1913-05-22

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. BURNHAM moved that the third report of the Select Special Committee appointed to inquire into an Old Age Pension System for Canada be adopted.
Mr. BORDEN:: What is the effect of this report?
Mr. WHITE (Leeds)


Mr. BURNHAM:: The committee present the result of their investigations, the evidence, and the communications sent out by the secretary, and the replies received, and they recommend that these be filed in the usual way and printed.


Mr. JAMESON:: As the committee have taken the evidence of a large number of witnesses during this and the preceding sessions, I think it well that the tentative conclusions which have been drawn from the evidence should be placed in ' Hansard.'


Mr. SPEAKER:: My attention has been drawn to this report, and I think its adoption would be irregular at this time. The report would involve considerable printing, which can only be done after the report has been referred to the Printing Committee. It would be a violation of the rules to concur in the report in this way. Then, I would say to the hon. member for Digby (Mr. Jameson), that, as this is an interim report of the committee, not- a final report, it would scarcely be in order to discuss the whole question which has been referred to the committee. I therefore think that the hon. member would be premature in discussing it now.


Clarence Jameson: I do not wish to question your ruling, but I had discussed this point with the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), who is a good parliamentarian, and he entertains the view that the question can be discussed now. If, however, you rule otherwise I shall bow to your ruling, although I think that the question is one that should be discussed.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The rule is well known, that it is not in order to discuss work that has been referred to a committee until there is a report from that committee.


Clarence Jameson: I regret that you
think that the discussion should be postponed, but I bow to your ruling.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: That is my ruling.
This report had better stand or be referred to the Committee on Printing.


Clarence Jameson: I respectfully request
that the motion be allowed to stand for the time being.
Motion stands.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 224, respecting the Western Trust Company.-Mr. Turriff.
Bill No. 225, respecting the Great West Permanent Loan Company-Mr. Meighen.
Bill No. 226, respecting the Alberta-Saskatchewan Life Insurance Company.- Mr. Meighen.

Bill No. 227, respecting the Western Canada Accident and Guarantee Insurance Company.-Mr. Maodonell.
. QUESTIONS.
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	Has the Department of Public Works been asked to take over the wharf owned by Robins, Jones and Whitman, at Paspebiac, Quebec?
2.	If so, has any decision been reached, and on what conditions is the said wharf to be acquired?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	Yes.
2.	No.



NOUVELLE RIVER LAND DAMAGES.

Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	Has the Government received any request, and from whom, for a grant to continue the work of protecting the farms, roads and bridges from the damage caused by the Nou-velle River, Bonaventure county?
2.	If so, has the Government reached any decision in the matter and what is it?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	Yes; from the municipality of St. Jean l'Evangeliste.
2.	Matter under consideration.



DISMISSAL.

Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	Has Simon Chapados, wharfinger of the Government wharf at Anse aux Gascons, Bonaventure county, been dismissed and on what grounds?
2.	If charges were made against him, what was their nature?
3.	Was Chapados informed of them and were they investigated?
4.	Who held the investigation, if any was held, and if none was held, why not?
5.	If Chapados has been dismissed, who succeeded him, on whose recommendation was he appointed, and at what salary?


Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	No. Mr. Chapados resigned the position.
2,	3 and 4. Answered by No. 1.
5.	Mr. S. A. Huard was, on the recommendation of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, appointed to the position. Remuneration twenty-five per cent of the wharfage collections.



TREATMENT OF RUSSIAN IMMIGRANTS.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Mr. KNOWLES:: I would ask the Prime Minister if he has received from the Trades and Labour Council of Moosejaw a communication with regard to seventeen Russians who, as alleged by the Trades and Labour Council, were improperly im ported under the Alien Labour Act, kept in an iron car, improperly housed, and, on their escape, fired on by their guards, and ran away from their employment and have not yet been found. The resolution of the council directs that copies of their report be sent to the Premier of Canada, to the Minister of Justice, to the Minister of the Interior, and to the Minister of Labour. Has the Prime Minister any knowledge of it, and, if not, would he be good enough to give it his attention?


Robert Laird Borden: I never heard of the matter until this moment. If the resolution came to my office, it has not been placed before me. I do not think it could have come, because such matters are invariably placed before me. If the hon. gentleman has a copy of the resolution, and would be good enough to send it to me, I will have the matter inquired into without delay.


William Erskine Knowles: I am going away today, and I will leave this resolution with the Prime Minister, leaving in his- hands the whole matter, which is a very serious one.



WAYS AND MEANS-THE BUDGET.

[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the proposed motion of Hon. W. T. White, (Minister of Finance), for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means, resumed from May 21.
[u'I do not propose to\ngo into details at this hour, but I might remark that the food mentioned in scripture as a food for babes would be applicable to my hon. friend from Kings; I am not dealing with the question of food that is suitable to his infancy. My hon. friend the Finance Minister has been kind enough to come over and sit beside me as my deskmate, and I feel that he is now penitent enough for having resisted my request to defer the further consideration of this Bill until the next sitting of the House. I have a great deal of human sympathy, and I shall therefore, not impose further upon the members of the House, and least of all upon my esteemed friend the Minister of Finance, who has done me the honour to come and sit beside me while I am making this plea for what I consider the betterment of the conditions under which banking and commerce are conducted in this country.\nMotion agreed to and Bill read the third time and passed.\nOn motion of Mr. Rogers, House adjourned at 1.40 a.m., Friday.\ufeff10677\n\n1C673', 'Friday, May 23, 1913.']
Mr. F. B. CARVELL (Carleton, N.B.):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to call the attention of the House for a very brief period to the important subject under discussion in this debate, probably the most important that can he brought before the House of Commons of Canada to-day. I am aware that the Minister of Finance does not propose any radical changes in the customs tariff. In fact, the changes which he does propose are of so little importance that practically no time has been taken up in discussing them, and the debate has proceeded entirely along the general lines of what the tariff of Canada should be and what it should not be, what we should do and what we should not do, in order to develop trade and industry in the country. Therefore, I shall devote the few moments I wish to take to discussions along the same lines that have been followed by hon. gentlemen who have preceded me. We all congratulate the Minister of Finance as well as ourselves on the great prosperity that exists in Canada and that has existed for the last two years, and I sincerely hope that it will continue. It does sound, however, a little strange to hear members like the hon. member for St. Antoine division (Mr. Ames) and the hon. member for Brantford

(Mr. Coekshutt) taking to themselves so much glory tor the splendid financial condition of the country. The hon. member for St. Antoine division even went so far as to give the financial returns on certain transactions for ten years prior to 1911 and for two years since 1911, and then to strike an average and say: Behold what this Government hath done. And yet in the same breath he has to admit that this Government has not done anything. If there has been any great advance in our trade in this last two years, certainly my hon. friends cannot take very much credit for it because they have done nothing either for or against it. So I think we may leave that as it is, and thank the legislation which has existed, and thank the Almighty, and thank the business instincts and ability of the people of Canada, and thank the immigrants who are pouring into the country, and thank ail those things which make a countrv great for the splendid financial conditions which exist to-day. The real question to be considered is, what shall we do in the future? Shall our trade relations with the rest of the world remain as they are, or shall they be changed? That is the great question that we have to consider, and that is the question to which I wish to devote my attention for a few moments.
My hon. friend the Minister of Finance was, I think, very modest in presenting his budget. He simply gave a statement of the facts as they are. He did not have sufficient egotism to take unto himself any particular glory for the facts as they are, and I give him credit for that. He did not prophesy or promise that he was going to do anything in order to change the conditions very much; but I am sorry to say I cannot give him so much credit for that as I can for the other part of his budget. The Minister of Finance has told us that we have had during the last year a surplus of $55,000,000 over and above the expenditure on consolidated revenue account; and, when he takes into considerar tion all expenditures, capital as well as revenue, he has reduced the national debt by $23,000,000. That is good so far as it goes. I am not one of those who find fault with the reduction of the national debt when it is done under proper conditions. I believe that a nation should carry on its business in the same way as an individual. If an individual can reduce his debts, he is doing the proper thing, and it is the same with a nation. The only question that arises in the case of a nation is: is it good policy in every respect so to adjust your tariff relations, that you will have sufficient money to pay your debts? I think that political economists the world over will admit that in every case it is good policy to reduce your national debt if you can do it without injuring your Mr. C.VRVRLL.
people; but if, on the other hand, you are injuring your people, making life not as pleasant as it would be otherwise, then I think political economists will admit that it is not good policy to so adjust your tariff that your national debt will be reduced. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance frankly admits that he takes advantage of the condition of affairs which was handed over to him by his predecessor, and which for the last financial year resulted in the splendid surplus of $55,000,000. For the year before, the financial conditions handed over to him by his predecessor produced a surplus of $32,000,000 or $33,000,000, and for the year before that, a surplus of something over $20,000,000. My hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) last evening went down the list as far as 1900, and gave the results of the financial operations during each year, showing that for the ten years prior to 1911 we produced an average surplus of $7,000,000 or $8,000,000; in one or two years it dropped to the vanishing point, while sometimes it was as much as $15,000,000. But, taking the average, the surplus under the late Government was $7,000,000 or $8,000,000. At the same time we were borrowing money on capital for the construction of the Transcontinental railway and other great works, so that during those ten years the national debt of Canada was increased, though not to a very great extent. Now, if the proper policy of Canada is to go on paying off the national debt, there may be some argument for these surpluses, but I do not think that is the argument put forward by my hon. friends opposite. If I can judge of the intention of the Government from the arguments of their exponents, I do not see any evidence of an intention to pay off the national debt. The sole object of the Government and of their followers seems to be to eat up these surpluses-to get as much money as they possibly can, and to spend it. I think it was my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Coekshutt) who stated that during the time the Liberals were in power the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia were starved, and that this Government was going to see that the rights of these three provinces were restored to them. The result was that the Minister of Public Works had in the estimates for this year over $26,000,000 or $27,000,000 for public works, and, according to my hon. friend, he was going to do justice to the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. It is the first time that I have heard that these provinces were ever starved. If my hon. friend will take the different estimates for the last ten years-I have not had time to compare them, and I do not know that any good would be accomplished by comparing them-he will find that these provinces got as much as any of the other

provinces, in proportion to their population. The principal ground of complaint on the part of my hon. friend from Brantford, was that the late Liberal Government gave so much to the province of Nova Scotia. While he was speaking I went over the supplementary estimates laid on the table of the House two days ago, and I find there are 125 items for harbour and river improvements in the province of Nova Scotia, amounting to nearly $1,000,000, in addition to, and above and beyond a similar amount in the main estimates.


Mr. WHITE (Minister of Finance):: There is nothing too good for the Maritime provinces.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Of course not, but I want to point out that when my hon. friend from Brantford talks about the province of Nova Scotia, he talks without the book.


An hon. MEMBER:: He talks through
his hat.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not wish to use a slang expression. Either the hon. member has not taken the trouble to look into the estimates, or he is not treating the House fairly. The province of Nova Scotia, never got so much as it is getting this year. Some of my hon. friends from Nova Scotia will see no harm in that. I have no hesitation in admitting what is true, it is patent on the face of it. But if mv hon. friend from Brantford makes the argument that we spent money for political purposes, and not for real business purposes, surely we can throw back the argument to him with double energy, and say if we were wrong, you are wrong to double the extent. I am not arguing that there is a public work being advanced in the province of Nova Scotia that is not a necessary public work. I do not think there is a public work in Ontario that is not a necessary work. Unfortunately my hon. friends opposite have talked about everything else during this session except the estimates and business. We have never had a chance to get down to the public works supply, and we do not know what they are asking for. All we know is that they are asking for certain amounts for certain places, but the reasons so far remain blank. My hon. friends seem to be very anxious to draw this session to a close, and it seems to me that their intention, or hope, is to do so without giving us a chance to discuss those estimates to any extent. I am afraid we will not have a chance to discuss them to find out whether the proposed expenditures are fair or unfair. But we will have to do the best we can, and if my hon. friends do not apply the closure to us, I, for one, hope to find out something about the expenditures in the different provinces, and I know my friends around me have the same desire.
But it was not this that I, wished to discuss, and therefore, I will make no further reference to it. I do submit, however, that there has been an enormous increase in the expenditures in two years. My hon. friends opposite may be able to justify it, and I hope they will be able to justify it. If they can do so, no fault will be found on this side of the house. But even with the enormous expenditures which they propose during the present year, according to the hypothesis of the Minister of Finance, we will have an enormous surplus of revenue over expenditure. The condition which has existed during the past two years seems to have become almost chronic. It seems that even with the enormous expenditures which my hon. friends opposite are advocating, there is going to be a great surplus. My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) stated time and again yesterday that that surplus would be $80,000,000 or $85,000,000. If that be a fact, and I have no doubt it is, and if my hon. friends opposite, with all their extravagance, cannot find opportunities to expend this enormous surplus, is it just and right that that revenue should be taken from the people's pockets? That I think is the great question we have to consider in this debate. I had alwavs supposed that the true theory of government was that the people should be asked to contribute sufficient money to honestly and efficiently carry on the affairs of the country, to provide for the King's Government, and in Canada to provide for whatever necessary public works should be constructed. I admit that the science or	theory of
government in Canada is	very different from that in Great Britain. In Canada, a new country, it is necessary to develop the country by the construction of public works. It is necessary to assist railway companies, and other transportation companies, to develop our harbours, and to do everything possible to increase the output of the natural resources of the country and of the manufacturing resources as well. That would not be true in Great Britain, because there they have an old established country, transportation facilities are provided by private capital, and the Government are not required to assist. They expend the money which they have over and above what is required for the King's Government on the army and navy, and I ami afraid that if my hon. friends opposite are allowed to continue the mad course which they are pursuing to-day we will have the same condition of affairs in Canada. I for one sincerely hope that such a condition of affairs will not develop. I am not going into an analysis of the proposed expenditures of the different departments, but when I find this Government asking for between ten and twelve

million dollars for the militia, I say it is a useless and unwarranted waste of public money. Whan any man tells me it is necessary to spend ten or eleven million dollars on the militia of this country, my answer to him is that it is downright robbery of the people. If the money went to the people I would not care so much about it; but I do not suppose that out of the eleven million dollars, two million dollars will actually go to the men; the rest goes to the dudes and warlords who are running the show. My hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Coekshutt) justifies this militia expenditure because there might (possibly be a war between Japan and the United States, and, if so, we must have our whole
100,000	men along the border line to see that nothing got out of Canada.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: And they won't have a
navy in Vancouver.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No. The Minister of
Finance wants to build a tariff wall around the country and allow nothing to come in, and the member for Brantford wants to build a militia wall around the border and allow nothing to go out. Well, I don't think that idea is approved of by the ordinary Canadian business man. The Government admits, as they must admit, that under present conditions they are taking from the people of Canada enough to carry on the King's Government, enough to provide for all our public works, enough to provide for subsidies to railways and transportation companies, and fifty or sixty million dollars in addition. The proposition of the member for St, Antoine (Mr. Ames) is. not that we should take from the people sufficient to pay the expenses of Government, but that we should tax them all they can stand. His logic is:	are the people
taxed more than they can stand? and, in the second place, does the tariff take too much out of our people? Let us see about that. I give the hon. member for St. Antoine credit for being honest in his opinion and for never attempting to deceive the House as to his Teal views. The same remark will apply to the hon. member for Brantford-and I wish all hon. gentlemen opposite were as honest as they in expressing their thoughts. But the logic of the argument of the hon. member for St. Antoine is: we will so adjust our tariff -that we will make the people pay every dollar they can pay and live, and to sustain that theory the hon. member for Brantford comes forward and says: you don't want to let the people have too many privileges, because the more they have the more discontented they become, and so we will take away from them by means of taxation everything except enough to exist on. The hon. gentleman' told ns that years ago people had hut one suit of homespun a year;
Mr. CARVELL.
that they did not go to the theatre; that they did not drive carriages and motor cars, and that they were much happier than they are to-day. His argument is: do not allow the people to have these comforts of life and they will be more contented. That is good Tory doctrine and it is in line with about everything this Government is doing. Then, these hon. gentlemen opposite say: if this tariff is bad it is your tariff and you are responsible for it. But let it be remembered that what was good in 1900 may not toe good in 1913. I think it was the hon. member for Brantford who said that the Liberals took the Tory tariff and did not make many changes in it, and the member for St. Antoine sought to prove that the tariff was practi-callv the same as it was in 1896, because he showed that the total percentage of taxation to-day was very little less than then, his claim being that the actual reduction of taxation is on an average three or four per cent on the taxable goods. But these gentlemen opposite are not quite consistent in their statements. Sometimes they will say this is the old national policy of 1878, and if you tell them it is not, they will say it is the Liberal tariff, and if it is bad you must take the blame for it, and then if they are 'further cornered they will say it is the Toxv tariff wnich the Liberals adopted. In the first place it is not the old tariff of 1878, and possibly when the Liberals came into power in 1896 thev did not go as far as they should to reduce me burden upon the people.
I am not apologizing for them or attempting to palliate their conduct in any way, but I do say that the Liberal government did something for which they have received-credit all around, .they introduced the British preference which the first year it was in operation reduced taxation on British goods imported into Canada by twenty-five per cent, and which a few years afterwards reduced that taxation by thirty-three and one-third per cent. That has remained in force to the present day except that in a few cases they took away from the people some of the rights they had obtained by the British preference of earlier years, but on the whole the people of Canada are relieved from one-third of the taxation on British imported goods. The British preference very materially developed the trade between Great Britain and Canada, which went forward with leaps and bounds and which still continues to make marked progress. True, our trade with Great Britain has not grown as rapidly as our trade with the United States, even in the face of a higher tariff, and for the present I will not stop to discuss that, but not only did the preference increase our trade with Great Britain, but it reduced the cost of living to the people of Canada. The preference reduced the cost of living to our people in

two ways: it reduced the cost of every article consumed by the people of Canada which came from Great Britain, and in the second place it reduced the cost of similar articles imported from the United States, or produced in Canada. For instance, if you reduce the cost of a yard of cotton manufactured in Great Britain, the American manufacturer when he sends it into this country has to reduce his cost to meet the decreased price of the British article, and so has the Cana-adian manufacturer of cotton to reduce his price to meet the competition. If a Canadian manufacturer produces .cotton, he must sell it at a price not greater than the cost in Great Britain plus the duty under the preferential tariff. Therefore, any man can figure out what the saving to the people of Canada has been during the last thirteen or fourteen years by reason of the British preference. You can take the importations from Great Britain, calculate their value to a dollar, and say that you have saved so many million dollars by reason of the British preference. I do not believe, however, that half as many goods would have been imported from Great Britain if it had not been for the preference. But you cannot figure out how much the people of Canada have saved on the rest of the importations, because millions of dollars worth have been imported from the rest of the world, which have been sold to the people of Canada more cheaply by reason of the British preference. Then you have the third class. Millions and millions of dollars worth of manufactured products have been sold to the people more cheaply by reason of the preference. When my bon. friends opposite say that the Liberal party did nothing to ameliorate the conditions of the people through the tariff, they are not treating us fairly; they are not treating themselves fairly, and they are not stating the facts as they are.


Mr. HENDERSON:: The hon. gentleman seems to be very well informed on this question. Can he give us a statement of how much the duties were increased on goods coming from Great Britain before the British preference was applied?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, I cannot. It seems to me that a year or two ago my hon. friend from Halton (Mr. Henderson) had a little altercation with the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) on that question. I think it had reference to rifles.


David Henderson: A great many more things.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: There was one instance in the case of rifles, where the general tariff was increased; and the net result
was that, after the British preference was applied, it did not make very much difference in the duty paid. The number of rifles we import into this country is a mere bagatelle. A rifle is not something which the ordinary labouring man has to eat or wear; it is something which is used by the sportsman and the man who is able to spend money. If you must raise money by taxation, there is nothing you could tax better than rifles. So far as I am able to remember, that is the only article that is treated in that way.


David Henderson: The hon. gentleman knows about the increases on cotton goods and a host of other articles. I am not, however, going to interrupt him in his speech.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The hon. member for
Halton is always courteous and well informed, and I hope he will give us the benefit of his great store of information on these important questions before this debate is concluded.
Hon. friends opposite say:	When you
gave the Britisn preference, you stopped. We did stop for a time; we stopped because it seemed that we required all the money we were taking from the people in order to carry on the affairs of the country. It must be remembered that we were building great public works in those days; we were developing our transportation systems as they had never been developed before; we were building the great National Transcontinental railway which cost a lot of money. My hon. friends say that it cost too much. I do not think so; and I should like to discuss that question withjhe Minister oi Railways, if we ever have an opportunity of considering his estimates. After spending $50,000 in investigation, he has had to admit that it did not cost too much. That
is,	however, another matter. In 1910 and 1911, we found that we were taking from the people more than was required to carry on the government and the ordinary business affairs of the country. The late Government decided to ameliorate the conditions of the people to some extent by extending our trade and making it freer than it had been before. We went out of power upon that principle. So far as I am concerned, I have not a particle of regret on account of
it.	I do not mean to say that I would not rather be in power than in opposition, but I would rather be in opposition on a question of principle m reducing the cost of living to the people of this country, than remain on the other side of the House and tax them more than they are entitled to pay and more than is necessary in order to carry on the affairs of the country. My hon. friends know that we were right and they are afraid of the fact to-day.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.



Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friends laugh. What was the meaning of that most remarkably patronizing speech made last evening by the hon. member for St. Antoine (Mr. Ames)? He practically said to the hon. Minister of .Finance: We do not like you very much; we are afraid you are tinged with low protection ideas. We are afraid you are going to give in to men like the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen), who has been very quiet in .debates of this character during the last year or two. The hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury) bristled up last night a little when the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cookshutt) was sipeaking about agricultural machinery.


Mr. BRADBURY:: I have not changed a bit.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: They were afraid that
my hon. friend would be affected by the argument of these people. Therefore they say to him: It is all right; we shall not find any fault with you, but you must not lower the tariff; you must leave it where it is. The country was told by the hon. member for St. Antoine: The hon. Minister of Finance will not lower the tariff; we shall see that he does not. My hon. friend has a very close friend, the president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, who made a speech in Montreal the other day, sending out a note of warning to the manufacturers, and saying:	Remember, we
manufacturers must stand together on this matter; I understand there is to be a revision of the tariff; we must see that our rights are protected. That is what my hon. friends are afraid of. We wanted to reduce the cost of living.


Mr. THOBURN:: You say that you want to reduce the cost of living. What was the principal plank in the reciprocity platform if it was not that the farmers were to get a better price than they were getting? If so, how to what extent were you going to reduce the cost of living?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is a very pertinent question, and I am glad my hon. friend has asked it. I shall try to show him how we were going to do it. So far as I am concerned, I never argued, either in this House or in the country, any other doctrine than that under the reciprocity agreement the farmer would get a better price for his products. I argue that now. I had not the slightest doubt then that I was right, and I believe I am right now. Seeing that the United States Government propose to take the duty off some of these articles, I prophesy that on every one of them the farmer will get a better price than he got before. The United States Government believe that, by remitting the duties on these foodstuffs, they will reduce the cost to the people. If they did not believe that, they Mr. CARVELL.
would not take off the duty. No one is in a position to tell exactly what will happen. My opinion is that in some cases it will not reduce the cost to the American consumer, and in that case the Canadian producer will get all the benefit. In other cases it will reduce the cost to the American consumer to some extent, and to that extent the Canadian producer will hot receive the benefit. It is purely a question of supply and demand. If the Canadian producer can produce enough to overstock the American market, he will put down the price; if he cannot do so, he will not. I believe the Canadian producer, after supplying the home demand, will not have enough to affect materially the price in the United States. If so, he will get the benefit of the tariff. I want my views to be thoroughly understood on this question. While the reciprocity agreement would, to a great extent, have increased the price to the Canadian farmer, that was a very small portion of the benefits which the Canadian farmer would have received by reason of it. He would have had ten times the market for his produce that he has to-day. He would have been able to plant his crop every year with a knowledge that he would have a market for it. It is the same with the manufacturer. If a manufacturer knows he has a market where he can sell 10,000 machines instead of 1,000, according to the evidence of my hon. friend from Brantford last evening, he can produce that machine more cheaply; he will extend his industry, buy more plant, employ more men, do more business and make more money.


Mr. DEVLIN:: And he will not be subject to the trusts.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I can give my hon. friends an illustration from my own constituency. One of the principal industries there is the cultivation of potatoes; in fact, that is the case throughout western and northern New Brunswick, in very many portions of Nova Scotia, in the Gaspe peninsula, and in the eastern portions of the province of Quebec. We produce a better quality of potatoes than is produced elsewhere in Canada or in the United States, except in the northern part of Maine. I believe it is due, to some extent, to the condition of the soil.


Mr. WRIGHT:: No.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend says
'no.' I am not here to advertise the industry of myl constituents. If my hon. friend will look at the quotations in the Toronto Globe or the Daily Mail and Empire, he will find that New Brunswick potatoes are quoted at ten cents per bag more wholesale than the native potatoes. That is twenty cents a barrel, and therefore they must be of superior quality.


Mr. WEIGHT:: As good potatoes can be grown in my section of the country as in New Brunswick.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not want to enter into a controversy with my hon. friend from Muskoka upon the question of potatoes. I simply want to discuss this question from a business standpoint. A New Brunswick	farmer	does	not raiseon an	average	more	than five
acres of potatoes, the reason simply being that he is compelled to rely upon the Montreal and Toronto markets, which will not absorb more than that amount of potatoes per farm. Last year we could have sold twice as much as we produced, because there was a famine in potatoes on <the American continent, The previous year we could have sold more because there was a famine west of lake Superior. In the
Sear 1911, hundreds of carloads of New runswick potatoes were transported to
Calgary and even into British Columbia. That is not an ordinary condition of affairs. It is not reasonable that the people of that section of the country should be compelled to pay the cost of those potatoes plus the transportation charges. They have the right to get the potatoes at a much cheaper price.
We have a market within four or five hundred miles of the point of production, of probably fifteen or twenty million people. With the American duty on potatoes reduced, I prophesy that the average farmer in the province of New Brunswick during this year will probably have ten acres of potatoes, and next year twenty acres. How do I know that? I know, simply because of what is going on within ten miles of my own home. Right across the American boundary line from where I live, with the same soil, the same transportation conditions and the same market, farmers are raising on an average twenty acres of potatoes, in some cases thirty or forty acres, and are getting rich at it. This year our farmers have been compelled to sell their potatoes for seventy or eighty cents a barrel, that would be thirty-five to forty cents a bag. Why? Because there was a big crop of potatoes in the province of Ontario. The only men in Ontario who buy New Brunswick potatoes to-day are the men who want a superior article. The ordinary man buys an ordinary article. Thousands of bushels of potatoes in the county of Carleton in the province of New Brunswick have been thrown into the dump because the farmers could not get a market for them. At present there is a duty of seventy cents a barrel on potatoes imported into the United States, and there is a big crop in the United States. The price there has been around $1.15 to $1.20 a barrel, which has not been equal to the Canadian price plus the duty.


William Wright: Does the hon. gentleman know that hundreds of carloads of 3334
potatoes have been sold at 25 cents a bushel in counties in the United States nearer New York than the hon. gentleman's county is? His confrere, the hon. member for Maison-neuve (Mr. Verville) yesterday proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that potatoes were sold eighty or a hundred per cent more cheaply in New York than in eastern Canadian cities.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend from
Maisonneuve was speaking about potatoes produced in the month of June and July. We do not produce potatoes in Canada in those months; we import them from the States. That is the reason why they cost more in Montreal than in New York. You do not raise a bushel of potatoes in Canada in June and July.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes, you do.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, you do not. My
hon. friend (Mr. Wright) asked me if I did not know that hundreds of carloads of potatoes were sold at 25 cents a bushel in counties in the United States nearer to New York than the Maritime provinces are. I do not.


William Wright: I do.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What is more, I do
not'believe it, for this reason. If you go to northern Maine, which is the great potato producing country of the eastern portions of the United States, you will find that potatoes are worth to-day $1.25 a barrel, or fifty cents a bushel. They are worth that to the farmers along the line of railway. It is only 500 miles from there to New York. If the farmer in eastern Maine can get fifty cents a bushel for his potatoes, the man who has potatoes of equal quality elsewhere in the United States will not be compelled to sell them at 25 cents a bushel if he is equally near to New York. It is no use trying to get round the facts. If the New York consumer can buy the same quality of potatoes for 25 cents a bushel at points 500 miles west of New York, he will not go to northern Maine and pay fifty cents a bushel. There is no doubt about it, and my friend could argue until he was black in the face and he could not convince me or any other man who knows the transaction to the contrary of what I have said.


William Wright: I am not trying to convince my hon. friend, I am only stating the facts.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Unless mv hon. friend
has personal knowledge, I cannot accept the statement he makes as a fact without proof, because I know it cannot be correct. I have given an illustration of what reciprocity would have done in the one item of potatoes. I would not have gone into this had I not been asked to do so by mv hon. friend from Muskoka. I do believe that the result of the reciprocity agreement would

have been not only to increase the price to the farmer in many cases, but to increase his market, - which would have been worth to him ten times the increased price of the article itself.


William Thoburn: The hon. member stated that owing to the good crop of potatoes in the United States last vear thev were not. able to export their potatoes from New Brunswick. To my mind the same thing would apply under reciprocity. It will not be disputed that the United States export almost every article in the shape of farm produce that Canada does, and for that reason will you tell me why there is a market in the United States for Canadian farm products?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Mv hon. friend is trving to draw me from the point. I did not say that you could not send potatoes to the United States, because they had a big crop. I said that the price was so low that you could not do it commercially. I stated that the duty to-day is about sixty-seven cents a barrel, and if you send potatoes to the United States from Canada to-day, you have to pay that duty. That means ruination to the Canadian farmer. But it would be different if that duty were removed, then you would have a splendid price. If the farm, ers of the Maritime provinces can get $1.25 for their potatoes they will get wealthy; they will ride in automobiles in a few years. That is at the rate of fifty cents a bushel. But I am told: If what you say about the price to the farmer is true, what about the labouring man, what about the consumer? I am willing to admit, and I always did admit in my argument on the reciprocity question, that the consumer would pay more for the particular articles included in that agreement. It would not amount to very much, it would amount in the case of the ordinary household, which I suppose does not use more than three or four barrels of potatoes in a year, to a difference of $2 or $3 a year. It would be the same with a few other items. There is another side to this question that my friends do not take into consideration and that is the advantage that would accrue to the consumer in Canada had the reciprocity agreement become law. I wish to give some of the benefits that would have accrued. I have here the trade and navigations returns for the last year down to and including February, eleven months. I have not been able to procure the full returns, for the year and therefore, any figures that I have along this line will be for eleven months only. It is known by my hon. friends if they have taken the trouble to read the reciprocity agreement-but I am afraid that some of them did not read it verv carefully-practically all farm products were to be free. We know that many vegetables and fruits Mr. CARVELL
would have come into this country free of duty under the reciprocity agreement. I have here a list of the articles of consumption by the ordinary people of Canada that came into Canada for the first eleven months of the last fiscal vear. These articles would have come in free of duty had that arrangement gone through. I will read the list, giving the articles, the value of the imports and the duty paid. The list is as follows:
Vegetables and Fruits.		
Articles.	Value.	Duty.Melons	$113,412	$ 54,543Potatoes	428,898	92,780Sweet potatoes	56,248	5,390Tomatoes	273,617	82,085Vegetables, N.O.P	909,079	363,748Dried apples	
Green " 	16,185	6,474751,399	112,325Blackberries, strawber-	ries. &c	565,651	138,146Cherries	102,831	25,707Cranberries	129,888	32,470Grapes	279,685	100,833Peaches	330,5S5	145,770Quinces, &c	372,746	66,937Plums.. ..,	266,974	75,650$4,811,929	$1,302,841Eggs, 11,529,686 doz	2,456,832	345,890Butter, from all other countries under general	tariff	350,145	50,206Butter, from New Zealand and Great Bri-	tain	1,479,189	171,825$9,098,095	$1,870,762
In vegetables and fruit alone we imported last year in the eleven months $4,811,929 in value and on this we paid $1,302,341 in duty. In other words, the consumer, the labouring man, the man in the city, village and town, all over the country, would have saved $1,302,000 in duty if that agreement had become law.


