural ability of the two gentlemen, members of this cabinet, to whom I have referred, I allow every man in this House, I allow every man without this House in the Dominion of Canada to form his own judgment and come to his own conclusion as to that. The men of Canada have formed their own judgment upon this question, and I am quite willing that that judgment should remain as it is and as it will be. But I do say that there is no place perhaps, in the political or business life of Canada where a man oan and naturally does aquire such a knowledge of tariff matters, and not only of tariff matters, but of the business affairs of Canada as the position which is now occupied by the Minister of Finance, and next to that the position which, is occupied by the Minister of Customs. These hon. gentlemen are day by day and every day receiving through their mail communications from business men all over Canada, from ocean to ocean, engaged in every kind of business and in all this correspondence Canadian business men are revealing to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs the innermost secrets, the requirements and necessities of their several businesses. Not only do they receive these communications through the mail, but they acquire information from the delegations of influential business men who wait upon them day after day. The Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs have upon several occasions gone through the length and breadth of Canada into all the business centres and have consulted the business men, including the farmers-whom I include as amongst the business men of Canada-as to the necessities, requirements and conditions of their businesses.


Mr. BLAIN.: What year was that?


Henry Horton Miller: Upon different occasions as my hon. friend knows. The hon. member for North Toronto speaks in terms unnecessarily contemptuous of two gentlemen that went with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs to negotiate this bargain -at Washington and to whom he refers as ' clerks.' Who were the two ' clerks ' that went with these hon. gentlemen? The Commissioner of Customs, Mr. McDou-s?ald, who has been for many long years- for a longer period of years than the Liberal party has been in power-engaged in the 155
Department of Customs where he has obtained a very expert knowledge of the business affairs and conditions of Canada. The other gentleman who was referred to as a clerk is Mr. Russell, who for many years was in the employment of the Manufacturers' Association of Canada, where he acquired expert knowledge


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend is mistaken. There is a Mr. Russell who is with the Manufacturers' Association. Mr. Russell to whom the hon. gentleman refers was for a quarter of a century in the customs service, and he has now been transferred to my department. He is not the gentleman who is connected with the Manufacturers' Association.


Henry Horton Miller: Then, for 25 years he, with Mr. McDougald, has been engaged by this government as a trade expert. So, I say that no one could have found within the borders of this Dominion four men better able to go to Washington and negotiate such a bargain than the four who were selected. Messrs. Fielding and Paterson in 1911 had been nearly 15 years in their respective cabinet positions. In 1891, when he went on his mission to Washington, had been Minister of Finance for only three years. The hon. member for North Toronto says: How could these two men succeed facing the trained man of business at Washington? But, Sir, he does not name the trained men of business at Washington and I would ask him or any other hon. member on that side of the House to name the trained men of business at Washington who would be more capable of looking after the affairs of the United States in this arrangement than were our commissioners to look after the affairs of Canada. The hon. member for North Toronto contradicts himself in this part of his speech as he does in many other parts. He speaks somewhat belittleingly of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs, and the colleagues of these two hon. gentlemen in the cabinet when he says that they consulted with nobody except fourteen or thirteen other equally ordinary men. Then he goes on to prove that these men are not ordinary men, that they are not simple minded men, but that they aTe men of extraordinary business ability, and let me read to you the language by which he gives us the evidence of their ability. The hon. member for North Toronto in his speech says:
It was significant that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, began his history at 1897

The year when the Liberal government came into power and began to manage the affairs of this country.
-since then Canada has made great progress,
signal progress, despite the burdensome load

