1914-01-19

Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to inform the House that I have received from the Hon. Mr. Justice Howell and the Hon. Mr. Justice Cameron, two of the judges selected for the trial of election petitions, pursuant to 'The Dominion Controverted Elections Act,' a certificate and report relating to the election for the electoral district of Macdonald, by which the said election was declared void.
In conformity with chapter 7, section 70, of the Revised Statutes, 1906, I issued my 1
warrant to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery to make out a new writ of election for the said electoral district.
I have also the honour to inform the House that I have received from the judges selected for the trial of election petitions pursuant to ' The Dominion Controverted Elections Act,' certificates and reports relating to the elections:
For the electoral district of MaskinongS;
For the electoral district of Three Rivers and St. Mauricethe election petition in each case being dismissed and the sitting member being declared duly elected.



VACANCIES.

Thomas Simpson Sproule: I have also the honour to inform the House that during the recess I received communications from several members notifying me that the following vacancies have occurred in the representation, viz.:
Of Arthur Meighen, Esq., member for the electoral district of Portage la Prairie, by the acceptance of an office of emolument under the Crown, to wit, Solicitor General;
Of Peter Elson, Esq., member for the electoral district of East Middlesex, by decease;
Of Oswald Smith Crocket, Esq., member for the electoral district of York, N.B., by the acceptance of an office of emolument under the Crown, to wit, a judge of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick.



NEW MEMBERS.

Thomas Simpson Sproule: I have further the honour to inform the House that during the recess the Clerk of the House received from the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery certificates of the election and return of the following members:
Of Honourable Arthur Meighen for the electoral district of Portage la Prairie;
Of James Morris, Esq., for the electoral district of Chateauguay;
Of Reuben Eldridge Truax, Esq., for the electoral district of South Bruce;
Of Samuel Francis Glass, Esq., for the electoral district of East Middlesex ;



MEMBERS INTRODUCED.

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Hon. Arthur Meighen, for the electoral district of Portage la Prairie; introduced by Hon. Robert Rogers and Hon. W. J. Roche.
Adelbert Edward Hanna, Esq., M.D., for the electoral district of South Lanark; introduced by Hon. W. T. White and Hon. J. D. Reid.
Harry Fulton McLeod, Esq., for the electoral district of York, N.B.; introduced by Hon. J. D. Hazen and Hon. L. P. Pelletier.
James Morris, Esq., for the electoral district of Chateauguay; introduced by Hon. George Perley and Hon. W. B. Nantel.
Samuel Francis Glass, Esq., for the electoral district of East Middlesex; introduced by Mr. J. E. Armstrong and Hon. T. W. Crothers.
Alexander Morrison, Esq., for the electoral district of Macdonald; introduced by Hon. Robert Rogers and Hon. W. J. Roche.
Reuben Eldridge Truax, Esq., for the electoral district of South Bruce; introduced by Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Mr. W. M. German.

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Bill No. 1, respecting the Administration of Oaths of Office.-Mr. Rogers.

Thomas Simpson Sproule: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House did attend His Royal Highness the Governor General this day in the Senate Chamber, His Royal Highness was pleased to deliver a speech to both Houses of Parliament. To prevent mistakes I have obtained a copy which is as follows:
Honourable Gentlemen of the Senate:
Gentlemen of the House of Commons:
I take this public opportunity of expressing to you all my deep sense of gratitude for the comfort and support that were afforded us at the time of the serious illness of the Duchess of Connaught, by the numerous messages of sympathy that were received from Canada, and by the knowledge, that the hearts of so many Canadians were with us during those dark days. I can only regret that my enforced absence made it impossible for me to fully exercise the duties of my high office during a considerable portion of last year.
It gives me great pleasure to be able to congratulate you upon the remarkable expansion
,
of Canada's trade with other countries in the past fiscal year, during which our total trade far exceeded that of any preceding year.
The bountiful crops with which the Dominion has fortunately been blessed during the past season have been harvested under unusually favourable conditions, which have enabled the transportation companies to make full use of all the facilities at their disposal. Thus the difficulties, which sometimes arose in former years have not been manifest, and an unusually large proportion of the crops have been conveyed to the sea-board before the close of the season of inland navigation.
Canada has been favoured by a long series of prosperous years, and, although at the present moment business is slightly restricted by the financial stringency which prevails throughout the world, I feel convinced that this condition will be merely temporary, and that the boundless resources of this Dominion which are so fully and universally known and recognized, give us the fullest assurance of continued material prosperity and progress.
As a result of the recent decennial census the representation of the different provinces must be readjusted, as required by the British North America Act, and a Bill will be introduced for that purpose.
A Bill consolidating the Railway Act and its various amendments, as well as Bills relating to the Civil Service and to Trust and Loan Companies, will be submitted for your consideration.
Several other Bills will be submitted, including measures providing for increased representation of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, in the Senate.
The volume of immigration during the present fiscal year promises to be greater than that of any preceding year. It has come in greatest measure from the British Isles and from the United States, but a large stream of desirable immigration has also reached our shores from other countries.
You will be pleased to learn that satisfactory arrangements have been made with the various provinces under the Agricultural Instruction Act passed at the last session. My advisers are convinced that the co-operation between the Dominion and the provinces which is thus afforded, will accomplish excellent results, in assuring better agricultural instruction and needful improvement of existing methods of agriculture.
The work on the National Transcontinental railway has been rapidly advanced during the past year, and, notwithstanding the difficulties attending the construction of the Hudson Bay railway, and the provision of terminals, every possible progress has been made in bringing that important project nearer to completion.
In connection with the highly important subject of transportation of our products, the provision of adequate terminal facilities at our great national ports has received and is receiving the attention of my advisers.
You have doubtless learned with satisfaction that the new government terminal elevator at Port Arthur is completed, and that it has been in operation since October last. In conjunction with this, a system of interior terminal elevators has been begun, which will provide largely increased facilities for the farmers of the great grain producing provinces.

The International Conference on Safety of Life at Sea, which has been in session in London for several weeks, has had under consideration questions of the highest importance, and it is hoped that its deliberations may result in more effective measures for assuring the safety of the passengers and crews of ocean-going steamships. Representatives of Canada were appointed by Order in Council and have been in attendance at all sessions of the conference.
Gentlemen of the House of Commons:
The accounts for the last fiscal year will be laid before you. You will be pleased to know that the revenue has been ample to cover both ordinary and capital expenditure.
The estimates for the next fiscal year will be submitted at an early date. They have been prepared with due regard to the necessary development of the resources of the Dominion, coupled with careful attention to economical administration.
Honourable Gentlemen of the Senate:
Gentlemen of the House of Commons:
In inviting your careful consideration of the subjects to which I have called your attention, I pray that the blessings of Divine Providence may attend your deliberations. [DOT]
On motion of Hon. Robert Rogers, it was ordered that the Speech of His Royal Highness the Governor General to both Houses of Parliament be taken into consideration on Monday next, and that this order have precedence over all other business except introduction of bills, until disposed of.



SELECT STANDING COMMITTEES.

Mr. ROGERS:: I beg to move, seconded by Hon. J. Dl Reid:	.
That a special committee be appointed to prepare and report with all convenient speed lists of members to compose the Select Standing Committees of this House under Rule 10 ; said committee to be composed of Messrs. Borden, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Reid (Grenville), Pelletier, Pugsley, Stanfield and Pardee, and that portion of Rule 10 limiting the number of the said committee be suspended in relation thereto.


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Motion agreed to.

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Joint Report of the Librarians of Parliament.-Mr. Speaker.
On motion of Mr. Rogers, House adjourned at 3.50 p.m., until Monday.
Monday, January 19, 1914.

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Copy of Order in Council appointing commissioners under the eleventh chapter of 11
the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, intituled An Act respecting the House ox Commons.-Right Hon. R. L. Borden.
Forty-sixth Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries for the year 1912-13 (Fisheries).-Hon. J. D. Hazen.
Report of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, for the year ended March 31, 1913.-Right Hon. R. L. Borden.
Report of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police for the year ended March 31, 1913.- Right Hon. R. L. Borden.
Report of the Department of Public Works for the year ended March 31, 1913.-Hon. Robert Rogers.	.
Report of the Department of Labour for the year ended March 31, 1913.-Hon. T. W. Crothers.
Report on Strikes and Lockouts for the period from 1901 to 1912.-Hon. T. W. Crothers.	-
Sixth Report of the Registrar of Boards of Conciliation and Investigation of the proceedings under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, 1907, for the year ended March 31, 1913.-Hon. T. W. Crothers.
Report of the Ottawa Improvement Commission for the year ended March 31, 1913. -Hon. W. T. White.
Report of the Auditor General for the year ended March 31, 1913, volume iii.-Hon. W. T. White.
Statement of Governor General's Warrants issued since the last session of Parliament.-Hon. W. T. White.
Statement of Superannuation and Retiring Allowances in the Civil Service for the year ended December 31, 1913-Hon. W. T White.
Copy of Order in Council making award of pensions and gratuities to officers of the Royal Canadian Navy.-Hon. W. T. White.
List of Shareholders of Chartered Banks of the Dominion of Canada for the year ended December 31,	1912.-Hon. W. T.
White.
Public Accounts of Canada for the year ended March 31, 1913.-Hon. W. T. White.
Statement of Temporary Loans since March 31, 1913-Hon. W. T. White.
Statement of Treasury Bills discounted since March 31, 1913.-Hon. W. T. White.
Statement of Civil Service Insurance for the year ended March 31, 1913.-Hon. W. T. White.
Statement of Expenditure on account of Miscellaneous Unforeseen Expenses from April 1, 1913, to January 14, 1914, in accordance with the Appropriation Act of 1913-14. -Hon. W. T. White.
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Statement of the Affairs of the Royal Society of Canada for the year ended April 30, 1913.-Hon. W. T. White.

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Mr. J. H. BURNHAM moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 3, to abolish Titles of Honour in Canada. He said: It has been rumoured that there is some danger of the spirit of democracy in Canada being compromised, perhaps not by this Government, but by the existence of conditions whi h will enabte the representatives of the people, through a misconception of their duty, to create titles of honour which are contrary to the spirit of democracy in Canada. This Bill refers to the powers and jurisdiction of this Parliament, and is intended to abolish such titles of honour, and to restore things to a normal condition of democracy.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

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Mr. ROBERT BICKERDIKE, moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 4, to amend the Criminal Code. He said: The Bill is selfexplanatory. Its purpose is to amend the Criminal Code with the view of abolishing in toto the death penalty in Canada. I feel that the death penalty is a blot on Christendom, a blight on religion and a reproach to any Christian nation allowing it to stand on its statute-books.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

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Mr. ALPHONSE VERVILLE moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 7, respecting the hours of labour on public works. He said: The Bill which I now present to the House lias been on the Order Paper for the past two sessions. Every one knows why the Bill was not reached last year, but I hope that this year we shall have time to reach it. As I said last session, I trust that the present Government will have the same disposition to accept this Bill as they had when they were on the opposition side of the House.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.