William Thoburn: Did the Canadian
farmer benefit by that?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: He did not lose to the extent of a dollar, as I shall try to convince my hon. friend. At least what I say will convince any man who wants to be convinced that the farmer did not lose a dollar. Hon. gentlemen may say that the reciprocity agreement is ancient history. It is not ancient history so far as the people of this country are concerned. I am not saying that we will ever get the reciprocity treaty exactly as it was proposed to us, we never will while I live get anything from any country that will be worth as much to Canada as the reciprocity treaty would have been. But the principle for which we fought is not gone, the principle is there to-day as vital as it was two years ago, just as important to the consuming people of Canada as it was two years ago and the

people want it and will have it regardless of whether my hon. friends opposite are willing to give it or not. If my hon. friends opposite will not give it to them they will put in power a party that will give it to them, because I tell the manufacturers, the trusts and combines of this country that they cannot bleed the labouring people of Canada any longer, they will demand cheaper living and they will obtain it. It is only part of the story. It is well known that under the construction of our laws and the proposed agreement anything which came in from the States free of duty would also have come in free of duty from Great Britain or from any of the colonies of Great Britain enjoying our preferential tariff. That was not in the agreement, but it is the proper construction and interpretation of that agreement read in connection with our existing laws. That was one of the great arguments used by my hon. friends opposite with the farmers of Canada that, if they adopted reciprocity, butter would come from Australia and New Zealand, or from any part of the British Empire as well as from other nations with which Great Britain had trade treaties. Of butter last year we imported $350,145 from the United States and other countries excepting Great Britain and her colonies, on which we paid $50,260 in duty. We imported from New Zealand and Great Britain $1,479,189 worth of butter, on which we paid $171,825 of duty. That is a total of something like $1,800,000 worth of butter from the whole world and all that with the exception perhaps of $300 or .$400 worth came from the United States, New Zealand and Great Britain, and if the reciprocity agreement had gone ino effect every pound of that except a small quantity would have come free of duty and the people of this country would have avoided paying over $200,000 duty which they paid on butter alone in the first eleven months of last year.
Then we come to the question of eggs. It is most remarkable that the Canadian farmer will not produce the eggs which are required in Canada, but he does not. We cannot make him, we have no power over him. I have wondered at this fact many times. I admit that the Agricultural Department has been doing a great deal in trying to influence the farmers to engage more extensively in this business, but they do not become interested and do not prj-( duce the eggs. In the first eleven months of last year we imported $2,456,832 worth of eggs and nine-tenths of these eggs came from the United States of America. On these eggs we paid $345,890 in duty. Or, if you take fruit, vegetables, butter and eggs alone, just those four articles, we imported in eleven months $9,098,000 and paid $1,870,762 in duty, and for the
twelve months we imported $10,000,000 worth and the people of this country paid $2,000,000 in duty which they need not have paid and would not have paid if reciprocity had gone into effect. I want my hon. friends to state if it would not have been better for the people of this country, if it would not have been of benefit to the man in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and the manufacturing centres of Ontario, if he could have bought his eggs, . butter and fruit and saved that $2,000,000 because, Sir, he is the man who paid it. Out in the farming districts they probably produce enough eggs and butter for themselves; it is the labouring man in the manufacturing centres of Canada who purchases these articles, and who paid the $2,000,000 duty on these ordinary articles of food last year. Would my friend say that would have been of no benefit to him?


William Thoburn: Would my hon. friend give me the privilege of answering that question? That was not the issue in the reciprocity question. You never advocated the cause of the workingman, it was the agricultural classes of the community that you professed to benefit.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I advocated it, and 1 went into my own town and met the labouring men and told them and preached to them this doctrine, and I got a bigger majority in my town than ever before in my life. I have had no trouble with the labouring men of my constituency, I have treated them honestly. I have told them that, I tell them that to-day and they stood for it and will stand for it again. I tell my hon. friends opposite that the labouring men all over Canada will respond to the call when it is made.


William Thoburn: Still, the farmers did
not respond to the call.
Mr. CAEVELL; I am dealing with facts, and my hon. friend can deal with the matter in any way he chooses. The people of Canada did not respond, the people of Canada defeated the Government that proposed reciprocity. I think that everybody in the world who knows anything oi Canada knows that. We are not trying to get away from that, but I want my hon. friend now to answer my question. He tried to and did not. Does he think that it would have been any benefit to the ' labouring man of Canada?


William Thoburn: Eeciprocity?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, the remission ol
$2,000,000 of duty.


William Thoburn: Possibly it would be of benefit to the consumer, but not to the agricultural classes. That is my contention.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Now we have a contribution of some value. We have possibly the greatest apostle of high protection, the man who has grown rich by making the poor little boy who runs in the street pay $35 on every $100 worth of clothing he buys in order to keep from freezing to death, admitting that it would have been some benefit to the labouring man of Canada if he had been remitted that $2,000,000 of duty. That is something we have gained in this debate.


Aaron Abel Wright: I think that is a very
unjust statement of the hon. member for Carleton to make.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I shall stand by it
anyway.


Mr.   SPEAKEE@: OrdeT. The hon. member for Carleton has the floor.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have pointed out the
other side of this picture. I have not drawn on my imagination, I have not asked anyone to admit my conclusions, but they are based on cold facts taken from the trade and navigation returns of Canada. I have given figures which my hon. friends cannot deny, and I will make the statement here that in my judgment it would have been worth moTe to the people of Canada than their possible loss by reason of the increased cost of the articles they would have had to buy from the farmers of this country. The farmer would have got more for his produce, the lumberman would have got more for his lumber, the fisherman would have got more for his labours, the consumer would have been in as good a position as before because he would have got his fruits, vegetables, eggs and butter cheaper than he gets them at the present time.
I now come to the broader question asked by my hon. friend: Do I think that the introduction of these articles into this country free of duty would have hurt the Canadian farmer. My answer was: not a dollar; and I stand by that answer, and I will try to prove it to the hon. member. I take, in the first case, melons. We do not produce melons in Canada to any extent.


Mr. BEATTIE:: The best melons in the world are produced in Montreal and that
neighbourhood.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: But the amount of
melons produced in Canada is only a bagatelle. There may be a few fancy gardeners raising them in hot-houses, but that is only insignificant. The fact is that we do not produce melons.
I come next to potatoes. I have discussed potatoes to a considerable extent. I tell my hon. friends opposite that prac-Mr. THOBURN.	.
tically all of the potatoes which we imported last year, amounting to $428,000, which came in during the months of April, May and June, 1912, were the new article, the early variety brought into this country before our potatoes were ready for the market. I know that there may be a few instances when potatoes are ready in the month of July. I have known potatoes in New Brunswick to be so advanced that we could dig a few and eat them in July, but we do not produce them in large quantities.


Mr. BLAIN:: They do in Ontario.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: They cannot, foT Ontario purchases.


Richard Blain: Oh, yes, they do; ask any of your associates.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: They may possibly
along in the latter part of July get a few ready for market, but they are very few. I know this business as well as the hon. member for Peel.


Richard Blain: In my own county there
are thousands of bags of potatoes produced in July and sent into Toronto, and that applies all over that section of the province of Ontario.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is pretty late in
July.


Richard Blain: Not late, before the 12th
of July.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: In my province, where
we produce potatoes on a large scale, we do not have them until the last of July, and that is true also in the province of Quebec. There may be a few places in Ontario where, under special circumstances, they can get a few ready in the latter part of July, but they are very few; it is not a commercial proposition. If my hon. friends will turn to page 280 of the trade and navigation returns for July, they will find there that in the month of July alone we imported from the United States $198,835 worth of potatoes. During the first four months of the fiscal year-April. May, June and July-we imported $287,413 worth, and for the whole year we imported only $428,000 worth, so that more than two-thirds of the potatoes imported into Canada during last year were imported in the first four months of the ^fiscal year. What does that prove? It proves that in the first four months of the year, when we do not produce those articles in Canada, they are brought in from the United States. It proves that they are brought in at a time when the Canadian farmer cannot produce them, and therefore when they could not hurt him. I got a return from the Customs Department for the

months of October, November and December, and during these months only $5,000 worth of potatoes were imported, I think.
I have not seen the returns for January, February and March, but they practically amount to nothing. Turn, however, to April, May and June, and you find the potatoes coming into Canada in large quantities, but as I have said, they do not hurt the Canadian farmer because the Canadian farmer has not the potatoes to sell at that time.
Let me take another item, tomatoes, which is the next item. In the eleven months of last year, we imported $273,000 worth of tomatoes, on which we paid $82,000 of duty, and in the first four months of thdt year, we imported from the United States alone, $226,896 worth. In other words, practically all -the tomatoes that were imported last year came in during the first four months of the year. Will any hon. gentleman opposite tell me that we had tomatoes on sale in large quantities in the month of July? No one will say yes to that. We do not produce tomatoes in this country in July, and all the tomatoes that we imported last year came in during the months of May, June and July. Why? Because they have them in the United States at that time, and we do not have them in Canada. We brought them in when we did not have them, and we did not hurt the Canadian producer to the extent of one dollar, because the Canadian producer did not have the article to sell at that time. The result was that the Canadian consumer was compelled to pay duty to the extent of $82,000. That amount went into the coffers of the Government, but no producer was injured, and no consumer was benefited, and the people of Canada had to pay duty on those tomatoes. Then you can take strawberries, or early fruits.


Mr. MUNSON:: When did you observe
all this?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have been looking it
up for the last few months.


Charles Arthur Munson: Did it never strike you
to look it up during the fifteen years when the former Government was in power?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: We did look it up, and we found that this condition existed. We tried to pass a law in 1911, and my hon. friends opposite succeeded in preventing us from doin" so. If that is any consolation to my hon. friend he is welcome to it. I give him the facts, and if he can gainsay them I would like him to try.


Charles Arthur Munson: I wondered why you did not do so before.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: We tried to do so and failed, but we are going to keep on trying and we are going to succeed.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Do not make any mistake about it. I was. going to refer to blackberries, strawberries, cherries, cranberries, peaches and quinces. If my hon. friends will go over the trade returns they will find the same thing in regard to these fruits; they come into Canada very largely during the first three or four months of the year up to July, when we do not have them for sale in large quantities. It is true that Canadian strawberries are on the market by the middle of July, but not before that time, and the fruits mentioned come in before the Canadian article is on the market. In other words, the people of Canada are compelled to pay duty on these articles at a time When_tlie Canadian producer has not them for sale, and when he cannot be injured. By the time our fruits are ready for the market the season in the United States is past, and if reciprocity had gone into effect we would have been able to sell largely in the United States when their supply was gone. I do not believe there is a class of producer in Canada who would have benefited so much as the fruit producer in Ontario. I know they took the opposite view; they were convinced by their friends that they would be injured, but the trade and navigation returns convince me that there is not an industry that would have benefited so much from reciprocity as the fruit industry of Canada. I am satisfied that when these facts are placed before the people of Canada they will see the error of their ways. If the Canadian producer will not see it the Canadian consumer will; no man can read the statements made by my hon. friend from Maisonneuve (Mr. Verville) last evening without pondering over what the end of this condition of affairs is going to be. My hon. *liend from Muskoka (Mr. Wright) thought lie saw something wrong in the statement of my hon. friend as to the cost of potatoes and other articles of food in Montreal as compared with New York, but he was giving the cost of living in the months of June and July, when all those articles are cheaper in the United States than in Canada. If we made the same comparison in the months of September and October we would find that they were cheaper in Canada than in the United States. Why? Because in the months of May, June and July we do not produce foodstuffs, and in the United States they do, while in the months of September and October we have an abundance of foodstuffs while many classes ol foodstuffs are out of season in the United States. It is simply a question of supply and demand, and that is the question ' that the people of this country have to face and will face. My hon. friends opposite may jeer at reciprocity as much as they like, and my hon. friend the Minister of Finance may say that it is dead. I

want to tell him that the principles of reciprocity are not dead, the principle of cheaper production, the principle of cheaper cost of living, the principle of ameliorating the conditions of the masses; they are not dead, and they will stare him in the face this year, and next year, and as long as the present conditions exist.
I wish to point out to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance the logical deduction from the facts I have given to the House. The Americans are taking the duty off many foodstuffs which were included in the reciprocity agreement. So far as the West is concerned, 1 do not look upon the new American tariff as worth anything at all. They have reduced the duty on wheat from 25 cents to 10 cents a bushel, but that is not going to benefit the western wheat producer, because the spread between the prices in Minneapolis and Winnipeg never exceeds ten cents, and seldom reaches that point; so that a duty of 10 cents per bushel of wheat is just as prohibitory as a duty of 25 cents a bushel. If they reduce the duty on live animals to ten per cent that will be a benefit, but, of course, whether or not the Canadian producer does get the benefit, will depend on the supply and demand. This year, it would be an enormous benefit, because millions of dollars worth of live animals have been taken from Canada into the United States showing the demand, and if the demand still prevails under the reduced duty there will be a benefit to the Canadian producer and possibly to the American consumer as well. I believe the reduction in the United States tariff will help the people of Ontario with respect to their cattle and cheese and I know it will help the people of the Maritime provinces in the matter of potatoes, fish, and lumber which are made free. It will not help the Maritime provinces to a great extent on sheep and lambs, because the proposed reduction is not very great and as to cattle, we do not produce cattle to the extent we ought to in the Maritime provinces. It will help the haygrowers of the province of Quebec, who have been sending millions of dollars worth of hay to the United States on which they have paid four dollars per ton, and which is now reduced to two dollars per ton. Of course that reduction may be divided between the consumer and the producer, but nevertheless it will help. Then, if I am right in my contention, it will increase the price of these articles to the Canadian consumer. If it increases the price to the Canadian consumer on live stock, hay, potatoes, fish and lumber, it will necessarily increase the cost of living in Canada. To the Finance Minister I say: What are you going to do about it? Will you stand still and do nothing? Will you
Mr. CARVMLL.
reduce taxation. I believe I have convinced the Minister of Finance, although possibly I have not convinced some of his supporters behind him, that the importation of these articles free of duty would hurt nobody and would relieve the consumers in the large cities to the extent of $2,000,000 a year. Is the minister ready to do that? That is the question which the labouring men of Canada will ask him; it is the question I will ask him every time I get the opportunity; it is the question I hope the Liberal party will ask him. If he will not reduce the duty on foodstuffs, will he reduce the duty on anything else? My hon. friend from St. Antoine will tell him: leave well enough alone; we will keep you where you are, but you must keep your unholy hands off the tariff; it was a bad tariff as long as the Liberals were in power, but now it is a sacred thing. Will the Minister of Finance bow to the dictation of the member for St. Antoine or will he ameliorate the condition of the masses by reducing the duty.
I am now going to deal with a question which is of considerable importance to my hon. friend from North Lanark (Mr. Tlioburn), who seems to take a lively interest in the reciprocity question. I have here some figures regarding woolens which will be of interest to that hon. gentleman, If I have any condemnation to make ol my political friends, it is for the manner in which they treated the woolen tariff in 1907 when they practically wiped out a good proportion of the British preference. I say the Liberals were not treating the consumers of this country fairly in doing that, and I blame them for it. When a man tells me it is a good economic principle to tax the poor man from twenty-two per cent to thirty-five per cent for the clothing which he and his family must wear in this rigorous Canadian climate to keep them from freezing to death, I say that it is nothing but legalized robbery and I have no milder term for it. Why should a man have to pay thirty-five per cent duty on a suit of clothes which is required to keep his child from freezing to death. I do not want woolen industries in this country at that price; the labouring people of Canada do not want woolen industries at that price. I will give some facts concerning this iniquitous woolen tariff which is imposed on the people of Canada.
I give the following table which will show the total imports of woolens into Canada during the last eleven months; the imports from Great Britain; the imports from all other countries, the value of the goods which came from Great Britain; the duty paid on them; the value of the goods which came from all other countries, and the duty paid on them:

Woolen Imports During Eleven Months.
	Great	All other
	Britain.	countries.
	Value.	Value.
Blankets	$ 82,976	$ 48,660Cassimeres, &e.. ..	2,637,587	314,085Coatings, &c .. .. Tweeds, &c	1,004,892	61,5701,280,992	63,059Flannels	86,995	26,777Knitted goods .. ..	1,005,759	383,329Socks and stockings	1,324,009	171,278Yarns	1,937,269	107,114Worsted	
Wool and worsted	208,826	75,908N.O.P	
Clothing ready	7,384,431	2,021,292made	1,020,592	1,106,794Lustres, &c	
Miscellaneous.. ..	1,223,275	106,820577,840	394,407Total value .. ..	$19,775,443	$4,784,955Total duty .. ..	$ 4,449,474	$1,654,535I have estimated the duty on the British goods at twenty-two and a half per cent, which I think is below the actual duty, but not having the complete returns, I could only make an estimate. Therefore, estimating the duty at twenty-two and a half per cent the people of Canada paid in duty on British woollens, $4,449,474, and on the woollens imported from other countries, estimating the duty at thirty-five per cent, the people of Canada paid $1,654,535. The total value of woollens imported in this period was $24,560,396 and the people of Canada were forced to pay on that a duty of $6,124,009. I want to know if even a dyed-in-the-wool protectionist could justify taking out of the people of Canada over six million dollars in duty on this absolute necessity of life. But there is worse than that. I am satisfied that the home production of woollens would probably be nearly as much as the importations, and on every dollar's worth of home production the people of Canada paid a duty just the same as they did on the goods which were imported. That is why the woollen manufacturers vote for protection. They admit they are charging the people the cost in a foreign country plus the duty. My friend from Lanark does not deny that. He may on some lines cut his price one per cent or just enough to get the business, but what he and the other manufacturers do is to charge the people the cost in the foreign country plus the duty, and so the people have virtually to pay the duty on the home product as well as on the imported goods. Therefore, instead of paying $6,000,000 in duty on woollens we pay probably $12,000,-000;-twelve millions of dollars on goods which are just as much a necessary of life as fruit or vegetables. And yet our friends opposite say:	Keep your unholy hands off
this tariff; give those interested a chance to wax fat and grow rich on it. They tell us that these industries cannot remain in business if you take these duties off, that
manufacturing business in Canada cannot be carried on with less than twenty-five per cent to thirty-five per cent protection. I simply do not believe it.
If any man in this House contends that this protection is necessary, I want him to give some proof of it. I am open to reason on this subject; I do not want to put my dogmas and ideas against facts and arguments. I have been in this House for a good many years, and have heard the statement made a 'good many times that if you reduce the duties on woollen goods you will close up the factories. But when a man comes into court and tells me that such and such a thing is true, I do not accept that; I want his reasons, and if those reasons appeal to my judgment, I accept his statement. So, I want the manufacturer of woollen goods to give reasons why he cannot carry on business if these duties are reduced. We know that there are woollen industries in this country that are rich. We know that they grow so large that they have to organize themselves into companies, and then they have to water the stock, and they do water the stock. And hon. gentlemen opposite know it. I do not wish to be personal, but I think I could put my finger on a few people, and that without going more than a couple of rods from where I stand, who have engaged in the woollen industry and who have taken part in companies with watered stock, the stock being watered because they did not wish the people to know what they were making. Why, you see these stocks quoted in the financial papers every day. You find that there are bonds, preferred stock and common stock. The common stock is all water, yet it has a value in the market. And if we were to try to reduce the woollen duties, hundreds of people would come forward and say:	I
have common stock in the woollen industry and if you reduce the tariff I cannot get dividends on my stock. It is unfortunate for the bona fide holder of stock, but if that stock is all water, if the original holder gave no value for it, is the existence of that stock a Teason why every poor man and woman in Canada should be bled white to pay dividends? These are the conditions that stare the people of Canada in the face.
Not only is this true of woollen goods, but it is true of practically every line of manufacture in Canada. The same is true of cotton. I do not know how much the stock of the cotton industry in Canada is watered, but it must be two or three or four times over. And the cry is raised that if the duties are reduced, dividends cannot be paid on the watered stock. Well, why should they? The cotton industry is practically in the hands of one great combine. There was one establishment in New Brunswick which would not join the combine; they simply came down there, closed

them up and they had to join. I venture to make the statement here that three quarters of their common stock is water. One of the best evidences that these things are not as they ought to be is seen right in this House.
Last year my hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) got the Government to bring in his pet scheme of a Tariff Commission. He told us at the time what kind of men were to be appointed to this commission-they must be protectionists. They put this Bill through this House and then it went to the Senate. The Senate made an amendment which simply provided that if the commission undertook to investigate any particular line of business with a view to increasing or reducing the tariff, they should have the right to investigate the capital account, that it might be known how much of that capital was real money and how much was water. And what did the manufacturers compel their friends here to do? Why, my hon. friend from St. Antoine dropped the thing as if it had been a serpent, and the Government turned from it as they would from a reptile. And from that day until this they have not referred to it. Why_ do not they introduce it and pass it again? They say their Highways Bill was a good measure and would be of benefit to the people. When the Senate amended it last year, they refused to accept the amendment; but they hate this year introduced the Bill again in the same words, and have sent it to the Senate. And they go to the people of the country and say that because the Senate did not pass their Highways Bill the people are without money for their roads and bridges. That is the cry that is raised all over Canada. There is not a general election or a bye-election in which that plea is not put forward. But, how different is their treatment of the Tariff Commission Bill: they are as dumb as oysters about that measure. Why do not they introduce it again, and when they go before the country, tell the people that the wicked Senate has killed the Tariff Commission Bill? Rather than allow the people to have one peep into the inside conditions of these manufacturing concerns, that it may be known how much water is in the stock, they will drop the whole thing, and we shall never hear of it again so long as these people remain in power.
To show what ground the consumers of Canada have to complain against this Government, let me give_ some facts with regard to cotton. I believe that cottons are quite as much a necessity as are woollens, and I believe there is more water in the stock of the cotton industry than in the stock of the woollen industry-and that is saying a good deal. Hon. gentlemen opposite say:	If you reduce the duties on
cottons, the industry cannot pay dividends.
Mr. CARVELL.
But water on which dividends are paid, as I have told you, is just so much found money for the manufacturers. Last year we imported cottons to something like the extent to which we imported woollens, which shows that the cotton trade is very largely in the hands of one huge interest. I have here a statement showing the imports from Great Britain and the imports from other countries. And when I speak of 'other countries' in this connection, I think I am safe in saying that ninety-nine per cent of that business means the United States of America. It is something marvellous, when you look over the trade returns, to find that almost 'our whole outside trade, besides what we do with Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South America, is done with the United States, these people with whom hon. gentlemen opposite told us they wanted no truck or trade.
Cotton Imports for eleven months.
	Great	All other
	Britain.	Countries.
	Value.	Value.
Duck, &c			. .. $ 205,112	$ 76,751
Cottons, gray,	un-	
bleached	, .. 536,391	343,864Cotton, white.. ..	.. 2,011,401	567,306Fabrics, &c	.. 4,515,093	1,667.131Miscellaneous.. ..	.. 5,770,805	7,576,655Total value..	.. $13,038,802	$11,021,797Total duty ..	.. 2,281,790	2,755,449Total imports.	, $24,060,599;	total duty,

These figures represent the foreign trade. And here again the same conditions exist as in the case of the woollens, except that the duty is not more than two-thirds as great on cottons as on woollens, and that is a benefit so far as it goes. I have not the figures of our home production of cotton goods, but I dare say this might be obtained from the census returns if one looked it up. But I find that our raw cotton imports for eleven months were over $7,000,000. I do not know what proportion the value of the raw cotton bears to that of the finished article, but I assume that it cannot be more than half. Therefore, I think I am safe in assuming that we ifianu-facture in Canada about half the cottons we consume. If I am right in that assumption, then the people of this country pay $10,000,000 a year by reason of the cotton duties either to the Government or to the manufacturer. Now, the cotton industry is in the hands of a great combine, one that is rolling in wealth, a combine that Jias been compelled to water, and water, and water its stock to keep the people from knowing what its profits are. Take a business like this, then, that is in the hands of a combine that practically controls this line of trade for the country, is it fair, in the face of a surplus of $55,000,000 that the poor people of this country should pay

$10,000,000, half to the Government and half to the cotton manufacturer? That is something which must make my friends opposite consider. I do not wish to drive the cotton industry out of the country; I desire the cottons to be made here; but I say that a condition of affairs has grown up in this country-and I frankly acknowledge that my own friends may be blamed to some extent; but I do not care who is to blame- I say a condition exists to-day which it is our duty to face, for it is sapping the lifeblood out of the labouring people. And these high duties are exacted, not because we need the revenue, but only to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
At one o'clock, House took recess.
House resumed at three o'clock.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: When the House rose
at one o'clock, I was pointing out some of the iniquities of the present tariff system under which the people of Canada were compelled to pay more than they should in order to produce a revenue to carry on the business of the country. I referred to the foodstuffs which came into this country, upon which a duty of $2,000,000 was paid, and which would have come in free under the reciprocity agreement. I also referred to the fact that something like $24,000,000 worth of woollen goods, and practically the same amount of cottons, were brought into the country and subjected to an enormous duty. I now wish to discuss very briefly another product which is of as great importance to the people of Canada as foodstuffs, woollens and cottons, and that is farm machinery. Of all the industries in Canada, farm machinery is taxed the least; yet the trade returns for the past year show that the people of Canada are paying more for farm machinery than they should be compelled to pay. I was much impressed last evening with the straightforward manner in which this matter was dealt with by the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cock-shutt). He said that we could produce farm machinery in this country of as good a quality and at as low a price as the machinery produced in any country of the world except the United States, although he did not say to what extent the United States can produce farm machinery cheaper than we can in Canada. My hon. friend admitted also that if the duty were entirely removed from the materials entering into the manufacture of farm machinery, the agricultural implement industry could get along with a reduction of duty. He did not say to what extent the duty should be removed, nor did he tell us any of the subsidiary articles the duty upon which would have to be reduced; he mentioned screws, but nothing else. He
said that if you reduced the duty on farm machinery, you would probably have to reduce the duty on from fifty to one hundred different articles entering into its manufacture. I have had some personal experience in the manufacture of farm machinery, and I may say that I failed because of the competition which I had to meet on the part of the Massey-Harris Company and the other great concerns to which my hon. friend has referred. The hon. gentleman was honest enough to admit that the small manufacturers had been driven, out of business in Canada by the larger concerns, and that the manufacture of agricultural implements was now confined to three great concerns, forming a large combine. This combine is protected by a duty of from 17J per cent to 25 per cent, and the large manufacturers can and do charge the people of Canada for their machinery an amount equivalent to from 17i to 25 per cent over and above what the goods would be sold for if the duty were removed. This duty is not and never has been justified by any contention put forward by hon. gentlemen of this House, but it has been proved to be unnecessary and unfair by a number of hon. gentlemen, notably the hon member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) who, I am sorry to say, is not so anxious to ventilate the grievance of his constituents at the present time as he was prior to September 21, 1911. We all have a certain degree of knowledge as to the manufacturing industry of this country. As I have said, I myself lost some money in trying to manufacture farm machinery in competition with an upper Canadian firm. The underselling carried on by that firm was not so serious a matter, as far as we were concerned, as the selling of goods on one, two and three years' time, with interest, and as we did not have sufficient funds to do that, we had to close up our business. My hon. friend has said that you would have to reduce the duty on the materials entering into the manufacture of agricultural implements before you could reduce the duty on the finished article, and as he has also said that if you did reduce or eliminate the duty on these materials, you could reduce the duty on the manufactured article. He even went so far as to intimate, although he did not say so, that the duty could be entirely eliminated. I know something about what enters into the manufacture of farm machinery in Canada, and I submit that ninety-five per cent of the whole cost of farm machinery, so far as material is concerned, is the cost of iron and steel. There is a little wood-a mere bagatelle; there is a little paint, but the expense of the paint is so small compared with the total cost of the article that it is not worth mentioning. The labour of
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putting on the paint would amount to something, but the cost of the paint itself would not amount to one-quarter of one per cent of the cost of the machinery. I have not time, and this is not the occasion, to enter into an elaborate discussion of the duties on and cost of iron and steel in Canada as compared with the duties on and cost of iron and steel in other parts of the world, but if hon. gentlemen refer to the customs tariff of 1907, and look at the items relating to the very articles which enter into the construction of farm machinery, they will see that the duties are very small. The following item appears under the heading ' Iron ':
Rolled iron or steel, in bars, bands, hoop, scroll, strip, sheet or plate, of any size, thickness or width, galvanized or coated with any material or not, and steel blanks for the manufacture of milling cutters, when of greater value than three and one-half cents per pound.
This material is free if it comes from Great Britain, and only five per cent duty is imposed if it is imported from any other country in the world. Some of that material would be used in the manufacture of farm machinery. Steel bars or sheets, to be used exclusively in the manufacture of shovels, when imported by manufacturers of shovels, are subject to a duty of two dollars a ton. A large amount of this material would be used in the manufacture of ordinary farm machinery. Then take these items:
Rolled bar iron or steel, whether in coils, bars, rods or bundles, comprising rounds, ovals, and squares and flats; steel billets, per ton, $4.25.
Rolled iron or steel beams, channels, angles and other rolled shapes of iron or steel, not punched, drilled, or further manufactured than rolled weighing not less than thirty-five pounds per lineal yard, not being flat, oval or round shapes, and not being railway bars or rails, per ton, $2.00.
A large quantity of this material is used in the manufacture of the heavier agricultural implements produced in this country.
Boiler plate of iron or steel, not less than twenty inches in width, &c.
That is used for the manufacture of boilers and goes into farm machinery. So you cannot find in any case that the material of which farm machinery is manufactured pays more than $2 to $4 a ton. How many tons of material go into an ordinary farm implement? Take a plow or a threshing machine or a mowing machine or a rake or a harrow or anything else, unless you go into the high-priced traction engines which I am not discussing, but take the ordinary run of farm machinery and you do not have anything weighing a ton, no, not half a ton. I tell you that the duty would be only from $2 to $4 on all the material entering into the manufacture of Mr. GARY ELL.
a farm machine, and yet my hon. friend says you must have some seventeen per cent to twenty-five per cent duty in order to compensate the manufacturer because he has to pay a duty on raw material, and a little duty on a few cents worth of paint that goes on the outside of an article to cover up the defects. To show the unfairness with which my hon. friend from Brantford treated the House last evening, I will point out that he said you have got to have a duty on plows of twenty per cent in order to manufacture them in Canada. He started in to discuss plows because, as he said, that was a thing about which he knew something. My hon. friend will not be surprised, nor will the Minister of Customs, but there are many members of this House and many people in Canada who will be, when I say that practically all the raw material that goes into a plough comes into this country free of duty. If he will refer to section 444 of the present tariff he will find:
Mould boards or shares, or plough plates, landsides, and other plates for agricultural implements, when cut a.nd shaped from rolled plates of steel, but not moulded, punched, polished or otherwise manufactured.
These are free not only from the British Empire but from the whole world.


Mr. CURRIE:: Who made that tariff?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Why, we did; I am not denying that at all. My hon. friend from Simcoe was not here this morning, or he would have heard what I had to say on that branch of the subject. I am not finding fault with it; I am telling my friends that it may have been necessary to have that tariff five years ago; but, to-day, with a surplus of $55,000,000, it is not necessary to tax the people to that extent; and, if there is an article on which the duty should be reduced or removed, it is ploughs. I do not see why, on the evidence and confessions of the hon. member for Brantford, ploughs should not be put upon the free list because he admits that the only thing you require in Canada in order to put these products on the free list is free raw materials. But he has that now, he can buy his wood surely as cheaply in Canada as any place else in the world. He shakes his head, no, there are a few other things on which he pays duty. He pays on the nuts and bolts he puts into his plough.


John Allister Currie: They are made in Canada.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The man who makes
them in Canada charges the consumer in Canada the duty.


John Allister Currie: The plates are not made-in Canada.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend either
brings in or buys from the Canadian manufacturer nuts and bolts and pays duty on them. I want to know how many pounds of nuts and bolts he will have in an ordinary plough? More than half a dozen? I guess not. He will pay duty on a half dozen and what do you suppose that duty comes to? Three-quarters of one cent per pound so he will have to pay about four cents duty on the nuts and bolts he puts into a plough. Yet he must have 20 per cent on the whole finished product in order to pay that four cents duty for nuts and bolts.


Mr. COCKSHUTT:: Is there no ad
valorem duty in addition to the three-quarters of a cent?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, 25 per cent.


William Foster Cockshutt: Oh, yes; 25 per cent.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: But on the little half
dozen pounds of nuts and bolts, the 25 per cent is so small it should not be counted.


Mr. STANFIELD:: Every little helps.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, every little helps.
My hon. friends grab at straws, they cling to any little argument but do not deal with the main issues. Could we reduce the duty on farm machinery? I do not see for the life of me how the Minister of Finance can justify the retention of this duty on farm machinery with a surplus of $55,000,000 and an estimated surplus for the next year of $85,000,000. I cannot understand how it is possible to justify it. There is not a farmer in the Dominion of Canada who is not compelled to buy farm machinery to some extent and he is compelled to "pay that duty every time he buys it. There is no use my friend saying it is as cheap in Canada as in the United States. It is not, and the hon. member for Brantford admitted it last night. He admits that farm machinery is cheaper in the United States than in Canada and if you take off three-quarters of the duty you would still have enough left to more than provide lor the duty the manufacturer has to pay on his raw material. Last year we imported of farm machinery, including traction engines and ploughing outfits, $13,128,327 worth. Of wagons, &e., we imported $772,035, and of gasoline engines, which have really become an article of farm machinery, $2,364,693, or a total of $16,865,055 upon which we paid a duty of $3,373,000. If that was all, I perhaps would not have as strong a case as I have today. My hon. friend, if I stopped there might say: Well, we cannot compete with the rest of the world; it is true that we have the best article, it is true that we have done all we can do, and yet they bring in $17,000,000 worth over a tariff wall and pay 17 per cent to 25 per cent duty. But let us take the other side of the picture. These same gentlemen who have to
have a duty to protect them of from 17 per dent to 25 per cent in order to compete with the American manufacturer, actually last year sold outside of Canada the enormous amount of $5,671,838 worth. Can any reasonable man tell me or try to argue logically with me or anybody else that three firms in Canada who can manufacture and compete with the rest of the world and sell in the markets of the rest of the world $5,671,000 worth of farm machinery need a protection of from 17 per cent to 25 per cent in order to manufacture machinery for the home market and are compelled to charge the home consumers 20: per cent more than he can get the same goods for elsewhere? The thing is not logical or common sense, it simply means that for the benefit of these manufacturers the farmers of Canada are compelled to pay about one-fifth more than they ought to for their farm machinery, and they could reduce the duty on farm machinery one-half, yes, three-quarters, and still these men would not be hurt. They would carry on business just the same, they would not make as much money, I grant you, but they do not deserve to. The farmers of Canada would have a chance, they would have an innings sometime and get that to which they are entitled, which they will get in the end, the agitation for which my hon. friends have not heard the last.
The hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury) last night was inclined to differ with the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cock-shutt). There was a lively tilt, sub rosa, between them. I would like to hear the hon. member for Selkirk make some remarks on the budget and hear what he has to say about the duty on farm machinery, My hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) discreetly keeps out of the Chamber, but I would like to ask him to tell us what he thinks about it. I would also like some of my hon. friends opposite who represent farming constituencies in the province of Ontaiio to give us their views on this subject.