we should seek to improve it.' The Prime Minister speaking yesterday of this argument, put our Conservative friends on the Chinese list, and reminded us that they had said in 1896: ' There is now no necessity of making any change; the conditions are all that we would have them to be, and if you make any change, you are likely to make a change for the worse.' In 1896 our Conservative friends said, let well enough alone; but the people of this country did not say that. They said: Let well enough alone may be the motto of the Conservative party for this year 1896, but it is not the motto of the people; our motto is, let there be greater growth, greater development, greater progress, greater prosperity; and they said: If le,t well enough alone is your motto, we will put into power in Canada, a party which has our motto. The people did put that party in power, and the growth and development and advancement of the country under that party has been well described by the hon. member for North Toronto. An hon.Jriend quoted to-day from a letter written by Sir William Van Horne. Let me quote from the same letter these words:	.
We are in' an enviable position. Does not common sense tell us to stay where we are, and let well enough alone?
That is the doctrine which Sir William Van Home applies to the political situation. That is the argument of our hon. friends opposite. I have often heard my hon. friend from North Toronto say this, and it was well said, that the principles which actuate a man in the control of his private affairs ought to be the principle of the government in conducting the affairs of the country. What has actuated Sir William Van Horne in conducting his own business or in conducting the business of the great company of which he is a valuable official? In this letter he says:
' Does not common sense tell us to stay where we are?' Sir William Van Horne was a citizen of the United States. He did not say to himself, Let me stay where I am. He said, Let me go to Canada, and he came here, and he made a great deal of money in Canada, and I am free to say that he benefited Canada as well as himself. But he did not then say to himseif, Let me stay where I am; but he went to Cuba, and with the hundreds of thousands of dollars which he made in Canada from the farmers and toilers of this country, he developed the island of Cuba and increased his own fortune; and as he basks under the palm trees of Cuba, he says to us, 1 am sick and ashamed, and tells us what we should do in the conducting of our political affairs. When Sir William Van Horne says, I am sick and ashamed, I remem-Mr. MILLER.
ber that there is a sickness that sometimes comes to men from surfeiting in the good things of life. There is no other kind of sickness that I know of that a man should be more ashamed of. If Sir William Van Horne is surfeited with the good things of the United States, with the good things of Canada, and with the good things of Cuba, and is ashamed of his sickness he had better stay where he is. He was, perfectly loyal when he left the United States to come to Canada; he vTas loyal when he left Canada to go to Cuba; but I do not think he is the man to say to us, stay where you are, be loyal and let things alone. ' The railway company of which Sir William Van Horne is an official, is before our Railway Committee session after session. His company has been doing well and showing large profits. It has been doing its share towards the development of Canada; but does Sir William Van Horne say to the Canadian Pacific Railway: You are doing well, just let well enough alone, do not attempt to make further progress. No, on the contrary he comes to this government for charters to extend the lines of that company in every direction so that it may grow and add to its business and its profits. If that is good business for a Tailway company, is it not equally good business for a government to conduct the affairs of the country along the same line?
Let me look at the history of the Conservative party, and its endeavours to make just such an agreement as is now proposed. In the library the other day I looked over some of the old newspaper files, and I turned to the Toronto ' Empire ' of February, 1891. The ' Empire ' was then the chief organ in Canada of the Liberal-Conservative party. The Conservative party had just determined to appeal to the country in a general election, and the Toronto ' Empire ' was full of campaign literature and campaign articles. Turning to the ' Empire ' of the 4th of February, I found an article on the front page that reads in part as follows:
The 'Empire' is privileged to publish a copy of the despatch from His Excellency the Governor General to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, showing the nature of the government's proposals to the United States, and indicating the earnest desire of the administration for the development of trade between the United States and Canada.
This despatch is dated Government House, Ottawa 13th December, 1890, and the first clause of the government's proposal read as follows:
Renewal of the reciprocity treaty of 1854 with the modifications required by the altered ciieumstances of both countries and with the extensions deemed by the commission to be