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Bill No. 2, to amend the Dominion Elections Act.-Mr. Burnham.
Bill No. 5, respecting the Pollution of Navigable Waters.-Mr. Bradbury.
Bill No. 6, to regulate Cold Storage.-Mr. Bradbury.


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The House proceeded to the consideration of the Speech of His Royal Highness the Governor General at the opening of the session.
Mr. H. F. McLEOD (York, N.B.) rose to move that an Address be presented to His Royal Highness the Governor General offering the humble thanks of this House to His Royal Highness for the gracious speech which he has been pleased to make to both Houses of Parliament. He said:
I appreciate the kindly reception which has been given me on rising to-day, a reception, I fancy, that is accorded to every new member who makes his initial stet) in this House of Commons. I may be forgiven, Sir, if I find myself a bit embarrassed when, for the first time, I rise in this Chamber to say a few words, a Chamber that has with it and in it and about it such a wondrous wealth of tradition of the days gone by, such a glory of historic memories of the men of both political parties who have shaped the destinies of this young nation. The thought that will perhaps be uppermost in the mind of any man rising to address this House for the first time, as it is in mine, is that, after all, it is worth while to sacrifice something of material advantage to enter public life, to serve, in even the most humble capacity, this young nation which we all love.
His Royal Highness, in the speech which he was pleased to deliver at the opening of this session, made reference to the comfort and support that went out from the Canadian people to himself and his family during the illness of the Duchess in the summer just gone. May I say-and I think I voice the feeling not only of this House but , of the Canadian people-that from every city, hamlet and farm in this broad land there went out a genuine feeling of heartfelt sympathy not only because His Royal Highness comes here as a member of the Royal Family, not only because following a long line of illustrious predecessors in the office of the Governor General, he has fully lived up to the high tradition maintained in the past in that office, but because of the kindly courtesy and the heartfelt sympathy which the Duchess herself has shown wherever she has gone in Canada.

A word should be said in regard to the fact that in the fiscal year just closed, Canada reached the high water mark of her trade with other countries. This country today is no longer content to sit quietly by while other countries are gathering up the trade markets of the world. Our people and merchants are seeking every port and every country for their merchandise; and the present Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster), not now in his place in this House, has in his portfolio and position no sinecure although it may have been created as such. No; bis office is a living vital factor in the commerce and trade of this country, making for the upbuilding of Canada, so far as its trade and commerce with other countries is concerned. Canada is not doing business in any back street today. Canada to-day is just leaping into prominence. She is commanding now the admiration of the world and sending her products to all corners of the world; her merchants are competing on equal terms with big merchants all over the wide world. And what is the result? The result is the building up in Canada of the happy home of the labourer, the mechanic and the artisan to make this country great that we live in and that we of both political parties are here to do our best to serve.
We in Canada, in common with all the countries of the world, have felt some of the financial stress, the tightness of money and financial stringency prevailing everywhere during last year. It would be folly for any man to stand in his place here and say that Canada to-day was not feeling the touch of hard times, to assert that Canada was not touched by the tightness of money as every other country in the world was touched; but I know of no country in the world that has stood up against those hard times and that period of money tightness in the way Canada did. That is absolutely true of the Maritime Provinces, and New Brunswick especially, the province from which I come. In our province, we never had a better business or a better Christmas trade or easier money than we had in 1913. In a year when there was money tightness and financial depression all over the world, it was fortunate that we had in Western Canada-and not only in Western Canada but in Eastern Canada as well, humbler perhaps in production but none the less a producing element in this country-I say it was fortunate that we had in Western Canada the most bountiful wheat crop that this country ever knew. It <ras eminently fortunate also that we had
transportation facilities such that the wheat crop was moved as it never was moved before in the history of this country, making the most prompt money return to the farmers of the middle West at a time when such was the best thing that could happen to them and the best thing that could happen to Canada generally. I do not know that I may claim any credit for the Government or party which I support, because of the condition of the transportation facilities. But I do know that if the crop had not been moved the people would have been hammering at the doors of this Government and worrying this Government to death because it was not moved expeditiously.
Perhaps the most important subject mentioned in the speech from the Throne is the Redistribution Bill. Certainly it is a matter of vital importance to the province from which I come, and to those other provinces down by the sea. I just wish for a moment to discuss the Redistribution Bill, not in any narrow, sectional or provincial aspect, because, Sir, I take it that when a man enters this House-or whether he does not for that matter-whether he comes from one province or another, he is a Canadian first of all. He forgets the narrow boundaries of provinces, and remembers that he is a Canadian and has regard only for the upbuilding of this nation.
I may be permitted to discuss just for a moment the question of redistribution from the point of view of a Maritime provinces man. If ive follow the same principle that was followed after the census of 1891 and 1901, the representation of the Maritime provinces after the next Redistribution Bill will be:	Nova Scotia, 16;
New Brunswick, 11; Prince Edward Island, 3. That is, we will have 30 representatives in this Parliament where, at the time of Confederation, we had 40. I want to frankly admit to this House, and to you, Mr. Speaker, that from a legal point of view we have absolutely no status. The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, affirmed by the Privy Council, has settled, so far as present decisions are concerned, that we cannot hold our original representation, but I submit that though we have not a strong or in fact any legal status, we have the strongest moral and equitable standing. It is undoubtedly correct that at the time of Confederation the Fathers of Confederation had no thought in their minds of a re-adjustment downward. The only thought in their minds was a re-adjustment upward. They
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were optimists, that is true. They could not at that time foresee the growth of the West. Prince Edward Island, I want to frankly admit, stands in the best position of all, and it can be shown, although I do not wish to trouble the House with any citations to-day, that there was a distinct agreement at the time Prince Edward Island entered Confederation that she should have a minimum representation of six members. That was not made a part of Section 149 of the British North America Act, but I submit to this House that population is not, and should not be, the sole guide in representation. Selfgoverning colonies must have adequate representation. In the minds of the men who represented New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, there was no thought of a loss in representation. It could not have been in the minds of those men, sublime optimists as they were, that there would grow up in this country a great western country that they knew little of in those days. They could not foresee that there would rise up from their own firesides in those provinces down by the sea their best blood to go out into Western Canada and to make that western country great. I say this in no narrow spirit. I am as proud as any man can be of the growth of these magnificent provinces, but I do say that we should devote our best efforts to enabling our young men and our young women to build up all our great and mighty provinces under one flag of empire, the empire we love. This country owes something of equity, something of justice, to the provinces which have suffered by the marvellous growth that we all delight in of the West. Just these words to-day in regard to the matter of re-distribution; I thought I ought to say something about it.
Representing a farming community as I do, I want to say one word and to bear my tribute, honestly borne, to the gentleman who occupies the position of Minister of Agriculture in this country. Since this Government has come into power, the farmers of my province, at all events, have known that there was a Department of Agriculture. In my province-and this applies to every province in the Dominion -agricultural schools have not only been made possible, but we already have one agricultural school at Sussex just about to be opened, and another in Woodstock that will be opened in a very short time. We have realized the goal of technical education for the farmer and the son of the farmer. And in these days, when un-
IjMr. McLeod^.
fortunately the city does attract the b-oys and when the scarcity of labour is the tremendous problem that the farmer has to solve; in these days when you have to make farm life attractive to keep the boys and girls on the farm, we have provided technical education not only in the agricultural schools but we have technical education expounded throughout the summer time on the farms themselves, so that it is brought right down close to the farmer and he and his son have opportunity to become real scientific farmers, to love their work, to stay on the farm. In this way it is to be hoped the problem will be solved of bringing the people back to the land.
We are passing through in this country -I suppose it is the history of the world- a period when the drift of population is away from the land, a most unhappy condition. Women's institutes, which the present Minister of Agriculture has assisted so much, are designed to remove what some people are pleased to call the humdrum of farm life, to make cheerful and pleasant the farmer's home life in the evenings, and to cause him to be contented with his surroundings. All this must be of great advantage to our country and its people, because Canada can only maintain its position as a wealthy and growing wealthier country if the people stay on the farm so that we may be a great producing nation.
While I have said that one word in regard to farming, may I be allowed to say just another word in regard to immigration? It is predicted in the Speech from the Throne that this year's immigration will be greater than ever in the history of the country, and we trust it may be so. But, modestly, may I suggest this, that the great lesson we must learn in Canada is not to have indiscriminate immigration but to keep the breed pure, and I believe the breed can be kept pure. The great majority of the immigrants which have come to our shores in recent years have been English, Scotch, French and Irish. I want the Northern races; I want them because they are adapted to this country. The French people come from a more southern clime, it is true, but the French people in the early days of our country's history came to Canada, and, in face of hardships almost unrecountable, they helped to make this country great. We want the races I have referred to, but we do not want such immigrants as came to us in days gone by, and especially do we not want such as those which helped to