George Henry Bradbury: When a motion was
made in this House by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie for the reduction of the duty on farm implements, did my hon. friend support it?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not think I did.
If it was moved, it was moved in a way that would make it a vote of no confidence in the Government, and I would not vote to turn the old Government out of power. Since I have been a member, and I have been here since 1904, the matter has never been brought up on its merits. It is true that when the last tariff was brought down, some Conservative members from the West introduced on the third reading, I think, an amendment that there should be a re-

duction of the duty on farm machinery, but they took mighty good care not to introduce it at a time when it could be treated on its merits, or otherwise than as a vote of no confidence. But that was six years ago. Things have changed in six years, and there is no use of my hon. friends opposite asking, what did you do when you were in power? We were turned out of power; if we sinned we paid the penalty. The question is what is the Minister of Finance going to do to meet present day conditions under which he has a surplus of $55,000,000. What are the Government going to do about it? That is what we want to know and what the country wants to know. If the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury) has any question to ask, let him ask the Minister of Finance what he is going to do about it. But my hon. friend is the very last man in the world to make trouble for the Minister of Finance. If the hon. minister has no more dangerous a man to fear than the hon. member for Selkirk or the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, he is absolutely safe. He can allow the'hon. member for St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) and the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) to direct his policy. There will not be any trouble, and the Government will not go to pieces because of a vote of no confidence moved by my hon. friend from Selkirk.


George Henry Bradbury: I may be in the same position as that in which my hon. friend found himself.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: There is another matter which seems to me to require consideration. It does not affect the farmers of Canada to any great extent, but it furnishes an argument along the line I have been following. I refer to an article which is not a necessity to the farmers of the country, but a luxury. Still in my judgment the duty upon it, is far beyond what it ought to be. I refer to the duty on automobiles and motor vehicles of all kinds, a protection of thirty-five per cent. These vehicles are not necessities to the farmer, they are luxuries, but they are becoming a necessity to many of my constituents. The farmers are just as anxious to have an automobile as I am, and they are buying them, and will continue to buy them.


John Allister Currie: They are prospering under the national policy.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: To some extent they
are prospering. If my hon. friend wants comparisons, however, I can tell him that for every farmer in the county of Carleton who has an automobile, across in the state of Maine, where they have the market of which my hon. friends were afraid, there are five hundred. I could take him to one little township in the state of Maine where Mr. CARVELL.
they have that market, and where he will find six hundred automobiles in the hands of farmers.


William Thomas White: What is the United States tariff on automobiles?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I cannot tell my hon.
friend, but you can buy ' an automobile in the United States for about two-thirds of what it costs in Canada. An automobile that costs $1,500 in Canada can be bought across the boundary line in the State of' Maine for $1,085, and it is exactly the same class of vehicle, manufactured by the same people, and with the same interchangeable parts. I own one of them, and know what I am talking about. I might give a little illustration from my own experience last summer. I was called out into the country to see an old gentleman who was supposed to be in extremis, and who wanted his will drawn. I found a good Conservative doctor attending him. He wanted to know what a certain car was selling there for. I told him $1,500. The doctor had been driving a little runabout, but he had caught the automobile fever and asked what that car would cost over in the state of Maine, the boundary of which was just a mile and a half away. I said $1,050. He said it was highway robbery. I said to him: when you had a chance to vote for it, you voted against it. The boys laughed and the doctor moved on.


Mr. MACDONALD:: Did the old man
die?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, the old man is still alive.


John Allister Currie: They have their own
market in the United States, and can make their cars cheaper.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I just mentioned this incident to show that we do not need a protection of thirty-five per cent on automobiles. Personally, I do not care very much about it, because an automobile is something without which the farmer can get along, although he would like very much to have one, and if the duty were reduced, thousands of farmers would be able to purchase automobiles who are not able to do so to-day.
Another phase of the subject is that relating to boots and shoes. I suppose that my hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) would feel that I was not treating him with courtesy if I did not refer to that. In looking over the trade returns for the last eleven months, I find that we practically imported no boots and shoes at all. The figures show that $225,000 worth of boots and shoes were imported from the whole world during the last eleven months, showing that the tariff wall is so high that we are compelled to buy our boots and

shoes from the home manufacturers. When a man tells me that I can buv 'boots and shoes as cheaply in Canada as in the United States, I say he does not know what he is talking about. All he has to do is to run a shoe business ten or fifteen miles from the boundary line, anywhere from Ste. Croix to the Pacific ocean, and he will find that while perhaps you can buy heavy shoes fairly cheap in Canada, the moment you want a good article, especially ladies' shoes, to advantage, you have to go to the United States. If a Canadian woman, who I think is a little inclined to smuggle, is within ten miles of the border, she will go to the United States to buy her shoes, because she will get a better article for less money. If the Canadian manufacturer produced as good an article, and sells it as cheaply as the producer in the United States, I ask the Minister of Finance, why does he not take the dutv off boots and shoes? The great American Republic is going to be thrown open to our Canadian manufacturers, and if the latter want a larger field, they have 100,000,000 people to whom they can sell boots and shoes. If they can produce these articles as cheaply at home, and I believe they can, then throw down the tariff wall and let the Americans come in here, and we will go over there. As the hon. member for Brantford said, if you have a big market, if you can manufacture those things by the million instead of by the hundred, you can sell them cheaper, and if the American tariff wall is-going to be thrown down let us throw down our tariff wall. If we can get a better article cheaper we will get the benefit. If the hon. member for Brantford is right, our people will have a chance to expand their business. But I think I can see the electricity flying around the seat of the hon. member for St. Antoine if the Minister of Finance attempted to touch the sacred duty on boots and shoes. My hon. friend from St. Antoine would not treat the minister in the patronizing manner he did yesterday, and the minister would find the fury of the whole Tory party vented on him if he attempted to touch that sacred subject.


Mr. AMES:: Is the hon. member aware
that, when the Liberals came into power, the duty on boots and shoes was twenty-five per cent, and that they raised it to thirty per cent?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am perfectly aware of it; my hon. friend is not giving me any news. If he had been listening to what I said this forenoon, he would have found that I did not defend my political friends. My political friends listened to him and the likes of him and they got their reward, and in some cases it was a just reward.


Mr. CLARK (Red Deer):: By way of
bringing this matter up to date, would the
hon. gentleman tell me what it is proposed to do with boots and shoes under President Wilson's tariff?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: It is proposed to make them free.


Michael Clark: That is up to date.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is up to date. My hon. friend (Mr. Ames) will use the old argument: If you make boots and shoes free, you must make leather free. I admit that. Every man who has protection in Canada charges for his goods the price plus the protection. The man who produces leather enjoys a protection of from twelve to fifteen per cent and he makes the consumer pay that duty every time, but the man who produces boots and shoes has a protection of thirty per cent. Does my hon. friend from St. Antoine wish us to believe we cannot make boots and shoes as cheaply in Canada as they can make them in the United States? Why, it is all the same combine; they all use the same machinery; they get as cheap labour in Canada; they have cheaper power; the people live as cheaply, and he cannot contend that the Canadian workman does not turn out as much in a day as does the American workman. Under these conditions you can make boots and shoes as cheaply in Canada as they can make them in the United States if the raw material costs the same. Whyjdoes the maker of boots and shoes have a protection of thirty per cent, when the leather manufacturer has a duty only of from twelve to fifteen per cent and even the leather manufacturer is not entitled to what he is getting because he gets his hides free. Argue it any way you have a mind to, the time has come when we have to face these great problems and we have to face them in a businesslike way so as to reduce the cost of living which has become almost intolerable.


John Allister Currie: Does the hon. gentleman think the duty should be taken off leather?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I did not say so; I said it should be reduced, and that brings me to that branch of the case which my friends opposite expect me to discuss, and that is what I would do about it.


Herbert Brown Ames: Are you speaking for your
party?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, Sir, I am speaking for myself; I am speaking for what I believe to be the proper policy for Canada, and the policy which I believe my party will adopt, and the policy which my friends opposite would do well to consider. I have shown-


Herbert Brown Ames: Show where your party
stands.

1056S


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If the hon. gentleman will possess his soul in patience he will find where I stand, and I am only an humble individual member of the party, I have the honesty at least to state what I believe and I am going to state it, and if my hon. friend does not like it he does not have to take it, and if I do not represent my party I do not do him any harm. But what the hon. member is afraid of is that I am representing my party, and I know that I am not only representing a great many in my party but I am representing a great many in his party, and I certainly am representing millions of people in Canada whose views will prevail in the near future. I have shown that we are paying duty on fruits and vegetables which come into this country at a time of the year when our own producers have not these fruits and vegetables, and which if put on the free list it would hurt nobody. I have shown that we paid last year $345,000 duty on eggs which were not produced in Canada at the time of the year they were imported here, and the importation of which free of duty would hurt nobody. For the first four months of the fiscal year, 1912, April, May, June and July, when eggs are being produced in thousands in Canada, we only imported $605,000 worth, but in October, November, December, January, February, when eggs are scarce in Canada, the amount ran up to $2,456,000 worth, or an increase of one and a half million dollars in the last five months of the fiscal year as compared with the previous six months. The importation of eggs when they are not to be had in Canada would, of course, not hurt the Canadian producer. Then, as to butter: in the months of April, May, June, July, August and September, the first six months of the fiscal year, when we were producing butter in this country we only imported $658,000 worth, but in the next five months of the fiscal year we brought in $1,170,000 worth, most of which came from New Zealand. In these months of the year we were not producing butter in Canada, but nevertheless we made the consumers pay the duty on the imported butter they consumed. There is no doubt at all that we had to pay the duty on this butter because we have to compete with the London market which regulates the price of butter for the whole world. You can transport a pound of butter from New Zealand to London a great deal less than you can from New Zealand to Toronto and therefor the Canadian consumer has got to pay the London price plus the duty, because if he did not do so the butter would go to London. The very fact that it comes to Canada is proof that the consumers here pay the duty.
Mr. AMES.


John Allister Currie: The hon. gentleman would take the duty off eggs and butter?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Most certainly I would.


Mr. BENNETT (East Simcoe):: Then
why do you not move to do it?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, and I represent a constituency of farmers and I am not afraid of my farmers and I am not afraid of the farmers anywhere in Canada when the real facts of the matter are placed before them. Am I to be told that when butter gets up to thirty cents a pound wholesale price, it is necessary to put a duty on it. It is an outrage to do so. How is the poor man earning $1.50 a day to provide butter for his family when he has to pay thirty cents'per pound for it wholesale.


Mr. MARCIL:: Fresh eggs sold in Montreal last year as high as seventy cents a dozen.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, but that is not the ordinary price, although eggs sold all over Canada at from thirty-five to forty cents a dozen, and in the big cities at from fifty to sixty, cents a dozen. Does anyone mean to tell me you should keep a duty on eggs and make the labouring man pay fifty cents.a dozen, especially at a season of the year when these eggs are not produced in Canada.
Mr, THOBURN:	Would you leave the
duty on anything?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, I would. I would
give my hon. friend about half the duty on the cheap woollen goods he is producing. I am willing to give the rest of them some protection. My friends opposite ask me what I would do. In the first place, I would make free every article of foodstuffs that we can send free into the United States to-day, because the United States is our great market. Eggs come very largely from the United States.


William Thoburn: Are you sure of that?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: During the first eleven
months of the last fiscal year, we imported from Great Britain 6,030 dozens eggs; from the United States we imported 11,529,686 dozen eggs, and from the rest of the world 60,000 dozen. Is my hon. friend satisfied?


John Allister Currie: What about butter?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I think I can convince
my hon. friend that there is not very much difference between eggs and butter. He will find the information on page 230 of the unrevised monthly statements of the Trade and Navigation Returns for February. These are the latest figures I have. Last year we imported from Great Britain under the general tariff $8,578

worth; I do not know what * under the general tariff ' means in this case. We imported from the . United States $309,857 worth; from Australia, $25,212 worth; from New Zealand, $6,347 worth; from all other countries $951 worth. Under the preferential tariff we imported from Great Britain $151,267 worth, and from New Zealand, $1,327,922 worth. Therefore, the greater portion of all the butter imported into Canada came from Great Britain and New Zealand; but where $1,400,000 worth came in under the preferential tariff, $309,000 worth came from the United States, or over one-fifth as much butter came from the United States under the general tariff as came from the British Empire under the preferential tariff. I hope and pray that this Government will take the duty off all foodstuffs which are allowed to go into the United States free of duty. I would not have the duty taken off foodstuffs which we cannot send into the United States free of duty. We have to sell our surplus products somewhere. The United States is our market. I think this Government ought to increase the British preference, not a nominal increase, but a real, genuine increase.
Some hon. MEMEBES: Oh, oh.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Why do my hon. friends jeer? My friends, who wrap the flag around them and say, We want no truck or trade with the Yankees; my friends, who say, Hold on to the flag and save the Empire- when I say that they ought to increase the British preference, I am the subject of their derisive laughter. I advocated a British preference when addressing this House on the reciprocity question in March, 1911. I advocated it when discussing the Speech from the Throne last November. I advocate it to-day. I want to encourage trade with Great Britain rather than with the United States, disloyal as my hon. friends think I am. I would rather trade with the Old Country than with a foreign nation. I want to see this Empire knit together for the common good, just as much as my hon. friends opposite do, but I do not want to see that done at the cost of almost the heart's blood of the people of Canada. I want to see the British preference increased so that the labouring and consuming people of Canada may have a chance to buy everything which comes from that country at a cheaper rate than they are buying it at today. When that happens, they will be able to buy it more cheaply if it comes from any other part of the world, and to buy it more cheaply in some cases if produced in Canada, because the Canadian producer is~ bound to meet all competition. There is nothing that strikes terror to the hearts of the manufacturers of Canada so much as the word ' British preference.' A proposition
was put up to the Canadian Manufacturers' Association at their last meeting that they should advocate British preference. They treated the whole matter with scorn and contempt; they made a joke of it and refused to consider the matter.


William Thoburn: Does my hon. friend
advocate having a preference in the British market for any article we have to sell, in return for the preference that Canada has on goods coming from Great Britain.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No loyal Canadian would want to increase the cost of the food that goes into the mouth of the British workman. You cannot give the Canadian producer a preference in the British market without doing that. That was the reason that the policy of tariff reform has been abandoned in the Old Country. It was seen that the people would not stand for it and that it was illogical. If my hon. friends opposite have no more loyalty than to say that they will not allow British produce to come into Canada under the preference until the British people give us the preference in their market, they are not the' loyal people they profess to be.


William Thoburn: What would you do?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I would put those men, that are running little one-horse woollen mills, with antiquated machinery about fifty years old in them, where they would have to put in new machinery and do business on business principles or get nut of the business. I would put them where they would not wring money out of the pockets of the people of Canada. You can manufacture woollen goods in Canada almost as cheap as you can in any other country in the world. You have cheap power; your labour is no greater and you can get the machinery practically as cheap, because much of it comes over free of duty. The Canadian producer can turn out as many yards of cloth in a day as the English producer can. So, if you have the same machinery and the same conditions, you can do as good work. But the trouble is that you have 35 per cent duty on woollen goods.


William Thoburn: No, Sir.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I say, we have. My
hon. friend will have a chance to talk if he wants to. We have a duty of thirty-five per cent on goods coming from countries outside the British Empire, and of from twenty-two to twenty-five per cent on goods from within the Empire. And these manufacturers go on with their antiquated machinery and say they have to have big prices or they cannot live. Why, it is absolutely preposterous. I will give an example of one case that came within my own observation. In my own town, eight or nine



years ago, we had a little mill such as I have described. Its machinery was thirty or forty years old, and its methods were inefficient. It went to the wall, owing about $8,000 to the bank. The manager 0f the bank took hold of it. He had no experience and he bad machinery about half a century behind the times. But the protection on the goods was so great that in three years he had wiped off the debt and had the property free of all charges and expenses. Is it reasonable to have a tariff which will allow such conditions as that? It can only be done under conditions of law that make the people pay more than they ought to pay for their goods. I do not know how much these duties can be reduced, but I believe the business could stand an enormous cut. And the effect of a cut would be to make these manufacturers employ modern methods and be satisfied with reasonable profits. I do not wish to drive manufacturers out of business; I should be very sorry if a word of mine should drive out of business a single manufacturer; I am as anxious that these people should thrive as is my hon. friend from West Lanark (Mr. Thoburn), and believe just as much as he does that manufacturers are necessary to the country's prosperity. But I believe that the consumer has as good a right to live as the manufacturer has to live and grow rich.
Now, reverting to cottons; they have not so great protection as the woollens. I think the greatest sinners in this matter are the woollen manufacturers. As I said before lunch, the cotton industry is in the hands of one combine whose stock has been watered three or four times. And, in a few years, if we propose to raise the duties, the cry will be raised by innocent purchasers everywhere that they will be wronged if the dividends on stock for which they paid good money are not paid. The cement merger is probably the best example of that kind of operation. Three or four years ago, some financiers bought up practically all the cement plants in Canada, paying for them about $9,000,000 or $10,000,000. They issued bonds and preferred stock to pay for the plant, and then issued $13,000,000 of common stock, which has been sold to innocent purchasers and distributed all over the country. In the course of five years there will be thousands of people holding this stock for which they have paid good money. If, after that time, you propose to reduce the cement duties, these people will come forward with a just grievance. I tell you now is the time we have to grapple with these things. These trusts and combines are the product of only the last four or five years.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why did not you grapple with them?
Mr. CARVELL.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Why did not we grapple with them? Why, these trusts and combines are the product of only the last three or four years.


George Henry Bradbury: The cement merger
was created under the Government that the hon. gentleman supported.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is exactly what I said

that it was created three or four years ago; the hon. gentleman has simply found a mare's nest. I have not tried to deceive the committee one iota, and where my hon. friends were to blame I have acknowledged it. Some of these hon. gentlemen opposite, including the hon. gentleman who occupies the Chair in this House, were anxious when in opposition to investigate that cement merger, and many of us were anxious to have them investigate it. Now they are in power and have every chance to make an investigation; but if they were in power till doomsday with men like the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury) supporting them it would never be investigated. I have mentioned this matter only to show the iniquity which is growing up under our system of high protection. There is no use of hon. gentlemen opposite saying:	You are to blame.
I admit our share of it. But the conditions have changed within the last three or four years, and are changing very rapidly. There is hardly a big industry in Canada that has not been reorganized, and for every dollar of cash in it a dollar of water has been added. In a few years, that common stock will be in the hands of bona fide holders everywhere; these men who manage these big combines do not keep the common stock 'themselves; they get the good cash for it. The time to meet this thing is now; you cannot meet it too soon; you cannot too soon reduce duties to prevent the growth of these great mergers in Canada. The condition grows worse every day. You are not only taking from the consumer and the labouring man what you have no right to take from him, but you are creating conditions which it will be almost impossible to meet in five years' time. Innocent people are buying this watered stock, and if a reduction of duty is proposed these people can in all fairness come to Parliament and say: You have no right to interfere with the duties in such a way as to prevent our receiving dividends on which that for which we paid good money.
As to how much the duty could be reduced, I do not know. I have not taken the trouble to investigate that question, and some hon. members might say I have not the ability to do so. But that is the Finance Minister's duty, not mine. If I have depicted a condition of affairs that ought not to exist, it is the duty of the Finance Minister to apply the remedy. It

is his duty to get the information-it is his duty to go on with the tariff commission if he thinks that necessary to the purpose, so long as he does not make it a means of preventing us from finding out what water is in the stock of these enterprises-it is his duty to learn the facts and to submit to Parliament some measure that will relieve the people of unjust taxation. He has come before Parliament, and with what result? The mountain in labour brought forth a mouse. He reduces the duty on sugar to the extent of twenty cents per one hundred pounds-I suppose that is about three or four cents on a dollar's worth-and to meet that he has put a duty on cocoa and products thereof which have been free up to the present time; and then he savs he has tried to ameliorate the condition of the masses. He has done worse than that, he has made a treaty with the British West India islands for ten years by which he has absolutely precluded himself from putting sugar on the free list, because under all conditions he must retain the duty on sugar coming from all parts of the world except the West India islands only, to the extent of fifteen cents per one hundred pounds. If there is an article of consumption in Canada that ought to be placed upon the free list-something which the poorest man in the country must have for himself and his family-it is sugar; and yet these hon. gentlemen have tied their hands and made it impossible to give this boon to the people for the next ten years. If my hon. friend had reduced the duty on raw sugar to fifteen cents, had then reduced the manufactured article accordingly, it would be something of which he might be proud. But when he comes to this House and says: 'We have reduced the duty on sugar twenty cents a hundred pounds,' I can only say that that means practically nothing. It is true that the sugar magnates, after my hon. friend had delivered his budget speech, said: We have reduced the price of sugar twenty cents a hundred pounds. But the matter is all in the hands of a combine, and the price will rapidly go up, five cents this week and five cents next week, until it will be as high as ever. Hon. gentlemen talk about the reducing of the cost to the consumer because the raw material is reduced twenty cents a hundred pounds. If you went to the Canadian Manufacturers Association with that proposition, they would meet it with the same derision as that with which they met the proposal to increase the British preference. If my hon. friend had reduced the duty on the manufactured article to correspond with the reduction on raw material, he would have given the people some real measure of relief, for the foreign manufacturer could send his sugar into this country that much cheaper.
[DOT]334J
I do not accept the argument advanced by the hon. member for St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) last evening, that the moment you reduce the duty you drive the manufacturer out of business. I have a number of reasons for not accepting that argument. In the first place, I claim to have a little common sense and ordinary intelligence. I have been trying to carry on a manufacturing business in a small way for ten or fiften years, and I have at least gained some experience which is of value in discussing matters of this kind. No man need tell me you have got to have from twenty-five per cent to thirty-five per cent in order to manufacture goods in Canada; I do not believe it. No man need tell me you have got to have from fifteen per cent to twenty-five per cent protection upon cotton goods in this country; I do not believe it. No man need tell me you have got to have from seventeen and one-half per pent	to twenty-five	per cent in
order to manufacture farm machinery; I know better.	It is needless
to say that you have got to have protection of thirty per cent duty in order to manufacture boots and shoes, in view of the fact that leather is taxed from twelve per cent to fifteen per cent. The Conservative party have never repeated the wail they sent up when the late Government introduced the British preference in 1897. They said then that the factories would be closed; that there would be smokeless chimneys all over the country, and they preached blue ruin generally. What has been the result? Have the factories closed down? Where there was one factory in Canada in 1897, there were three in 1910. In the face of the British preference, the manufacturers of Canada have never in their history made such strides as they have! made during the past ten years. Reduce the duty, and you put the people in a better position to buy;: nit.6	will do a bigger business.
They will make as much money as ever, and make it not by means of I might almost say the highway robbery which, so far as the labouring man is concerned, appears to-be their practice to-day. The hon. member for North Lanark did not close his shop when the British preference was brought into effect, and knows that he would make more money if the duty were cut in two. There is not a manufacturer in Canada who would close down his factories if a reduction in the duty were made. If the Conservative party will preach to the labouring men of Canada the doctrine I have expounded to-day, my hon. friend the hon. member for North Lanark can post up notices until he is black in the face and he will not convince the people that a reduction of duties will be harmful. The day of high protection is gone. Certain persons

have tried to resurrect it in Great Britain, and they have failed; it is receiving its death-blow in the United States, and Canada is the only civilized country in the world to-day in which there is a government that will stand up and openly defend high protection. I nope my hon. friend will take this to heart, and that he will consider the plea I have made to-day on behalf of the farmers, the labouring men and the consumers of Canada. I hope he will bring down a budget speech next year in which he will announce that steps will be taken to alleviate the sufferings of the people to some extent, and if he does he will find at least one member on this side of the House who will say amen to every step in that direction.


Mr. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: I
may, I think, very properly offer my congratulations to the hon. the Minister of Finance, as has been done by every speaker who has preceded me in this debate. It must be very pleasing indeed to him to realize that no very serious criticism of his budget speech has been made, and to find that it has been received as it has been by members on both sides of the House. I do not think, however, that any hon. gentleman would expect the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. Carvell) to speak for an hour without nnding fault. In the earlier part of his address he made a personal attack upon the hon. member for iNorth Lanark (Mr. Thoburn), than whom there is no more highly respected gentleman in this House. And when rebuked for his uncalled for words, by one of the members on this side of the House, he said:
' Well, I stand by them.' These words, and the tone in which they were uttered, were characteristic of the hon. member for Carle-ton. I think I am correct in saying that he has never been noted in this House, and, 1 venture to say, out of this House, for any sentiments of generosity towards his political opponents. His largeness of heart will never rupture his wish-bone. The words * robbery,' ' legalized robbery,' and other kindred terms, fell fluently from his lips during the course of his speech; I think there is no person more qualified to express an opinion upon so delicate a point than is the hon. member for Carleton. I would ask hon. gentlemen not only on this side but on the other side of the House, who have had the privilege of sitting here for a number of years and who have noted the career of the hon. member for Carleton; who have seen him in season and out of season defending saw-dust wharf transactions, land deals, and the like; I would ask hon. gentlemen if there is any person in this House who believes that there could be anything politically so evil and crooked that it would give to the member for Carleton, N.B., the shock of a new ex-Mr. CARVELL
perience. For my part, I am of the opinion that you could not discover anything that would impart to the hon. member a shock of that description.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If the hon. member has any charges to make against me personally for my conduct during all the time I have been in Parliament, in my handling of public affairs, in my dealing with the departments of the Government, I want him to be man enough to make them. I challenge the fullest investigation of my conduct.


John Wesley Edwards: If I were like the hon. member for Carleton, New Brunswick, I would at once give a kind of contemptuous laugh and say: Oh yes, the shoe must pinch or you would not get up. I was drawing conclusions from my observations of the career of the hon. member since I have been in this House and have had an opportunity of observing it. I knew that he was possessed of very versatile talent, which he has very assiduously cultivated, but I do not think that any member has ever suspected that even the hon. member for Carleton could perform such feats of political gymnastics as he has performed to-day in this House. I think that he has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is entitled to the medal as the champion political acrobat of the Grit party, and in being entitled to that medal he has achieved no small distinction when we consider the number of competitors for that title on the other side of the House. His turnings and twistings on matters of trade and tariff would make a snake turn green with envy. In all the speeches I have heard in this House I have never heard anything so twisty and turny as the speech delivered by the hon. member today. In the course of his remarks he gave us the information that the labouring men in the town where he resides were so thoroughly impressed with his arguments in regard to reciprocity that they gave him the largest majority that had ever been given to him in that town. If that is true as regards the labouring men in the town where he resides, it must also be true that of the rural parts of his constituency he did not get a majority because I understand that his total majority was_ only nine, and I believe that if he had not taken an unworthy advantage of a little technicality and refused to allow a recount, he would have found himself in a minority of sixty or seventy without a seat in this House at all. He said: I always argued that the farmer would get a better price if reciprocity passed. He went on to argue that the price depended upon the relation of supply and demand, a basic principle generally acknowledged. But he said the Canadian produce would not materially affect

the price if it went into the United States, because the amount of Canadian produce going over there would be small compared with the total supply and so would not materially affect it. In one breath he is arguing that if reciprocity had passed, the Canadian farmer would have received a better price for his stuff; but he then goes on to prove that the supply would not be materially affected in the United States if our stuff went over there, and consequently there would be no material change in the relations * of supply and demand, and no change in the price. Taking his argument in connection with the statements made by the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Verville) that the prices in Montreal were higher than the prices in New York, I fail to see how he can argue that had reciprocity passed and our goods been admitted in to the United States it would have meant a larger price to the farmer. He argued that if reciprocity had passed there would have been a very largely increased market for Canadian farm produce. If his other argument was correct, that there would be no material advance in price in New York or in the United States, and that the supply over there was sufficient, in fact, so large that what we would send would not materially affect that supply, I ask where would our farmers get the very much enlarged market? If his argument is right it could not be in the United States. A little later he said: I always said that the consumer would pay more on every item in the pact. Yet he supported the pact in this House and before the country.
The hon. gentleman now sheds tears because of the price the consumer is paying for goods. As I said before, he has a most peculiar mode of reasoning. The hon. member referred at some length to the matter of potatoes. I do not think his statements on this subject will be taken very seriously because he did not even seem to know when potatoes are grown, or what time of the year we dig potatoes. He was entirely at sea on that. Let us see.what the position is in regard to potatoes. As I understood him, he would allow potatoes to come in free not only from the United States, but from other countries as well. The favoured nations which would have had the right to send their produce to Canada on the same terms as the United States in case the reciprocity pact had passed, export annually nearly twelve million bushels of potatoes, all of which would have had the right to come into Canada in the event of that pact having passed. I am perfectly willing that the hon. gentleman, or other hon. members on that side of the House, should argue in favour of throwing down the bars and allowing all this stuff to come into the country free of duty, but I would not like to see any member on this side of the
House argue in that way, and I am confident that this Government will not support any such move. I am confident that the farmers of this country would not like to see the idea thrown out by the hon. member for Carleton, N.B., carried into effect. It would be most unfair to them and I really think that in his heart he must see that himself. He refers to the introduction into this country of tomatoes, strawberries, &c., and said that they would have come in free, had reciprocity carried, at a time when our produce was not ready for the market in this country. Is that fair to the producers of fruit in this country? He was arguing, as his party argued in 1911, in favour of allowing the products from the warm country to the south and from other countries to come into Canada and get the cream of the price on all these goods and articles which people want to use. If tomatoes, strawberries and raspberries can be produced on the other side of the line, as they can be, cheaper than here, if they are brought into this country before ours are ready, as they are, who buys them? It is the rich people who are able to pay the high prices for them, and there is no duty in our tariff which we are better justified in collecting than the duty imposed upon these early fruits and vegetables coming into this country and being used by the very wealthy classes who are able to pay the price for them. 1 am surprised at the hon. member for Carleton-no, I am not surprised at him; I will take that back. I will say that I would have been surprised if any other hon. member had argued in the way he did this afternoon. At one time we have tears and wailing over the price paid by the consumer and the labouring man for his goods; at another time, we find him advocating that these early fruits should be brought in free of duty so that they could be placed on the table of the rich man in this country. The people of this country knew perfectly well what they Were doing, and all the sophistry and argument of the hon. member for Carleton, and of other hon. members cn that side of the House, cannot convince them to the contrary, because they have common sense, and they used it at the last election. The hon. member for Carleton leferred to eggs and butter and meats. I was very much interested in the figures given to the House by the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Verville). He said that the prices of various articles of food were higher in Montreal than in ' New York. The hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean), in his remarks, referred to the very large increase in the price of farm produce in Canada, compared with what it was a number of years ago. Allow me to refer to one or two items alluded to by the hon. member for Carleton. He referred to the eggs, butter and meats imported into this

country. I shall not detain the House by going into details, for we can argue the principle without taking up all the articles. Let us see what is the position of affairs. What did my hon. friends opposite propose to do under the reciprocity pact? In regard to butter, they proposed to permit free entry into Canada of over 400,000,000 pounds of butter a year, because the countries, in addition to the United States, which under that pact would have had the right to bring their products free into this country, are annually seeking a market outside of their own country for over 400,000,000 pounds of butter. I need not point out how much more cheaply articles can be carried by water than by rail. Every person is aware of that fact. I need not refer to the fact that eggs and butteT and meat in vast quantities can be stored away in very small space. I say it was absolutely unjustifiable to propose that the farmers .of this country, living under the climatic conditions which they have, should be forced, as the last Government would have forced them, to compete with the various countries of the world in regard to these articles. In regard to meat, what would it have meant to this country? Over 2,200,000,000 lbs. of meat are exported by. those countries which, under the reciprocity pact, would have had the right of free entry into the Canadian market. The United States export over
600,000,000 pounds of meat per annum. Let us see how that affects our own country. In the year ending 31st March, 1912, there were entered in Canada from United States, for home consumption, 23,343,989 pounds of meat. Of that amount, 11,233,000 pounds were bacon. Under the tariff as it exists in this country we permit those meats to come in for a duty of 2 cents per pound. The United States, on the other hand, is charging to-day 5 cents per pound on any meats going into their country. Do our farmers export any meat? Most assuredly they do. The Dominion of Canada has to find a market for 58,351,000 pounds of bacon outside of this country. Let us look at that for a moment. I have denounced the present tariff arrangement regarding bacon as unfair to the farmers. I denounced it when the former Government was in power, I denounced it last session, and I denounce it again to-day as unfair. Under our tariff we permit the American farmer to come into the Dominion of Canada and take possession of our bacon market, and the farmers of Canada are thereby forced to seek a market for their surplus bacon across the sea. I say that that is not as it should be, and I do not care which party is in power, I for one would he in favour of increasing the duty of two cents per pound on bacon coming into this country to four or five cents per pound. Who has a better Mr. EDWARDS.
right to the market in this country than our own farmers? What is the principle of protection? I would ask my hon. friends on the other side of the House who are interested in manufactures, and we have them on both sides, how they would like it if the tariff were so arranged that goods could come into this country from the United States or from other countries, and absolutely displace what they manufactured in this country, forcing them to seek a market for their product in other parts of the world, and denying to them a market at home? How would they like that? How would my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Cockshntt) like that? He would say it was manifestly unjust, and he would be right. In all fairness, the manufacturers of this country should have the first claim on the market of this country, and those who manufacture bacon are just as much entitled to it as those who manufacture anything else. But the hon. member for Carleton argues that we should throw down our bars, and allow the surplus products of all the agricultural countries in the world to come into Canada free of any incumbrance whatever. It is absolutely unfair, just as all the talk of free trade by the hon. member for Bed Deer (Mr. Clark), and by the few other converts on the other side of the House, is manifestly unfair. It is not only unfair to talk of free trade in a country like Canada, it is absolutely unreasonable. I maintain that when it comes to the point of a Government fixing a tariff regulating the tariff on goods produced in and coming into a country, in all fairness to the people, the Government should take into consideration the climatic and other conditions pertaining, not only to that country, but to the countries which are competing with it. Why is it that we place a head tax on Chinese coming into this country? Is it merely for social reasons? Do we not recognize, as I am sure the people of British Columbia recognize, that because of their cheap and low way of living they can work for a wage that the white man cannot work for, that those people who are not up to our standard of civilization should not be permitted to come into Canada freely and at their will, and that we should place restrictions with the view of keeping them out of this country, because, if they were allowed to come in freely and to compete in the labour market, the standard of living of the white people would necessarily be reduced? If we are right in placing restrictions on the immigration of Orientals-and I challenge any man in this House, whether on this side or the other, to say that he would set aside the restrictions, and allow free entry of Orientals into this country- is it not logical that we should place restrictions upon the products of that cheap labour coming from China or Japan or any

other country? We Canadians are proud of the country we live in; our people will compare more than favourably with the people of any other nation on the face of the earth; we expect our citizens to educate their children; we set up standards of comfort and civilization; we wish our people to live in comfortable homes, and they wish to have their homes decorated with books and musical instruments. Is there a public man who would dare say he would so restrict wages that the workingmen of Canada would not be able to spend money in beautifying their homes and making them comfortable? Is there a public man in Canada who would dare to say that he would so restrict the wages of Canadian labouring men that they could not properly educate their children? And yet that is precisely what hon. gentlemen opposite are arguing. That is what the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) and the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) argue when they say:	Throw
the tariff down and force the Canadian labouring man and the Canadian artisan to compete with the cheap labour of several parts of the world. The position of these hon. gentlemen in that respect is absolutely illogical. Is it fair to the farmer of Canada, who has to pay $2 or $2.50 per day, and in some seasons more, to his labourer? Is it fair to the farmer who has to spend thousands of dollars putting up buildings in the winter to house his stock and feed them during the months they are giving no return? Is it fair to tell the Canadian farmer that he should be forced to compete with farmers living in the Argentine and other countries, who because of the climatic conditions they live under are not obliged to house their stocks and erect expensive buildings, and who can get labour for one-fourth or one-fifth what the Canadian farmer hastopay? Well, Sir, that is the kind of thing the Liberal party proposed to the people of Canada in September, 1911, and that is the kind of thing which the people of Canada in their good sense turned down, and that is why they turned the Liberals out.
The hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Car-vell) did not offer any criticism of the budget speech. He said if there had been an advance in our trade it was due to immigration; it was due to this, that and the other thing, it was due to everything except the Government. The hon. gentleman even went so far as to say that thanks were due to the Almighty, which sounds a little strange from Liberals because I have a very distinct recollection that when the country was prospering, as it did prosper for years under the Laurier government, they very seldom gave Providence credit for anything; they told us the country was prosperous because of Laurier and the
Laurier government. Once in a very rare while you would find one of them who would say the prosperity of the country was due to Laurier and the Almighty, but tnev invariably put the Almighty last, just as the hon. member for Carleton did this afternoon when he was speaking of the prosperity of the country and what it was due to. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Carvell) said if the country were prosperous no thanks were due to the Government because no change had been made in the tariff. Summarized, his argument was: the country prospers, no change in tariff; conclusion: change the tariff. That is very remarkable reasoning. His contention is that under the tariff the country is prosperous and therefore you muct change the tariff, and that is about the extent of his logic. Then the hon. gentleman (Mr. Carvell) told us that the expenditure was too high, but he did not say that any of the public works now undertaken are not necessary. The hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) said something like that too. He deplored the high expenditure, and I feel like asking him now if he would object to the $102,870 in the estimates for highway improvement in Nova Scotia-I need not ask him that because he has already objected to it; he does not want Nova Scotia to get that money. But, I notice in the estimates there is $500,000 for the Halifax dry-dock. Does the hon. gentleman (Mr. Maclean) object to that?


Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax):: I do not
think I would, so far as I know.


John Wesley Edwards: There are several other items in the estimates, to wit:	Halifax
post office, $4,000; does he object to that; Halifax postal station, north end, $50,000; does he object to that? Halifax customs House, $2,500; Halifax customs examining warehouse, $100,000; Halifax drill hah, for the 63rd Regiment, $45,000; does the hon. gentleman from Halifax object to any cf these items I have read?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Answer.


John Wesley Edwards: Am I to take his silence as indicating that he does not object?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not object to some of them; some of them I do not know anything about. I do not object to any justifiable and necessary expenditure.


John Wesley Edwards: That is a very diplomatic and skilful answer, and gives the hon. member a loophole to get through if necessary. But I venture to make the prophecy that when these expenditures come to be criticised in committee, we will find no objection raised by the hon. member for Halifax. I do not believe he will I object to a single one of these items, not

even the one for the drill hall; and I would not be surprised if he might prevail upon his desk mate (Mr. Carvell) to restrain himself from objecting when, that particular item is under our consideration.
The hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell) told us that in his judgment his party had not gone as far as it should have gone in lowering the tariff. The judgment of the hon. member has undergone a very sudden change, and one which is apt to have very disastrous effects on him if he is not careful. For fifteen years his judgment did not work along the same lines as it is working on to-day. Now he thinks his party did not go far enough in regard to cutting down the tariff, but he says the Liberals gave the British preference and then they stopped. The reason he gave why they stopped was because the country needed the money; and that may be a very strong reason. He says that in 1910 and 1911 the Liberals found they were taking more from the people than they should take, and so they introduced the reciprocity pact. After fifteen years they found all at once they were taking more from the people than they ought to and they proposed reciprocity. Then, the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell) told us we should reduce the duties on farm machinery, and he further made the statement that he never had had the opportunity in this House since he entered it in 1904 to vote for a reduction of duty on farm machinery, on its merits. If I am not quoting his words accurately, I wish he would correct me now, but I took them down and I think my record^of them is correct. He said: Whenever a motion was made for a reduction of the duty on farm machinery, it was always worked in with a motion of want of confidence or something of that kind. I may not be as well posted on the rules of this House as many other hon. gentlemen are. I think, however, I am right in saying that, when a Bill is in committee, any member may move to change a section in it without being charged with moving a want of confidence motion. What happened? On April 2, 1907, when the House was in Committee on Bill 134, respecting the duties of customs, .the hon. Mr. Fielding's Bill, the hon. member for Souris (Mr. SchaffnerV moved a resolution which was in these words:
That the committee reconsider item 445, and that it be amended by striking out the figures 17i per cent in the general tariff, and inserting in lieu thereof the figures 10 per cent.


Mr. LANCASTER:: What did the item relate to?


John Wesley Edwards: It related to the duty cn agricultural implements which Mr. Mr. EDWARDS.
Fielding proposed to reduce from twenty per cent to seventeen and a half per cent. I submit that there was nothing in that resolution, if it had been carried, to indicate a want of confidence in the Government. The Government were in a position to accept that motion, if they felt disposed so to do. I believe the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell) was in the House at that time, and was one of those who had the untrammeled opportunity to vote for a reduction in the duty on agricultural implements. Not only did he not vote for it, but he recorded his vote straight against it. He did not at that time speak to the resolution. The present hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) and the present bon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turrili) spoke against that resolution at that time. Here are some of the statements made. As reported on page 5597 of ' Hansard,' Mr. Knowles said:
I shall give the Government hearty support for I believe that the policy of the Government is in the interest of the country.
As reported at page 5582 of ' Hansard',' the hon. Mr. Paterson used these words:
I do not disguise the fact that we propose to give these people nearly the amount of reduction in duty that has been made. For it must be remembered that 17J per cent is no more than a revenue tariff.
These are the words of the then Minister of Customs in the late Administration. If be did not disguise that fact, then the hon. member for Carleton knew that it was a bluff. What did the former Government do in regard to agricultural implements? Previous to this change, the duty was twenty per cent, but the value of a binder for duty purposes was $80. Therefore the duty collected at twenty per cent was $16. When these gentlemen made the reduction from twenty per cent to seventeen and a half per cent, what did they do? They said to the manufacturer:	You need not
be alarmed; we will fix that by simply raising the price on the binders for purposes of duty from $80 to $100, and will collect $17.50 duty on the binder, where formerly under the Conservative tariff $16 was collected. These hon. gentlemen went from one end of the country to the other, appealing to the farmers and saying:	See what we are doing; we
are reducing the duty on agricultural implements. This is only a step; we intend to go further, but you ought to support us because we have made this reduction. They turned around and winked the other eye to the manufacturers and said:	The farmers will not catch on to it; it will be all right. The farmers did not catch on to it at the next election; but they caught on to it at the last election in 1911, and hon.
I gentlemen are in opposition and they are

there to .stay. The time has gone by when the Grit party in the Dominion of Canada can hoodwink the people of this country. The farmers are too intelligent a class; they read and think for themselves, and they know just where these hon. gentlemen stand.
There are circumstances which happen in the political world which remind me of nature. The rains descend and the floods come and a good deal of driftwood is carried down the stream. Some of it sticks in the bank until the later current loosens it and carries it out to sea. In the political world, the floods of public opinion descended on hon. gentlemen opposite; and Messrs. Paterson and Fielding, the little pink tea Mackenzie King, Sir Frederick Borden, the Minister of War, and Mr. Fisher, the Minister of Agriculture, who had said that the farmers of this country were a slipshod, lazy and indifferent class of people, were carried away by the current. Some others stuck partly in the oozy bank and partly in the current, waiting the time when the flood would come down on them and carry them out into the sea of political oblivion. At that time one hon. gentleman was carried into the .stream, but he was picked out and brought to the shore. I have often wondered about that. It reminds me of a picture of a mother bird feeding a lot of little nestlings. She comes with a little worm, and they all open their mouths and say in bird language:	Me, me, give it to me. She cannot give it to all of them; she .selects one, her favourite no doubt. That was the case here. They were all drifting down the current, Graham along with the rest, and were shouting to Sir Wilfrid Laurier on the bank:	You have a seat down in South
Renfrew; me, me, give it to me. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said: I do not want you, Mr. Paterson, or you, Mr. Fielding; you went down to AYashington and ran us on the rocks. I do not want you, Sir Frederick Borden; there are certain things in regard to you that require explanation. We do not want you, Air. Mackenzie King; you are too fond of pink teas; we will let you go by. We do not want you, Mr. Fisher, because you have said that the farmery of this country are slipshod, lazy and indifferent, and they have resented it. Come on, George! So the hand was reached out to George, and he was pulled out of the stream and led to a seat in this House.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: They let them all
into the caucus just the same.


John Wesley Edwards: That is as tar as they got inside of the door of the caucus. I do not know whether they have had entry into the Senate Chamber or not; that remains to be seen.
We were informed by the hon. member for Carleton that trusts and combines only
came into being within the last three or four years. I have some recollection of having read somewhere in Grit literature previous to 1896 statements which would indicate that the members of that party in those days were stricken with a sort of political hydrophobia about trusts and combines. But the hon. gentleman says they go back only three or four years. Under what tariff ? Under the tariff which they themselves formed. They tell us that we are taking too much from the people in taxation. But under what tariff are we taking it ? Under the tariff which they placed on the statute-book. It is true that that tariff does not very materially differ from the tariff enacted under Sir John Macdonald. That tariff they denounced for eighteen years, saying that protection was robbery and everything that was bad. They were going to uproot it, to destroy it utterly. They came into office in 1896, and they let the tariff strictly alone until 1907. Any changes they made outside the British preference were infinitesimal, as I think any honourable man will admit. And in 1907, when they professed to make reductions, they turned around and gave it back in the form of a bounty or some other way. The tariff stood practically as it has stood; and if the country prospered under that tariff, as I admit it did, that is to the credit of that tariff and of the Conservative party that inaugurated it. True, under the reciprocity pact hon. gentlemen opposite proposed to make a few little changes on manufactured articles. They were very much concerned about the interests of the farmer and were going to reduce the duty on agricultural implements by two and a half per cent. But evidently they had listened to such talk as that of the hon. member for Carleton, and they were going to reduce the duty on automobiles by five per cent. That is the way they showed their keen regard for the interests of the farmer.
In what condition did the Liberal party find this country when they came to power in 1896? I must go back a little into history, but I will try to be brief. I make this statement, that in 1889-90 there was a worldwide depression which continued for three or four years. Is it necessary for me to prove that assertion? It may easily be proved by referring to the exports and imports of various countries between 1890 and 1894. The total foreign trade of Great Britain fell off by $295,000,000; that of France by $160,000,000; that of Germany by $90,000,000; that of the United States by $310,000,000; that of Australia by $190,000,-000;-an aggregate falling off for these five countries of over one billion dollars. It is true that Canada was affected by that

While the trade of this country has been very large, it does not in every respect meet with my entire approval; it is not exactly what I would like it to be. Our total trade in 1911 amounted to $769,000,000, and in 1913 our total trade amounted to over a billion dollars, of which $691,000,000 were imports and $393,000,000 exports. Of this trade $586,000,000 was with the United States and $316,000,000 with Great Britain. Our trade was therefore very much enhanced both with Great Britain and the United States, but the major part of it was carried on with the republic to the south. Our imports from the United States amounted to $435,000,000 and our exports to the United States to $150,000,000, a balance of trade against Canada of $284,000,000 and this is the part which is not, in my opinion, entirely satisfactory to me as I have studied trade conditions. " It may be that under the Wilson tariff we may send a larger quantity of stuff into the United States though we will not do so if the argument of the hon. member for Carleton, N.B., is good, that they have such large quantities there now that they are not in need of ours. Our exports to Great Britain amounted to $177,000,000 and our imports from Great Britain to $138,000,000. In other words, we had a balance of trade in our favour of. $39,000,000 in our trade with Great Britain. Canada's best customer is Canada itself; Canada's second best customer is Great Britain. This is particularly true so far as the farmers of this country are concerned and when I make that statement I want it to apply just as strongly to the farmers of the Northwest as to the farmers of Ontario, Quebec and the martime provinces. I repeat that the best market foT the farmers of Canada is the Canadian market, the market at homeland, Sir, you may go where you will, in Ontario, in Quebec or in the Northwest, and wherever you find a prosperous and growing city you will find among the farming community an ever-increasing and growing sentiment in favour of maintaining manufactures in that city and thus making it a market for the farming population. The farmers are not slow to appreciate the advantage of being near a great city. Suppose you have a farm of one hundred acres five miles from the city of Toronto and I have a farm of one hundred acres five miles from the city of Kingston and that the buildings on those farms and the quality of the land are identical, whic. farm is the more valuable? Anyone wih at once say that the farm near Toronto is the more valuable. I ask, why is that the case? Your answer is, because ol the difference in the size of those two cities, assuring the farmer near Toronto a very much larger market than the farmer near the smaller city will have. Apply that to the country all over and I say that wherever Mr. EDWARDS,
you find growing cities, in the West or in the East, the farmers living in the neighbourhood of the cities are realizing the advantage of the proximity of the cities and are in favour of adequate and fair protection to build up those cities and maintain their industries. That is why hon. gentlemen opposite will remain on that side as long as they continue to advocate the policy which apparently they aTe advocating to day.
I want further to point to this fact that our exports of animals and their products to Great Britain in 1912 amounted to nearly $37,000,000 and our exports of agricultural products amounted to $81,000,000, or a total of $118,000,000. In 1912 we sent to the United States' nearly $10,000,000 of animals and their products and $11,000,000 of agricultural produce, a total of $21,000,000. Of a total export by the farmers of this country of animals and their products and of agricultural produce of $155,000,000, only $21,000,000 goes to the United States and $134,000,000 is carried across the water. I have a reason for placing these figures before you and it is this: As soon as this matter is placed before the farmers of this country, they will support and support heartily the movement to contribute $35,000,000 to the supremacy of the British navy. There is no class of people in Canada who are more interested in that $35,000,000 grant for those three dreadnoughts than the farmers. $134,000,000 worth of their products out of a total of $155,000,000 exported is carried across the water and depend for a safe conduct to the markets of the world, on what? On the British fleet, towards the supremacy and maintenance of which hon. gentlemen opposite, if given their way, would not give a dollar. I have talked this over with farmers regardless of their politics and I have not a particle of doubt of the correctness of my statement that the farmers of the Dominion of Canada are heartily behind the Conservative party in their policy of granting $35,000,000 for the construction of three dreadnoughts for the strengthening of the British navy, on the supremacy of which the safety of their products depends, and will depend for many years to come. I shall not go into a discussion of the naval policy, but I want to make that statement, representing as I do a farming constituency. I believe that the constituency which I represent is more strictly agricultural than any other constituency in the Dominion of Canada for the reason that I have not within the bounds of my county a single incorporated town or village. That is about as strictly agricultural as you can get it. I move amongst the people of my county and I believe I know their sentiments; and although the hon. member for Carleton, N.B., may refer in jeering tones as he did to

the flag and wrapping the flag around us, I want to say that I am a British subject in this House and in this country, not ashamed to wrap that flag around me at any time and in any place. It ill becomes the hon. member for Carle-ton, or any other member sitting on the other side of the House, or on this side of the House, or anyone in this country, to cast a sneer and a jeer at the British flag, as some in this House and out of it have been guilty of doing time and again. I have heard those men talk derisively about the old man, the old flag, and the old policy, and what did they do? They adopted that policy, because they had not the courage to change it a particle. What about the old flag? Are there any people on the face of the earth who have as great a right as we have to reverence and respect that flag and all that it represents? It is not merely the colours on that flag, it is its glorious history in the past, which is our history, as well as that of the people of Britain. The people of this Dominion should never permit themselves to speak derisively of the old flag, as some hon. members have. Attack your opponents if you will, but leave the flag alone.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: I am not one of those who say that hon. members opposite are disloyal. I do not say that. The Liberal party contains hundreds and thousands of good loyal men from one end of the Dominion to the other. At the last election, in September, 1911, the Liberals of the Dominion gave evidence of the fact that they were loyal. I do not say that the Liberal party are disloyal, but I do say that if you find a rebel you will find a Grit in politics. I do not say that Grits are rebels, but I do say that if you find a rebel you will find a Grit, because that will be his politics.
The hon. member for Carleton has referred to our trade with the United States. He is on the penitent bench now. There are a number of hon. members opposite working in that direction. They were in office for fifteen years and worked under a protective policy. There is no getting around that fact. Now they are out of power, and I am wondering if they are going to duplicate their political antics of the eighteen years they were out of power before. It will puzzle even them to duplicate the numerous political antics of which they were guilty during the eighteen years they were out of office. They had as many policies as there were elections, unrestricted reciprocity, tariff for revenue only, free trade as we have it in England, and a host of others. They were ready to adopt anything if it would get them into power. Why do they not candidly admit that their whole course as a party in this country has committed them irrevocably to the principle of protection? Why not admit that the
principle of protection is the proper principle for a growing country such as Canada is.
I want to say a word in regard to the reference made by hon. gentlemen opposite to the creation of a tariff commission, which was proposed by this Government last session, and which was thrown out by the Senate. I want to repeat here what I said on that occasion, that I believe that the creation of a tariff commission in this country was the most reasonable, the most sensible, and the most logical step ever proposed by a government in this country. When it comes to the discussion of the items of a tariff, whether it be a manufactured article or an article of farm produce, we are bound to depend upon, and to be influenced by the views of men who have special knowledge of these particular items. If it is a manufactured article, the man who is engaged in the manufacture of that article, must, from his experience, have a keener and deeper knowledge of the industry than any other individual. If it is a matter pertaining to a particular branch of farming, any man who is a practical farmer can give information as to that. The idea is to get definite, absolute, and reliable information on which we can all depend. For instance, in figuring out what duty we should place on eggs, or on wheat, or on potatoes, or on any other article which is produced by the farmer, a tariff commission should inquire into the climatic conditions here and in the countries with which the farmer of Canada will have to compete. They should inquire into the rates of wages paid here and in other parts of the world with which the Canadian farmer will have to compete, and then give the Canadian farmer just such a percentage of protection as will place him on a level footing with those other countries. His competitors in those other countries have certain conditions which he cannot enjoy in Canada. Give him fair play. He wants no more than that, but he is entitled to that, _ and should have it. The same is true in regard to manufactures. I do not care what article of manufacture you take, I say it is the duty of this Government' and it would be the duty of the Tariff Commission, to inquire into the cost of labour in the production of that manufactured article, the cost of fiving in this country, the cost of transportation, and the cost of materials entering into the manufacture of the article, and to compare them with the conditions in the countries with which the manufacturer here has to compete, and then to give the Canadian manufacturer just such protection as would place him on a level footing with the people of those other countries, and no more. He is not entitled to more than that, and he should not ask for more than that.
In regard to the reduction of the duty

on farm implements, I find myself in this position: If I am asked if I favour a reduction of the duty on farna implements I gay yes, undoubtedly. Why do I say that? I say that because of the study I have given to the question. It appears to me that a reduction might be made -without injuring the manufacturer. But I am in this position in expressing an opinion on that subject, I do so with the knowledge which I have at the present time. _ It appears to me that a reduction might be made, but I must admit that my knowledge is not perfect in regard to that, and I would like a tariff commission or anything else, which in regard to that matter would give me information which I frankly own I do not at present possess.
I do not propose to detain the House at any greater length; I want simply to add a few words in regard to the argument advanced by the hon. member for Carleton in favour of reciprocity. What would it mean to this country? It would mean not onlv that the Canadian farmer would have to compete with any surplus production that might exist in the United States, but with the surplus production of many other countries, which production, in many lines, is very great indeed. Is there a market in the United States for many of our products? Let us take a few of them. Take barley. The United States exports about 10,000,000 bushels of barley a year. Take wheat. The average exportation of wheat from the United States in the last five years amounted to over 62,000,000 bushels. Take wheat flour. The average exportation from the United States amounted to 12,000,000 barrels in the last five years. Take bacon. In 1911 they exported 156,000,000 pounds. Take butter. They exported 4,877,000 pounds. Take cheese. They exported over
10,366,000	pounds. Does it look as if they were starving for butter, and bacon, and wheat flour, and barley in that country, when they are sending all that stuff out? If I desired to take up time I could refer to many other things which they are exporting in large quantities, and for which it is claimed we would have a ready market on the other side of the line. Take horses. I find that tney exported to Canada 20,000 horses in 1912, and they took from us 1,428. They exported to Canada 192,918 sheep and lambs,	and they	took from us
16,829 sheep and lambs. And so_ I might go on and extend the list. I might go on with an extended list which would include the very things the farmer has to sell and which the farmer was told in 1911 he would find a market for on the other side of the line. But the official figures given in the United States returns indicate beyond the shadow of a doubt that of all these things which the Canadian farmer has a surplus of and for which he Mr. EDWARDS .
must find a market, there is an even greater surplus in the United States for which they must find a market. The fact is that the people of the United States are actually seeking markets in other parts of the world for much larger quantities of the very things we were told we would find a ready market for in the United States if reciprocity were adopted, than we ourselves Have to sell. If hon. gentlemen opposite are disposed to follow the cue of the hon. member for Carle-ton (Mr. Carvell), and to advocate for this country free trade with the United States, and the throwing down of the tariff walls between Canada and the United States, then, speaking politically, we on this side of the House have nothing to regret; it is gentlemen opposite who will have to do all the regretting when the elections come. But if they were absolutely sincere in their contention along these lines they would move an amendment to the tariff proposals and I venture to say that not one of them dare do that; not one of them thinks for a moment of doing anything of the kind. Therefore, we can only conclude that they are not sincere in their expressions, but they find the situation as exemplified by the budget speech so entirely satisfactory that being unable to criticise it they must fill in the time talking about reciprocity and other extraneous questions. I thank the House, Mr. Speaker, for the very patient hearing that has been given to me.


Mr. FRANK OLIVER (Edmonton):: Before dealing with the subject of the budget, I want to make one reference to a remark made by my hon. friend (Mr. Edwards). It is a remark that has been made in this House and in the Conservative press very frequently and has been spread broadcast throughout the country; it is that the Liberal party through the Senate killed the Tariff Commission Bill. I do not know that it is important that that misstatement should be corrected, but I make the correction because of the bearing the question has on the subject now under consideration. The proposal was made by the Minister of Finance last session to provide for the establishment of a tariff commission with certain duties and powers. When that Bill went to the Senate, the Senate saw fit, as it has a right to do, to amend it by requiring that whatever person or interest made application for an increase in the duties, that person or interest would be required to show the profits made and the means by which the profits were made. And because of that amendment put in the Bill by the Senate, the Government refused to present the amended Bill for acceptance by the Commons;, and thereby the Government killed the Bill which they introduced into Parliament on the plea-I will not say the pretense-of

securing information. They killed the Bill because the Senate made provision that the commission to be appointed should secure information that would be for the protection of the public interest. And because the Bill in the shape in which it came back from the Senate would have effectively protected the public interest, the Government killed it. That gives the standard of the Government's position in regard to all questions of public interest where the tariff is concerned. It has been said that the Government of the day represents the interests rather than the people, and I say that the action of the Government in regard to that measure is all the evidence any unbiased citizen needs to establish the fact that the Government is a government to protect the interests and not the people.
Referring to the budget and to its presentation by the Minister of Finance, there are nothing but e*pressions of pleasure at the fact that so far as the increase in the revenues indicate a prosperous condition in the country, to that extent the budget statement is very satisfactory. We are glad to know trade has increased to such an extent that our revenue has amounted to many millions more than it ever did before, and we are also glad to know that while expenditures have been liberal, the expenditures have still been less than the revenue, so that there is a substantial surplus in the treasury. While that is of itself a very satisfactory condition, it must also be admitted that the fact that the revenues of Canada are vastly higher than they ever were before; so high that even a lavish expenditure did not catch up to them, in itself indicates a condition which may fairly call for reasonable comment. If the abounding revenue were accompanied by an abounding prosperity on the part of the individual citizen, then we would say that is a very desirable condition. If the prosperity of the revenue were reflected in the prosperity of the individual, there would be nothing but favourable comment to be made on the budget and on the fact that the Government in presenting the budget had not seen fit to make any serious changes in the amounts or methods of taxation.
Looking at the matter from the particular point of view of those who believe in lower taxes, we are very glad to know that the Government, up to date, have not justified our fears of last year. To quote a saying used by the hon. Minister of Finance, I believe, in the election of 1911, we recognize it rather as a respite than as a pardon. We are glad to be free so long, but we still fear what is to come hereafter.
I said, if the condition of the individual was as is the condition of the treasury, it
would be entirely .satisfactory; but, when we have such remarkable increase in revenue and a financial condition in Canada such as we have not had during the past five years-when we have a condition of money stringency throughout Canada that is felt by all classes-and I have it on the authority of our friends on the other side -when we have a stringency of money and a condition of excessively high cost of living coming together-and I understand that the record for the month of April last is the highest for any month of April in the Dominion in that regard-it seems to be a question of very serious interest if there is not some connection between this enormous revenue, this prosperity of the treasury, and the lack of prosperity amongst the individual citizens of the country. It seems to me that would have been a fair subject for inquiry by the Administration, who are charged with the responsibility of doing the best that can be done for the welfare of the people of Canada as a whole. Finding a condition in which the treasury is abundantly prosperous, a condition in which it costs the individual citizens more to live than it ever did before, and a condition in which the money with which he is able to pay this cost is scarcer than it has been before for many years, the Minister of Finance, before presenting his budget to the House, should have made it his business to look over the field and see first if there was any connection between these situations; and, if there were such a connection, he should have placed such proposals before the House as would tend to relieve the situation for the individual citizen of Canada. I submit that the paramount interest is not what amount of money is in the public treasury, but what is the condition of the people." What are the conditions of business generally? Are those conditions prosperous or are they not? It must be clear, that if there is an excessive revenue, that revenue comes out of the pockets of the people. It must be evident, the more you take out of a pocket, the less there is in it.


Mr. SMYTH:: That seems good logic.


Frank Oliver: Even my hon. friend
from Algoma can understand that. If the Minister of Finance finds that the treasury is full, and the pocket is empty, the treasury being full because the pocket has been emptied, it would seem to be fair and reasonable that his proposal would be, if he has the interest of the individual at heart, to right matters by keeping something out of the treasury and leaving it in the pocket of the individual who needs it, when the treasury does not need it. It is to be regretted that, in the presentation of this budget, the hon. Minister of Finance has not seen fit to provide for that balance

or readjustment of conditions that, it seems to me, is desirable and necessary for the well-being of this country.
Although the treasury is overflowing to-day, if the pockets of the people are empty, or comparatively so, the overflow of the treasury will not continue. It seems to me that conditions being as they are admitted to be, it would have been the duty of the Government to relieve the situation by reducing taxation. I am not sure that I gathered it from the hon. minister's address, but it has been stated very freely in the papers that the tariff proposals brought down by the Government do carry a reduction in taxation. Those proposals do not amount to very much, one way or the other. They are not in themselves seriously important; that is to say, they are not important in a positive direction; they, are not either going to increase the burden, or to lighten the burden of the taxpayer to a serious degree. The objection 1 take to them is that they do not relieve the burden of the taxpayer as I think they should. If it is shown that under circumstances such as exist at the present time, the minister has brought down proposals which increase the burden rather than decrease it, I think we have established that certainly the Government is not on the side of the people where tariff questions are concerned.
I have studied carefully the figures submitted in connection with the West Indian trade agreement. The House will remember that it was stated by the hon. Minister of Finance that the changes made in the' tariff were made chiefly because of that agreement. The general impression was created that, because of this agreement, and these subsequent changes in the tariff, there had been a reduction in taxation to the consumer in Canada. I find however that the West Indian trade agreement provides that certain articles, products of the West Indies, which to-day come in from all the world free of duty, will hereafter carry a duty when coming from any other point than the West Indies.
These articles are not important; but I will mention one, the cocoa bean, formerly free, but now dutiable if conning from any other country than the West Indies. We import only about $600,000 of these cocoabeans, and it does not matter much whether they are dutiable or free. But the changes of the tariff which the Minister of Finance proposes include not only an increase of the duties on cocoa beans, but an increase of the duties on the manufactured articles derived from cocoa beans directly or indirectly. We import about $1,800,000 of these products of cocoa beans. And so the Mr. OLIVER.
increase works but in this way-we are going to pay increased duties on $1,800,000 worth of finished food products used by the people of Canada, while the only possible benefit to the West Indies will be in regard to a little over $600,000 of their raw products.


Richard Blain: What are the articles?


Frank Oliver: The cocoa bean is the only article I desire to deal with.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


Frank Oliver: When the House rose at six o'clock I had brought to the attention of the House the fact, as I gathered it from the tariff schedule and the remarks of the Minister of Finance, that, in order to give the people of the West Indies a preference on something under $700,000 worth of cocoa beans, which was the total amount of imports into Canada, we had, in pursuance of our agreement with the West Indies, increased the duties payable by our consumers on cocoa beans and the manufactured products thereof to the amount of a duty on food products valued at $1,800,000. That is to say we had taxed our consumers on $1,800,000 worth of the products that they consumed for the sake of giving the West Indies la preference on one of their products to the amount of something less than $700,000. As to the matter of amount, this item might not he considered as seriously important, but as a matter of principle it is an outstanding feature of this trade agreement, which entitles it to the careful attention of the people of Canada at large, especially in their capacity of consumers, at this time when the cost of living is higher than ever before.
While cocoa is an important product of the West Indies, the great product is sugar, and it is of sugar that Canada uses an amount which makes the question of the readjustment of the sugar duties one not of minor but of major importance.


Richard Blain: Could the hon. gentleman give a list of the manufactured products of which cocoa beans form a part?


Frank Oliver: 

hand out to the steamship companies and neither the Canadian consumer nor the Canadian producer stands to get any benefit and Canadian taxation is substantially increased.
It is not only in relation to the products of the West Indies that the high cost of living is felt. Let me take one or two articles as an illustration. I maintain that under the conditions of excessively high cost of living and revenue in excess of the country's requirements, it was a time for the minister to look over the field and see where a reduction might be made in the taxation that wou/ld toe reflected in a lowering of the cost of living. The cost of living has increased. An example of the way in which it has increased is to be found in the prices of canned fruit and vegetables. I am informed that in 1907 the wholesale -price for canned tomatoes in Ontario was from seventy-two cents to seventy-five cents per dozen three-pound cans, and that in 1912 the price at the opening of the season was $1.25 per dozen cans, with a subsequent rise to $1.35 and $1.65 per dozen. That is, there was an increase in the five years of not less than seventy per cent in the cost at wholesale points in Ontario of this article which is one -of the prime necessities of life in the western country. When we speak of the cost to the consumer, we are frequently reminded that the increased cost to the consumer means a better price to the producer. But this case -of canned fruit or tomatoes may be taken as an instance. There is nothing more untrue than that an increase paid by the consumer means a proportionately increased price to the producer. While the price of -canned tomatoes to the consumer has increased in five years not less- than seventy per cent, I am credibly -informed that the -price to the producer has increased very little if any. It has increased to such a small extent that it can hardly be reduced to a percentage. This increase of the cost of canned tomatoes comes about by reason of the operation of the -canners' -combine, the Dominion Canner-s' Association, which has been successful in absorbing not only a majority but a very large proportion of the fruil canneries in Ontario. Having acquired a large proportion of these canneries, they are in a position to -dictate terms to the wholesale dealers, and the terms which they -dictate are along these lines. The wholesaler who desires to buy canned fruit or vegetables in Ontario must, if his order is large, go to the Dominion Association, sign an agreement that he will not buy from any other supply house.	-


Mr. MARTIN (St. Mary's, Montreal) :: Like the American tobacco combine.
Mr. OLIVER.