in the interests of Canada and of the United States.
So that the Conservative party of that day, endeavouring to make a trade arrangement, realized that any agreement to be made must have advantages to the United States as well as to Canada. They realized that a treaty arrangement could not be a one sided one. The ' Empire ' of that same day went on as follows:
The Dominion thereupon asked the imperial authorities to remind Mr. Blaine that Canada had always been ready for a fair reciprocal arrangement and had made repeated offers to that effect, which, however, had been ignored or refused by the United States.
In an editorial in the same issue the ' Empire ' said:
There is no reason why a fair and honourable reciprocity, advantageous to both Canada and the United States, should not be the issue of such a discussion as is proposed.
The treaty might be fair and reasonable and yet be advantageous to both countries. They do not seem so willing to admit that to-day. The ' Empire ' of the 7th February, 1891, gives a report of a meeting in Toronto at which Sir John Thompson, then Minister of Justice in the Conservative government, made a speech. He is quoted as saying:
A little over three years ago it transpired that negotiations were being entertained by the United States for the making of a treaty of reciprocity with the colony of Newfoundland. These negotiations have not yet ripened into a treaty, but they were proceeding upon lines which were not unlike, so far as they went, the lines which Canada would be willing to pursue in any negotiations with that country, and not, mind you, at the dictation of the British government, as has been asserted in the press opposed to us, but on our line.
Sir John Thompson was then not as superloyal as our Tory friends to-day are. He said that he was willing to negotiate-' and not mind you at the dictation of the British government, as has been asserted by the press opposed to us, but on our own lines.' We in Canada are running our own establishment, he said; we are not being dictated to by Great Britain, and we are negotiating on our own lines for ourselves, independent of Great Britain altogether. He proceeded further:
He said that Sir. Blain had intimated willingness to make a wide treaty for reciprocity and enter upon separate negotiations with Canada. That statement being made, we are hound to avail ourselves of that to extend our trade. We have never declared our willingness to trade with them. On the contrary, we are seeking extension of our trade in every direction.
Was Sir John Thompson disloyal in saying this? I submit he was not. That was a
logical position to take and a logical argument. Sir John Thompson said we are seeking extensions of our trade in every direction, we are seeking to extend our trade with foreign nations long distances away, then why, in the name of common sense, should we not endeavour to extend our trade in the United States? That speech of Sir John Thompson, was delivered in the loyal, the ultra and patriotic city of Toronto. I did not read that he had brick bats thrown at him or eggs or that he was even hissed on that occasion or that our Conservative friends in Toronto accused him of disloyalty. I ask my hon. friends whether on that occasion Sir John Thompson was a simple-minded, ordinary and unpatriotic man.
If my hon. friends would turn up the Toronto ' Empire ' of the 11th February, 1891, they would find an article with large heavy black headlines. Let me read them:
Canada's tenth fair offer. A brief history of reciprocity since 1865. Canada always willing; the United States always turning a deaf ear.
Listen to this if you will:
Nine out of ten offers made since 1865 came from Conservative ministries.
Here is the boast made by the leading Conservative paper in 1891 that whereas the Liberals on one occasion had offered to	make a reciprocity
treaty with the United States, the Conservative party on nine different occasions had tried to make such a treaty. Then the ' Empire ' went to work and tabulated the offers made in these ten different times to the United States. The first was in 1865 when Sir John Macdonald, and the Hon. George Brown went to England to seek the aid of the British government, and when Lord John Russell, the British Prime Minister, approached Mr. Adams the United States minister at London, and Mr. Adams said that he was not authorized to give any assurance on behalf of the United States. Thus in 1865 these gentlemen approached the British government to get such a treaty arrangement as we are endeavouring to have enacted. Was the old hero of the Conservative party, who said: 'A British subject I was born and a British subject I will die,' disloyal on that occasion? He was not then accused of being disloyal to Canada and Great Britain.


Richard Blain: What was the policy of the hon. gentleman's party in 1891?


Henry Horton Miller: I am quite willing to discuss that, but I think it is of small importance what it was. In 1866 the ' Empire ' tells us that the Canadian government sent in January, M. M. Howland. Henry, Galt