swell the population of the United States to such great number, but to the great disadvantage, in my judgment, of the people of the United States.
Reference has been made to the National Transcontinental railway and to its early completion. I regret very much to interject a harsh note into a function which is supposed to be without any harshness, but I must point out that we in the province of New Brunswick are building a railway down the valley of the St. John known as the St. John Valley Railway. It extends from a point on the National Transcontinental railway at or near Grand Falls, 220 miles down the river, to the port of St. John. The burden upon the province of New Brunswick-notwithstanding the very material assistance already received and more to be a'sked for from this Government-the burden entailed by this railway upon the province of New Brunswick has been tremendous. The necessity for this burden upon our Province need never have been had the National Transcontinental Railway been located by the only route sane men would have chosen. The Transcontinental railway in New Brunswick runs from Edmundston, in the county of Madawaska, across to Chipjnan, in the county of Queens, and on its route through that province it will not pick up one pound of local traffic; it only means the burning up of the revenue producing forests of the province. I would not be doing justice to the people I stand for in the province of New Brunswick did I not openly declare that a great wrong has been committed against them, and that line in its course through the province stands as a monument of that great wrong. There is one way, not to right the wrong, but there is one way by which it can be to some extent remedied, and that is if we could build a small branch from the divisional point of Nappodogan to connect with the Intercolonial railway at Cross Creek, getting running rights down over the railway to The port of St. John. Unless that is done -and I purpose in so far as I have power to urge it upon Parliament and upon this Government-unless that is done, the money already expended on the Trans-continental railway in New Brunswick (and I am fair in saying it has cost $100,000 per mile) is worse than wasted. I regret very much, Mr. Speaker, to have had to interject that harsh note.
I want to say, Sir, that there are two things not in the Speech this year, but
which have been in the Speech in days gone by. One of these is a reference to a Bill in aid of the highways in this country. In 1911 and in 1912, as you will remember, a Bill was introduced providing for the expenditure of one million dollars on the highways tof our	various
provinces, and providing also for the distribution of that money under the fairest and most	equitable terms.
That Bill caught the heart of the provinces of Canada. Nothing else could be done that would appeal more to the farming population that I represent. Nothing else could be done to make it easier for the farmer to stay on the land, because his mode of transportation to get his crop to the nearest railway station is over the roads. It meant in my province $50,000 to $60,000 in 1911-12. If the roads had been built, it would have greatly improved transportation facilities. I could hardly understand the partisanship run mad, and that again in 1912-13, when a million and a half of money was voted by the representatives of the people of this country, the Bill should again be defeated. I tell you frankly that we, in the province of New Brunswick, looked forward with the greatest anticipation to receiving that money. We needed it; other provinces needed it, and I can only regret that men found it possible, through a spirit of partisanship, to take away from their own people those things that came nearer to doing practical good to the people whence they came than any other thing could possibly do.	.
Before I sit down, I wish to speak with regard to another matter that is not mentioned in the Speech. I am not specifically informed as to why no reference is made to naval aid to the mother land, but I fancy that the right honourable leader of this Government (Mr. Borden) having once had the humiliating spectacle of advertising to the world that any body of men, whether responsible or otherwise, would refuse to help Canada to enter upon her duties, her privileges and her responsibilities in the matter of naval aid, did not desire to undergo a similar experience a second time. I am not going to go into sky-rockets. I simply want to say this, Mr. Speaker. For many years before Canada found her feet, before we were possessed of the buoyant revenue that we have to-day, Canada allowed the taxpayers of a little sea-girt island to put their hands into their pockets and to pay the bill. Now we have grown big. We consider ourselves quite a people. We call ourselves a nation. We have at least this, that to this country has come, as
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has come to every country under the flag, to black and white, to yellow and red, to every creed and colour, the right of liberty and equal citizenship under the flag. Yet, with our buoyant revenues, with our wealth of potential greatness, we have said that we are not willing to bear our share of the defence of that nation, of which we so often say we are proud to form a part. I rather sympathize with the Government and with the right honourable Leader of the Government in the disposition which made him refrain this year from mentioning naval aid in the Speech.
I thank you, Sir, and honourable members on both sides of this House for the kindly feeling with which you have listened to the rambling remarks of a novice. I am not partisan enough to think that honourable members on both sides are not endeavouring to serve this great country and this great Empire, and I hope that with honourable members on both sides of this House I shall do my humble part in advancing the interest of this young Canada that we love.
Mr. J. O. LAVALLEE (Bellechasse) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, considering
my lack of experience I should undoubtedly have shun the honour of seconding the mover of the Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne, had I not realized at the same time that the invitation was intended as a compliment to that community of farmers and settlers in whose midst I consider myself happy to dwell.
Moreover the compliment thus paid is presently being turned into a priceless favour, since I am permitted to express myself in that language which my fellow-countrymen appreciate so highly and which the right hon. leader of this Government, as well as the majority of his colleagues, is proud to be able to understand and to speak.
Whenever my hon. friends on the other side have an opportunity of meeting the French-Oanadian electors of the province of Quebec or elsewhere, they should to my mind thank Providence for having entrusted with the management of public affairs in this country, a prime minister who understands and enjoys speaking it, though sprung from a different stock.
And in making public acknowledgment of this fact, they may be making amends for having allowed a despicable prejudice to gain currency in their interest, viz. that an English-speaking prime minister could not possibly be as well disposed towards,
IjMr. McLeod!!.
or as devoted to, the French-Canadian people.
On behalf of my constitutents and on my own behalf, on behalf of those pioneers of colonization who are carrying on the work started three centuries ago for a greater and more united Canada, I beg to tender to the right hon. Prime Minister the assurance of my most hearty gratitude for this kindly courtesy.
It has been stated that the twentieth century will be the century of Canada. I may add that it will be such only insomuch as agriculture and the agricultural class will have been granted their due share of influence in public affairs. It will be the century of Canada only in so much as this quarter of a century will have been the golden age of agriculture.
It was incumbent on this Government to accomplish for Canada what a Sully, under Henry the Fourth, accomplished for France in the sixteenth century. We read in history that, with a view to allaying the hard times which France had been suffering for a number of years, and with a view at the same time to improving the financial status of his government, that great statesman endeavoured to foster agriculture by having more land cleared, by building and repairing bridges, improving means of transportation, in short by doing for the farmer s benefit all that was of a nature to help him on and to improve his opportunities. 'Ploughing and pasturage, those, he was wont to say, are the real gold mines of Peru.'
Those means which ensured to France in the early seventeenth century a period of real and solid wealth and prosperity, should benefit- our country to a large extent. Similar means are bound to bring about similar results.
Such is my sincere belief, Mr. Speaker, and I am satisfied that this same policy would successfully, and once for all, solve the problem of the high cost of living which has been growing on us for the last decade, and which has its starting point in the fact that agricultural production has not kept pace with the increase of population in business and industrial centres.
I say that within the last ten years the progress of agriculture, as well as of the live stock industry, has not been on a par with the growth of population. The last census contains interesting statistics in this connection. They go to show that the population of several countries in the older

provinces, instead of growing has diminished, and that business and manufacturing towns and cities have grown in proportion. Rule of thumb and slipshod methods have had the upper hand over the suggestions of a reasoned and progressive husbandry, such as would have resulted from a practical and painstaking teaching of agriculture. Accordingly we have witnessed the exodus of farmers' sons towards the cities, and the consequent scarcity of that labour with which farming cannot dispense.
So it was that on reaching power this Government had to find some immediate means of preventing an imminent crisis, by means of legislation for the encouragement of agriculture and an appropriation of ten millions towards that end.
It goes without saying, Mr. Speaker, that we have not yet in such short time felt the beneficial effects of such a policy. In the province of Quebec peradventure, we may have to wait longer than elsewhere for such beneficial effects; despite the safeguards taken and the agreements entered into, the Quebec local authorities do not deem it advisable to conform to the spirit of the law and the views of the Dominion Minister of Agriculture. There, more so than elsewhere, people allow themselves to be too closely inspired and guided by considerations foreign to the progress of agriculture.
I hope to be granted an opportunity later on to recur this matter and to show in what wray Dominion subsidies are expended in some counties for the mere purpose of making electors believe that things in Ottawa are actually managed by the Liberal party.
Referring once more to the Address, I may say that the people of ihis country rejoice with His Highness the Governor General on account of the bountiful crops which Providence has bestowed on this country in the course of the year just expired.
Whoever has had an opportunity of visiting the various provinces of the Dominion in the harvesting season of last year, must have realized, indeed, the unspeakable prosperity of this great Dominion. The yield has been immense and the quality good, as a rule.
Providence has been lavish, and hon. gentlemen may possibly condescend to thank her for showing such generosity in favour of an administration whose views and principles they do not always approve. Considering how superabundant the products, some apprehension was entertained
as to the possibility of carrying to their destination that wealth of the farms. Fortunately, thanks to the foresight of the Railway Department, thanks to the prompt action taken by the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals, that much feared congestion of traffic and grain transportation was avoided. Early in the. season, and without any undue stoppage, the grain from the West was moved to the elevators and other terminals along the railway lines and canals, and in greater proportion than heretofore through our Canadian ports and state-aided railway lines.
That shows plainly, Mr. Speaker, that by continuing to develop and improve our means of transportation, by ensuring the completion of our great railway lines now in course of construction, such as the National Transcontinental, the Hudson Bay railway, and I might add, by bringing about the building of the Georgian Bay canal, as soon as the Government are in a position to start that great work, they will be not only setting the framework of Confederation on a solid basis, through a closer union of the provinces, but besides they will be giving greater stability to market conditions and prices, and fostering commercial intercourse between the East and the West for the greater advantage of the country as a whole.
The continuous carrying out of a well matured plan for the improvement of our transportation facilities will accomplish more towards allaying that crisis and that craving for new treaties with the United States to the detriment of Canada, than would reciprocity, which some people look upon as a sort of cure-all the ills with which our country may be afflicted.
We still hear at this moment the voice of two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, praying for reciprocity, on account of the surplus value their products would acquire on the United States markets, and which tariff barriers prevent them from securing. But, to my mind, Mr Speaker, that appeal will become less insistent, as our transportation facilities between the eastern and western seaboards grow and reach their full development, for then these people will find it just as advantageous to sell their products here or in Europe, as to ship them to the United States, especially now that our railways are provided with proper cold storage facilities at their terminals.
It iqay not be irrelevant and without interest, Mr. Speaker, to recall just now an event, an epoch-making event in the an-



nals of the old city of Champlain, which has left a profound impression on the minds of its inhabitants. I refer to the visit paid during recess to Quebec and Levis by the right hon. leader of this Government in company with the hon. Minister of Public Works, the hon. Postmaster General and the hon. Minister of Marine.
They did not, as so many had done before them in later years, come in quest of laurels or encomiums; they came as promoters and builders of works, large, durable and great, in accord with their dreams of the great future they foresee for that region, heretofore practically ignored . and neglected.
The days of trifling and dilly-dallying are over. Confidence is gaining ground on every hand, whether in agriculture, in finance, in business or industry. This Government, faithful to its traditions and to its national policy, guides Canada in its ascent towards its true destiny. The empire, . I might say the whole of Europe, have their eyes on us, and we are in a way to secure for ourselves an enviable place among the nations of the world, under the protection of the British flag.
Is it any wonder that an ever increasing stream of imigration should be turning towards Canada? The Dominion has become as it were the centre of attraction for Latin Europe, the promised land of the empire. It is no longer that snow-bound and ice-bound country, it is the wheat granary of the world and the finest gem in the British Crown.
Accordingly the Department of the Interior has been called upon to exert itself to the utmost, in order to be able to properly look after these new arrivals and locate them on homesteads at its disposal, with a view to facilitating their first efforts as settlers on the land.
If, on the other hand, and with the object of securing work in the cities a certain proportion of those immigrants, through motives which the department is not in a position to control or cast aside, have temporarily been drawn away from the farm, the greater part have settled thereon. This is no longer the time when roving Doukhobors, satisfied that they had some divine mission to fulfil, roamed through the western country singing the praises of the powders that be.
As soon as this Government reached power, the problem of immigration and of the bringing home of our people was taken up. Commissioners were appointed to
* Mr, liavalleeli.
look into the conditions under which that branch of the service had been managed.
While I do not wish to anticipate, I think I am safe in stating that there was brought to light a state of things such that this Government will find itself under the necessity of bringing about important changes in the system advocated and applied by our predecessors in this connection. Some ten, fifteen or twenty years ago, large numbers of Canadians had under our eyes been induced to cross the border; and those people were unable to come back home on account of the apathy of the then Government.
Nevertheless all of them remember their native land; their manners are after our own, and they have preserved the best traditions which make hardy and energetic peoples. At heart and in mind they have remained Canadians, they are attached to our institutions and are still loyal to the British Crown, though living under the Stars and Stripes. As I have said, the overhauling of that branch of the department of immigration on a more practical, fairer and more thoroughly national basis, will, if I am not mistaken, be taken up by this Government, and our Canadians settled over there will thus be enabled once more to enjoy the bracing conditions of our Canadian clime.
True, owing to the enterprise of our pioneer parish priests, with no other resources than their self-sacrifice and fervour, which recall those of the early makers of Canada, that return home is taking in larger numbers from year to year; new churches are being built in parts heretofore unexplored. In northern Ontario as well as in the farthest west, at the foot of the Rockies, French-speaking emigrants brought back from the United States are settling down and enlarging the realm of civilization and of the Canadian fatherland. I entertain the hope that in years to come, further impetus will be given to the work of bringing back home our people, through the painstaking action taken by the Conservative government in the matter.
The hon, gentleman who has just taken his seat, aptly characterized and described the present administration from the business point of view; he gave us a thorough insight into the country's financial conditions. The conclusion is forced upon us that, notwithstanding the large amounts appropriated for public works, notwithstanding the heavy expendi-