Frank Oliver: The price is fixed at the beginning of the season, and he sells to his retail dealers on that price. At the end of the year his accounts are settled. If he is able to prove, and he has to prove it, that he has not bought from anyone else than the Dominion Canners' Association, he gets ten per cent rebate, and that is his profit. The facts being as they are, the price to the consumer having been increased abnormally in the past five years by the artificial means, which I have laid before- the House, and which no one will pretend to deny, and the price to the producer not having been correspondingly increased, I submit that the Minister of Finance has not given due attention to the conditions pressing upon the consumers and taxpayers of this country when, in framing his readjustment of the tariff which he has recently placed before the House, he did not take cognizance of the conditions in regard to canned fruit and vegetables. I may correct myself: in regard to vegetables, the- rebate is ten per cent, and in regard to fruit twelve and one-half per cent. In regard to the balance between what the producer gets and the consumer pays, I may mention the case of corn. I am credibly informed that corn nets the producer $7.50 per ton, and costs the consumer $150 a ton under the beneficient operations of the canners' combine.
Not to delay the House, but to step outside of the question of food and deal with wearing apparel for a moment, I have had figures brought to my attention on the subject of woollen -goods. Industrial Canada, the organ of the Manufacturers' Association states that the wool imports into Canada amount to $33,000,000 a year, that the woollen manufacturers in Canada are carried on by 4,700 employees, and that the average wage of these employees is $325 a year. If these figures are correct, the wages bill of the woollen industry in Canada amounts to $1,527,500 a year, while the people of Canada pay in duty on the woollen goods imported $10,000,000. Further, I am credibly informed that while the investment in the woollen industry in Canada in 1901 amounted to $10,587,808, in 1911 it amounted to $8,539,305. That is to say, that although we have been giving this enormous protection to the woollen industry of .Canada, that industry represents a smaller investment of capital to-day than it did five years ago, and the committee will surely admit that the average wage paid to the employees in that industry is not such as to warrant the amount of protection that that industry receives at the hands of the taxpayers of this country. I submit again that, under the existing conditions, with a revenue such as we have never had, with a surplus such as we have never had, and with the cost of living as it never was be-

fore, the minister was derelict in his duty when he did not take up these questions, and deal with them in the presentation of his budget to the House.
There is an article that can be neither eaten nor worn, but which is still an article of prime necessity to the people of Canada, and particularly of western Canada. I refer to cement. I find that the duty on cement has been reduced from twelve and one-half cents per one hundred pounds to ten cents per one hundred pounds. That is to say there has been a reduction of two and one-half cents per one hundred pounds, or eight and three-quarter cents per barrel of three hundred and fifty pounds. I am not able to give authentically the actual cost of cement, but assuming it to be two dollars a barrel, we have a reduction of duty of something less than five per cent. Now it will be remembered that we have already had some discussion in Parliament with regard to the reduction of cement duty, and the Minister of Finance is my authority for believing that the cement duty is so high as to constitute a serious burden upon the industries and the conditions of life in Canada that call for the use of cement in large quantities. I have the authority of the minister for believing that it was a right and proper thing in the interests, not only of the consumers of cement in western Canada, but of Canada at large, and of good government, that the duty on cement should have been cut in half last July and allowed to remain during four or five months. That is to say: I have his authority for believing that under the circumstances then existing the cement duty should be reduced from twelve and a half cents to six and a quarter cents per hundred pounds, or from forty-three and three-quarters cents per barrel to say twenty-two cents per barrel. During the discussion we had in the House some time in the early part of the session the facts were placed before the House and the country as to the amount of cement that was used, as to the necessity of its use, as to the burdensome character of the rate of duty prevailing and as to the propriety of reducing that duty, and I then had the honour to say to the minister, and I hope he will remember it, that what I wanted was that he should permanently reduce the duty down to six and a quarter cents, and that if he did so he would have support. I am sorry the Minister of Finance did not consider my support sufficiently valuable to warrant him in following the suggestion I made, but I ask him and I ask those members of the House who supported him in that reduction of the duty at that time, who asserted loudly that it was a proper and a necessary thing to do; I ask him and I ask them what they have to say to-day in defence of a reduction of only two and a half cents per hundred pounds. The Minister of Finance was seriously 3351
offended at the suggestion made, that the reduction in duty at that time was because of the probable effect it might have on the Saskatchewan elections, and not because of any desire to benefit the people of the West. Now, I ask him, what has he to say in the light of his own statement then and his own action now. What has he to say now with reference to that suggestion which he repelled so very earnestly at that time? I do not wish to make any accusation, but the Minister of Finance must surely see that the circumstantial evidence is absolutely against him.
There is another article that is neither cement nor clothing nor food, I speak of steel rails. If there is one needi the western country more than another, it is the construction of railroads, and the cost of the rails enters largely into the cost of railroad construction. I do not think I need take time to suggest to the House that the welfare of Canada depends upon railway lines being pushed throughout that great producing country as rapidly as possible; because even to-day, although great work has been done, there are still thousands and tens of thousands of men, who either have to get railway connection within a year or two or be at such loss as will discourage them very seriously in their efforts. And, it was with a full appreciation of that condition that my hon. friend made provision sometime last summer for the admission of steel rails free of duty. He did well; it was a good thing to do. But I am afraid in view of the fact that while the need is greater than ever because of the financial stringency that prevails, the Minister of Finance in the preparation of his budget absolutely forgot about the interests of the country in regard to lower cost of the construction of railroads, and there is no mention of any reduction of duty on steel rails in the budget speech.
I am afraid the suggestion that has been made, that the Government of the day has deliberately juggled with the tariff for political purposes and for private ends, will have to absolutely stand now that the budget has been brought down and the readjustment of the tariff has been (placed before the House. I am all the more at a loss to understand how it is .that this icondition which exists in this country to-day did not claim the attention of the Minister of Finance, because I find that in the United States-I hope the Minister of Finance will pardon me for alluding to the United States and will revise any suggestion that may arise in his mind at the moment that because I allude to the United States I therefore am disloyal to Great Britain-in the United States that, country to which the high protectionists of Canada have looked during so many years for guidance, direction and example, they have seen the neces-

sity for reducing their tariff and readjusting it with special regard to the cost of living. I find that they propose to make cocoa free, whereas for the first time we in Canada are putting a tax oh cocsa. Then, the United States proposes to make free of duty, fresh fish, fruits, fresh beef and mutton, bacon and ham, milk and cream, potatoes, salt, coffee, tea, and last but not least on my list, steel rails. Then, the United States proposes to bring down the duties on cement to five per cent, on cattle to ten per cent, on sheep to ten per cent, on other live animals to ten per cent, on barley to fifteen, on oats to ten, wheat to ten, cheese to twenty, eggs two cents per dozen, hay two dollars per ton, cotton goods of cheap quality seven and a half per cent, and wool fifteen per cent. The United States is facing the condition of high cost of living as we are in this country, but according to the evidence placed before this House yesterday by the member for Maisonneuve the cost of living in the United States is not as high as it is in Canada, and the Government of the United States takes the opportunity to make substantial reductions in the cost of living in that country. But at the very same time, this party in Canada which has looked to the United States for guidance and example in matters of tariff up to the present time, is now increasing the duty while the United States is reducing it. I would suggest to our hon. friends that, having followed the example or guidance of the United. States during so many years, they would do well to follow it just a little further; and, when the taxes are not needed by the treasury and when they are needed by the people, they should give us in this country relief from taxation similar to that which is being given by the Government of the United States to the people of that country.


William Wright: Is my hon. friend
aware that, if the proposition before Congress should go through as introduced, it will still leave their tariff as high as ours?
Mr. OLIVER; I do not know that that has anything to do with the case. I am glad to know that my hon. friend is following the tariff situation in the United States. What does he think of the wisdom or folly of the proposed reductions in the United States tariff?
Mr, WRIGHT: I think that is a matter entirely for our American friends.


Frank Oliver: I think so too. Our friends on the other side were following the policy of the United States as long as the latter were putting their tariff up. As soon as the United States lower their tariff, our friends forget all about follow-Mr. OLIVER.
ing their example. That reminds me that, in the elections of 1911, the policy of our friends on the other side was: No truck or trade with the Yankees. I remember hearing of an election procession through the streets of Ottawa of about a dozen automobiles labelled: No truck or trade with the Yankees. Every automobile in that procession was made in the United States. I may also mention that, throughout the Dominion of Canada, of all the newspapers which voiced that sentiment, there was not a press upon which those papers were printed that was not built in the United States. I think our friends were not in good faith in making that plea; or, if they were in good faith then, they have discredited themselves to-day. Our trade with the United States depends somewhat upon the tariff. We have had a readjustment of the tariff at the hands of the Minister of Finance. On^looking over the trade returns, we find tiiat not only has our trade with the United States not decreased under the administration of these gentlemen, but it has increased enormously; further, it has increased enormously in proportion to our trade with Great Britain; not only that, but our imports from the United States have increased enormously in comparison with our exports. In other words, much as we were buying from the United States, and little as we were selling them in 1911, we are now buying more from them in proportion to what we are selling them. We are buying more from the United States to-day in proportion to what we are buying from Great Britain. Yet my hon. friend (Mr. White) has not a word to say about it in the tariff. That is sufficient evidence that our hon. friends either were not in good faith in 1911, or are not in good faith to-day. If they want to do what they said in 1911 ought to be done, the time to do it was when the hon. Minister of Finance brought down his budget and his tariff schedule. When he did not do so, we assume that he did not mean what he said. I believe there was no member of Parliament or of the Government on that side of the House who was more emphatic and possibly more efficient in declaring the principle which I voiced to the House to-night than my hon. friend the Minister of Finance in the election of 1911.
The following information is taken from the hon. minister's statement:	The total
imports into Canada in 1913 were $692,000,-C00. Of this we imported from the United Kingdom, $139,000,000, and from the United States, $436,000,000. Our imports from the United States more than doubled in six years; our exports to the United States did not double in that period. Our imports

1 nAirt JLUU-kU
from the United Kingdom did not double in six years, while our exports to the United Kingdom increased one-third in that period. In 1906 our exports to the United States were nearly half of our imports. In 1913 our exports to the United States are slightly over one-third of our imports. Yet our hon. friends have no suggestion to make as to how that condition can be remedied. They do not even suggest that it ought to be remedied. They boast of the amount of revenue they are collecting on this enormously increased importation from the United States. I do not know what they would say to-day if the suggestion were again brought forward of securing a reduction in the United States duty upon farm products,whereby it might be expected that t-lie balance of trade could be measurably redressed. If such a suggestion were made to-day, would they say, as they said less than two years ago, that such a proposal meant the annexation of Canada to the United States commercial and political? It appears to me that a condition, in which Canada finds herself compelled to increase her buying from the United States in proportion to her selling to the United States, brings Canada very much more closely to a condition of commercial dependence upon the United States than if Canada were able to pay for what she bought with what she sold. An arrangement whereby Canada could sell to the United States as much as she bought from them would place Canada in a position of commercial independence, in comparison with her present position.
And what suggestion has the Government to make to redress the balance of trade, so to speak, with Great Britain? Our buying from Great Britain does not increase as does our buying from the United States. It is true, as "my hon. friend from Fron-tenac (Mr. Edwards) mentioned, that we are proposing to present, $35,000,000, or loan $35,000,000, to Great Britain for the construction of three dreadnoughts. But I fancy that the businessmen of England would be better pleased if we would do with Great Britain such a proportion of trade as we 'do to-day with the United States, for then they could buy their dreadnoughts out of their profits, and we should be better off. But our friends opposite have no suggestion with regard to that. They are prepared to shout ' loyalty,' but they are not prepared to reduce the tariff which now protects their manufacturing friends. Their loyalty goes so faT as to shout ' disloyalty ' against their opponents in politics, but it does not go so far as to reduce the duties on woollen goods, or even on cotton goods, more than they were l educed by those disloyal Grits fifteen years ago.
I


William Thoburn: Why woollen and cotton goods? Is there nothing else?


Frank Oliver: For this reason, since my hon. friend has mentioned it:	Woollens
are a special necessity in this country of Canada with its cold winter; woollen goods are manufactured in England cheaper and better than anywhere else in the world. WTe are paying, as I have already said, an enormous protection to an insignificant woollen industry in Canada, and it is not sound economics to do so. It would be cheaper and better for the people of Canada to pension my hon. friend and his employees and let the woollens in free. The people of Canada would make millions of dollars a year by doing that very thing.


William Thoburn: A few moments ago the hon. gentleman stated that though there was an increased cost to the consumer, the producer did not get a corresponding benefit.


Frank Oliver: In many cases.


William Thoburn: Now, I wonder if the hon. gentleman would apply that to the woollen manufacturer. I do not think he would. But I wish to state for the information of that hon. gentleman and others here to-night that perhaps they are not aware of the small cost of making a suit of clothes, that is the small cost of Canadian manufacture. I will make this assertion and I can prove it:	There is not a suit
of clothes on any hon. gentleman in this Chamber to-night-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes, there is. i
Other hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


William Thoburn: Listen to what I have to say, and you can make your comments afterwards. On a suit of clothes that will average $30, which is a fair average price, the textile manufacturer does not receive more than $5. Now, where is the $25 gone?


Frank Oliver: I cannot answer that question. I -am prepared to -admit that there is similar leakage between the manufacturer of woollens and the consumer that there is between the grower of wheat and the buyer of flour. But that -does not come into this-question at the present time. The point is that we pay to-day a -protective tax of $10,000,000 a year for -the maintenance of our woollen industry and on the figures as they have been given to me, which I believe to be -correct, the industry is not worth the money. I do not want to be understood as making any attack upon the manufacturing industry. The manufacturing industry is just as legitimate as any other industry, but it is no more legitimate. It is entitled to a square deal, and it is entitled to nomore. If it cannot stand on fair terms, it has no business to stand at all. -If there is

an industry in Canada that cannot stand while receiving the protection of a fair revenue tariff, then I say that industry on the face of it, is not suitable to Canada and is costing Canada more than it is worth. I am speaking on behalf oi an industry which-in the nature of things, I will admit-gets no protection; which, in the nature of things, can get no protection, and therefore those who are dependent upon it and connected with it, naturally are not in sympathy with the argument that this, that- or the other industry should be maintained by a process of protection. I have heard some hon. members here today speak of the 'unreasonableness of free trade'. We are not arguing for free trade; we are' arguing for a fair deal. As long as we are dependent upon a tariff for our revenue there is incidental protection, and nobody is suggesting anything else. But it is not that kind of a tariff that our friends on the other side believe in or that they support, or that they propose to force on this country whenever they are able to do so. We are not now asking for free trade; we are asking for freer trade; we are asking for lower taxes and freer trade; and we believe this is now an especial, time, when, no matter what the. principles of the Government may be, taxation should be reduced wherever it can be reduced, and particularly upon the necessities of life.
Now, I am speaking of course for the production of wheat-that is the great product of the western country. Owing to circumstances, some of which could be controlled and some of which not, during this past year the value of wheat, oats and flax to the farmer of'the West has been considerably, materially and seriously below the price of the previous year, and below the price he expected to receive for these products. As a matter of fact, in an enormous number of cases the profit of the farmer of the West has been wiped out by the depression in the price of wheat and other grains. Roughly speaking, the price of wheat to the farmer this year is ten cents a bushel less than it was last year, and the price of oats is as much or nearly as much less. Here is a condition where the profits of a tremendous industry, employing thousands of people and producing the great source of the original wealth of this country, is largely wiped out by a depression in prices. At the moment we are not blaming anybody for that, but it is not satisfying to us to tell us that some other industry is entitled to protection at our expense when we cannot get protection in return. The price of wheat to the farmer this year is ten cents less than it was last year; is the price of bread to the consumer of eastern Canada less than it was last year? I saw in the papers since this session commenced that the price of bread had risen materially in Mr. OLIVER.
eastern Canada. Let this be established beyond question: that under our present conditions the price received by the producer is not governed by the price paid by the consumer, nor is the price paid by the consumer governed by the price received by the producer. The conditions with regard to, wheat, flour and bread, the great and most important products of the country, is the evidence on that point. Taking the estimate of the Government as to the production of wheat, oats, barley and flax in the prairie provinces, we find a total of
426,000,000 bushels, and estimating a difference of ten cents a bushel between this year's price and last, we find a loss to the farmers of the prairie provinces of $42,000,000. In the face of that my hon. friend brings in a budget in which he glories, because he has taken $168,000,000 in taxes from the people, and he offers practically no relief in his adjustment of the tariff.
I do not know that it would be out of place, in this connection, when we are speaking of our overflowing treasury, to point out that during the second week of May the bank clearances in the various cities of Canada showed a decrease, as compared with the same week of the previous year. Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Victoria, and others showed a decrease; the only large city showing an increase is Edmonton. I maintain again that the minister should have considered those conditions and should have dealt with them in his tariff schedule.
The minister dealt with the subject of immigration. I will not delay the House at any length, but there are certain important points in this connection, which, I think should have attention. I find that the immigration in 1911 was 311,000, in 1912, 354,000 and in 1913, 402,000, an increase of immigration in the three years of 100,000, which, as everybody will agree, is a very satisfactory increase. But I find in looking at the returns of the Department of the Interior that the homestead entries in 1911 were 44,479, in 1912, 39,151 and in 1913, 34,500, a decrease in the three years of 10,000 homestead entries. I want to draw the attention of the Government to the fact that while we have been getting an increase of 100,000 emigrants, in the three years, there has been a decrease of 10,000 homesteads in the three years. I do not elaborate on that point, but I think it will be evident that we are not getting people who are going on the land to the same degree that we were getting them in former years.
I desire to mention another point in connection with the matter of immigration. In 1911 we received from the United States nearly as many people as we received from Great Britain,'and w-e received from countries other than the United States or Great Britain a third -as many as from Great

Britain. In 1912 again we received nearly the same number from the United States as from Great Britain, and over half as many from countries other than the United States or Great Britain. In 1913 we again received nearly as many from the United States as from Great Britain, but from other countries we received four-fifths as many as from Great Britain. Let me draw the attention of the Government to the important fact that while our total immigration has been increasing our immigration from continental Europe has increased much more rapidly than our immigration from Great Britain. I would argue that it is important that the Government should have a knowledge of these facts and should bend their energies more strongly than they are doing to-day to the securing of immigration from Great Britain, if we are to maintain the predominance of the British character of the people of this country.
My hon. friend's strong point was our great revenue: $168,000,000, $35,000,000 more than last year; an expenditure of $133,000,000, a surplus of $55,000,000, and a net surplus of $23,000,000. This is a magnifi-cient- statement looked at from a national standpoint, if the individual standpoint in anv degree corresponds. But I notice that for the'year that is now current mv hon. friend has brought down main estimates of $179,000,000 and supplemen-tarv estimates of $23,500,000, a total estimate on the table at the present time	of	$202,000,000 .as against the
revenue last year of $168,000,000. As compared with the estimates of last year there is an increase in the main estimates of this year of $10,000,000 and with the sup-plementaries of $23,500,000 an increase over the estimates of last year of $33,500,000. Then with $10,000,000 more which will probably be taken for the construction of dreadnoughts in England and, say, $12,000,000 for railway subsidies, there will be an increase in our estimates of this year of $55,000,000 over those of last year.


William Thomas White: That would nearly wipe
out the surplus would it not?


Frank Oliver: An increase of 25 per cent over the estimates of last year. We have had a long era of prosperity, we have had a swelling revenue. Our returns during the past year have been magnificent; but in view of the facts which are within the knowledge of the minister and of the Government,- with the statement of the bank clearings, with the knowledge of the money stringency, with the knowledge of lower prices for farm products, with all this knowledge, I ask my hon. friend how he justifies estimates which not only wipe out the surplus of the present year, but go far beyond any reasonable expectation of revenue of the current year. My hon. friend or the Government of which he is a distinguished member appear to me, as far as I can judge from the budget that he has presented, from the consideration I have been able to give it, to consider that the function of government is simply that of a tax gatherer and a spender-that so long as the money comes in there is nothing to be done except get rid of it. There is no recognition of the conditions under which this revenue has been derived or the conditions under which revenues will be	derived during	the coming year. I
say that the time was ripe for recognition of those conditions in the tariff that was brought down. My hon. friend has not seen fit to recognize those conditions, and while it is true that he has not at the moment saddled us with increased taxation such as we certainly feared, and we are glad of that, we can only assume that he is prepared to take that course at the first favourable opportunity. He ignores the conditions which to-day demand a lowering of the rate of taxation, which demand a fair measure looking to the expansion of our trade, he boasts of the amount of money that he has been able to collect and he takes measures to increase rather than decrease the collections, while taking care of special friends in the meantime.


William Thomas White: Mr. Speaker, if no other member desires to engage in the discussion, I would like now to conclude the debate. We have had some interesting criticisms of the budget. Some very valuable information has been placed before the House and upon ' Hansard,' and some interesting arguments have been advanced. The tone of the debate has been fair, moderate and temperate, and in my reply I shall endeavour to emulate that spirit and tone. I followed each of the speakers with a great deal of interest and if the hour were not so late I should like to reply at considerable length; but as the debate has been somewhat protracted and as we are all desirous of bringing the session to an end at as early a date as possible and of concluding the legislation now before the House, I shall occupy but a small space in my reply. The Government has been charged, as was to be expected, with extravagance. An opposition, if it is an orthodox opposition, always accuses the Government of extravagance. I could hardly imagine an opposition thinking that it was discharging its whole duty to the country unless it charged the Government with extravagance and so I have no particular exception to take to the charge-


Frank Oliver: Is it not true?


William Thomas White: -which, however, I desire to confute. The hon. member for Halifax

1C316
(Mr. Maclean) followed by the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell) and of course, the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) has denounced the extravagance of the Government. But I observe that the denunciation was in very general terms. The main estimates have been before the House for some considerable time and the supplementaries were brought down before this debate commenced and yet I have not .heard any criticism of the details of the estimates. I have not heard my hon. friend from Halifax condemn any of the large expenditures .which we propose to make in his native city of Halifax. I should imagine that my hon. friend would be pleased at the expenditures which the Government is making this year in the city of Halifax. For example, the main estimates contain $2,500,000 for terminal facilities for the Intercolonial railway. I have heard no criticism or denunciation of that item on the part of my hon. friend. In the same way, the hon. member for Carle-ton denounced in a general way the extravagance of the Government, and when I said that nothing was too good for the Maritime provinces, he at once concurred and admitted that nothing was too good for the Maritime provinces.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I do not participate myself in any of these expenditures.


William Thomas White: I did not hear my hon.
friend raise any exception to the large expenditures in the city of St. John which will inure to the benefit of the entire province of New Brunswick and the constituency of my hon. friend will derive its proportion of the advantage, and so I say that the denunciation has been very general in its character. When I was listening to it I could not but think of the lines of the late James Russell Lowell, in the Bigelow papers.
I do believe in freedom's cause,
As far away as Paris is;
I like to see her stick her claws,
In them infernal Pharises.
As I have said, the criticism of the extravagances of the Government has been in the most general terms imaginable, and no hon. gentleman opposite had the temerity to come out and criticise any of the large items of expenditure which appear in the estimates. That has been noticeable in the discussion to which we have listened with so much interest during the past couple of days. My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) has pointed out that our expenditures are the largest in the history of Canada. I should expect that they would be. Canada is now larger than ever before, she has a greater population, greater trade, greater business, she is greater in every way than ever before. Why should not our expenditure be greater than ever before in the history of Canada? My hon. friend has
Mr. WHITE (Leeds). '
pointed out that our estimates will reach one-fifth of the estimates of the United Kingdom. Well, our population is nearly one-fifth of the population of the United Kingdom, and our trade is about one-fifth of the total trade of the United Kingdom; so that as a matter of fact our trade and our estimates are keeping pace proportionately with the trade and the estimates of the United Kingdom.
My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) expressed his alarm at our expenditures, and put forward the opinion that we should curtail them this year. My hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) has also expressed alarm. He asks how can we justify these expenditures in view of the financial stringency? My hon. friend from Halifax called attention to the fact that we should likely have reduced revenues on account of the financial stringency. Possibly, that may be, but I do not think so. To me, a most hopeful sign, a very hopeful sign indeed, is that notwithstanding the financial depression of the past year our revenues have kept up -so well and are still increasing over those of last year. And we shall emerge in time from the financial depression. It is never well to be over timid about these matters, it is never well to -be over cautious, especially in time of stringency. My hon. friend from Halifax said he thought that the immediate future was not roseate, and he referred to certain land speculations throughout Canada. While he stated that he was not pessimistic, the tone of his speech seemed to me to be decidedly pessimistic. Let me say to my hon. friend that I do not believe in the Government curtailing expenditure simply because it appears that, on account of financial depression, there might be a limitation of trade. My view is that that is the time to maintain your expenditure, because, by curtailing your expenditure, you aggravate the very condition that exists. The Government of Canada, with its surplus of the past year, and with its splendid financial position, would have no justification whatever for unduly limiting its expenditure, simply - because we happen to be passing through a temporary period of financial depression, and even of diminished trade, although I am sure we shall not have a period of diminished trade, even if, on account of the financial stringency, we do not proceed at the same proportionate rate of increase -over last year, as last year showed over the preceding year. I remembered a saying, I think it was by the late J. Pierpont Morgan, that a man should never be a bear in the United States. I say -the same thing with regard to Canada, a man should never be a bear in Canada. There is only one spirit for Canada, and that is a spirit of unquenchable optimism. There is no other spirit possible in this country, having regard to

our resources, to which I will refer at greater length a little later, and to the quality of the people who are our fellow citizens. We often hear that Canada will have a temporary setback. I confess that I see no signs of it at the present time and it is my belief that even if there should be a temporary cessation of trade activity, having regard to five year periods, or decades, there is only one future possible for Canada. We have a population to-day of 8,000,000, and it will soon be 10,000,000, 15,000,000, 25,000,000. The future can hold only one destiny for Canada, and _ that is continuous progress. I think we are all assured of that, and therefore to curtail our expenditure simply because we happen to have had a financial depression, which is world-wide, would seem to me to be an utterlv unsound policy. So far as I can see, there is nothing to occasion undue caution, and, as I stated before, such a policy would aggravate the very condition which we seek to avoid.
My hon. friend from Halifax has contended for a reduction in taxation. He says that we should borrow for capital expenditure, and that we are taking too much money from the people of Canada. He also referred to the increased cost of iiving, and I shall briefly address myself to these two topics. My own view is that in times of abounding prosperity, it is well that the Government should pay its way, if possible. It will not always be able to do so. As I stated in my budget speech, it is not to be expected that Canada will be able to pay. from her revenues her current expenditure, and also that expenditure which is properly chargeable to capital account, that expenditure which is made on those national undertakings that become part of the assets or_ plant of the people of Canada. But I think it is well, especially in times of prosperity, to aim to establish an equilibrium between income and outgo, and therefore I do not agree with my hon. friend that, in times such as these, we should adopt a policy of borrowing largely to meet our capital expenditures. We may have to borrow, I understand that we shall, but I think that as far as we can, we should aim at paying as we go. My hon. friend stated, and truly stated, that there is a distinction between current expenditure and capital expenditure. There is no doubt about that. That is a distinction which is observed, not only in connection with governmental finance, but in other finance. It is a well recognized principle, and I do not dissent from his view as to that. But I would say this, that if we preserve our credit in times of prosperity, and are able from time to time to reduce our national debt, if by any chance we should have a period of adversity, that would he the time to use our
credit, to borrow, and to proceed with national expenditures which would innure to the benefit of the entire community upon national plant. Expenditure of that kind is fruitful expenditure; it is expenditure which will provide additional facilities for the carrying on of the business of the country. The estimates show that we shall require the revenues of 1913 and 1914.
A plea has been made that we should reduce the taxation, that we should return to the people a part of this large surplus, that we should substantially out down the taxation. There are just a few observations that I have to make as to that. In the first place this is a low tariff country. The tariff of the United States, which has commanded the admiration of my hon. friend from Edmonton, is almost double our tariff.


Frank Oliver: I beg my hon. friend's pardon, the United States tariff does not command my admiration.


William Thomas White: I understood my hon. friend to speak just a few moments ago in terms of unqualified admiration of the tariff of the United States.


Frank Oliver: I was speaking in favour of the reductions in the United States tariff, not in favour of the tariff.


William Thomas White: I do not know whether the reductions have yet been made, but I understood my hon. friend to speak with admiration of the tariff of the United States, and to commend it to myself. I intended to ask him whether he would like me to adopt the United States tariff, even with the reductions. I do not think he would.


Frank Oliver: I was trying to say that my hon. friend and his friends had borrowed the example and the leadership of the Government of the United States in tariff matters, and I suggested that they should still continue to follow them, now that a reduction was being made.