and Smith to Washington to negotiate such a treaty as we now have, but they were not successful. In 1868, the year after confederation, a standing offer was inserted in our customs tariff of a reciprocity arrangement, to be proclaimed by order in council on the United States concurring. I ask what mandate had the Conservative party then to make that standing offer in their customs tariff. That offer had not been discussed at any general election.
In 1869 Sir George Cartier and Mr. Mac-dougall, two members of the Conservative government, being in England, urged the British government to try to obtain a treaty of reciprocity, and in June of that same year Sir John Rose, the Conservative Minister of Finance, was sent to Washington, and he met with no success. Was Sir John Rose sent single-handed to Washington to negotiate such a treaty-was he a less ' ordinary ' man than my two hon. friends of the present cabinet? Was he a ' simple-minded ' and only very ' ordinary ' man? Was he a disloyal man? And were Cartier and Maedougail, the two members of the government, who. in England, tried to get the British Government to make such a treaty, disloyal to Canada or to Britain and Britain's flag? And had Cartier and Mac-dougall any mandate from the Canadian people when, in 1869, they sent Sir John Rose to Washington? In 1871 Sir John Macdonald, the old hero of the Conservative party, when negotiating the Washington treaty, offered to exchange the rights of the fisheries for reciprocal trade arrangement, hut the American commissioners refused to negotiate. That was after a general election, but the people had not discussed the question on the hustings. In 1873, a further offer was made by a Conservative government. On this occasion boards of trade in Canada and in the United States had passed resolutions favouring a reciprocity, agreement, and then the Conservative government passed a resolution in favour of such an agreement. and the ' Empire ' refers us to the Canadian Sessional Papers, No. 40, of 1873 to prove what it states. In 1874 a Liberal government under Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, sent Hon. George Brown to Washington to negotiate such a treaty. He succeeded. The American Congress passed the treaty, but the American Senate refused to ratify it. In 1879, in adopting the National Policy, the. Conservative government of Canada placed, for a second time, upon the statute-books of Canada a standing offer of reciprocity with the United States in natural products whenever the United States declared for a similar reciprocity. Now, what were the conditions of that time? There had been a general election in 1878. And what was discussed at that election, and what did the Conservatives under Sir John A. Macdonald lay down as Mr. MILLER.
their platform to be carried out if returned to power? What was discussed in that election was not a proposal to reduce the tariff, but to increase the tariff. But Sir John Macdonald prior to the election discussed the proposal to increase the tariff, and the first thing he did, after the election without a mandate from the people, -was to make a standing offer to the United States to reduce our tariff, in an endeavour to make such an arrangement as we are making to-day. Was he disloyal in 1871, when he made, or in 1878, when he repeated, his offer? In 1888, when the fisheries dispute was under discussion in Washington, Sir Charles Tupper, the old Cumberland war horse, another hero of the Conservative party, desired to settle this matter on the basis of a reciprocal trade treaty. But the American plenipotentiaries refused. Had Sir Charles Tupper anv mandate from the Canadian people in 1888 for such an arrangement? Had this matter been discussed in the election campaign? Not at all. Well, was Sir Charles Tupper disloyal, when, in 1888, he proposed such an arrangement as this? I have never heard it so stated. Then, in 1891, the tenth offer was made, this time by Sir John Macdonald again. He again offered to make a reciprocity arrangement, and representatives were sent in that year to Washington, and went again in the following year, 1892. The hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) was one of those who went to Washington in 1891. If hon. members will refer to ' Hansard ' of 1891, page 59, they will read the remarks of the hon. member as he tells of the desire of the Conservative government of that year to make a reciprocity treaty with the United States. And if they will turn to ' Hansard ' of 1892, pages 3301-2. they will read the account that was given by the hon. member for North Toronto of his journey to Washington, of what he sought to accomplish there, and they will read this statement of the hon. member, that he regretted that they were not able to make such an arrangement. The hon. member for North Toronto, who, as Finance Minister of Canada in 1891, had endeavoured to make a reciprocity treaty with the United States, and who in 1892 revretted that he had not been able to make such a treaty, in 1911 wTote an article to the ' Canadian Century.' That article appears in the issue of 18th February last, and in it the hon. member states that the present proposal will be the enemv of interprovincial trade. Now, I ask this question: If this arrangement will be the enemy of interorovineial trade in 1911, would it not much more have been the enemy of interprovincial trade in 1891? In 1911 we have railway communication, we have river and canal communication, between the several provinces of Canada that we had not in 1891. We have facilities for