ture incurred towards the utilization of our industrial and trade opportunities and the development of our transportation facilities on land and on water, notwithstanding the great works being carried on at Halifax, Quebec, St. John and elsewhere, the hon. Minister of Finance has still in hand funds available for the cutting down of the public debt and the registering of surpluses.
That is the best of evidence that a wise government is not impoverished through the proper expenditure of public funds. What characterizes bad governments is the improper spending of the revenues left at their disposal. Such unprecedented success in the financial history of the Canadian Government is the result of the strictest economy, of an umimpeachable honesty, combined with industry and genius in the supervision of all and every department. We hear it stated in all quarters, and rightly so, that it was a business government the people put into power in 1911. That reputation has been well sustained, since after holding power for a period of only two years, without boasting or trumpery, this Government has made for itself a record which recommends it irresistibly to the confidence and respect of the Canadian people.
And should I recall the fact, Mr. Speaker, that the people of the province of Quebec, one of whose sons was honoured with the premiership of the Dominion, seemed for a while as if in a state of lethargy; but now they are awakening and taking their place along with the other provinces under the colours of the great Liberal-Conservative Party. That means the vendieation of the Conservative party, the conversion of the people to the men who advocated the National Policy and laid the foundation of the Canadian nationality in America. Quebec acknowledges as her benefactors and leaders those who carried on the life work of Macdonald and Cartier.
Their names stand for honesty, perseverance, industry and patriotism. Such are the facts which entitle the representative of the province of Quebec in the Cabinet to hold in the public opinion, in the hearts and minds of the French-Canadians, the place which was held by Cartier some fifty years ago.
It may not be amiss to state right here that the Post Office department has in the person of the present Postmaster General not only a man of push and progress, but also a benefactor of the people. Not content with adjusting and increasing the salaries of hosts of underpaid civil servants,
he resolved that the whole country would have the benefit of that important service, and acordingly provided for the establishment of numerous post offices, extended the rural delivery system and, particularly caused Parliament to pass that parcels post legislation from which great results are expected by the country folk.
Differently from some ol his predecessors, unmindful of what it might bring to himself, he has accomplished results out of his own mind, which are of great benefit to the people. In less than two years, the Post Office Department, as well as the Public Works Department, has given results which overshadow all that had been done during the fifteen previous years. I am merely speaking aloud what the people feel and think, despite the back-sliding and slanders of a blinded press, organized and paid for the purpose.
As soon as a fairer redistribution of the constituencies will have been effected, so as to enable the electors to make known their will, this Government (there is no undue optimism in thinking so), will be sustained by a majority of them. Have we not had, during recess at different times and in various parts, expressions of the popular will?
Considering those indications of the trend of public opinion, considering the facts which proclaim the good management of this Administration, considering the advance made in so short a period, this is the time to state and repeat that, since Providence and the people are with us, you should join us also. Why should gentlemen on the other side wage war on us, now that industry, commerce and agriculture have shaken off the fetters of the past, and entered an area of progress and prosperity? Why should they wage war on us when we have the support of the people?
As I said a moment ago, dickering, dillydallying, encomiums are no longer in season. Canada, our common country, is in need of the co-operation of all men of good will. As representatives of the people, we are entrusted with the glorious task, I should say the privilege, of applying our energy to the building up of this country, not only into the finest colony, but into the nation to-morrow.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I may be allowed to thank my hon. colleagues in this House for having kept in mind that youth is generous, confident and enthusiastic, and for having shown indulgence on this occasion.
I wholly approve of the remarks mads

by the eloquent mover of the Address in answer to the Speech from, the Throne, and it is with infinite pleasure that I second the motion.


Right Hon.   S@: We have all listened with great interest and still greater pleasure to the observations with which we have been favoured by the hon. member for York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod) and the hon. member for Belle-chasse (Mr. Lavallee). I say we have all listened with interest and pleasure, though some of us, and I amongst them, cannot subscribe to many of the statements both of fact and of opinion made by these hon. gentlemen. Notwithstanding all differences, however, we on this side of the House are all happy to join with our friends on the other side in extending congratulations to both the mover and the seconder of the Address. My hon. friend from. York, N.B.-if he permits me to apply that term to him-came into this House preceded by a reputation earned in another sphere; and it is only fair to him to say- and it is a great pleasure for me to say- that on this occasion he has been quite equal to his reputation. Though I differ with him in many things, as I said a moment ago; I recognize the felicitous manner in which his views were expressed. He was especially happy in the terms in which he expressed to Their Royal Highnesses the sentiments of deep sympathy which we and all the people of Canada have felt for them in the cruel ordeal through which they have passed, an ordeal which involved for the one long days and weeks of suffering almost between life and death, and for the other a long agony of suspense and anxiety. It is the simple truth, as has been said by my hon. friend from York, N.B., that there was sincere rejoicing among all classes of the community at the almost miraculous escape of Her Royal Highness, not solely on account of the high position she occupies, but still more because of the many domestic virtues and womanly graces, the many high qualities of heart and mind, of which she has given so many evidences during her short stay amongst us. All classes of Canadians have learned, and every day learn more and more, to appreciate these qualities of mind and heart, and daily the prayers from millions of Canadian homes rise fervent to Heaven for her complete recovery.
Perhaps my hon. friend will not be surprised, however, if I say that when he departed from this subject and dealt with
TiMr. Lavalleefl.
the public business of the country, his remarks were not altogether so felicitous, at least in my opinion. He adopted toward the Administration, so far as the course of public business is concerned, a most eulogistic tone, a tone which, I believe, was not altogether in accord with the sober truth of the record. But if I say this it is not at all because I wish to take issue with my hon. friend on this point or to quarrel with him; for, remembering that once I myself was young, I know that it is always allowable to youth to be enthusiastic and even to carry enthusiasm not only to the extreme limit of exaggeration but even to the extreme limit of blind misconception.
Had my hon. friend been in this House before, I am sure he would have asked some explanations from the Government for having been so tardy in summoning Parliament together, for having allowed the months of November and December to pass without moving a finger toward the despatch of the busness of the country. My hon. friend is not aware, as you, Mr. Speaker, and I are aware, and as the Government I am sure cannot have forgotten, that it is a part of the law of this Parliament-the well-recognized though unwritten law-that Parliament ought to meet in the early fall and in any case not later than the month of November unless some great public event should interpose. Indeed, so well recognized is this law that the financial year was some years ago, changed in consequence of it, so as to run from the 1st of April to the 31st of March, instead of, as before, from the 1st of July to the 30th of June. What can be the reason why Parliament was not summoned as it should have been summoned, in the early fall? What is the public reason which can be invoked by the Government for having been so tardy and dilatory? What reason can there be except the reason wdiich causes the insolvent debtor with a small list of assets and a long list of liabilities to put off the day when he must meet the creditors to whom he must give an account? So the Government has been putting off, and putting off, and putting off, until the very last moment when they had to meet Parliament, their creditor and their master-and meet it with a very small list of assets and a long list of liabilities.
Had my hon. friend from York, N.B., been longer in Parliament he would have noticed something new on the Treasury benches. My hon. friend from Bellechasse may well have noticed it, for he has been here for two sessions. There are two

features to which I wish to call attention, of which one is new and the other is not new. The new feature is that we have on the Treasury benches, at long last, a Solicitor General. It took a long time to fill that vacancy. The mantle remained suspended for something like two years, but at last it has fallen on the shoulders of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen). My compliments' to the Solicitor General. I speak my mind frankly when I state that I believe he is wrell qualified for the position-well qualified from the legal point of view and still better qualified from the political point of view. He has been in this House for some years. It has been my pleasure to observe him almost from the day he came here; and almost from his first appearance we have had evidences not a few that he is endowed with a very subtle mind, that he is a past master dialectician. But, if I must speak my mind fully and give my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie all the credit to which he is entitled, I must say that while he is a clever dialectician, he is a still cleverer sophist. There are few men in this House or out of it who can clothe fallacies and paradoxes with more fitting garments than can the hon. gentleman. When it comes to the task of making the worse appear the better reason, few men can do more than my hon. friend the new Solicitor General. And, if the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster) were in his place, I would tell him that he had better look to his laurels, for even at his own game the Solicitor General can give him points. But the mystery to me is here:	The qualifications of my hon.
friend from Portage la Prairie were obvious; not only we but the public-everybody-knew them. Why, then, has it taken so long for my right hon. friend the Prime Minister to discover them? I cannot imagine that my right hon. friend with his acute mind did not see that which was obvious to everybody. The mystery is why he should have allowed twelve months, twenty-four months, to elapse, without filling the portfolio which he has at last filled. Of course, the reason may have been that, while he was as well aware as others of the qualifications of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, yet that hon. member was not the only pebble on the beach. The beach was strewn with pebbles. Looking before me now, I can see one, two, three fouT, five, six-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Yes, six I can see, the friends of each of whom believed
that he was entitled to occupy the position, and each one of whom believed that he was more entitled to it than his neighbour. How is it that they have been left and my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie chosen? That is where the subtle mind of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie served him. That subtle mind taught him that something more than legal ability must play a part in the choice to be made. He was not satisfied to show only his ability as a member of this House; he showed his teeth also. And when the Prime Minister saw those sharp teeth bared and ready to sink into his quivering flesh, all hesitation was gone.
You will remember that towards the end of last session the Bank Bill came back from the Senate, with some amendments. The Minister of Finance, who was in charge of the Bill, accepted the amendments, and explained them to the House. He said that they were trivial, nominal, and of no consequence; that although they were, perhaps, of some improvement to the measure, they affected in no way the principle of it. Thereupon there was a storm of indignation, or rather of pretended indignation, on the other side of the House. Some hon. gentlemen rose to protest, and the most valiant of these was the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen). He attacked the amendments most violently; he said that they changed the whole tenor of the Bill; he shot at the Senate, which he could not reach, and over the heads of the Government, whom he wished not to hurt. It was more than an attack; it was a warning. The right hon. gentleman remembered a page in the parliamentary history of England upon which it is recorded that when Sir Robert Walpole was prime minister a young cavalry officer was elected to Parliament, and the moment he had spoken the Prime Minister said to his friends, ' that warhorse must be muzzled.' It is evident that when my hon. friend the Prime Minister heard the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, he said to himself that that hon. gentleman would have to be muzzled. Unfortunately, as my hon. friend has chosen the great William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, as his model, and as the Minister of Finance has gone so far as to approve the action of the Senate, my hon. friend the new Solicitor General will have to use his best ability to approve also, whatever may be his own feelings.
The other circumstance to which attention should be called, and one with which we are unfortunately commencing to be familiar, is the absence of my hon. friend the Minister of

Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster)., I am aware that that hon. gentleman is absent in England, and that he is attending the sittings of a commission appointed in consequence of a resolution passed by the last Imperial Conference. These duties are important, but. they are in no way connected with the Department of Trade and Commerce; in fact, such duties should never have been entrusted to a Minister of the Crown. The late Government had recommended a man of great commercial ability, and of high standing in the financial world, Mr. P. C. Larkin; but this recommendation was disregarded and the appointment cancelled by the present Government when they came into office. This was, I believe, the first act in their debauchery of dismissals; the last we have not heard. The Minister of Trade and Commerce should never have taken these duties to which I have referred. He should have remembered that, according to Scripture, no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. This is exactly what has taken place. My hon. friend has adopted his duties as commissioner and he has forgotten his duties as minister. He was absent during the greater part of last session; he may be absent the greater part of this session. It is true that last year he had the excuse, as was hinted a moment ago by the mover of the Address, that he was in search of trade for the growers and producers of Canada-a most laudable ambition. He went to China, and he went to Japan. I speak not by way of condemnation, but I may add that we have it upon good authority that my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce contemplates sending bakers to China and Japan to teach the Chinese and the Japanes the superiority of a wheat diet over a rice diet. Again I say I do not condemn; I entirely approve. Let the Minister of Trade and Commerce send not only bakers, but confectioners, pastry cooks, and culinary missionaries of every description, and let their mission be to wean the celestials from their gastronomical proclivities; from swallows' nests, sharks' fins, bamboo roots and ducks' eggs two years old, and induce them to substitute for these delicacies the modern preparations of wheat flour, and anything and everything in the way of cereals, not forgetting porridge, the food of the strong and the free in this part of the world. If my hon. friend the Minister oi Trade and Commerce, as a result of his pilgrimages to Japan and China, will succeed in obtaining for this country the sale ,
of one more barrel of flour than we have exported hitherto, the Government will have done more than they have so far accomplished during their four years of office.
The Speech from the Throne is remarkable for two things: first, for what it contains, and, second, for what it omits. Before I pass to what it omits, let me refer to-what it contains. It has a paragraph referring to the Hudson Bay railway, about which I do not propose to say anything upon this occasion; we must have more information than is contained in the SDeech from the Throne before we discuss that subject. But let me read this paragraph with regard to the Transcontinental railway:
. The work on the National Transcontinental railway has been rapidly advanced during the
ast year, and, notwithstanding the difficulties attending the construction of the Hudson Bay railway, and the provision of terminals, every possible progress has been made in bringing that important project nearer to completion.
If the National Transcontinental railway /las been rapidly advanced, we have only the word of the Speech for it, and we are not in much of a position to discuss the whole matter. ' At all events, we know enough to say, without any fear of contradiction, that if the work of the Transcontinental railway has been advanced, it has not been on the section between Cochrane and Quebec city. This part of the road should be open to traffic to-day, but it is yet far from completion. On the 19th of Februarv last, in the other branch of the legislature, a question was put by Senator Casgrain with regard to the section of the railway between Cochrane and the city of Quebec, in these words:	.
Q. What was the length of the gap, in miles, on the 1st of November, 1912, where the grading has not been made between Cochrane and t he city of Quebec?-A. Thirty-five miles.
Q. What is the distance between both ends of steel of this gap to-day??-A. Eighty-eight miles.
So at the end of the season last year there were thirty-five miles of grading and eighty-eight miles of steel to be laid on that section; not a very heavy task, and one that should have been accomplished during the summer. I believe that the thirty-five miles of grading has been done, and that the section between Cochrane and Quebec has also been graded.
But yet the road is not in operation in any way and cannot be put in operation. For what reason? For the reason that the Government of the day have completely neglected to provide terminals at the citv

of Quebec. What have they done during the two years they have been in office? When we left office, in October, 1911, we had passed contracts to provide provisional terminals. We had a contract amounting to $1,000,000 for a station at the Champlain market. We had contracts ready to be given and I think they had been awarded for the building of wharfs on the front of the St. Lawrence, something like 2,000 feet in length, which were to cost something like $5,000,000. These works were absolutelv necessary for the operation of the road. It is impossible to operate a railroad unless you have a station. It is impossible to connect the road with what we hope to have, an ocean service, unless you have wharfs also. What has been done about these wharfs? Not one foot of them has ever been undertaken up to the present time. What has been done at the station? Nothing at all, my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane) has cancelled that contract. He told us nearly two years ago, in the session of 1911-12, that he would not have the station at the Champlain market, that he was contemplating a union station elsewhere. He told us at the same time that he would have a small station at the Champlain market place. Has this small station been commenced? Not up to the present time. What has been done? The only thing done towards the provision of terminals has been the commencing of shops at St. Romuald. The late commission has laid out the shops at St. Foy ; the ground had been purchased and prepared; but the new commission thought it advisable to change the site of the shops and to place them at St. Malo; that is, to transfer them from the valley of the St. Lawrence to the valley of the St. Charles. As to this I pass no judgment because we have not yet had information on this subject. But I know one thing: even if it be good policy, for engineering reasons, to have the site of those shops changed, you cannot use those shops, as has been stated by the Postmaster General (Mr. Pelletier) himself, unless you have a tunnel from the valley of the St. Lawrence to the valley of the St. Charles. Has this work been commenced? It has not. When will it be commenced? It is impossible to say; we have no information. What time will be required for its construction? We do not know. Have the survevs been prepared? I am not aware that they have. No, nothing has been done up to the present time in order to complete the road and make it available. More than that,
I understand and we shall have to ask the information from the Minister of Railways on this point-that an arrangement has been made to have a joint station between the Canadian Pacific railway and the Transcontinental railway. I would like to know if the Grand Trunk Pacific railway has been a party to such an agreement as that. I have reason to believe, and I think I can assert-and I challenge contradiction on this point-that these changes which I have just mentioned, the removal of the shops to St. Malo and the removal of the station from the Champlain market place, have been made without the approval of-the Grand Trunk Pacific railway, and, under the law passed by this Parliament in 1903, the Grand Trunk Pacific railway must be a party to any such changes as these. If the Grand Trunk Pacific railway had been a party to this arrangement, Parliament, I am sure, would have been made aware of that fact long ago; but up to the present time we have received no information that it is a party. If I am in error in this I would be glad to be informed, and I hope the information will be laid before us at the earliest possible moment; in fact, I mav venture to say to the Minister of Railways that he is bound at the earliest moment to place before us not only the report of the Commission of Inquiry which has been investigating the work performed by the late Administration, but all information respecting all changes that have been made bv the new Transcontinental Railway Commission upon the work of the late commission.
My hon. friend the mover of the Address referred to some things that were not referred to in the Speech. Yes, there are two things not referred to. One is the'' Highways Bill. I was surprised to hear my hon. friend the member for York, N.B., (Mr. McLeod) tell us that the measure which was introduced was a fair measure in every particular. I say to him-and we shall have to debate this more than once in this House-that the Highways Bill which was introduced was not only unfair but was in direct violation of the constitution of Canada. It has been stated more than once that the object of this Bill was to help the provinces. I do not deny it; we never denied it; we have always affirmed the principle of the Bill, but we condemned the manner in which it was proposed to help the provinces in this Bill which was in marked contrast to another Bill introduced by the Minister of Agriculture to help the provinces in the matter of agriculture. One was passed and became law. The other was passed with