William Thomas White: I do not see in what we could have followed the example of the United States in its tariff legislation, because the average tariff of the United States is forty-five per cent, while ours is only twenty-five per cent, and if the hon. gentleman will take our entire imports of dutiable and free goods he will find that our average tariff is only fifteen per cent, which shows that Canada is a very low tariff country as compared with the United States. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Oliver) would become a very hostile critic if I suggested we should adopt the tariff of the United States even if it should be lowered as proposed to Congress. We have presented estimates exceeding two hundred millions, and in addition to that there are railway

subsidies, and we have to provide twelve million dollars for the purchase of Grand Trunk Pacific bonds, one million dollars a month during the year, on account of the so-called implementing judgment. We have a very large programme before us, not too large having regard to the requirements of the public and the necessities of the public service, but still large and comprehensive. It seems to me that unless our revenues are increased beyond what we anticipate, if we attempted to reduce the taxation to such an extent as has been suggested, Canada would enter upon a period of deficits which would come in for the most earnest condemnation of hon. gentlemen opposite who now suggest this course.
This country is growing. My hon. friend from Carleton (Mr. Carvell) spoke about the expenditure the old Government had made and of the large national undertakings they had in hand. Does he think the country is^ going to stand still simply because the Liberal Government went out of power and the Conservative Government came into power? There are other great national undertakings under way and there are still others which will be carrired out in the future, and this Government must provide the revenues to carry them to a successful conclusion unless it is derelict in its duty to the Canadian people. Hon. gentlemen opposite must not lose confidence in the country simply because they are in opposition. The country is growing; our trade is increasing; our population will be ten millions, fifteen millions, twenty-five millions, and we must look to the future and provide for carrying on the nation's business. Railways must be constructed, canals must be built, navigation must be improved, harbours must be deepened, docks must be built on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, and the public service must be efficiently maintained. So far as I can see this country will need large revenues for years to come. The people of Canada realize that; they know that expenditure must be made and they are quite content that expenditure should be made, provided it is made honestly and for the purpose of providing national facilities for the carrying on of the business of the country. I think it was my predecessor who said that wise expenditure was true economy; it is not a question as to the amount of the expenditure, but as to whether that expenditure is justified and honestly made, and the people of Canada will find no fault with any government which keeps these things in view.
Among other things, we are building the Hudson Bay railway this year, and in the supplementary estimates we have placed four million dollars for the erection of terminal elevators throughout the West. My hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) Mr. WHITE (Leeds!
raised no objection to that. His criticism of our extravagance, as he calls it, has been most general in character. I think he would hesitate to rise in his place and
criticise any of the items in the estimates relating to the prairie provinces. If we look at the criticism launched against the budget we find it is not well founded; it is just the stock orthodox criticism of all oppositions. It seems natural for an opposition to adopt a pessimistic tone, but for the Government of Canada there is only one outlook and that is of optimism. We must be optimistic in regard to the future of this great country if we discharge our duties to the people who have placed us in office. My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) said that when you had an excessive surplus, you were apt to have expenditure which was unwise, unproductive, and corrupt, and in the same breath he mentioned the subsidy we had given to the province of Manitoba. I need not say that the increased subsidy to Manitoba was abundantly justified. The boundaries of Manitoba were extended and Manitoba was simply put in the position of her sister provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It was but a simple act of justice to a great province; there was nothing unwise, unproductive or corrupt about it.
We are making other expenditures; we are providing to expend ten million dollars over a period of ten years for the improvement of agriculture, and I think every one will say that is a wise expenditure. And, on highways, if hon. gentle- _ men opposite will let us do it, we are prepared to spend one-half million dollars a year. All this expenditure, I believe, will meet with the approval of the Canadian people.
Let me deal for a few moments with the cost of living, which has been discussed at very great length during the last couple of days by my hon. friend from Maisonneuve (Mr. Verville) and by my hon. friend from Carleton (Mr. Carvell).' There is no doubt the cost of living is a live question in the world to-day. It is not confined to Canada; the cost of living has increased all over the world, and it is a phenomenon which is not confined to this continent. It may be interesting, in view of the discussion, to examine briefly some of the causes which have been alleged for the increase in prices. In the first place, it has been stated that the increased gold production has had something to do with it. My own view is that is not nearly as important a cause assume seem to think. It is true the gold production has greatly increased during the past few years. Between 1871 and 1875 the average annual gold production -was $115,000,000; from 1891 to 1895 it was

$163,000,000; and it is now $500,000,000. That is a very large increase, and the argument has been that as gold is the standard of value, you may either measure commodities in terms of gold or gold in terms of commodities, and as gold has become cheap, commodities become dear. Those who put forward that argument lose sight of the fact that the commercial transactions of the world are carried on not so much upon gold as upon credit, and that the amount of gold which is used in connection with payments is very small indeed. Gold is not only the standard of value but an article of commerce. Of the production of gold every year a very large amount is used in commerce and finds its way into the several arts. Of the balance a very considerable amount forms part of the bankers' reserves. In addition to that, a great deal of gold is hoarded, I think, particularly in India. During the war in the Balkan peninsula, a great deal of gold has teen hoarded in Europe.
It is a curious fact that, notwithstanding the increase in the production of gold, credit has not been cheapened. On the contrary, the price of money has been.going up during the past fifteen years. There are very many causes for that. In the first place many new sections of the world have been opened up and are being developed. In Japan, China, India, Egypt, South America, Canada, in fact, in all parts of the world there has been a great period of development and of increased commerce and trade. Good times have prevailed for ten or fifteen years. As a result,. rates ot interest have been high. That, of course, has had its effect upon the cost of commodities. Speaking for myself, I do not believe that the increased production of gold has been a very important factor in the increase m cost of commodities.
Passing over rapidly the other factors which have been referred to, namely: the increase in urban population, which has been very considerable, and the profits of the middleman, I should like to deal for a moment with the Canadian situation so far as it relates to the increased cost o| living. We must bear in mind that, in this country during the past few years, we have been engaged in the construction of enormous national undertakings. Three transcontinental railways traverse our part of this continent. The railway construction has been on a vast scale. Other constructions have been on a proportionate scale, so that our consuming population has been greatly increased, while our production has not correspondingly increased. The result ns that in Canada the demands of t'he home market have been greatly enlarged over those of previous years. Therefore I think we cun find an explanation for the falling off in our exports of certain of our agrh
cultural products such as animals and their products, to which I referred in my budget.
The House is familiar with the method of determining the index number of a particular year. I understand that, in Canada, we take the period of ten years between 1890 and 1899, and some 200 commodities. We represent that period by 100. Tnen, by taking the average price of the same commodities in any particular year, we relate that to the 100 and determine what the index number lor that particular year is. Following that method, I understand that the cost of living has increased in Canada about 37 per cent. The cost of living, having regard to those staple commodities, is between 35 and 40 per cent higher than it was between the years 1890 and 1899.	_	_
I wish to put forward a theory, which is not mine, but which appeals to me more than any other theory, in explanation of the phenomenon of the high cost of living. I found it interesting and I hope the House will not find it otherwise. It is that the chief factor in the high cost of living throughout the world is war and the cost of armanents. It is a very curious thing that the cost of living from 1867 to 1872 was higher, in Great Britain at least- I am not sure as to this continent-than almost at any period since. The period between 1890 and 1899 has, I have pointed out, a very low index number. Let us see what happened. The period in the early seventies succeeded the American war, the Franco-Prusisian war and the war between Germany and Austria. After the war between Turkey and Russia, there was a long period of peace in the eighties and the nineties. The index number went down and the cost of living was lower then than at almost any other period preceding or succeeding. Then we come to 1898," when the Spanish-American war broke out. After that, we have the Boer war, and after that the gTeat war between Russia and Japan. It is estimated that in these wars no less a sum than $5,000,000,000 was expended. Following that, we have the war between Greece and Turkey, and now the Balkan war. These wars have used up an enormous amount of the fruit of human industry, because money spent unproductively is just as much lost as if it had been cast into the sea. That money has been withdrawn from the capital of the world available for the development of agricutural districts, and for the opening up and settlement of new countries. These wars have withdrawn a very large number of men from productive employment, and have interrupted the occupations of millions more. The result has been a profound effect upon the economy of the world. I put the view forward, not as original, but as appealing to

me more than any other that I have read, as being the cause of the world-wide phenomenon of the high cost of living. In addition to the actual amount expended in these wars, the increasing cost of armaments for similar reasons is having its effect also.
Therefore, so far as tariffs are concerned, while tariffs have an important influence upon the cost of .living, I do not believe our tariff has a very serious effect upon the cost of living in this country. In the first place, it is a low tariff, not a high tariff, and this is an agricultural country; we produce the necessities of life. In time I have no doubt that the evil will cure, itself. There is no reason why, with the influx of immigration and improved methods of farming, products should not greatly increase and the cost of living should not be materially decreased.
My hon. friend from Carleton touched on a subject which I do not propose to go into to-night; that is reciprocity. If we all started to discuss reciprocity and re-hashed the arguments of the 1911 campaign, we would be here all summer. But to my hon. friend it seems to be a Banquo's ghost, it will not down. He rehearses the arguments which are familiar to us about these benefits as giving a higher price to the farmer and at the same time reducing the price to the consumer. I would point out to him that, while that argument may avail in the province of New Brunswick it did not avail in the province of Ontario. The people of Ontario could not understand how a farmer with a farm on the confines of a town could get more for his butter and eggs, and at the same time the people of the town be able to get their butter and eggs at a less price. I do not know whether they are as intellectual as the people of my hon. friend's constituency, I think they are both intellectual peoples. But in Ontario they could not be made to understand that, and I doubt if they can ever be made to understand it. My hon. friend says he is going to hope on, hope ever, with regard to reciprocity. Well,
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be, blest.
So we will leave it at that.
Some discussion has taken place of a more or less desultory character with regard to our tariff. I am not going to discuss that now. I said in my budget that it seemed to me a sound policy that there should be a revision of the tariff of a general character from time to time, and that in the intervening periods tariff modifications should be very sparingly made if at all. And I still believe that that is a sound policy. I do not like to refer to the policy of our neighbours to the south, but I may
Mr. WHITE (Leeds).
say in a general way that I have been told by business men there that the continuous tariff interference, usually called tariff tinkering, has a very bad effect upon business, and that at the present time it is having quite an unsettling effect; however, I pass no opinion on that. I simply desire to say that our tariff, presenting as it does, many anomalies, should be revised at certain intervals, and that in the meantime changes should be made sparingly, if at all.
My hon. friend from Edmonton touched upon the sugar question, and he was in pretty deep waters. The sugar question is one of the most complicated that we have to deal with, as I pointed out before. My hon. friend has found out that we presented two and a half million dollars to the sugar refineries. Well, I never, knew a journalist who was good at figures, and I think the hon. gentleman is no exception to that rule.
Mr. OLIVER; I understand that my hon. friend is a journalist also.


William Thomas White: Well, I never was good at figures.


Frank Oliver: If so, the hon. gentleman may easily be wrong now.


William Thomas White: When the hon. gentleman took his pen in hand this time, he got into very deep waters indeed. I would point out that nearly all the refined sugar consumed in Canada is manufactured in our own refineries. The amount that comes in except from Great Britain is almost negligible, and I think that fully ninety-five per cent of the whole consumption is manufactured in Canada. How the hon. gentleman makes out that two and a half million dollars was presented to the sugar refiners passes my comprehension. I think he chose $2,500,000 as being a good round sum, and he introduced it as helping to give plausibility to his criticism of our tariff changes.


Frank Oliver: I said the hon. gentleman had reduced the duty on raw sugar and had not reduced it on the refined, and the refiner got the benefit.


William Thomas White: The hon. gentleman is an economist of the Liberal school. Suppose the sugar comes in at a low duty, why should not the public get the benefit? Why should not the manufacturer turn out the goods more cheaply?


Frank Oliver: He could, but he will not.


William Thomas White: Then, the hon. gentleman's contention with regard to the tariff changes falls to the ground.


Frank Oliver: If my hon. friend had reduced the duty on refined to correspond with the raw sugar, the consumer would have got the benefit.


William Thomas White: My hon. friend does not
realise that the duty on refined sugar under the preferential tariff remains precisely where it was.


Frank Oliver: That is preoisely what I do know.


William Thomas White: It remains at 83, while the other was cut down from 53 to 40. And I pointed out that we had taken from the sugar refiners the benefit given them by my predecessor of importing free foreign raw sugar to the extent of twenty per cent of their production. I also quoted on the occasion of my budget speech, and the hon. gentleman must have heard it, the opinion of my predecessor, Mr. Fielding, that he aimed to give a protection of one half cent a pound. We give less than that. My hon. friend is really criticising my predecessor, his own _ colleague. He does not realise what an intricate question this sugar question is. I do not blame him, because I have put in a good deal of time trying to understand it. The modifications of the tariff with regard to sugar were given the most careful consideration. The sugar refiners are not in any better position than they were in before, and there has been a reduction in the price of sugar to the consumer.


Frank Oliver: I must say that what
aroused my interest was that the sugar refiners approved strongly of the reduction. I thought it was worth looking into.


William Thomas White: I understand that my hon. friend approves of reduction in the tariff. The price of sugar came down correspondingly immediately after the announcement was made. I stated that we did not desire to make any sweeping reductions that would cause substantial loss of revenue on .sugar.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Would the Minister
like to guarantee that the price will remain down?


William Thomas White: I would not; but I think it will remain down. I think competition applies with regard to sugar.


Frank Oliver: Not in Canada.


William Thomas White: I think so. The modifications have not only been carefully considered but they are modifications that had to be made to the terms of the agreement. The Ron. member complains that we cut down the preference to the West India grower. But he knows that that course was recommended by the imperial commission of which Mr. Fielding was a member, and the report of that commission was the very basis of our action. They suggested that the preference of 31 .cents might be Teduced to 15 cents, in order to prevent the grower from taking the whole of the British preference to the disadvantage of
the Canadian sugar refiner; and the West India grower desired to obtain an exclusive preference of the Canadian product and insisted that the twenty-per-cent privilege should, be abolished. We have abolished it and have endeavoured to put our refiners in the position they were in before. They are in no better position. That twenty-per-cent privilege was very valuable to them. I do not believe they are in as good a position as they were before. So, when the hon. gentleman says we have presented $2,500,000 to the Canadian sugar refiners, he i.s simply out in his arithmetic.


Frank Oliver: My hon. friend is a journalist and I am afraid he is out. May I ask him a question?


William Thomas White: Might I suggest that it
would be well to wait until we get into Committee and have the special items under discussion. The hon. gentleman has also referred to the cement reduction. In the debate on the Address, my hon. friend apparently acquiesced in and approved of the cut we made temporarily in the cement duty, but said our motive was wrong. He would rather not have the cut because it happened to be made just before the Saskatchewan elections, but the very paper of which my hon. friend is proprietor- and I suppose he sometimes has time to writte editorials

the; Edmonton Bulletin, clamoured for the reduction for weeks before we made it. Yet my hon. friend has the temerity to get up in this House and criticise the Government for taking a course which was advocated by his paper in the strongest possible manner.


Frank Oliver: Will my hon. friend tell the House why he does not continue that reduction?


William Thomas White: My hon. friend promised me his support if I would do a certain thing; fancy this Government being supported by my hon. friend. I do not believe, however, that he would be a very permanent prop; I think he would not be likely to remain very long. However we did reduce the rate from 12i cents to 10 cents. My hon. friend, I have heard, approved the reciprocity agreement. If my hon. friend were in his seat now, I would ask him what the extent of the cut was under that agreement. I think he is aware of the fact that the duty was reduced to eleven cents; we reduced it to ten cents.


Frank Oliver: It was one and a half cents under reciprocity and two and a half cents under your arrangement.


William Thomas White: Under the reciprocity
agreement it was standing at eleven cents; under our arrangement it .stands at ten cents, and yet my hon. friend gets up and criticises. We are all anxious to please

1062S
our loving friends on both sides of the House, and yet no matter what we do, even if we cut the duty on cement below the reciprocity figure, my hon. friend is not satisfied. My hon. friend speaks about wheat. I desire to quote from the Toronto Globe, a journal of repute-[DOT]


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Thomas White: Some of my hon. friends deny that, but certainly it is in sympathy with the opinions of the hon. member for Edmonton. Speaking about the United States tariff revision, the article says:
The reduction proposed in the duty on wheat will affect the Canadian producer very little' now. The United States is producing too much surplus wheat in these days to afford us a profitable market there. With reserves on March 31 amounting to about 156,000,000 bushels and a new winter crop coming in about the 1st of July which promises, to greatly exceed that of a year ago, the United States is a huge exporter yet. With her new irrigation methods there are large wheat areas yet untouched. 'There is promise that Bhe will be a large exporter, for many years to come.
To show how unreasonable my hon. friend is in his criticism, I may say that he criticised me for not lowering the duty upon steel rails. He called attention to the fact that w*e had remitted the duty upon rails. He called attention to the fact that we had remitted the duty upon steel rails, and he approved of that. His hon. leader got up in this House and criticised the Government very severely for remitting that duty.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Not exactly
that: the method by which it was done.
Mr. WHITE i My right hon. friend was, then, satisfied with the remission of duty, but not with the method by which it was done. The hon. member for Edmonton expressed no dissatisfaction at all; he approved of what was done. So that my right non. triend tfie leader of tne Opposition and the hon. member for Edmonton apparently do not see eye to eye in regard to this matter.
I have taken up a good deal of time replying to the criticism which has been made of the budget speech, and I just desire to say this in conclusion. We shall have in this country, a large revenue, and we shall have large expenditures to make. I think there is, as I have said before, only one spirit for Canada, and that is the spirit of optimism. We can look forward to a great future in this country, a future of which, I am sure, we shall all be proud. We have here, a dominion in area the size of Europe; I sometimes think we do not fully realize what a vast heritage has been handed down to us. We have not only the historical maritime provinces and the provinces of Mr. WHITE (Leeds.)
Quebec and Ontario but we have the three great prairie provinces, each one the size of modern Germany, and we have the great province of British Columbia, potentially one of the richest, if not the richest, province in the confederation. Great responsibilities " devolve upon the Government of this country. We must have a vision for the future; we must not be timid with regard to making expenditures, if those expenditures can be justified from a national standpoint. As I say, confederation in this country is only possible when we have the freest intercourse between the several provinces. We shall have our transportation problems, and the matter of transportation is the most important question in Canada to-day. We must be prepared to assist railway development in Canada; we must be prepared to build and'deepen our canals, improve our navigation, and construct docks and other facilities for our shipping on both coasts. We must be prepared to maintain our public service. All this will require a vast expenditure, but, as I said a little while ago, the people of Canada will approve of any expenditure on the part of the Government, no matter how large it may be. if it is reasonably within our revenues or our borrowing powers-if they are capital expenditures-and provided they are required by the country and are honestly made. I have to thank hon. gentlemen opposite for the very temperate and moderate tone in which the debate upon the budget speech! has been conducted; I think it has been well received. It bears all the evidences of the prosperity which this country is now enjoying, and, notwithstanding the financial stringency to which attention has been drawn, I think we may look forward with confidence to increasing trade and increasing prosperity. Personally, I always feel optimistic with regard to Canada's future; I do not think there is any room for the pessimist in this country. In making generous provision, therefore, for the public services in a growing period such as we are now passing through, we feel that we can abundantly justify, our proposed expenditures before the people of Canada.
Motion (Mr. White) agreed to, and House went into Committee of Ways and Means. (Mr. Deputy Speaker in the Chair.)
20. Cocoa paste ox. liquor and chocolate paste or liquor not sweetened, in blocks or cakes per pound:	British preferential tariff, 3{
cents; intermediate, 4 cents; general, 4 cents.


William Thomas White: The old rates were two and a half cents, three cents and three cents. There has been an increase of one cent a pound. The reason for the change is the duty placed on cocoa beans under schedule C of the West Indies agree-

ment. My hon. friend will recall that cocoa beans are placed on the free list so far as the West Indies are concerned, but that there is a duty as against foreign countries. The average quantity of chocolate paste obtained from one hundred pounds of cocoa beans is seventy-five pounds. The tariff of the United Kingdom, based on the principle of furnishing no protection to the manufacturer, is as follows: On raw cocoa, the cocoa bean, one penny per pound; on cocoa or chocolate, ground, prepared or in any way manufactured, two pence per pound. That is a difference of one penny per pound. Our manufacturers will not be able to obtain all their cocoa from the West Indies, although the production from the West Indies would, so far as amount is concerned, be adequate. They require to use certain blends, different colours in their products, and, after giving the matter very careful considera-sideration, the experts of my department and of the Customs Department came to the conclusion that one cent should be added.
2oa. Butter produced from the cocoa bean, per pound: British preference, 11 cents; intermediate, 2 cents; general, 2 cents.
Mr. White: The old rates were two and a half cents, three cents and three cents.
21. Cocoa paste or liquor and chocolate paste, per pound: British preference, 3J cents; intermediate, 4 cents; general, 4 cents.


William Thomas White: The old rate was two and three-quarters cents, and the new rate is three and a half cents under the preference. The reason for this change is the duty placed on raw cocoa under schedule C. There is an increase of three-quarters of a cent under the British preference.
2)2. Preparations of cocoa or chocolate on powder form: British preference 20 p. c.; intermediate, 25 p. c.; general, 25 p. c.


William Thomas White: It was fifteen per cent under the old tariff under the preference, the intermediate twenty per cent, and the general twenty per cent. .
23. Preparations of cocoa and chocolate in powder form: British preferenc , 1 cent per pound and 22) per cent; intermediate, ) cent per pound and 35 per cent; general, J cent per pound and 35 per cent.


William Thomas White: One-half cent a pound has been added there under all three rates. The reason is the change made in the duty on cocoa beans under schedule C.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That was an ad valorem before ?


William Thomas White: It is retained ad volorem plus one-half cent a pound. There is a combination tariff there now.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is a pretty severe tax, is it not ?


William Thomas White: No, I think not; at all events, it is rendered necessary by the agreement.
39a. Rice flour, sago flour, cassava flour, tapioca flour and rice meal: British preference, J cent per pound; intermediate tariff, 1 cent per pound; general tariff, 1 cent per pound.


William Thomas White: The reason for inserting this item here is that cassava flour has been introduced. The rate is exactly the same.
39b. Arrowroot, per pound:	British preference, ) cent; intermediate, 1 cent; general, 1 cent.


William Thomas White: The old rate was fifteen per cent, seventeen and a half per cent, and seventeen and a half per cent.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: How will that work out ad valorem ?


William Thomas White: The agreement calls for one-half cent preference. The reduction in revenue is about two hundred dollars.
63a. Rice bran:	British preference, 124
per cent; intermediate, 17) per cent; general, 17) per cent.


William Thomas White: There is a reduction from fifteen per cent to twelve and a half per cent; a reduction of two and a half per cent on the British preference.
69a. Cattle food containing molasses: British preference, 15 per cent; intermediate, 20 per cent; general, 20 per cent.


Mr. NESBITT:: What is the difference there ?


William Thomas White: The general tariff is increased two and a half per cent there. The reason for that change is to be found in section 2 of the agreement. The preference is the same, fifteen per cent.
77. Beans, tonquin and vanilla, crude only: free.


William Thomas White: There is.ne change in the duty there, they are all on the free list. Cocoa beans are left out, as they are especially dealt with under the agreement, and therefore the words ' cocoa beans ' have been eliminated from this particulai item.
77a. Cocoa, beans, not roasted, crushed or ground, per 100 pounds:	British preference, free; intermediate, 75 cents; general, 75 cents.


William Thomas White: This change is made to comply with the agreement.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: How would
that tariff work out in ad valorem rates, seventy-five cents per hundred pounds, at present cost?


William Thomas White: About six per cent.
101. Oranges, shaddocks or grape fruit, and
lemons: free.


Mr. AVHITE:: The word ' limes ' is eliminated from this item. That is the reason the item is inserted here.
101a. Limes:	British preferential, free;
intermediate, 10 per cent; general, ten per cent.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: What are limes to be
now?


William Thomas White: Ten per cent in the general tariff.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Do we import limes from any other country? Will there be any competition?


William Thomas White: I think not. We import lemons, but not limes. We import a number of lemons from Italy, I think.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Do we not get limes
from the South?


William Thomas White: Practically none, I am
told.
109. Nuts of all kinds, n.o.p., including
shelled peanuts, per pound:	British preference, 1 cent; intermediate, 2 cents; general, 2 cents.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Is thai an increase?


William Thomas White: The new rates are three-quarters of a cent less on the British preferential tariff, and the same on the general tariff.
111. Cocoannts. when imported from the place of growth, by ship, direct to a Canadian port, per one hundred:	British preference, free;
intermediate, 50 cents; general, 50 cents.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Is that a reduction?


William Thomas White: This is free. The old rate was thirty cents per one hundred in the British preferential tariff and the same in the general tariff, and the intermediate has been made the same as the general.
131. All sugar above number sixteen Dutch standard in colour, and all refined sugars of whatever kinds, grades or standards, testing not more than eighty-eight degrees by the polariscope, per one hundred pounds: British preference, 72 cents; intermediate, 93 cents; general, 93 cents.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I would like to call the attention of the minister to a matter in connection with the sugar tariff. My attention has been called to the fact that the dumping clause is applied against importations of American granulated sugar purchased at the market price, because the United States Government make a rebate of five per cent of the duty paid on raw sugar when it is exported as refined. Perhaps it will make my point clear if I read a short extract from a letter I have Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax).
received from an importer of sugar. Upon the point I have just mentioned, he says:
What we would like to see done for the protection of the consumer in Canada is to have the dumping clause as applied to sugar cancelled. As you of course are aware, the object of this dumping clause was to prevent goods being sold in Canada at a lower price than they wrere sold for home consumption in the country they were manufactured. Now, in buying American granulated sugar, one has to buy at the ruling market price in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia; and when that sugar is exported, the seller secures from the United States Government a drawback of a certain proportion of the duty paid on the raw sugar from which the refined is manufactured. This we are sure you will agree with us, is not a case of selling at a lower nice for export than for home consumption; but. ever since the dumping clause came into effect in Canada, the customs officials have insisted that the dumping clause should be applied for this reason, which on American granulated sugar increased the duty to about $1.95 per 100 pounds.
I refer to this for the purpose of calling the minister's attention to it. It strikes me that it is worth investigation. The objection seems to me rather substantial. It is hardly a case where the dumping clause should be applied.


William Thomas White: I am not quite sure that I understood my hon. friend. He is no doubt aware that the dumping clause does not apply to sugar refined in the United Kingdom, but does apply to sugar refined in the United States.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: When sold below the
market price there.


William Thomas White: Yes, when sold below the market price there. But the United Kingdom is especially excepted from its provisions. I am not quite sure whether the point my hon. friend was making is that the Department of Customs is, or is not, enforcing it.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: They are enforcing it
against American refined sugar imported. I assume the customs otficials take the ground that although American sugar may be bought by Canadian buyers at the ruling market price, because tlie exporter or the American seller secures a rebate of five per cent on account of that sugar being exported, there has been a sale below the market price. That is the way I understand it.


William Thomas White: My hon. friend having
called my attention to the matter, I shall be glad to look into it. I am not in a position to discuss it at present. I am told by my officer here that the dumping clause would apply under such circumstances.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am instructed that it is applied, and the Canadian importers ob-

ject to that. They say that the only reason that it is applied is because the American exporter secures a refund of five per cent upon his raw sugar when the refined sugar is exported, but the Canadian buyer of that sugar does not receive any advantage from the refund of duty. He buys apparently at the market rate, but because the seller secures a refund, the customs officials rule that it is a sale below the current market price.


William Thomas White: I am glad to have had my attention directed to that.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The minister stated the other night in his speech that the provision, allowing the beet sugar factories here to bring in sugar at a certain price while their factories were not running, so as to keep them employed, expires in 1914. I would like to say for the beet sugar refiners, and the only beet sugar refiners I know in Canada that do a large business are those at Wallaceburg and Berlin, that they have been in the habit of selling direct to the retailer. I suppose my hon. friend knows that the other large sugar refiners throughout the country sell to the wholesaler, and the price is arranged as between the refiner and the wholesaler. These beet sugar people have been in the habit of selling direct to the retailer throughout the province of Ontario, and as far west as Winnipeg, to my certain knowledge, and I know -that the retail people throughout the country think it is a benefit, not only to themselves but to their customers, because they are able by selling direct to sell more closely to their customers than they would otherwise be able to do. I understand that the arrangement does not expire till 1914, and perhaps it is rather early to bring it up now, but I would like to draw the attention of the minister to the fact, which I think is worth while considering in the interests of the public.


Mrv WHITE:: I am glad to have that
inforrnation.


Frank Oliver: I would like to get a little better understanding of the situation with regard to sugar.


William Thomas White: Wa estimate there will be a reduction in revenue of $622,000 by virtue of this change.


Frank Oliver: Our importations of raw
sugar for the last year were fourteen and one half million pounds.


William Thomas White: Yes, about that.


Rodolphe Lemieux: How much do you import from Germany and how much from Great Britain?
Mr-. WHITE: Raw sugar, 1912, imported under the.general tariff, 204,000,000 pounds;
under the preferential tariff, 358,000,000 pounds.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then if the manufacturer does not reduce the price of his manufactured article to the consumer, he benefits entirely to the extent of the $622,000; is that correct?


William Thomas White: No, the key of this tariff modification we are making is the twenty per cent privilege that the sugar refiner had which enabled him to import twenty per cent of his product of foreign raw sugar at preferential rates. We have set off this further reduction as against the taking away of that privilege.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: How much does that
figure out?


William Thomas White: It is a set-off for the abolition of that privilege. It is of course absolutely impossible to precisely set the one off against the other. My statement to the House was that it would give rise to a slight reduction in the price of sugar. The thing I had in mind was that the price of [DOT] sugar should not be increased but rather reduced.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Since the tariff was announced has there been a reduction in the price of sugar to the consumer?


William Thomas White: Yes, I am told it has been reduced by twenty cents per hundred pounds.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The minister sees the manufacturer will have to pay in the end the same price for his sugar, because while he receives fifty per cent on the West India product he has to pay twenty per cent more to the foreigner.


William Thomas White: No, we have reduced the rate from fifty-three to forty.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If the manufacture! gives the consumer a square deal, the- consumer will get a reduction of twenty cents on the hundred pounds. If the manufacturer does not give this fair deal to the consumer, we have no way of getting at him because he still has the same protection on the finished product. Why did not the minister reduce the duty on the finished product the same as he did on the raw sugar?


William Thomas White: There is a reduction in the general tariff of seventeen cents on refined sugar.


Frank Oliver: Is there any refined sugar imported under the general tariff?


William Thomas White: Under the general tariff we imported 4,000,000 pounds value $154,000; under the preferential 18,000,000 pounds, value $650,000; total quantity 23,000,000 pounds valued at $814,000. Under the general tariff there comes in about one-fourth



of that which comes in under the preferential. There is a reduction on refined sugar of seventeen cents per hundred pounds under the general tariff. lhe preferential tariff on refined sugar remains the same. We have reduced the British preference from fifty-three to forty on raw sugar and the change that is made is a setoff, so far as the manufacturer is concerned, against the privilege he lost.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: There is ho reduction in the British preferential on the refined product.


William Thomas White: No.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then if there is no reduction in the preferential, nothing is done for the consumer because the man who imports under the general tariff has to meet the competition of the importation under the preferential tariff.


William Thomas White: We have cut the general down from $1.24 to $1.07.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, but the price of
sugar is governed by the preferential rate. The man whom the Canadian refiner fears is the man on the Clyde. He does not fear the man in Germany. The only way in which my hon. friend can reduce the cost of sugar to the consumer in Canada is to reduce the preferential tariff. If he cuts the preferential tariff down twenty cents a hundred pounds, the Clyde manufacturer will send it in that much cheaper and the Canadian refiner will have to me6t that competition.


William Thomas White: My hon. friend knows that the British manufacturer is supposed to get the advantage of the British preference. He may not get it all, but the idea is that he shall get it all.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Certainly.


William Thomas White: Therefore the general tariff is the tariff that determines the rate. The preferential tariff is for the purpose of giving the British manufacturer a preference in the Canadian market. Take the case of the Greenock refiner. He does not pay any duty upon his raw sugar, whereas the Canadian refiner pays forty cents on his raw sugar from the West' Indies; and, if it comes in from any other place, he pays fifty-seven cents. That is his disadvantage. That is due to the fact that we derive a revenue upon sugar; we .impose a tariff upon it. It is perfectly obvious that, if some advantage were not given to the Canadian manufacturer to off-set this disadvantage, he would go out of business. Therefore the tariff is amended accord. ingly.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If you made raw sugar free in Canada, you would put the Canadian re-Mr. WHITE (Leeds).
finer in a position to compete with the Greenock refiner. My hon. friend has prevented himself from doing that, because he has stated that for the next ten years we must give fifteen per cent protection.


William Thomas White: You can make raw sugar free.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: You have to give the
West Indian producer a twenty per cent preference. You cannot make raw sugar free by reason of the West Indian Trade Agreement, but you can make it as free as possible by getting the duty down to fifteen cents per hundred pounds. Then you could get the manufactured article down to a correspondingly low figure. My hon. friend makes a slight reduction in the general tariff. I understand that means that there will be a proportionate reduction in the preferential tariff. He makes a reduction of only seventeen and one-half cents in the general tariff; that means only five and one-half cents reduction in the British preference which is a mere nothing. You are only giving the consumer a benefit of about five cents a hundred pounds. I contend that you should make the raw sugar as nearly free as you can; let the West Indian Trade /Agreement remain as it is, and then reduce the duty on the refined article proportionately. You will then be doing something for the Canadian consumer. We should not be compelled to pay four or five million dollars duty on sugar when we have $55,000,000 of a surplus.


William Thomas White: As I pointed out before, the ex-Minister of Finance went into this matter-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The ex-minister of
Finance is out of office and has been out for two years. We want the present Minister of Finance to consider things as they are.


William Thomas White: I submit that Mr. Fielding's finding as to the protection that should be afforded to sugar refiners in Canada, having regard to the fact that the British refiner buys in a free market and that the Canadian manufacturer^ buys subject to a duty, is worthy of respect. His opinion is that the protection should be half a cent a pound or fifty cents a hundred pounds. We have made it forty cents, that is to say, ten cents less a hundred pounds than, in Mr. Fielding's opinion, would constitute a proper protection.
My hon. friend has referred to the fact that we have deprived ourselves of the position of being able to put raw sugar on the free list. That is true so far as foreign raw sugar is concerned. It is not with regard to the British West Indies, from which 70 per cent of our importations of raw sugar come. If you decide to put raw siigar on the

free list, only the -other thirty per cent of raw sugar coming from foreign countries will be affected. So far as the agreement is concerned, it would not be a very serious matter if Canada decided to put raw sugar on the free list. We have decided not to do so for the reason that we need the revenue.


Frank Oliver: Need the revenue?


William Thomas White: Half a million dollars.


Frank Oliver: That is exactly our point. We claim that under present conditions we do not need the revenue. That is where the difference exists between present conditions and conditions under Mr. Fielding. He needed the revenue; we do not.


William Thomas White: I thought I converted my hon. friend a little while ago in regard to the fact that we need the revenue. My hon. friend pointed out that our expenditure is dunning over $200,000,000; that we are extravagant, and I suppose he is wondering whether or not we wild have a deficit. Of course we need the revenue. That is the point I am making. If we had decided to cut off what my hon. friend never thought of doing when he was in office, that is to say, the duty on sugar, of course we could have it except in so far as foreign raw sugar is concerned.


Frank Oliver: I understood my hon.
friend to say that he had in some way reduced the protection to the refiners by putting the duty on raw sugar at 40 cents a hundred.


William Thomas White: Instead of 53.


Frank Oliver: He had reduced the protection to the refiner, by giving him raw sugar at forty cents instead of at 53 cents?


William Thomas White: My hon. friend, in order
to ascertain the protection, must take into consideration the duty on raw sugar; and the duty on refined sugar. The. difference is 42 cents in the preferential tariff, which is really the important figure, and 50J cents in the general.


Frank Oliver: I thought my hon. friend was speaking of the duties. He is speaking of the difference between the duties on the raw and the refined.


William Thomas White: Yes, there is forty cents ol
a difference.


Frank Oliver: What I say here is that, whereas the refiners formerly paid a duty of 52i cents on his raw sugar, he will now pay a duty of 40} cents. He has the same protection as he had before, namely 83 cents per hundred pounds on his refined sugar, because it is the preference that governs in the case of sugar, just as it is the preference that governs in the case
3361	i
of woollens, because Great Britain is the supplier of that article. In the same way the British preference on agricultural implements does not amount to anything, because we get our implements from the United States. The general tariff in regard to sugar, which we do not get from any other country except the West Indies, does not govern; it is the preferential rate that governs. We have reduced the raw sugar to the refiners and we have not reduced the protection to the refiners. We are benefiting the refiner in that case. If he likes to hand on the benefit to the consumer, well and good. He may have done so for the purpose of making an argument for this West Indian treaty. I would be willing to grant that it will not be long until the price is back to what it was before, unless the duty cn refined sugar is reduced in proportion to the duty on raw sugar. If my hon. friend innocently imagines that there is a free market in refined sugar in Canada-well, I cannot imagine that he imagines such a thing. He knows that there is a hard and fast combine among the makers of refined sugar in Canada.


William Thomas White: My hon. friend's acquaintance with combines fs much better than mine. I have heard it stated that there is a combine, but I do not know it.


Frank Oliver: But the hon. gentleman
has heard it stated.


William Thomas White: I have heard it stated in this House. I think the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) stated it. My hon. friend from Edmonton has not correctly stated the position. The preferential rate of duty on raw sugar has been reduced from fifty-three to forty, and the preferential duty on refined remains at eighty-three. But my hon. friend has omitted to mention what I have again and again referred to, and which must be taken into consideration-the twenty-percent privilege enjoyed by refiners which is now taken away. The reduction of fifty-three to forty is an offset to the withdrawal of that advantage. The figures have been arrived at with a view to leaving the matter as nearly as we could where it was, except to make a slight reduction in sugar.


Mr. SINCLAIR:: If it is correct that the preferential duty remains the same as before, the protection to the refiner is the same as it was before. Why then does the refiner make any reduction?