carrying on interprovincial trade to-day that we had not then, and I repeat that if there is any danger of this arrangement being the enemy of interprovincial trade in this present year, it would have been twenty times more the enemy of interprovincial trade twenty years ago, when the hon. member for North Toronto endeavoured to make such an arrangement.
The argument has been made in this House before that the Conservative party from 1866 to 1891, and up to 1894, were willing to make such an arrangement with the people of the United States. That argument has been met with the statement that conditions have changed in Canada since 1891, but only in this way-every change in conditions indicates that, if such an arrangement as this would have been profitable to Canada in 1891, it will be much more profiable to Canada in 1911. There is not one single argument based upon the fear of annexation or upon the plea of loyalty that will apply to-day that would not have equally applied in 1891. There is not a single economic argument that could be applied as against this arrangement that would not have applied with even greater force to the proposed arrangement in 1891. It is not enough for my hon. friends who oppose the agreement to say that conditions have changed since 1891; they must show what are the changes and must show that these changes make an arrangement injurious to Canada in 1911 that would have been beneficial to Canada in 1891. They have not even attempted to do that, and they cannot possibly do it. And, let me say in passing, I am very glad indeed that conditions are as good in Canada as they are. While we are willing to trade with the people of the United States to-day, and to enter into this proposed agreement, I am very glad, as a Canadian citizen, to know that we do not have to go to the people of the United States, and do not go to the people of the United States, as suppliants; we do not go as a matter of necessity; we do not go asking for alms or charity; but we go to them as man to man. We meet them as they have come to us, business man to business man, to make, if we can, a trade arrangement that will be to our mutual advantage. If we cannot make such an arrangement with our neighbours, if the United States refuse to make such a bargain with us, then we will not feel ourselves crippled, or feel ourselves paralyzed. We will say, we might have got along better with this agreement, but still we can go on and develop our country and our interests; even without such an agreement we can make this a great nation.
Now, Sir, I (call your attention to the manner in which the member for North Toronto complains of the ill-treatment
which we have received from time to time from the people of the United States; and this is not only the argument of one gentleman, it is the argument of every gentleman who has followed him in this debate on the other side of the House. The hon. gentleman says in his speech:
It was the conquest of Canada aimed at in 1775; it was the conquest of Canada aimed at in the years around 1812, and since; it was the conquest of Canada and its incorporation with- the United States aimed at by the methods I have spoken of in respect to our trade and fisheries; and the dominant spirit in the United States that is pushing reciprocity through to a successful enactment is not economic, it is political. It is still the conquest of Canada. But it is conquest of Canada by peaceful means and large gifts.
The hon. gentleman says again:
In all this trouble and toil, when was the hand of the United States extended to us with helpful aid? Not in one single case.
Sir, in answer to that question of the hon. member for North Toronto I ask him another question; I say, when was the occasion, when was the time, *'that the people of Canada asked the United States to extend to them a helpful hand? I say not in one single case; and I am glad that the time never was when Canadians were so lacking in spirit, when Canadians were so lacking in confidence in their own ability, so lacking in confidence in their own country, that they went to the United States as beggars and asked them to hold out to us a helpful hand. Sir, the United States, through all these years, has been busy, as it had a right to be busy, in developing their own country, as we have been busy in developing our country. What is the good of any man to-day rising in this House to complain of the ill-treatment that he fancies we have received from the United States in 1775? The people who endeavoured the conquest of Canada in 1775 are dead to-day, they got their answer when they endeavoured to conquer Canada in 1775. The people who endeavoured to make trouble for us in 1812 got their reply, and they are dead. Why then endeavour to reopen old sores? Why then endeavour to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children. There are men who never forget an injury, there are men who never overlook a mistake, but these are not the best men. The member for North Toronto endeavours to incite and provoke the feeling of the people of Canada against the people of the United States by a comparison of trade, and he says:
And there was, in the third place, the wide spread dissatisfaction with the condition of things imposed upon us by the United States of America in accepting a $104,000,000 free list