an amendment, and if it is not law to-day it is not the fault of the Opposition; it is not even the fault of the Upper Chamber; it is the fault of the Government who could not introduce a Bill in accordance with the terms of the constitution. Here is the Bill which was introduced last year with regard to helping the provinces in regard to agriculture. It became law; no objection having been taken to it. Section 4 of that Bill provides that Parliament shall appropriate a certain sum of money. Subsection 1 of section 4 provides:
The remainder of the appropriation for each year shall be allotted and paid to the governments of the respective provinces in proportion to the populations of the said provinces respectively as determined by the latest decennial census.
Is that fair ? This is fair and this is constitutional ? Every year an appropriation shall be made according to the census then in force and the money shall be paid to the local Government. Are those the terms of the Highways Bill ? They are not. If those had been the terms of the Highways Bill, the Highways Bill would be law to-day as the Agricultural Bill is law to-day. Here are the terms of the Highways Bill; compare them with the terms I have just read from the Agricultural Bill :
The Governor in Council may, in any year, and upon such terms and subject to such conditions as are prescribed by Order in Council, grant to the several provinces of the Dominion in aid of the improvement of existing highways or bridges, or the construction of new highways or bridges, or for all or any such purposes, subsidies not exceeding in the whole such sum as may in such year be voted by parliament for that purpose.
The Government may, at their sweet will, not pay directly to the provinces, as provided for in the Act for aiding agriculture, but pay or not pay to the provinces, or keep for themselves if they want to do so, the money appropriated by Parliament. I ask the hon. member for York, N.B., who was not in the House last year and who perhaps has not given this legislation the attention which we who were in the House have given to it, to compare the Act with the Bill and then to tell us that he can approve of the Highways Bill. Would he not say, on the contrary, in fairness, that the only method which should have been adopted was the one adopted by the Minister of Agriculture of paying the money to the provinces and letting them expend it themselves. This is the constitution. If we admit-and that nobody can deny-that the highways are under the control of the local Legislature,
,
why was it not done and why was the same principle not adopted in the Highways Bill as in the Agriculture Instruction Bill P Up to the present time we have not received a satisfactory answer on this point, and never shall we, because there is no explanation to be given.
The other thing which is not to be found referred to in the Speech from the Throne is the Naval Aid Bill. It was not more than three weeks ago that the correspondent in the London Times, who is supposed to be deep in the secrets of the Government, wrote to his paper, in a letter which everybody could have read if he had cared to, that the Naval Bill would be introduced again. It is not to be introduced. As to this, I have no comment to make, except that the non-introduction of the Bill to-day is the best possible justification of the attitude of the Liberal party on this question and of the amendment voted by the Senate last session.
The action of the Senate last session, on almost the last day of the last session, just before prorogation, called forth strong animadversions from the other side of the House. The Minister of Finance (Mr. White) on that occasion reviewed the action and attitude of an old friend of his and mine, Sir George Boss, now the leader of the Liberal party in the Senate. He endeavoured to be severe, and very severe to Sir George Boss. He compared him with Daniel Webster, whom he called the great apostate, and applied to him the verses which were applied to Webster:
Walk backwards; with averted gaze And hide the shame.
The passion of my hon. friend has had time to cool. At all events, I tell him-and I hope he is cool enough to understand- that the strictures which he passed upon the dead were the greatest eulogy which he could pass upon the living statesman, because the strictures which were put upon Daniel Webster have not been justified by the impartial'judgment of history. On the contrary, men there are to-day, and men there were in the day of Daniel Webster, to take exception to the strictures passed upon him for the action which was adverted to by my hon. friend last session. In 1850, as my hon. friend knows, the differences between the North and the South in the American Union were becoming very acute. There was a chasm which was every day growing greater, and Henry Clay, who was the greatest apostate of the Union of that time, brought in a resolution which was

destined-no, I will net say destined, because it failed of its object-but which was intended to reconcile the growing dissension between the two branches of the Union. Daniel Webster supported that legislation, and for having taken that action he was censured by some of the abolitionists of the Northern States. Among those abolitionists I must say there were some men of the highest character, such as Theodore Parker, Horace Mann and James Russell Lowell. The issue showed that even the .brightest intellects could be clouded by passion, and that some well-intentioned men never can realize that any stand on a public question different from their own can be
5 p.m. as nobile as their own, and that there are men who will never forgive those whose intellects plunge deeper into the horizon than their own. It was the good fortune of Daniel Webster to live long enough to see many of them recant their opinions, and, as I said a moment ago, the judgment of history has not confirmed the strictures upon Daniel Webster adverted to by my hon. friend. And, if my hon. friend will take the last and the best of all, he will find that the speech which was delivered by Webster, though criticised in parts, is declared by Cecil Rhodes himself [DOT]to have shown statesmanship of the highest order. There is more. The whole matter has been well summed up by one of the greatest minds in the last generation. James G. Blaine, in his work entitled ' Twenty years of Congress/ says:
The thoughtful reconsideration of his severest critics must allow that Mr. Webster saw before him a divided duty, and that he chose the part which in his patriotic judgment was demanded T>y the supreme danger of the hour.
I commend these words to my non. friend. The patriotic judgment of Sir George Ross showed what was the supreme danger of the hour, and it was because he saw the supreme danger of the hour that he acted as he did. Sir George Ross is well known as an intense imperialist, but upon that *occasion there was a question which was uppermost: It was a question of the autonomy of this country, and by that principle he stood. My hon. friend will allow, now that the matter has passed, for the present at all events, that the Bill which '-was brought in last session, was not even a measure of emergency, although it was so called. It was simply a measure of expediency involving a policy of contribution, a policy which had been denounced by the very men themselves who introduced the o
Bill, a policy which was not justified by anything which then existed. They introduced it upon the shallow pretense of emergency. Emergency? Who speaks to-day of emergency? Twelve months have passed since my right hon. friend the Prime Minister introduced his measure. Twelve months and more have passed since that time when 'he saw the German peril. He saw Germany almost ready to jump at the throat of Great Brkain. He saw clouds on the horizon; he saw these clouds rent by lightning; he heard the murmurs arid rumbling of distant thunder. But my right hon. friend to-day may live in peace: The atmosphere is pure, the sky is clear. My right hon. friend, I think, heard the words of the Lord Chancellor, which were pronounced in this country last year, to the effect that the relations between Germany and Great Britain, were cordial and he must have read with the greatest satisfaction that not later than five weeks ago a cause 'of difficulty between the two nations about some territory in Africa had been amicably settled. And from that time to this moment the relations between the two countries which were cordial in the month of September last have been absolutely friendly. The light has been let in on that question, and we know now how much the country and the empire and the civilized world has been deceived upon that question of so-called emergency. We know now, we have the evidence, how the panics of which we have heard in this House more than once, are created and engineered. We have had the evidence that these panics are engineered by the armour-plate builders and by the great ship-building firms who do not hesitate to create false news in order to obtain contracts for their ships. The matter was brought up in the German Reichstag, and the following letter addressed by the firm to one of its agents in Paris was read:
We have just wired to you asking you to await in Paris our to-day's letter. The reason for the telegram was that we should like to obtain the insertion in one of the most widely-read French journals-preferably the ' Figaro'- an article to the effect that the French military authorities have decided to accelerate considerably the re-arming of the troops with new machine guns, and to order double the quantity of the latter as against their original intention. We shall be much obliged if you could succeed in getting such an article published.
That letter was signed by two directors of what was supposed to be a respectable firm. The thing was denounced in the German Reichstag, and it could not rest



there, because it was found that army officers received bribes to promulgate this false news, and they were tried and convicted and are now serving sentences. Now we know why we have so often these recurring panics which are disturbing the peace of the world, and which, if they do not bring war, always bring fat contracts to the armament firms. Not only that, but we have the evidence-no, I will not say evidence-but it has been charged, and so far as I know the charge has not been denied, that the information which was given to us upon the German armament could not be relied upon, but was false and exaggerated. I do not speak of my own knowledge as to that, but I give as my authority an article published by Mr. A. G. Gardiner in the Daily News and Leader of London. I call attention to this paragraph in that article:
How that is done was revealed in the case of Mr. Mulliner of the Coventry Ordnance works. It was Mr. Mulliner who was the true author and begetter of the famous panic of 1908-9. It was he who supplied Parliament and the press with the material for that memorable agitation. It was he who was quoted with such effect by Mr. Arthur Lee, Mr. Duke, Mr. Balfour and others. It was he who was finally solemnly received by the Cabinet

the British Cabinet-to tell them all about the goings-on of Kruppis, the 38,000 new workmen whom Mr. Lee said they were employing-as a matter of fact there was a decline in the number of men employed between 1907 and 1909-the acceleration in shipbuilding and the menace of that fatal year 1912 when the Germans, we were led to suppose, intended to make short work of the British Empire. Fresh from that momentous interview Mr. Asquith and Mr, McKenna told the House of Commons that Germany would have 17 dreadnoughts in 1912 instead of the projected 13 ; Mr. Balfour, not to be outdone, said there would be 21 and possibly 25. When in due time 1912 arrived the Germans had 12 dreadnoughts completed.
This information, which was given by Mr. Mulliner, was repeated by ministers on the floor of the House of Commons in England, and repeated also on the floor of this House by hon. gentlemen opposite. I do not charge any intention of deceit on the part of the Prime Minister in this regard, but I will charge deceit if, in the face of this evidence, we again hear of such a thing as an emergency.
The German peril has disappeared, if indeed there ever was such a thing; but we have another menace and another peril which is far more dangerous; a peril which affects not the fate of the Empire, but which is bound to bring suffering to hundreds of thousands of His Majesty's subjects in Canada. I may say that this peril has found the Government singularly
,
callous with respect to it. Within the last four weeks the Minister of Finance has reviewed the economic situation in Canada twice; once in Montreal at the commercial travellers' banquet, and again at Gananoque, in his riding. On both occasions he pronounced the financial condition of the country perfectly satisfactory. According to him, it has not always been satisfactory, but at the moment he was speaking it had become satisfactory again; there were no more clouds on the horizon, the storm had passed. That I may not do injustice to the Minister of Finance, I quote his words as reported in the Montreal Gazette, which authority I suppose he will accept. At Montreal, he is reported by the Gazette to have said:
Our country has experienced its time of stress, and will come through it well. I believe the crisis has been reached, and passed in Canada, as in other countries of the world.
*According to these words of the Minister of Finance, the crisis has come and passed, and once more navigation is easy and Canada is in a good position. I am not surprised at these words, in view of the fact that two years ago the gentlemen opposite were exclaiming in times of prosperity:	let well enough alone. The
Minister of Finance was satisfied two years ago to let well enough alone; he would not then improve the situation; he would not improve what was good in prosperous times, and now, in bad times, he and his party will, not reform what is bad. We have had it from my young friend from York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod) that we have reached hard times, and the people of Canada have, I believe, come to the conclusion that, as the Government did not improve what was good in prosperous times, we are now not far away from bad times. Well, the bad times are here. When the Minister of Finance stated, as he did that the crisis was over, he had two things staring him in the face. For the first time since 1897 we hear of such a thing as non-employment in Canada. It is well known that at the present time prosperous establishments of long standing are reducing the number of their employees, that others are reducing the hours of work, that others are reducing the number of their employees and the hours of labour as well and that others have closed down. And yet, in the face of that situation, when there are to-day, in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary. Edmonton and Vancouver, not fewer lhan
100,000	men asking for work, the Minister