William Thomas White: I think it is not exactly
the same as before. My hon. friend knows that it is very difficult to estimate what was the value to the refiners of the twenty-per-cent privilege.

1C640


John Howard Sinclair: That does not matter;
that is a question relating to the raw sugar, which is a matter of interest to the refiner. But that concession was taken away from him and another concern is given in place of it. It may be a matter of book-keeping with him; but he had a certain protection before, and he has got it yet. That would enable him to keep his sugar at exactly the same price as he sold it at before, if he takes advantage of that protection. Apparently he has not done so. Can the minister explain why the refiner has reduced his price when he did not need to do so?


William Thomas White: My hon. friend has overlooked the fact that we have reduced the duty on refined sugar under the general tariff by seventeen cents.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: How much is brought
in under the general tariff?


William Thomas White: I gave that a little while [DOT]ago. It is a substantial amount. Then there was the twenty-per-cent privilege which was a valuable one, and shown to be a valuable one by the attitude towards it of the British West India representatives when they were here. They made it a condition precedent that that concession should be abolished, because they wanted an exclusive preference in our market. It is impossible to ascertain mathematically what that privilege was worth. It enabled the refiners to buy at certain times to prevent the British West India planter from taking the full benefit of the preference. It had been found by the commission that the West India planter did take the entire preference at some certain times of the year and a very substantial part of it at other times. Mr. Fielding gave the refiners this twenty per cent privilege to meet the -situation. Taking away that privilege, we sought to make a readjustment which would *compensate the refiner for that privilege, [DOT]and, not being able to determine mathematically what that compensation should be, I wished the adjustment to be such that, If the price of sugar were affected at all, 'there should be a reduction. In other words, I would not like to see the price of sugar increase, hut preferred a decrease. T said it would decrease, and it has.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I like to see it decrease too. But I submit that the Minister should 'have taken means in this budget, while *dealing with the sugar duty, to give the *people a chance to get their sugar cheaply. "The hon. gentleman says he does not know that combines exist neither do I know it; but I have a shrewd suspicion that they do exist. I will tell the hon. gentleman something which was given to me by a very responsible member of this House-and he gave me permission to use it if I chose to Mr. WHITE (Leeds).
do so. That hon. gentleman has in his possession what was originally a $500 stock certificate in a sugar refinery in this country. Within the last few years that has increased by bonus addition to $1,500, and he is drawing figures eight per cent on that $1,500. And this year, they are going to have it doubled again and still get the big dividends on the amount. I will give the hon. minister the name of that member of the House and of the sugar refining company in confidence, if he wishes. He can investigate the matter and see whether, in view of evidence like this, something should not be done by amendment of the sugar duties to take away the enormous profits that refiners are making; and give the people a fair deal in the matter of sugar.


William Thomas White: If the sugar comes in to all the sugar refineries in Canada on the same terms, it is only the existence of a combine that would prevent the free play of the law of supply. I understand the hon. gentleman to suggest that there are combines and that the manufacturers are making undue profits.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Of course.


William Thomas White: They could do that if the law sugar came in free.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Reduce the duty on the manufactured article.


Frank Oliver: What we are asking for is a reduction in the duty cn the manufactured article corresponding to that- made cn the raw sugar. We complain that that has not been done.


William Thomas White: I do not want to employ the tu quoque argument, but my hon. friend might have thought of that a good while ago. _


Frank Oliver: No, that is no good.
There never was a surplus of $55,000,000 before; we never before saw the time when the Government had so much money it did not know how to spend, which is the condition to-day. The hon. gentleman never expected to have the revenue he has or he would have made provision last year to spend it, as he is now providently making in order to be sure that he will not have it again..


William Thomas White: But my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) said there never were such expenditures .in the estimates before.	t	.


Frank Oliver: And there never were.


William Thomas White: That is the situation; it is a record revenue and a record expenditure required by the needs of the country.


Mr. DOUGLAS:: What will be the effect of these changes on the Hawaiian sugar

coming in through British Columbian ports?


Mr WHITE:: The British Columbia situation has been kept in mind as well as the other. I do not know, whether the hon. gentleman has in mind the interest of the manufacturer or whether he was thinking of it from another standpoint. At all events, that question had to be carefully considered.


James McCrie Douglas: I was speakng from the standpoint of the consumer. The British Columbia refiners provide refined sugar for the whole of the western provinces as far east as Brandon, where the Montreal refiners meet them in competition. What I want to know is if this West Indian treaty is going to affect the supply of raw material to the British Columbia refineries to the extent that it may increase the cost of sugar in western Canada.


William Thomas White: We have control of the
tariff; we could reduce it from forty cents to anything we liked on raw sugar under the British preference, but we would have to give the West Indies a fifteen cents per hundred preference.
290. Cement, Portland, and hydraulic or water lime, in barrels, bags, or casks, the weight of the package to be included in the weight for duty.... per one hundred pounds: British preference, 7 cents; intermediate, 10 cents; general, 10 cents.


Frank Oliver: Is the weight of the package included in the duty, as it has been?


William Thomas White: Yes.
447a. Traction ditching machines (not being ploughs) adapted for tile drainage on farms, valued by retail at not more than three thousand dollars each: free.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I understand that these $3,000 traction ditchers aTe capable of digging a trench only a foot wide and four feet deep. That is all Tight, as a rule, for a private individual, but in the section of the country which is supposed to benefit from the use of these machines, the farming localities, where the land is low-lying, the individual farmer does not do the ditching himself; he has to have the assistance of his neighbours in putting down a large ditch or drain. In Ontario that is done under the Drainage Act, which gives authority to the municipalities or to any individual in the municipality, when draining is required, to call in the engineer. The engineer is authorized under the Drainage Act to assess, upon the various farms that are improved or interested, the cost of the drain. The municipalities are then authorized to issue debentures running over a period of years for the putting down of this main drain, and that main drain often takes eighteen or twenty-four
inch tile, which would not be covered by this $3,000 ditcher. Not one farmer in 500 or one in 1,000 will bring in ditching machines, even at $2,500, but a number of farmers will join together, and therefore,, if the hon. minister's object is to benefit the farmers, and I think it is, he could do. so to a much greater extent by increasing the value mentioned in this item to $5,000. If he is going to benefit the farmers individually, surely he can have no objection to-benefiting them collectively, and he can, only do so by increasing this amount to $5,000, thus allowing the farmers to sink this main drain into which they can drain their land through smaller trenches. It has been said that this will be a benefit to the contractor. That might be true, but the contractors for the digging of these main municipal drains are ordinary farmers. In former times these drains were nearly all open ditches, hut the farmers found that in two or three years they filled up, and had to be constantly cleaned This has cost a lot of money, and the consequence has been that nearly all open ditches have been converted into tile drains, and those now being put in are nearly all tile drains. To make a long story short, it. is impossible for them to tile-drain those main drains with this class -of traction ditcher. Therefore I ask the minister to increase the amount fixed to $5,0.00, and by that means assist the the farmers to put down those drains collectively as they do now through their Municipal Drainage Act in Ontario, and I suppose it is Ontario largely that this is intended to benefit. At least that is where they do most of this draining, and I hope that the minister can see his way clear to increase that limit because-as it is now it is not anything like the benefit it would be if the limit was increased to $5,000.


William Thomas White: I am sorry to be unable
to comply with the request of my hon. friend. After he brought the matter to my attention on the day of- the budget I had it inquired into very carefully, and I find that the $3,000 limit will meet the case of all individual farmers. The $3,000 machine will dig a trench twenty inohes wide by five and a half feet deep. The reason I cannot comply with the request to raise the limit to $5,000 is on account of dredges used by contractors for digging sewers and drains in connection with railway construction, &e. I have given it great -attention and it would give me pleasure on personal grounds to comply with my hon. friend's request, but I am satisfied" that the $3,000 will meet all the requirements of those who made the request of us that these machines should be placed on the free list, and to_ extend it to $5,000 would mean that contractors..

would bring in ditchers for use in contracting work free of duty, and we are not prepared to permit that at present.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: What harm would that
do?


William Thomas White: I suppose a great number of things would not do any harm, but it is not our policy to carry it further than to serve the needs of the farmers at present. It may some day be done.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Any of my hon. friends opposite or on this side of the House who know anything about this kind of farming know that twenty inches wide and five and a half feet deep would not meet the case, because you have to put in drains very frequently more than five and a half feet deep. There might be a little rise to get through and there your ditching machine stops, so far as that part is concerned, and it certainly will not ditch the main drains that I speak of.


Mr. PARDEE:: Is there any intention or could anything be put in the schedule that would allow the duty to be remitted on machines of this kind which have been imported within the last month or two months in ignorance of the approaching reduction in duty? It would appear to me to be only fair, nobody is prejudiced by it, but I think some provision might be made along those lines.


William Thomas White: Remission of duty could be granted by the Treasury Board or by Order in Council, but I doubt the expediency of doing so. Whenever changes are made in the tariff, such cases as this must arise and it would be difficult to deal with them.
535. Cotton sewing thread in hanks: British preference, 74 per cent; intermediate, 10per cent: general, ,10 pei- cent.


William Thomas White: That is a reduction. I explained it.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: My hon-. friend said the other night that there was confusion in the ports of entry, that some officers did not knQw the difference between twisted thread and yam. I am told that anybody who had once been shown the difference could not possibly make a mistake between the two, that there is no likeness between them and for that reason, while my hon. friend says there is a reduction, as a matter of fact there is an increase in so far as twisted yarn is concerned, because twisted yarn came in free before and twisted thread did not come in free, that is number forty and finer. Twisted thread is used very largely by the manufacturer of cotton underwear and, therefore, this will increase the prices of that cotton underwear that is made of thread forty and finer. I am told on the [DOT]Mr. WHITE (Leeds).
very best authority that there should be no difficulty in distinguishing between twisted thread and twisted yarn.


William Thomas White: I desire to say that there is no mistake about it at all. It was looked into very carefully and we had down here not only the parties interested in retaining the duties, that is to say the thread manufacturers of Montreal, but the representatives of the T. Eaton Company and the representatives of the Hamilton and other concerns engaged in spooling this twisted yarn or thread, forty or finer. They all agreed that it is thread, and there is no question that it is thread. That has been coming in under the item by virtue of which yarns are admitted free and, therefore, these manufacturers outside of Montreal-


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Of thread?


William Thomas White: Manufacturers engaged in
the winding and spooling of thread. It
was to their interest to get this in free and they had been getting it in free. On the other hand, in Montreal a duty was charged because yarn forty and finer is classified as thread. That being so, the Customs Department had to enforce the law. The law was that the British preference was ten per cent, the intermediate twelve and one-half per cent, and the general tariff fifteen per cent. Having regard to the whole situation and the misunderstanding that had been growing up, we decided to reduce the tariff to seven and one-half per cent and ten per cent instead of ten per cent and fifteen per cent.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: My hon. friend did not
have any manufacturers of knitted goods tell him that there could be any mistake in telling the difference between thread and yarn. He says that the spoolers were in favour of this. I have not the slightest doubt they were in favour of it, because they wanted to maintain the duty so as to keep the manufacturers of knitted goods from getting these goods in free. I have no doubt they wanted it, not the slightest.


William Thomas White: My hon. friend, I think, is entirely wrong about that. Cotton sewing thread in hanks under the present item is ten per cent; twelve and one-half per cent and fifteen per cent. The particular goods to which I refer undoubtedly are cotton sewing thread in hanks. This had been admitted free notwithstanding the tariff item, improperly admitted.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Quite right, improperly
admitted free.


William Thomas White: The spoolers were interested in the continuance of that improper admission free because it is their raw material, they were in competition with the Coates people in Montreal. In other word3

1064S
the western people were interested in having the Customs Department continue to admit this free while the Coates people were interested in having the duty imposed. What we did was to reduce the duty to seven and one-half per cent and ten per cent as a sort of happy way out of it.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The Coates people were
anxious to have the duty put rn and the other people who were bringing in this thread and winding it in competition with the Coates people were anxious to have it as it was.


William Thomas White: But they admitted it was
thread.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: That was thread; but the knitting people also bring in twisted yarn and were allowed to bring it in free and by that means were not forced to buy from the Coates people and their competitors.


William Thomas White: They get it free now, if it is yarn it comes in free.


John Howard Sinclair: On behalf of the fishermen of the Maritime provinces I wish to express my very deep regret that the Minister of Finance has not seen fit to pay any attention to the promise made by the Minister of Customs last year that the question of lobster twine would be dealt with at the first consideration of the tariff. I drew the attention of the Minister of Customs on more than one occasion last year to the fact that the particular kind of twine that is used in the manufacture of traps with which the lobsters are caught on the coast of Canada, is taxable to the extent of 25 per cent. That is a very heavy tax upon the fishermen. There was a theory in the province from which I come that twine used in connection with the fisheries was free. A good many people thought so, but it is not free. There is a kind that is free; that is barked marline. If my hon. friend will refer to item 682 of the tariff he will find that

Barked marline, and net norsels of cotton, hemp or flax; and fishing nets or seines, when used exclusively for the fisheries-	>
-is free. But that kind of marline is not used, or scarcely used at all in the making of lobster traps. The minister could do what I am asking for by striking out the word ' barked ' and leaving the word ' marline.' Then the marline used for the fisheries would be free. As it is at present, only the barked marline is free, and as I have said, lit is very little used in connection with the fishery trade. When this question was up last year, I read a letter from one of the largest firms in Yarmouth, Parker, Eakins and Company, who are dealers in twine, and who know perhaps more about this Question than anybody else
in the Maritime provinces, and they explained it in this way:
The only other twine, which pays a duty under the tariff, is made from inanilla and sold under the name of ' marline.' It appears that this may he entered free only when it is barked (dyed with extract of hemlock), but as in actual practice the fisherman uses it mostly in its white, umbarked condition, dealers have to buy it from the Consumers Cordage Company" Halifax, and pay a price -equivalent to the American article laid down duty paid. There does not seem to he any reason why barked marline should be free, and marline not barked dutiable, particularly as it is the intention and desire of the Government to put all these necessary supplies of the fishermen on the free list. The elimination of the word ' harked ' from this tariff item would settle the whole matter.
I read that letter to the Minister of Customs last year, and after considerable discussion, in which everybody admitted that the change ought to be made, he used the following language:
I should he pleased to lay this matter before the tariff commission to be appointed and have them take the matter up, and the Government will be pleased to consider the subject before introducing any change in the tariff next session.
As there is no tariff commission, I could not expect the Minister of Customs to lay this matter before it, but he said that the Government would take it up and deal with it before any changes were made in the tariff. Now changes are proposed in the tariff, and this matter has not been dealt with. I expected the Minister of Customs to keep bis word, and to give to the fishermen of the Maritime provinces the benefit of this reduction this session. I am very much surprised that he has forgotten his promise to the House, and to the people of this country last session, and I hope that he is prepared to deal with it now by amending item 682 and striking uot the word ' barked.'


Mr. REID (Minister of Customs):: I am sorry I was not able to carry out my promise, but I do not think it was through any fault of mine. If the Senate had not killed the Bill that was put through this House to appoint a tariff commission there would not have been any trouble about carrying out my word.


Mr. GRAHAM:: It does not need a commission to do that.


John Dowsley Reid: I promised I would lay it
before the Tariff Commission.


John Howard Sinclair: If he looks at what I
read he will see that he said:
And the Government will he pleased to consider the subject before introducing any changes in the tariff next session.
That was a distinct and positive statement that the Government would consider

1064&
this matter when they introduced any changes in the tariff.


John Dowsley Reid: I have not heard any serious complaints on this matter. I think item 682 really covers all the twine and materials of that kind required for the fishing industry.


Mr. LOGGIE:: There is a large quantity of manilla marline used in the lobster fishing business. As the hon. member for Guysborough tells us, the manufacturers in this country include the duty in the price which they charged to those engaged in the fishing industry. To all intents and purposes, it is as if the marline were manufactured in the United States and brought into this country and the duty paid. The price of lobster rope is less by about two cents per pound than the larger size, because the larger size is dutiable, although manufactured in Canada. The duty is put on the price because the price is somewhat dearer by two cents per pound than the size used in the lobster business, and the same remark applies to the manilla marline used in the lobster business. The price is greater by reason of the duty, although the rope is manufactured in Canada.


John Howard Sinclair: I am very much disappointed at the way the Minister of Customs has met my request. I feel certain that he raised the hopes of the fishermen by the statement, he made last year, and there is really no good reason why this request should not be granted. If my hon. friend is afraid of the Consumers Cordage Company, he had better say so, but there is no reason in the world, excepting the personal interest of that firm, why the fishermen of the Maritime provinces, and of the rest of Canada, should not have the benefit of this reduction, especially when this twine is used for fishing purposes. Can the minister state any reason why barked marline should he free, and marline should be taxed twenty-five per cent? Is there any logical reason for that? There is one. It is no concession to the fishermen to make the kind of twine that they do not use free, and to tax to the extent of twenty-five per cent the twine that they do use. I am not certain whether I am in order or not, but I would like to move that item 682 be amended by striking out the word ' barked.'


William Thomas White: The amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) is out of order, but I will say to him that the representations he has made, as well as any others he may have to make, shall be most carefully considered by me. However, nothing can be done at the present time.


John Howard Sinclair: I understood the Minister of Customs to say he had representations made to him but he did not think my request was important enough to be Mr. SINCLAIR.
granted. I would like to know whether the Minister of Customs is in sympathy with this proposal, because it appears ta me that he is not. If I can get a positive statement from the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Customs that they intend to deal with this question before the close of the session, I will be satisfied.


The CHAIRMAN:: The hon. member can not move an amendment, as the item to which he refers is not before the committee; his motion is out of order.
* Mr. KYTE: The imposition of a duty upon this twine is the result of a new interpretation placed on the tariff * since the present Government came into power. For many years rope and twine used by fishermen were admitted free of duty, and when the Hon. Mr. Paterson had charge of the department an interpretation was placed upon the tariff which gave free entry into Canada for this particular twine. Twine used by farmers is free of duty, and it is evident that the imposition of a duty on marline was an oversight, as a result of which the present Minister of Customs is able to give an interpretation of the tariff unfavourable to the fishermen. Last year a discussion arose in this House as to a new interpretation placed by the present Minister of Customs upon the tariff affecting rough lumber, and the Minister of Customs was very emphatic in his statement that the late Minister of Customs was improperly admitting rough lumber into Canada free of duty, and he imposed a duty of two dollars a thousand on that class of lumber. On appeal to the Supreme Court it was decided that the Minister of Customs was wrong in interpreting the tariff so as to impose a duty upon that lumber. I have no doubt that if the fishermen of the Maritime provinces were sufficiently wealthy to take a test case to the courts, a similar decision would be given as respects the. interpretation put by the Minister of Customs as to the tariff on twine used by lobster fishermen. In view of the experience the Minister of Customs has had with respect to his interpretation of the tariff on rough lumber, he might save the fishermen of the Maritime provinces the cost of going into the courts to get the interpretation of the tariff, which has been acted upon for the last eight or nine years, and under which the lobster fishermen of the Maritime provinces got their twine in free of duty.


John Howard Sinclair: I would like to know whether the Minister of Finance intends to deal with this.


William Thomas White: I cannot make a change in the tariff this year. Tariff changes are made only in connection with the budget;

it is not usual to make them at any othe time, and the budget is now down. I would be quite impossible to comply wit the request of my hon. friend at th present time. I have not looked into th matter, and many considerations arise in connection with the proposed tariff changes. I shall be very glad to give th matter consideration, but whether I shal be able to give it favourable consideration! or not, I cannot say. I think it is strictly in accordance with the practice that no* changes can be made in the tariff other than those proposed.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: In the meantime, why cannot the Minister of Customs return to the former practice of the department in interpreting this tariff item.


John Dowsley Reid: There never was any such practice in the Customs Department that I ever heard of.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: In September of last
year, notice was sent by the Customs. Department to the customs officers throught-out the country saying that this particular article, though it had heretofore been admitted free, was dutiable at twenty-five per cent.


John Dowsley Reid: An appraiser in the department sent through mistake a letter to the collector at Charlottetown, but the mistake was immediately rectified. All that was explained last session.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Am I to understand
that this twine has always been dutiable?


John Dowsley Reid: Marline has always been
dutiable and I have no information that it ever was let in free.


John Howard Sinclair: The Minister of Finance says it is a new matter to him, but 1 brought it to the attention of the Minister of Customs a year ago. Is the Minister of Customs in favour of making this twine free? [DOT]


John Dowsley Reid: This item in the tariff has
been there since the tariff was made in 1907.


John Howard Sinclair: I understand that.


John Dowsley Reid: I am informed by the department that there has been no serious complaint of any kind during all these years about this item. The fishermen seem to have been satisfied with it and I do not think the hon. member or any of the members of the lower provinces made any complaint, either to the department or in the House, until the question w-as brought up last year. I am in favour of doing everything necessary to assist the fishermen, but I do not see that theTe is any emergency to justify bringing the matter up at the present session.


John Howard Sinclair: The Minister of Customs is mistaken if he thinks there has been no complaint, because, as a matter of fact, there have been urgent appeals to him in regard to -this matter. I do not wish that statement to go on 'Hansard' without protest. There is a complaint and there is a general feeling on the coast against this ' unjust tax. It is believed that this twine was intended to be let in free but that through some mistake or bungling, a duty was placed upon it.


William Thomas White: Does my hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) state that the duty was not collected during the years 1909, 1910, 1911 upon this particular twine?


John Howard Sinclair: No.


William Thomas White: Well that had better be
settled; there seems to be some dispute as to that.


William Stewart Loggie: Net ropes come in free. The clause mentions head ropes but the tarred marline is used for the foot rope of the net and on the net it comes free. So far as I am concerned, I am under the impression that it comes in free as a rope for a net, because, when it is on the net, it is clearly free. I am not sure but what the hon. minister could bring it under the item:
Cod, pollack and mackerel fish lines; and mackerel, herring, salmon, seal, seine, mullet, net and trawl twine in hanks, or coils, barked or not.


John Howard Sinclair: That is for nets, and
this is not a net.


William Stewart Loggie: When it is used in the
fishing business, it seems that under this item it should come in free. If you could omit the word ' barked ' further on in the clause, the meaning would be quite clear. As it is, without changing the wording of the item at all, I cannot see why the minister cannot place these marlines under twine in hanks, or coils, barked or not, for it is not very much larger than twine.


Mr. KYTE:: The hon. Minister of Customs asked if any complaint is being made with respect to the imposition of this duty. Very serious complaint has been made. I had letters from several firms in the city of Halifax a year ago, in which they complained that the circular sent out by the Customs Department in December, 1911, had the result of imposing a duty upon this class of marlines, which, up to this time, had been admitted free under the interpretation placed on the tariff item read by the hon. member for Northumberland (Mr. Loggie) respecting _ twines used by fishermen. The hon. Minister of Finance, before he brought down his amendment to the tariff, discovered that some injustice was being done to the man-

1C652
ufacturers of thread in the city of Hamilton on account of the interpretation that was placed on that tariff item, and he took the opportunity of correcting the error. The hon. Minister of Customs was aware that this anomaly existed with ^regard to .twine. It was brought to the attention of the House a year ago. I regret exceedingly that, when the hon. Minister of Finance undertook to correct the error which existed in the tariff with respect to threads used by the wholesale manufacturers in the city of Hamilton, he did not go a little further and correct the anomaly that has the effect of imposing an undue tax upon the fishermen of the Maritime provinces.
Resolution reported, read the first and the second time, and concurred in.
Mr. WHITE thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 231, to amend the Customs Tariff.


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

[Stage Direction]
Hon. W. T. WHITE (Minister of Finance) moved the third reading of Bill No. 36, respecting Banks and Banking.
George Perry Graham: The hon. member for
Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson) spoke to me about this Bill, and I think he wanted to make some remarks upon it. But I saw him in company with the Minister of Finance, and perhaps he may have spoken, to that hon. gentleman about it.


William Thomas White: The hon. member for
Westmorland told me he would like to make some remarks on the Bill, but I understood that he would be back later. Afterwards I discussed the matter with some hon. members opposite, and they thought it would be best to go on. I would like, if possible, to send this Bill up to the Senate.


Mr. F. B. McCURDY (Shelburne and Queens):: Before the Bill is read the third time, I wish to draw the attention of the House to some of the amendments which I moved and which were negatived in the Banking and Commerce Committee, and to add a few observations. The first amendment to which I will refer was to ' schedule D 5 of the Bill. In items, 6, 15 and 17 under * assets/ the amendment being to strike out the words ' elsewhere than in Canada/ and substitute 'in Great Britain, in the British colonies, in the United States and in other foreign countries/
The purpose of this amendment was to provide that an intelligent opinion could be formed of the activities of Canadian banks in foreign countries. Under the provisions of the Act as it exists at present, the guide we have, to indicate the nature of a bank's operations in foreign countries, or rather Mr. KYTE.
the essential item which is of use to us, is the balance due the banks by their agencies in foreign countries, which is not at all, I think, sufficient.
Canadian banks were, of course, organized primarily to carry on Canadian business. It was natural that, in the course of their development, they should establish branches at their reserve centres, London and New York; but an entirely new development has taken place of recent years, namely the opening up of branches in Mexico, American cities, the West Indies, Central America, Newfoundland, &c., &c No doubt these banks are doing a flourishing business in these countries, but it is doubtless on account of the credit which they have established in Canada and the volume of business carried on by them here which gives them a prestige enabling them to hold up large operations in those countries. The development of their businesses there should be carefully watched, and I proposed in the Banking and Commerce Committee that columns be provided in the monthly returns to the Government, schedule ' D/ so that the development of business in these foreign countries can be closely scanned. I would say that on the whole, more capital appears, from an examination of the Government bank statements, to be at present received on deposit by these branches in foreign countries than is loaned there, but such a position may some day be reversed. An examination of value regarding this matter cannot, however, be made from the returns at hand under the Bill as printed, and these particulars are essential to an intelligent study of operations in foreign countries. No particulars of cash carried at foreign agencies are available.
There has been some questioning by members of the House of the advisability of granting charters to Canadian banks to do business outside Canada. If the Act were being drafted for the first time, such a restriction might be considered. But in view of the vested interests already created and existing, I would at the present time, in the absence of any indication that banks with a foreign business are not doing their duty by the banking necessities of Canada, be opposed to considering any such action.
I think, however, that the 'Canadian public are entitled to know what use is being made of the privilege granted to Canadian banks of doing business in foreign countries, and I therefore suggested that the monthly statement to the Government be amplified by giving information as to deposits, loans, &c., in Great Britain, British colonies, United States, and other foreign countries.
The second amendment to which I will refer-also opposed in the committee and not accepted-was to add the following par-

agraph after line six on page 79 of the Bill as printed:
Aggregate a'mount of loans to joint stock companies in which directors of the bank hold a majority of the issued shares.
The existing Act calls for a monthly statement of the aggregate amount oi loans to directors of the bank or firms of which they' are partners. It has been found possible, where it was considered advisable that such loans be not shown, for the director to take advantage of the: Joint Stock Companies' Act, incorporate his business as a joint stock company, issue all but the qualifying shares to himself, and thus be immune from the requirements of the Act. It is only to cope with such cases that this amendment is proposed, viz., the companies which are ' creatures,' of the directors.
I am unable to understand why any objection to this amendment moved in committee, should be made. The fact that objections are offered invite us to further investigate the condition of directors' loans even as at present shown in the monthly bank statement. I am opposed, as I have before pointed out, to the concentration of loans, and further opposed when such concentration is in the accounts of directors, and for obvious reasons.
I believe, so far as possible, provision should be made, so that every borrower shall have a ' square deal ' that enterprising young men wishing to engage in business should be encouraged.
I wish to draw your attention to the government bank statements for some months of 1907, as appearing in the Canadian Gazette. As you are all aware, in the early months of 1907, say in March of that year, signs of a financial panic began to make their presence known in the United States. Owing to the close financial connection between that country and Canada, no unsettlement takes place there that is not reflected here. This panic, as I say, began in March, 1907, although it did not reach its culmination until the autumn. During the summer, the financial conditions were plainly seen and appreciated by leading Canadian bankers.
Business men remember the feverish expansion of 1906-the steady advance in the prices of goods, the insatiable demand for money and the high rates of interest prevailing everywhere until the end of that year. To the average man, it seemed a period of boundless and endless prosperity. Railroads had not cars enough to haul the freight offered them and could not get them made fast enough. Manufacturers in the United States and in Canada had withdrawn their travelling salesmen, because they already had orders for a year and a half ahead. In the United States, a few leaders of finance and industry sounded a note of warning, but most men were too busy to hear it. In Canada, however, it was clearly anticipated as I have said, by bankers. In
their annual reports to shareholders early in 1907, bank presidents and general managers had given notice that phenomenal profits in business of the few preceding years could not be expected to continue much longer. To quote from the annual address by the general manager of one of the largest banks, dated January 8, 1907:
There are signs about us of a strain which must bring trouble to those who disregard it. We are passing through a dangerous period just now happily without a general breakdown but unless we mend our ways we are not likely to escape a similar or worse condition next autumn, which may wreck our fair prosperity. As for those who are plunging into real estate at inflated prices, nothing we presume, but the inevitable collapse which follows these seasons of mania would do any good.
As I have stated, this dangerous condition was understood by bankers, and they proceeded to prepare during 1907 for the strain that w.as expected in the autumn when the crop-moving period began. It was impossible to reduce loans immediately, but turning to the bank statement at the end of the summer, say at August 31st, we find the following:
Call loans, August, $47,765,531; time loans, $580,075,932; total, $627,841,403. Call loans, October, $46,843,4S8; time loans, $579,860,498; total. $626,703,966. To directors, August. $11,717,200, October, $12,318,811.
You will remember that the panic in New York reached its height on October 26th. Cash payments were suspended that day and credit was in a state of collapse, but for months previous Canadian banks had been straining every effort to curtail and reduce loans. The net result was that in the sixty-one days from August 31st to October 31st, loans to Canadian borrowers were reduced $1,137,477, or really they were reduced $1,739,088. But another set of borrowers appeared, namely Canadian bank directors, and in the period from August *31 to October 31st, loans in this class, actually increased $601,611. As I have said, the New York panic culminated on October 26th with the failure of the Knickerbocker Trust Co., the, suspension of cash payments by New York banks, and the general collapse of credit and the lowest prices were recorded in the New-York exchange, but at any rate, the effect was that Canadian bank directors had, at the time when every other borrower was being severely pressed, increased their borrowings from the banks by $600,000.
This matter caused some discussion in the Banking and Commerce Committee, and the minister asked Sir Edmund Walker, as reported on page 22, of the Committee Reports of April 17:
Is it an object to the banks from a business standpoint to have directors who are prominent in the business community?