from us and giving us but a $33,000,000 one in return, in buying from us a paltry $10,000,000 worth and of selling to us $223,000,000 worth; of meeting a Canadian tariff of 26 per cent by a United States tariff of 41J per cent. There was a feeling in the country that that was not a neighbourly thing for them to do, not fair business treatment, not what we would expect from a great and rich and powerful neighbour. These were the three things that were mooted as grievances in the country.
Sir, we make our tariff and the United States makes its tariff. We impose upon our people a burden of 26 per cent, the government of the United States impose upon its people a burden of 41 i per cent, and that is what the people of the United States are complaining of to-day, that they have been carrying a burden too great for them to bear. That is what has put the Republican party out of power in the United States, and brought into power the Democratic party. Sir, if the United States, through all these long years, have been patient enough to bear the burden of 411 per cent, while our people were only bearing a burden of 26 per cent, that is a matter for the people of the United States to regulate, as they are doing it to-day. It is perfectly true that we sold to the United States only $100,000,000 worth of goods per annum, while they have been selling us goods to the amount of $223,000,000 per annum. Is there any fair and just cause for complaint in that? When you analyse the figures what do they mean? They mean simply this, that every Canadian citizen, upon an average, sold' Canadian goods to the United States to the amount of $12.50 apiece, but that every American sold only $2.48 worth of American goods to the people of Canada; in other words, that the Canadians sold between five and six times as much Canadian goods j>er head to the people of the United States as they had sold to us.
But then we are met with this argument: Mr. Taft seeks relief from a nasty position, Mr. Taft is in a rather bad predicament in the United States. Why relieve Mr. Taft? Why should we, the Canadian people, relieve Mr. Taft from the nasty position in which he finds himself? They would not trade with us when we wanted to trade with them, now let us refuse to negotiate with them. Sir, I say that that is nonsense, I say that that is the talk of children, not the talk of business men. We are used to hearing a child, with frowning eye and with pouting lip, say: You would not play with me, now I will not play with you. But that is not the talk of a business man. Suppose^ desire to buy my neighbour's farm. I feel that if I bought that farm from my neighbour, I could use it to advantage. I go to the old man and make him a good Mr. MILLER.
offer for his farm, he refuses t-o sell. I go to him a second, third, fourth and fifth time, and he refuses to sell. The old man passes away, his son inherits the farm. I go to him and make him an offer the sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth time, and be refuses those offers. I then say, I will not go back to that man again. I would like to have his farm, it would be profitable for me to have it, but he and his father before him, have refused nine offers, ten offers, I will not go back to him. But that man passes away, and a grandson inherits the farm. Then he comes to me and he says. Now I have not the same ideas that my father had and my grandfather had, I have not the same intentions or inclinations, I am willing to sell to you my farm, I would like to sell it to you. Now if I am a fool, I will say to that man, No, I tried to trade with your father, I tried to do business with your grandfather, and they refused to do business with me, now I will not do any business with you. But if I am a wise man, I will not talk like that, I will say: Now I am glad that conditions have changed, I am glad this young man looks upon the matter differently from what his father and grandfather did. If I can buy this farm now at a fair price, if I can make a reasonable bargain, I have now a good opportunity, and I will do so. That is the manner I think that we as business men should adopt in regard to this matter. We should not be children, we should approach the people.of the United States as we aTe doing, as man to man, in a business manner; and realizing that if we are to make a bargain with the people of the United States, it must be a bargain that will be an advantage to them as well as to us. No one can make a trade that will be a lasting arrangement unless it contains mutual advantage. This is true of school boys when they swap their jack knives; each one must hope to get an advantage from the trade or he would not make the trade, and as it is true of school boys swapping their jack knives, so it is equally true of nations when they undertake to make international treaties. Now, I have reached a point in my speech where I can conveniently step and as it as after eleven o'clock I beg to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Progress reported.
Mr. FIELDING moved the adjournment of the House. He said: Before the adjournment I desire to say that there was an understanding that on Friday my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) would make a statement upon matters connected with his department. He de-

. sires to vary that now and I therefore beg to say that on Friday my-hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) will make a statement concerning his department and the Minister of the Interior will postpone his statement until Monday. I would be very glad if hon. gentlemen who are interested in those two departments would be kind enough to observe the change.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the House adjourned at 11.30 o'clock p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, March 9, 1911.