of Finance says the crisis is over, and that we can be as confident as we were before. And at this very moment, when labour is scarce, and when the purchasing power of the people has been reduced to its lowest point, the cost of all prime necessities of life has risen abnormally. But the Minister of Finance says there is no crisis, and therefore there is nothing for the Government to do. He is not the only one of the ministry who has taken this stand; we have more instances than one to prove that the Government is singularly callous to the present condition of affairs. The Minister of Labour spoke on this subject, giving it as his view that there was absolute prosperity because the prices of commodities were so high. The Minister of Trade and Commerce also gave his opinion on this subject, as published in the Montreal Gazette of the 10th of December last. The reporter says:
Charging that Canadians were extravagant and must correct this weakness as the first step forward in reducing the high cost of living, the Hon. Geo. E. Foster made one of a number of notable speeches here in the Rideau theatre.
Then the reporter puts these words into the mouth of the Hon. George E. Foster:
Referring to the depopulation of the farming districts, Mr. Foster said he would not admit that young men were driven to the cities, but were lured there. He did not favour a commission to investigate the question. 'The Lord knows,' Mr. Foster continued, ' we have had enough commissions. They are as plentiful as blackberries. Commissions are roaming the country wasting good ink and paper preparing reports which are laid on the shelf and nothing done with them. It is not a commission that will right this matter. The action must be taken by the people themselves. Teachers and parents must not only give advice to the young people, but'must instruct them to the fact that the oldest industry of agriculture is also the noblest.'
This is good advice, but it was not followed by those to whom it was given, because hi a week from that day, I understand, the Government appointed a commission to investigate the high cost of living and the cause of the depopulation of the farming districts. That commission is composed of three gentlemen well known in the city of Ottawa. Mr. McDougald, Commissioner of Customs is the chairman, and in regard to him 1 have nothing but good to say. He is a most competent and valuable officer. I would say the same of Mr. Coats, who is the assistant Deputy Minister of Labour. Mr. James I do not know so well, but I have good reports of him also. What I want to say, however, is that if this com-24
mission is to be effective, if it is to accomplish any good, it should not be entrusted to civil servants. It should not be placed in the hands of the Commissioner of Customs, the assistant Deputy Minister of Labour and the other gentleman. It is evident that they must be restricted in their operations. There is one field into which they cannot enter. If, as many of us suppose, if, as the country supposes-I will not say more than that-the high cost of living is due to political causes, and I believe it is partly due to political causes, will these men dare to investigate that part of the subject? They will not dare to do so; they cannot do so; they are estopped from entering into that field. In appointing that commission, the Government have taken a course which will simply end in nothing. If there is to be an investigation of this kind, it should be placed in the hands of some of the members of the Cabinet-for instance, the Minister of Customs (Mr. Reid), the Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers), the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster)-to mention these three alone-who should travel over the country from Halifax to Vancouver, and hear all classes of the community-producers, consumers, farmers, mechanics, professional men, clergymen, housewives-these last especially, because they are the most interested of all in that question. Nothing of the kind, however, has been done. The task has been entrusted to a commission which, as their report will show, can do only half the work.
We come now to the Speech from the Throne. I was not present, of course, when the Speech was prepared, but I can imagine that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. White) must have had a hard task when it came to preparing this part of the Speech:
Canada has been favoured by a long series of prosperous years, and, although at the present moment business is slightly restricted by the financial stringency which prevails throughout the world, I feel convinced that this condition will be merely temporary, and that the boundless resources of this Dominion, which are so fully and universally known and recognized, give us the fullest assurance of continued material prosperity and progress.
When it came to these words:
Canada has been favoured by a long series of prosperous years-*
That was hard to fathom, because it was paying a pretty good compliment to the late Administration which had been in office for several years. But when it came to the other words:

Although at the present moment business is slightly restricted-
I can imagine my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance (Mr. White), saying: I made a speech a few weeks ago saying that the crisis was over. How can I say that it still exists? He was drawing too long a bow at Montreal. The Speech only says what is in everybody's mind, and puts it very mildly and gently when it says that business is slightly restricted. But when we have the admission from the Government that business is not in a satisfactory condition, what are we to say of the conclusion which is reached by the Government? We have the admission that the economic condition of the country is not satisfactory, and a confession on the part of the Government of its impotence to deal with such a problem. When the Government stated in the Speech -a statement which I am sure they placed very reluctantly in the mouth of His Royal Highness-that the economic condition of the country was not satisfactory, all that they did was to express the highest hope that matters would rectify themselves. They say that the resources of the country are boundless. So they are, but is it the business of the Government simply to rely upon the resources of the country? Are ' they to do nothing themselves? Are they to be simply flies on the wheel? Are they not to take any action at all? It is very true that the resources are boundless, but it has been shown that the resources of the country do not yield their treasures to those who rely simply upon statements; they want to be tapped; they want men to use power and judgment in order to develop them. This is not what is done by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. The Government thus stands to-day convicted before the people that, while admitting that the economic condition of the country is not satisfactory, they have nothing to suggest in order to make it any better. Is this what we are to expect from the Government? Is this what, the people of the country have reason to expect in view of the fact that two years ago they placed the government of the country in the hands of the gentlemen who now occupy the treasury benches? Are we to be told in this age and at this day that the Government are in power simply to enjoy the sweets of office and to take no responsibility to better such a condition of things as exists to-day? If the Government will not take any responsibility, perhaps it may be well that I should tell them that they must act. They cannot afford to remain silent. They must act in order to carry out the duties which they .
have to perform. What action are they to take? There are several things which they can do, which they ought to do, and which the people expect them to do.
In the first place, they must give to the country, which is a young, expanding country, as stated a moment ago by the hon. member for York, N.B., wider markets than it has at the present time. There is one thing which they can do simply by a stroke of the pen; they can give to the producer of wheat the American market. They have received delegation upon delegation asking for that. I understand that my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers), who told us last year that he knew how to win elections, stated, during the election in Macdonald, that, if it was in the interest of the people to have free wheat, free wheat it would be.
What more evidence does my hon. friend want ? He has received a delegation from the grain growers of the western provinces asking for free wheat. In the very legislature of the province which he represents here a resolution has been passed unanimously, not moved by a Grit but moved by a Conservative, to the effect that wheat ought to be made free. There was a delegation only a few days ago of some twenty members of the Alberta Legislature asking for free wheat. How is it, then, that the Speech from the Throne does not contain the announcement that wheat will be made free ? When this admission was made that the economic condition of the country was not satisfactory, we had reason to expect that some action would be taken. We have been disappointed in this. Is that all they should do ? No, they ought to do that which they have been asked many tjmes to do,-they ought to relieve the farming community of the burden of taxation which the farmers are carrying at the present time. There is one fact that is beyond doubt, a fact on which we must have more explanation before the session passes. Everyone knows that in regard to many commodities of which at one time we produced far more than we consumed we do not now produce enough to meet the home demand. Years ago we produced a surplus of butter and of meat of many kinds; at present we are importing butter, mutton and other commodities. The agricultural classes have found labour so, expensive that they have been unable to carry on their operations as they desired to do. It becomes more and more evident that if you wish to stimulate the farming industries you must provide wider markets than you have provided up to the present time. By a happy circumstance for which the

present Government is not responsible, the American market has been opened to our cattle and the farmers of the western provinces have received for their cattle higher prices than they ever received before. The consequence will be that in two or three years there will be more cattle in the western provinces than there have been for many a long year. It is only by the stimulating of the activity of the farmer that he will develop his industry and lead to the whole of this country producing what it ought to produce.
One thing more we should do. At the present time the farming community of the West is suffering from a combine of the shipping interests of the Great Lakes. They have petitioned for a remedy of that grievance. It is a serious grievance, because it involves a tax upon both the producer and the consumer; and the Government will have to deal with that problem whether they wish to do so or not. The law is there to be executed, and if the law is not sufficient it ought to be amended so as to enable the Government to cope with such problems.
The Government must also take into consideration the problem of the high cost of living. I know I shall be told at once that that is not a question that affects Canada alone. 1 am quite aware that it affects the whole civilized world. The fact that the cost	of living	has risen	in allcivilized countries shows that there are causes which	are	universal and whichmay	perhaps	be	beyond our	control.At the same time, when we reflect that	the cost	of	living has	risen in
Great Britain ten per cent and in Canada fifty per cent, it is plain that there are causes operating in Canada which do not exist in Great Britain. Now', I wish to state the question clearly; I do not pretend that the increased price of products is a thing in itself to be deplored. One cause for it I state at once: for the last ten or fifteen years the price of labour has increased all over the world; therefore it was natural that the price of agricultural labour should increase also, and this has had the effect of increasing the price of the product. This increase went on for years normally and gradually, and nobody complained. But at the present moment things are different. We see to-day that between the price paid by the consumer and the price received by the producer, there is a wide margin, and it is that margin especially which it should be the effort of this Government and this Parliament to reach and to cut down. If the
price paid by the consumer w'ere the price received by the farmer, no one could seriously object, and no one would object. But we have the right to object when the prices received by the farmer are not those which are paid by the consumer. I have seen it stated many times that the tariff is not responsible for the high cost of living. I do not pretend that the tariff is responsible for the high cost of living in its entirety, but I say to the Minister of Finance (Mr. White), who, more than any one else, must have this matter in hand, that the restrictions imposed by the tariff are used by the combines in order to promote their interests and charge those abnormal prices. And we are told that nothing is to be done. We are told that everything is satisfactory; we are told that the Government is powerless in this matter. It is not for me to give advice to the Government; if I w'ere to offer it they would not take it from me. But I have to tell them, whether they wish it or not, that they must act: they cannot afford to lie idle. They are not free to remain still like logs; they must move. There has been stringency before in this country. We are told in the speech from the Throne that the resources of the country are boundless. So they are. So they have been at all times. So they were in 1893-4-5 and 6. But, though the resources w'ere boundless in that way, yet the people suffered. It was only when a new Government came in that had the courage to take the matter in hand that there came an era [DOT]of prosperity which terminated only when the present Government came into office.
These are some of the duties which face the Government. Whether they accept what I say or not does not matter. But I tell them frankly-no, I will not tell them, but I tell the country frankly-that if they take up these duties and perform them with courage, with energy and good judgment, the shops will be reopened, trade will revive, prices will reach an equilibrium between consumer and producer, and we shall have another era such as we had after the enactment of the tariff of 1897. But if they will not do so, there are other men who will have to take their places, men who have shown before by actual experience that they have the minds to plan and the courage to execute, men who have proven that when difficulty arose and when the time of stringency came, they were equal to the occasion. This Government may accept it from me or not, but if they do not. the people will have to pronounce between them and us.	.

We have been told that in taking the attitude which I have taken and again take here we have been moved only by a desire for a restoration to office. I do not Dretend to be indifferent to office. If I were so to pretend I should not be worthy of my position here. But there are things which to every right-minded man are more precious than the possession of office, and one is the welfare of the country in which we were born and for whose affairs we are responsible. We have made great sacrifices for our convictions, but if our convictions are not accepted we have no fault to find with any one. This is a free country, and every man is welcome to his opinions. But, Sir,
I repeat that no man should be indifferent to the conditions which exist to-day, and therefore in conclusion I beg to move that the following words be added to the Address :
We regret to have to represent to Your Royal Highness that in the gracious Speech with which you have met Parliament, whilst it is admitted that business is in a depressed condition, yet there is no indication of any intention on the part of your advisers to take any steps towards relieving such a situation.