To which the reply was made:
Yes, men in the active time of life.
The obvious inference being that being in the active time of life, they were apt to be large borrowers.
In view of this statement, an inquiry into the average ages of bank directors is of interest. According to the last available lists, there are twenty-three banks with head offices in Canada. These banks are directed by 211 directors. Reference to ' who's who,' and other similar sources of information in Canada shows that the names of 84 of these do not appear in 'Who's Who,' and other similar books of reference, but the combined ages of the 127 directors mentioned therein is 84,201 years, or an average of 66.3 years. Of those mentioned, the oldest is 93, and the youngest 29. One bank, and that is the one which on February 28, had the largest amount of loans to directors, shows an average age of directors of 72 .8 years.
The third amendment to which I wish to lefer was one which suggested the amendment of the Bill by adding after line 5 on page 25 the words:
The statement shall be accompanied by^ a memorandum giving a full and complete list of all bonds, debentures, stocks and other like investments owned by the bank together with the present book value.
A good deal of criticism has been heard during the discussion of this Act, regarding the large amounts of money which are loaned by the banks on call in New York. Much of this criticism is ill-founded. The New York loans represent partially such assets as would otherwise, to a large extent, be kept unproductive, in the shape of specie on hand. It is a secondary reserve,
. but it also represents money which is not required for reserve, but is put out in New York, waiting for an opening to loan it at a higher rate of interest in Canada. In the nature of things, I presume we shall continue thus to add largely to New York's supply of cheap money.
As a reserve in case of need, however, its virtue is often overstated. We have found by experience that at the time of the greatest stress, it cannot always be immediately recalled, and that, of course, is the time when it is most needed. The experience of Canadian banks in trying to get this money in the panic of 1907, has demonstrated that it is not what it is supposed to be, namely, a loan which can be converted into gold and made available in Canada within twenty-four hours.
But there is another class 'of Canadian investment in the States, which has, curiously enough, escaped criticism, and which does not, -to my mind, have as much need for existence as do the New York call loans. I have in my hand the annual statement
Mr. MeCURDY.
of the Bank of Nova Scotia for the year 1909. Mr. H. C. McLeod, the then general manager of the bank, believed in the policy not only of external bank examination, but of a certain degree of publicity regarding the business of the bank. In 1909 he published a list of the permanent investments of his bank, a procedure which, I regret to say, has not been followed by the general managers of other banks. At the same time, I believe it to be a step in the right direction, and as he published it from choice, I presume there cannot be much objection from the standpoint of the banker. It is also in the direction of publicity, the great corrective of all evils. I do not favour prohibiting our banks from investing their funds at their discretion, they should be perfectly free to-do that, but the very fullest information regarding the operation of their property should be available to shareholders. This, to my mind, would give to the shareholders an indication of the class of business being done by the particular banks, and I cannot see where any harm would result. It would not be advisable, of course, to limit the class of securities in which the bank might invest; they might still, as they do to-day, go to the United States, Japan, the West Indies, Germany or South America, but it seems to me it would be entirely in the public interest and in ;he interest of the shareholders that at least a partial disclosure of assets in that regard should be made for the benefit of the shareholders^	.
The next amendment to which I wish to refer this evening was that the Bill be amended by adding after line 6 on page 79 the words:
Aggregate amount of loans to joint stock companies of which a director of the bank is a director.
That amendment did not find much favour with the majority of the witnesses who came before the Banking and Commerce Committee. The banks, while they occupy the banking field and exercise their franchise, must accept the responsibility of providing as efficient banking facilities as they possibly can furnish. 1 think our people are probably more interested in , banking than the people of any English-speaking country, because under our system the use made of the bank by the people per capita of population is larger than any other country in the world. No one, I am sure, banker or otherwise, will dissent from the view that in supplying public requirements for banking, the loans should be diffused over the widest possible area. It is not only good banking, but it is advisable that such a condition of affairs should exist. Concentration of loans is unwise, and it is not good banking. .
The tendency of business in Canada, as well as in the United States, is towards what

is called 'big business.' Large concerns, as the member for Edmonton would say, trusts, mergers and combines, seek to control their respective lines of business. They, in turn, are often controlled by small groups of capitalists who in turn are generally bank directors. The tendency among banks is to lend to the large concern. If one or more directors of that concern are directors of the bank, this human element furnishes another inducement why the corporation should be a favoured customer.
I am not in favour of limiting a bank's loans to such customers. I am not in favour, as I have before stated in the House, of placing restrictions on banks; but, on the other hand, I cannot see any good reason why the total loans of banks to companies in which their directors are also directors, should not be shown. It would have a repressive influence on the temptation to make excessively large loans in such quarters, and the result of that would be that money would be more available to the ordinary independent seeker after credit, the young man of capacity seeking to make his way in business would have a better chance to obtain credit than he now has.
Another amendment which came up in committee and about which there was considerable controversy, was to add to section 20 the following:
No paid executive official of the hank shall be elected a director.
In theory, the general manager as chief of the bank's executive is supreme. Above him in authority, under the law, are the directors, presided over, of course, by the president and representing the stockholders. The president of a Canadian bank is the chairman of the board of directors. At the meetings of the board, the general manager reports on the business which has come before the bank, and which requires the approval of the board. *
Our general managers are, without exception, men who have been in the business since boyhood. They have worked their way up through all the grades of employment, by the force of brains, industry and character. They hold their positions because they have proved their efficiency. At the same time, they are paid executive officers of the banks, and should be, in fact, as they are in theory, subject to the direction of the board of directors, as representing the shareholders. Under the old Act and under this Bill-as at present drafted, one man might occupy the dual position of president and general manager. Surely this is an anomaly. Our banks have boards of directors of from ten to twenty-five members, and it should be possible to find among that number one man qualified to act as president without having to go to the executive staff to secure a president.
Such a concentration of power is, I think, unwise. In case it became necessary for the central manager to be disciplined, that duty would naturally fall upon the president of the bank, and how could the president proceed to discipline the general manager, if he were one and the same person?
Of the witnesses examined by this committee only one was asked for an opinion on this matter, and this was his evidence:
Committee report No. 21, April 18:
Q. Are you in favour of having the paid officials of a bank as members of the board of directors ?
A. Oh, no. A general manager is worth three directors by himself. If you put him on tlie board, he is worth the whole five I do not believe a general manager should be a director.
It is quite apparent, from the manner in which the public has followed the course of the discussion of the Bank Act in the Banking and Commerce Committee, that there is an extraordinary amount of interest in this measure. Naturally this is so, for under, our conditions and banking practice, the amount of banking done by the Canadian public is larger per capita than that done by other people.
A great many amendments of various kinds, of more or less value, were moved in the Banking and Commerce Committee, and some improvements adopted, but I am quite within the mark in saying that no ' fundamental' of the Bank Act has been changed in any way in the committee from the Bill as first printed.
During the committee stage, -we were favoured with the views of many experienced financiers, and as far as my memory carries me, none of these active bankers suggested any change or improvement from the Bill as printed. I was rather struck with this, as I had not theretofore been of the opinion that the Act was a perfect one.
Whatever may be the judgment of the bankers, the Bank Act is not working out to the satisfaction of the ordinary citizen of Canada-let there be no mistake about that.	_
I think the free discussion of the Act which w7e have had will do no harm. It may do good. But I wish to again point out to the House that the fundamentals of the Act have remained untouched. The following very important sections were either not fully considered, or w7ere passed by without amendment:
1.	Double liability.
2.	Note circulation.
3.	Over lending.
4.	Excessive concentration of loans.
5.	Concentration of control of capital and credit in a few hands.
6.	Beal estate loans.
7.	Slender cash reserves.

I am conscious of difficulty in dealing with the Act by way of improving it _ in the committee, and am disposed to think that a small commission would by its constitution be better qualified to deal with the question.	_
If any person will carefully examine the annual statements published by the banks he must come to the conclusion that they are operating on too slender cash reserves. The present scale of cash reserves is, I am satisfied, inadequate to meet conditions of the country and is small compared with the gigantic liabilities incurred. In times of crisis reserves are essential, and it is of supreme importance that banks at the moment when a crisis comes should be able to afford relief to their customers rather than, at, that very moment, curtail the assistance which they ordinarily give. It is all very well for banks to give facilities in good times, but the customer looks for facilities when the pinch comes and if, when the pinch comes, the bank itself is obliged to draw in its resources from those to whom it ordinarily lends, it disrupts all the arrangement of the business world and such a bank, in reality, ceases to meet the needs of the country.
I had thought to move in the House the amendments covering the before-mentioned points, as I had already moved and supported them in the more informal Banking and Commerce Committee, but in view of the fact that present business conditions render the present an inopportune time to initiate far-reaching reform, perhaps the further improvements can better be left over until another session of the House.
In the meantime, such abuses as exist may possibly be eradicated.


Mr. J. H. RAINVILLE (Chambly and Vercheres):: I wish to say in the beginning that our country is indebted to the Minister of Finance and to the hon. member for St.. Antoine division (Mr. Ames) for the great energy and the extensive knowledge and ability which they have displayed in the making up of this most important measure. This new Bill will be a great credit to this Government and goes to show that the right hon. the Prime Minister was well inspired when, in forming his Cabinet, he gave the portfolio of Finance to the bon. member for Leeds (Mr. White) who has shown himself to be a worthy successor of the worthy statesmen our country has had since Confederation.	,
The Montreal Gazette, in reporting the proceedings of the Banking Committee, on the 23rd of April last says:
Mr. ,T. H. Rainville, member for Chambly-Vercheres, supported the grievance aired by Major Sharpe. If there had been an inspection of the St. Hyacinthe bank when the as-
Mr. MeCURDY.
soeiation asked the directors to close its doors, the bank would be still alive, he declared.
Hon. Mr. White: do you mean to say as a matter of fact that the association compelled the directors to close their doors?
Mr. Rainville:	If you would allow me to
bring three witnesses here, I would prove by correspondence and witnesses that the Bankers' Association closed the doors of that hank when the bank had one hundred cents in the dollar.
The Finance Minister: If anyone will make a definite charge to me by which the Canadian Bankers' Association has violated in any way its powers statutory or otherwise, I will promise to bring the matter up with them and see if wre can prevent a repetition of such an occurrence; but I want the charge made to he investigated thoroughly.
On the next day or so, I made a charge to the hon. Minister of Finance . as follows:
Dear Sir:
I am creditably informed and believe that, on June 22, 1908, one of the officers of the Bankers' Association, viz, Mr. Knight, arrived at St. Hyacinthe about 9 o'clock in the evening and convened a special session of the directors of the St. Hyacinthe Bank. At that meeting he disclosed the object of his visit and made known the will of the Bankers' Association which was that they, the directors of the St. Hyacinthe Bank, should vote immediately a resolution for the immediate suspension of their payments. The directors being opposed to this drastic and high-har.ded procedure, discussed the attitude assumed by the Bankers' Association and revolted against the ultimatum of the association. In reply, the agent of the Bankers' Association said in1 effect: 'Very well, gentlemen, you will have to close your doers, anyway, and unless this be done to-night, your paper will he refused to-morrow by all the hanks.
The directors, in view of this pressure, and in order to avoid the possibility of a run on the bank and its consequences, did not open the doors of the hank next morning and the Bank was thus forced into liquidation.
This was on June 23, 1908. Two days afterwards the Bank of Montreal had its signs bn the door and its .paper printed! ' Bank of Montreal, St. Hyacinthe.'
This is an instance where the Bankers' Association through its officers "compelled a solvent bank to liquidate and go out of business in the mterest of the larger banks.
The Minister of Finance sent my charge to the Bankers' Association, and on May 3, he received from Toronto a letter from Mr. Wilkie, president of the Association, which read as follows:	.
Canadian Bankers' Association.
Toronto, May 3, 1913.
Dear Mr. White:	1
In continuation of my letters of 28th and 29th April, I beg to state that I have had a thorough examination made of the condition of affairs at the time of the suspension of the Banque de St. Hyacinthe, and enclose herewith Mr. Knight's statement, which appears to me to he thorough and full, and I would further beg to draw your attention to the following facts:

(a)	Mr. Knight only acted in this matter under the directions of Sir Edward Clouston, as president of the Canadian Bankers' Association.
(b)	The statement made by Mr. Rainville, M.P., appears to have been founded upon a misapprehension of the facts.
(c)	It is true that the creditors of the bank eventually were paid in full, but this was only owing to a realization of assets that at the time of the suspension were not available or collectible, in fact their very existence was in dispute; but also it became necessary, later on, to call up the unpaid capital of the bank, as well as to call upon the shareholders for their double liability. The sums collected from the claims in dispute, some four or five years after the suspension, amounted to $390,000; the amount paid in on account of the unpaid capital was $66,795.52; the amount paid in on the double liability -was $156,051.10; the total liabilities of the bank at the time of the suspension amounted to $1,181,362.74; and from the schedule it would appear that Sir Edward Clouston's judgment was absolutely sound, that it was hopeless for the bank to attempt to go on, and his action probably saved a loss to the creditors.
It is perfectly apparent that at the time of Sir Edward Clouston's action the capital of the bank was wholly gone, and apparently this was admitted by all parties interested.
(d)	The Bankers' Association were not interested in the action of the Bank of Montreal,/ and it is also apparent that that was done not for the benefit of the Bank of Montreal, but at the solicitation of residents of St. Hya-cinthe.
Sincerely yours,
(Sgd.) D. R. Wilkie, President Bankers' Association. The Honourable W. T. White, M.P.,
Minister of Finance,
Ottawa.
Mr. Knight sent a letter to the hon. Minister of Finance dated Montreal, May 3 1913, as follows:
Secretary Treasurer's Office.
Bank of Montreal Building,
Montreal, May 3, 1913.
La Banque de St. Hyacinthe.
Sir ;
I have the honour to knowledge the receipt of a copy of a letter from Mr. J. H. Itainville, M.P., in reference to the action of the association in connection with the suspension of the Banque de St. Hyacinthe, and I make the following statement of fact in connection therewith;
The Banque de St. Jean suspended on the 20th April, 1908, and the Banque de St. Hyacinthe, which was not strong in liquid assets, began to suffer from the disastrous failure of that bank. This was known to all bankers.
The subscribed capital stock of the bank wras $504,600, of which $331,235 was paid up. The total deposits at the end of the month of May, 1908, as compared with the preceding month, showed a decline, as stated in the Government returns, of some $75,000.
By reason of the knowledge that the president of the Canadian Bankers' Association, the late Sir Edward Clouston, had as to the situation, I was asked to request the cashier of the bank to come to Montreal. Air. L. F.
Philie, the cashier, accordingly came to Montreal on the 22nd June, 190S. After a conversation with him, I came to the conclusion that it was necessary to have a further examination of the condition of the bank, and so reported to the president of the association. Mr. Philie was of opinion that the financial condition of the bank was serious.
At my request, Mr. Philie returned to St. Hyacinthe to make up, as accurately as possible, a valuation of the assets, and report the result to me as soon as possible. 1 explained to him that this was necessary because, if the Canadian Bankers' Association could render any assistance to the bank, .it would gladly do so, but that it would be necessary to have a statement of its assets.
Mr. Philie, the next day, brought back the statement, which is shown as Exhibit A.
I discussed with him the various items in this statement, as on its face, it showed that the whole of the paid up capital of the Bank was gone. The chief asset was a doubtful claim against the Quebec Southern railway, which was then being wound up as insolvent, by proceedings in the Exchequer Court, at the instance of the Minister of Railways and Canals. The total claim of the bank, which' was filed in 1906, was $612,000. The total assets at the time, as represented in the Government returns, was $1,580,097.84. I did not place as high a valuation upon the claim against the Quebec Southern railway as did Mr. Philie, and my judgment in this regard is justified by the result, as, after four and a half years' litigation, at heavy expenses to the bank, the amount realized was $381,000, which sum was paid to the liquidator of the bank in two amounts, on 13th October, 1911, and 2nd January, 1913.
May I refer to the report of the action the Minister of Railways and Canals against the Quebec Southern railway, in re Bank de St. Hyacinthe (claimant) in Vol. 12, Canada, Exchequer reports, p. 61, for a fuller disclosure of the difficulties surrounding the collection, of this large claim of the bank.
Another asset I criticised was the item marked * Debentures.' These were issued on the security of an aqueduct in St. Hyacinthe, and were valued at $33,000, but realized only $9,000.
Mr. Philie also advised me that a claim by L. F. Morrison against the bank for $93,146 was then in litigation.
The criticism of the assets was accurate, as shown by the following:
L. F. Philie's (the cashier valuation	 $1,190,556 00
Total collected by the liquidator. 1,043,435 30
Further, I was advised by Mr. Philie, at our first interview, that the Eastern Townships bank, the agent for clearing house purpose in Montreal, then had over $15,000 of the bank s notes on hand. They were bolding these over to give the bank a chance to se-* cure funds to redeem them, and, ill addition, Mr. Philie advised me that, in order to'secure money to pay the demands upon the bans, be was forced to rediscount the best paper in his portfolio, and had at that time redis-' counted with the Eastern Townships bank $26,493 of current paper.
As soon as I ascertained these facts, and examined the statement, exhibit A, I consulted with the president of the association, and the conclusion arrived at was that, in the in-


Rodolphe Lemieux: When do you say they destroyed all these papers?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: Before the ninety days had expired, within which time the Banque de St. Hyaeinthe had a chance of obtaining the privileges of the law.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Was that in evidence
before the committee?


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: There was no evidence before the committee on that point, but I state this from information I have obtained from very reliable sources. It seems strange that the cashier of the Banque de St. Hyaeinthe was called to Montreal to report to the Bankers' Association without having the manager of the bank know about it, and on the request of the same Mr. Knight. Since when should an employee be asked to go and discuss the financial position of his employers, without their knowledge. The address of the president and manager of the Banque de St. Hyaeinthe was well known; he is a man of high reputation; he is Senator Dessaules. Why did he not call upon the president of



this bank to discuss this matter instead of calling an employee, and on what terms was it done? Mr. Knight explains that himself. I explained, said Mr. Knight, to him, that such a course was necessary; that if the Bankers' Association could help the Banque de St. Hyacinthe it would do so with pleasure, but it was necessary to have a statement of its assets. What do you think, Mr. Speaker, of offering help to one of the employees instead of to the president of the bank. It was known very well that very little help would have tided the bank over its difficulties during the time of the appeal from the judgment against the railway company, and money for the payment of which judgment had been already deposited in the Bank of Montreal. I am sure $50,000 advance would have saved the Banque de St. Hyacinthe, and even without any money three weeks' time would have saved it. But due to the drastic manner in which they acted the Banque de St. Hyacinthe had to close its doors. The statement of Mr. Knight was that the report of the bank showed that the paid-up capital had been lost, and that such was admitted by the directors. Such an assertion is certainly strange in face of the opposition raised against the order of Mr. Knight by the directors and in face of the position of the bank. The paid-up capital which Mr. Knight claimed was lost amounted to $331,235. To balance that, there was the judgment, which I mentioned a few minutes ago, against the Quebec Southern Railway Company, of $331,000. The bank, however, on the advice of Senator Beique and Mr. Lafleur, had appealed to the Privy Council. I have more confidence in the judgment on a point of law in Senator Beique, who is a good lawyer, and in Mr. Lafleur, who is one of the best lawyers in Montreal, than I could have in Mr. Knight, the secretary of the Bankers' Association.


Rodolphe Lemieux: They are the two leading lawyers of our province.


Joseph Hormisdas Rainville: One bank at Montreal, knowing the situation of the Bank of St. Hyacinthe, offered to the Government that, out of the deposits of $1,051,000 for the payment of all the debts of the railroad, if the Government would place with them a deposit of $400,000, they would advance $200,000 to the Bank of St. Hyacinthe. That was much more than was needed to meet all the liabilities that could arise from any source. If Mr. Knight had been really willing at that time to do something in behalf of the Bank of St. Hyacinthe, I think he had sufficient influence with the Bank of Montreal to say: You have over a million dollars here on deposit, on which you are drawing profits; you should advance this bank $200,000, Mr. RAINVILLE.
not a gift, but money that will hold until they receive a final judgment which might be greater than $331,000. Instead of offering that help, they simply came to St. Hyacinthe and closed the bank.
Mr. Knight made a statement in his report on the Bank of St. Hyacinthe to show that the assets of the bank were not collectable. I have a word to say on that item of $33,000, which was a debenture on an aqueduct. It was sold about $9,000 in liquidation; but the man who borrowed the money, although he made no repairs and did no new work on it, would not sell it for $30,000 because it is paying about $3,000 per annum. The man who bought it was a director of the bank and knew the value of that aqueduct. We know very well that, when a property is sold through liquidation, it has to be sold at a big sacrifice.	.
The third conclusion of Mr. Knight s report is:
That the association's recommendation to the directors to suspend payment was the proper one to make.
If there is anything in the law to meet such circumstances, we must abide by the law. Section 39 of the Bank Act reads as follows:
If any part of the paid-up capital is lost che directors shall, if all the subscribed stock is not paid up, forthwith make call upon the shareholders to an amount equivalent to the loss: Provided that all net profits shall be applied to make good such loss.
2. Any such loss of capital and the calls, if any made in respect thereof, shall be mentioned in the next return made by the bank to the minister.
The law is clear. Was there any capital which was not paid? Yes, to the amount of $173,565. That is a fairly large amount. If the directors had known two days before that the Association was coming up to close their doors, I am sure they would have immediately called in the capital which was not paid. The law provides for that. The law is made for the Bankers' Association just as much as for the small bank. Before touching the business of the Bank, they should have taken the step first to call in the unpaid capital, $173,565. With the amount of the judgment from which They coul'd get $331,000 if they had given up their appeal to the Privy Council, plus $75,000 which the liquidation of the bank cost and plus a few more thousand dollars on that question of the corset company and others, would have amounted to the sum of about $600,000, and the bank would not have closed its doors. Mr. Knight said in conclusion:
That the result justifies that recommendation and that the creditors have been paid their claims, without the full amount for in-

terest, only after the liquidator called up the unpaid capital and had recourse to the full amount of the double liability.
This argument will certainly seem extraordinary corning from a banker, who more than anyone knows what considerable loss there is whenever a forced liquidation occurs.
Mr. Knight, I repeat, was not asked to give evidence as to the consequences of the intervention of the Bankers' Association, but to answer as to that very intervention itself-the way he intervened. On the 23rd of June, 1908, I think I can safely say, the affairs-of the Bank of St. Hyacinthe were in a better position than they were before. And the situation in 1903 was perfectly known to the Bankers' Association. There have been many failures among banks in recent years, and I do not think there has been a single case in which the bank was able to pay one hundred per cent of its deposits. Take la Banque du Peuple, which everybody says should never have closed its doors; that bank did not pay more than seventy-five per cent of its deposits. Other banks, like the Bank Ville Marie, la Banque de St. Jean, and the Farmers' Bank did not pay a cent of deposits. The Sovereign Bank and the Ontario Bank did not actually fail but were taken over, but I venture to say they would not have been able to pay one hundred per cent of their deposits had they been wound up in the way the Banque de St. Hyacinthe was. La Banque de St. Hyacinthe paid not only one hundred per cent of its deposits but two and a half per cent interest, though there were large losses brought about by the very fact of the liquidation of the bank.
There was something else. If the directors had known what was coming they could have sold their assets, and those assets were of quite large value. They had a minimum circulation of $200,000 which they had loaned at seven per cent, bringing an income of $14,000 a year. They had deposits of $850,000 on which they paid three and a half per cent, and which they loaned on an average of seven per cent, bringing $39,750. This made a total income of $43,750. The cost of administration of the bank was only $16,000. That would leave more than $27,000 a year. So, even if all the capital was gone; they could pay a little over five per cent on that capital which had disappeared.
I think I can say, in conclusion, that the drastic and arbitrary manner in which the Bankers' Association attempted to dictate to the directors, coercing them into closing their doors, was the sole excuse of the failure of this bank. The directors were the proper parties to judge of the course to be taken, free from the dictation of the
337}
Bankers' Asssociation. And, if I rise on the third reading of this Bill to give, as well as I can, an answer to the two letters addressed to the hon. Minister of Finance by the Bankers' Association, it is only to prevent other such cases arising in ' the future. The reputation of the businessmen who were directors of La Banque St. Hyacinthe, a reputation which they still hold, could be no better. Those directors were, Senator J. C. Dessaules, Joseph Morin, provincial auditor of Quebec; L. P. Morin, a big trader of St. Hyacinthe; Dr. Emile Ostigny, a millionaire from Montreal, V. B. Sicotte; Mr. Archambault and Mr. Bril-lon. These gentlemen, as I have said, had a high reputation amongst all classes of good people. They are good businessmen, honest, men. I am sure that the disappearance of La Banque St. Hyacinthe will be forever a black spot in their business life. But that failure was not their fault. It was the fault of one man in the Bankers' Association; not Sir Edward Clouston, who is dead, but Mr. Knight, the secretary of that association. I am bound to say that I am confident that if an inquiry were given we should find that the main responsibility for the disappearance of that bank lay with him.
I have detained the House long enough, I resume my seat with an expression of thanks for the attention with which I have been heard and with the hope that the Minister of Finance will make a careful investigation into this whole matter.


Hon. H. R. EMMERSON (Westmorland):: I regret very much indeed that at this hour of the morning I feel constrained to make some observations with regard to the Bill under discussion. I cannot refrain from calling attention to the fact that there is a very great contrast between the entrance of the Bill on its second reading in this Chamber and its exit when it is about to receive its third reading. Its entrance was like, if not a February blizzard, at least a March gale, but it seems to be going out like a summer breeze. I do not wish to complain, but it seems to me that the Government in forcing us to discuss this matter at this hour of the morning, imposes a strain upon the endurance, upon the physical endurance, of hon. members. I have no desire to do other than expedite the business of the House, but still there are limitations, and I think the Government would be better advised if they would give us a more opportune moment for considering the Bill.
We must remember that the banking conditions in Canada have not had and do not now have the confidence of the people of Canada. Rightly or wrongly, there are suspicions with respect to the conditions which prevail, in connection with the bank-

ing institutions, not as regards their stability; not, indeed, as regards their good faith, but with respect to the great powers which they have as a monopoly in this country. The Banking Bill was introduced into this House under such conditions that the people of Canada are doubtful, suspicious, not fully understanding with regard to the matter. What have we done to establish their confidence and their good faith in respect to these financial institutions? I am not a rebel as against the banking institutions of Canada. I am not in any way in antagonism to those institutions or to the management of the banks in Canada, but I do say that the banking institutions of this country owed it to themselves and owed it to the people of Canada that there should have been a full and complete inquiry into the conditions which prevail and which have prevailed in Canada. This Bill on its second reading did receive a good deal of marked and emphatic criticism. There were many hon. members on both sides of the House who felt that they were voicing the sentiments of the people of the country when they criticised the Bill and criticised existing conditions; I have no doubt that they felt that in so doing, they were but discharging the obligations which they owed to their constituents. I had supposed, as a result of that criticism, that when the Bill was considered in the Banking and Commerce Committee the facts and the conditions would have been fully inquired into, and that there would have been a complete expose with respect to the circumstances surrounding the management of the banking institutions, but I am bound to say that the inquiry was not full, was not complete, was not adequate. I made the statement on the second reading that there was a money trust in Canada, and that linked and associated with that trust were the financial and great banking institutions; that there had been merger after merger, combination after combination, until we had reached a period in the financial Instory of this country when there were to be found some two dozen men who, by Teason of interlocking directorates, controlled the financial institutions of Canada. I repeat that assertion; I made it on the floor of this House with due regard for my responsibility as a member. I have felt that there should have been a full and complete inquiry with respect to that phase of the matter, but there has been no such inquiry. I have no right nor do I wish in any way to criticise the conduct of the Banking and Commerce Committee; far be it from me to take any such step. But let me recall the facts. The Banking and Commerce Committee, called and examined witnesses, and their statements and utterances are referred to as evidence. Were any of the witnesses called before the committee swornf It is the Mr. EMHERSON.
usual practice in the committees of this House to swear the witnesses who are called to give evidence. As an illustration of that fact I may say that during^ the past week a committee has been inquiring into the pollution of the navigable streams of Canada. Every witness called before that committee, whether expert or otherwise, was sworn. I am not going to call into question the statements given by any of the witnesses who were examined before the Banking and Commerce Committee. They are reputable gentlemen of high financial standing, and they hold positions of trust in Canada, but they are as much entitled to be called upon to give their evidence upon the Holy Evangelists as are the witnesses who may be called before other committees. This was not done; I know not for what reason, but when hon. members refer to the evidence that was given-and it was voluminous-I say it is a misnomer. You have a mass of statements; you have a mass of not merely viva voce statements, but of written statements handed in. For what purpose? For the purpose of placing before the committee the opinions of men who are supposed, and I do not question the supposition, to be authorities. Yet, Sir, why should they be permitted to depart from the usual practice in connection with evidence taken before the committees of this House?


Mr. FOSTER (Kings):: Did the hon. gentleman as a member of that committee suggest that any such witnesses be sworn?


Henry Robert Emmerson: 1 was a member of
that committee; I venture to say I attended as regularly as any member of it, but I am bound to say that the evidence was almost wholly in before it came to my knowledge that the usual practice with regard to the swearing of the witnesses was not being followed. I naturally expected that the usual practice and custom of this House that has been followed for years was being followed with respect to that committee. I am not questioning the good faith or the bona fides of any hon. gentlemen who may have contributed to the testimony, so-called which was placed before the committee, and which has been reported to this House, but I do say that it is a remarkable fact that in dealing with this matter, having regard to the questionings throughout the country; having regard to the fact that there are doubts in the minds of the people generally in regard to the management of the banking institutions, I say it was ill-advised on the part of the committee, or whoever was responsible1 for it, to have the evidence given and taken in that way. If it is right for that committee and if it is right for the great finance magnates of Canada who come forward and make their statements before committees of this

House without being sworn, surely we are not treating the other committees or the gentlemen who appear before other committees with the same respect. I attended as far as I could the meetings of that committee. I did it with the view of informing myself in the first instance but I soon learned to see the trend of events and I observed the way the wind blew; I am not making any charge of a political character or nature in giving utterance to these sentiments, I am simply presenting the bald, bare facts as they existed and have existed during the past few weeks. The committee was very fully attended by members of this House, who seemed to take great interest in sustaining the Bill as it was presented before that committee. Early in the history of the committee I made a -motion to the effect that there should be counsel employed to represent the general interest, the public interest of the country. That did not go to a vote it is true but for a very good reason, because, Sir, it was soon seen that the very mention of the idea was received with an impatience that could not be misunderstood. Remember that the Banking Association had as its representative before this committee, perhaps the most eminent counsel in the Dominion of Canada, and associated with him, representing the banking interests of Canada, were very able counsel, who were on hand on all occasions ready, when any motion was made, if there happened to be any doubt with regard to its fate, to see that the vacancies were filled and that the ranks were placed so that there could be no question of the result. I think that I am speaking what is known to every hon. member of that committee, what will be admitted by every member of that committee as the solemn truth, that there was, iu the minds of the committee, the idea that there was a steam roller process going on, that any amendment that might be proposed which seemingly was at all antagonistic to the money interests or to the banking interests, would be frowned down. The committee proceeded with its work. The Bill has emerged from that committee. Can any hon. member say that there has been a change in 'any substantial manner antagonistic to the interests of the banks? They have been represented by eminent and able counsel. On the other hand, there were no counsel to present the interests of the people at large as against the moneyed class.


Arthur de Witt Foster: Does the hon.
member not consider that the eminent lawyers who were the representatives of the people on the Banking and Commerce Committee were quite able to take the part o; the common people in the matter of the discussion of the Banking Act?


Henry Robert Emmerson: It is a very harmless inquiry that my hon. friend makes. I am not questioning the ability of the members of the committee but I am speaking of the counsel outside of the committee. There were none to represent the people's interest, there were a number representing the banking interest.
There was one feature of the inquiry that was never delved into, I had not the opportunity on all occasions to be present, especially during the period when witnesses were being called. I did my duty as best I could in attending the meetings. The proceedings before the committee suggested to the mind of every responsible man in this country one important question: is there a money trust in Canada, and how far are the directors of banks in Canada mixed up in the great corporations of Canada who are utilizing and using the funds of the banks of Canada? It must be a matter of concern to every man whether the banking institutions of Canada, empowered and given privileges as they are by the Parliament of Canada, are controlled by a very few individuals, and whether by reason of the interlocking directorates there is banded together a great and huge money trust. I know that when I was -at the committee and any question was asked with respect to the directorate and how far the funds of banking institutions were being loaned either to individual directors or to companies in which individual directors were interested, the witnesses, not the sworn witnesses, hut the gentlemen who were simply making their statements, backed away from the inquiry and it was treated as a matter of little concern, as if the committee were not obliged to-make inquiry in that channel. I can speak to the credit of some hon. members of the committee, and I can say that my hon friend from Queens and Shelburne ' was-certainly faithful in that regard. I am pleased and proud to be able to pay this tribute to my hon. friend's endeavour to prove the use of banking funds by banking directors or by companies in which bank directors are interested. That phase of the inquiry was not entered -upon as it should have been. I take my share of the responsibility in not being able to have that full probing. Had the suggestion which I made to the committee to have counsel employed been acted upon, that could have-been done. We must recognize the circum-. stances under which this inquiry was made. We must remember that during the meetings of that committee there was before this House some very important questions that demanded, and I think, received the attention of -many hon. members of the committee. It was quite impossible for-individual members of the committee to give attention to that phase of the question -

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which it demanded. Had the suggestion which I made been acted unon there could not have been any complaint as regards either the attitude of the committee or its action. But no inquiry has been made as to whether there is a money trust. Questions were asked of one witness, I think it was Mr. Forgan from Chicago, with respect to a money trust in the United States. He said very distinctly that he knew there was, or believed there was, a money trust, but nothing was proved as to that, and men high up in the banking institutions were impatient when any questions were put, were supercilious towards the members of the committee attempting to prove or inquire into that phase of the question. Those gentlemen swept aside almost with a sneer the idea that there was a combination cr money trust. That question was not gone into. It was not fully inquired into, and to-day the people of Canada are as ignorant with respect to it as if the committee had never met, and as if a bank Bill had never received the consideration of the House of Commons of Canada.
It is because of these facts, and these conditions and circumstances that I feel called upon to bring to the notice of this House just where we stand with respect to the Bank Bill as it emerges from this chamber into the other chamber of this Parliament. The inquiry before that committee was entirely unsatisfactory. It was not full, it was not complete, and I think the discussion in this House in Committee yesterday fully illustrated the fact. Wherein have there been any material or substantial changes? From every standpoint, the interests of the banks have been protected. There is not a member of that committee but who will concur with me in that regard. Take the question of audit and inspection. Take the question of interest and exchange charges. Take the question as to the right of holding, owning, occupying and utilizing real estate. In all these respects, the banks are to-day in just as go*d a position as they were when this Bank Bill was first introduced. In no sense has any advance been made in the interests of the people as against the banking institutions. I would like to have had an inquiry into the banking conditions of Australia. There they have a Commonwealth bank. Was there any attempt to show the conditions existing in that Commonwealth, in regard to the conducting of a state bank? There was none, and yet from the distant Pacific to the shores of the Atlantic there is a feeling of distrust on the part of the people with regard to the conditions which prevailed. Rightly or wrongly, Sir, the people have an idea that they are not receiving a fair deal, and I make that statement not from the staninoint of a partisan or of one Mr. EMMERSON.
who is associated with one political party. I am speaking from the standpoint of the people's interests and from that standpoint alone. I would ask this House to calmly reflect when this Bill takes its flight from this chamber to the other, to calmly deliberate as to what has been accomplished after all with regard to the banking system of Canada. Has there been any step forward? Have any advances been made? I see the Minister of Finance is seated beside me. I am glad to have his inspiration. I am glad to know that he has been faithful, I will say that to his credit. He attended every meeting of the committee, and he tried to stem the tide. In some instances he got into the eddies, but in many respects he contributed to whatever improvement was made in the Act. I would have liked this Bill to stand until to-morrow morning, but he was adamant, and I propose _ to impose upon him the penalty of his resistance. My hon. friend (Mr. Rainville) has given a splendid illustration of the monopoly of the Canadian Bankers' Association. It is a huge monopoly, it has not a parallel on this continent as a monopolistic concern. They control every bank; they can ruin any bank. We have not in any way curbed their power in this Bill or limited their authority. They are licensed by the Parliament of Canada to exercise their authority and Parliament has delegated to them powers which it should have retained to itself.


Arthur de Witt Foster: In what respect?


Henry Robert Emmerson: Friday, May 23, 1913.