Rt.   H@: I desire to associate myself with all that has been so aptly and eloquently said by my right hon. friend in extending his congratulations to the mover and the seconder of the Address. Both these hon. gentlemen have made admirable speeches, and while hon. gentlemen ont the other side of the House cannot be expected naturally to take precisely the same view as to the conduct of public affairs as that which was expressed in those speeches, nevertheless I observed with a great deal of satisfaction that the remarks of these gentlemen did in many respects meet with the approval of hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House. The mover of the address, the hon. member for York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod), has already had a distinguished career, having attained at a very early age a high position in the public life of his province, and it was with every feeling of anticipation, I am sure, that the House awaited his observations this afternoon. I entirely concur with what has been said by the leader of the Opposition in this respect: that he amply fulfilled all the expectations which had been formed of him as a parliamentary debater. So my hon. friend from the country of Bellechasse (Mr. Lavallee), of the old historic province of Quebec, has maintained the reputation of the worthy
[Sir Wilfrid LaurierJ.
race which he so eloquently represented on this occasion, and has delivered to the House this afternoon a speech which reflects credit not only upon himself, but upon his province as well.
I desire also particularly to associate myself with what has been said not only by my hon. friend the member for York, but by the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition, in expressing the great satisfaction of the Canadian people that Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Connaught ha3 recovered from the very serious illness from which she suffered for many months, and that she has been enabled once more to accompany His Royal Highness to this country. Those who know, as all of us, I think, do know, the keen sense of duty, which animates Their Royal Highnesses and the very great sympathy and interest which they have on all occasions exhibited in everything that pertains to the welfare of this country, must have been inspired by an especial satisfaction in knowing that Their Royal Highnesses have been enabled once more to undertake the important and often very onerous duties of the high position in this country to which they have been called. I voice, I am sure, the feeling of hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House when I express the hope that Her Royal Highness' progress to complete health and strength, such a3 she enjoyed before, may be rapid and continuous, and that their Royal Highnesses may have -and I am sure they always will have- none but the happiest memories with which to look back to the years during which they were citizens of this country. I am sure also that when at some later date they do return to their home in the British Islands, Canada and Canadians will have no warmer friends and advocates on the other side of the Atlantic than will be found in Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught.
My right hon. friend dwelt upon a great many matters in the course of his discursive speech; to some of these, particularly those relating to controversial politics of the great neighbouring republic, I will not follow him, because his observations in that regard do not seem to call for any special reply. He has -spoken in the first place of the delay in summoning Parliament, and he has asked for an explanation. If he wishes the fullest explanation, he should look around him and see among the hon. gentlemen on the other side of the-House who come from the different parts of this Dominion, one man, if he can, who

has not thoroughly welcomed the suggestion that Parliament should meet in January instead of in November. The suggestion has been made to me over and over again during the past two years that in this Parliament we accomplish very little indeed before the Christmas vacation; that the Christmas vacation is usually a somewhat protracted period, and that the members who come from distant parts of the country, and particularly those who come from the West and have to close their homes for the winter, are left in Ottawa for two or three or four weeks with absolutely nothing to do, awaiting the convenience of those who, like my right hon. friend, live in or near the capital, and to whom it is a matter of no inconvenience whatever that the public business should be so conducted. I venture to hope that members of this House may be inspired with a desire to expedite business, and I think that my friends from the Maritime provinces, from the West, and from the distant portions of Ontario and Quebec, will welcome the innovation upon which we have embarked this year, and will justify the Government in the course it has taken in postponing the meeting of Parliament until January.
Then my right hon. friend tried to make merry at the expense of the Government and to make some more or less caustic observations at the expense of my hon. friend the Solictor General (Mr. Meighen).
I am pleased to know that he considers the choice an excellent one, and I am also glad that he realizes that there is a very great number of men in the Liberal-Conservative party in this House who are capable of filling that oflice with honour and ability. That is absolutely true, and if all the observations of my right hon. friend were as apt and as much to the point as that particular observation I would have no fault whatever to find with him. He has referred to these gentlemen as pebbles on the beach. Fortunately we were not in the position of my right hon. friend who on five different occasions could not find any pebble on the beach on his own side of the House, because he went outside of the House to select a Minister of Justice, a Minister of Railways and Canals, a Minister of Labour, a Minister of Public Works, and last but not least a Secretary of State. Under these circumstances I am sure my right hon. friend will be disposed to congratulate the Conservative party that it is not afflicted by that unfortunate poverty of talent which was indicated by the course that the right hon. gentleman adopted on five occasions. We have an abundance of splendid
material on this side of the House, and I join with my right hon. friend in congratulating the Liberal-Conservative party of this country that it does possess in this House so splendid an abundance of the most excellent material.
My right hon. friend also found fault with the absence of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster). Whatever might be the possible detriment to the public interest which would be occasioned by the absence of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, I am very much inclined to think that my right hon. friend, in his own heart, would be very glad to see him remain absent, would be very glad not to have him here during the session at all. As a matter of fact, let me either encourage or discourage my right hon. friend, as the case may be, by informing him that the Minister of Trade and Commerce is on the ocean now and that by about next Monday he will be here ready to answer my right hon. friend on that point. The Minister of Trade and Commerce is a member of a very important commission which had its origin in a resolution passed by the Imperial Conference of 1911. The right hon. leader of the Opposition thinks that a minister of the Crown for Canada ought not to be a member of that commission. I do not concur in the view which the right hon. gentleman has expressed, because I consider it exceedingly important that a man occupying the very important and responsible portfolio of Minister of Trade and Commerce, the duties of which are especially concerned with questions of trade between the various dominions of this Empire and with the resources which exist within those dominions, should be on hand in Great Britain, in Australia, in Canada and in South Africa to make a comprehensive and close study of those conditions; and I know of no man in Canada who is more thoroughly competent to undertake the duties of a member of that very important commission, representing Canada in that behalf, than is the Hon. George E. Foster.
My right hon. friend spoke on many subjects. Among other things, he dealt with the failure in the Speech from the Throne to make any reference to the Highways Bill. I desire to say in the presence of this House and of this country that the Highways Bill, as we introduced it in two successive sessions, and as it passed the House of Commons on both those occasions, was a perfectly fair Bill which conserved the interest of every province in Canada. Further than that, I am in a position to state that the majority of the pro

vinees of Canada, representing a large majority of the people of Canada, were perfectly willing and are perfectly willing to take that Bill just as we presented it. When we first introduced that Bill in Parliament the right hon. gentleman and his friends pretended to give it a halfhearted and lukewarm support. They debated it; to a certain extent they obstructed it both in the last session and in the previous session. Notwithstanding their pretended support of some features of it, at least in the first instance, they ended their career by standing up, every one of them in his place, and voting solidly against that Bill. We placed the Bill before Parliament in what we believed to be terms perfectly fair to every province in Canada. Further than that, the Minister of Railways and Canals and myself as well gave a distinct pledge, which we kept on both occasions, that when the vote was brought down for the appropriation of a certain sum of money in aid of the highways of this country, the Parliament of Canada would be asked to make that vote in accordance with the populations of the various provinces of Canada. We made that pledge. If we did not observe that pledge, it would have been perfectly competent for hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House and for tneir friends in the Senate, when that vote was brought down, to have taken the stand that the vote and the appropriation did not do full justice to the provinces of Canada. We had no intention then or at any other time of dealing with any of the provinces otherwise than in accordance with the pledge which we then gave; but my right hon. friend, or at all events his friends in the Senate-and I understand he takes full responsibility for their action-after he and his friends had voted to defeat that Bill, took upon themselves by their majority the still greater responsibility of inserting in that Bill an amendment which the Government had rejected a year before, and which they knew the Government would certainly reject again. Therefore, notwithstanding all the efforts of my right hon. friend to escape from the responsibility of defeating that Bill, I intend to fix that responsibility upon him and upon his friends, because I say it is due to them and to them alone that a vote of $1,000,000 in the session before last and of $1,500,000 last session, has not been made available for the improvement and maintenance of the highways of this country.

At six o'clock the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. BORDEN:: When the House took recess at six o'clock, I was speaking of the Highways Bill and pointing out that, as the hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House had used their majority in the Senate for the purpose of defeating the Bill in two successive sessions we had decided that, until the majority of the Senate in the course of events comes in accord with the voice and will of the people of this country, it was useless and undesirable to take up the time of the House further with it; and therefore at this session we did not propose to introduce the Highways Bill.
There are at least four, and perhaps more, important measures which the Government has proposed to Parliament, and which the Liberal majority in the Senate has seen fit to reject or to encumber to such an extent with amendments that we could not accept them. I need only mention the Highways Bill, in two successive sessions, the Tariff Commission Bill in the session before last, the Branch Lines Bill, of which I shall say a few words in a moment, and the Naval Aid Bill of last year, of which I shall also speak.
The situation of this country with regard to its Upper Chamber is somewhat peculiar. Canada has less control over a majority in the Senate which puts itself in opposition to the popular will than any other dominion of the empire that I know of to-day. The colony of Newfoundland with one twenty-fifth of the population of the Dominion of Canada has infinitely more effective control over a situation of that kind than this Dominion. If friends of hon. gentlemen opposite, appointed during their tenure of office and before the will of the people was declared at the last election, are disposed to force upon us the question of the constitution of the Senate and the nature of appointments thereto- well, .speaking for myself, and I think speaking for the great majority of the people of this country, we are ready to accept that issue.
The Branch Lines Bill of last year is a notable illustration of what I have just now alluded to. A resolution was introduced into this House by my colleague the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Cochrane). The resolution was very broad in its terms, and, as he and I decided after its introduction and after some criticism had been made of it, that it was too wide in its terms, I myself drafted a modified

form of resolution which I took informally across the floor of this House and submitted to hon. gentlemen on the other side. I submitted it to my hon. friend the exMinister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham), the hon. member for the city of St. John (Mr. Pugsley), the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson), and the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux), all hon. gentlemen who had taken part in that debate, and every one of them without exception told me that the resolution in the amended terms in which I proposed it was absolutely acceptable to them. The only dissenting voice, and that only with regard to one minor feature of the Bill, was the voice of the' hon. member for Westmorland, who thought that the power given by that proposed resolution to the Minister of Railways and Canals to build a line not exceeding twenty-five miles in length was too great a power. I was about to consent to modify it when another hon. gentleman on the other side, the hon. member for Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) strenuously objected to any change, and desired the resolution to remain as it was, and it did remain as it was, and the Bill founded upon it went through this House without one dissenting vqice. My right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition was in his seat, as ' Hansard ' will show, when the Bill passed this House, and he did not raise his voice in opposition to it. The Liberal majority in the Senate saw fit so to mangle that Bill with changes and amendments that it became absolutely useless for the purpose for which it was intended. It came back here and I asked that those amendments should not be assented to. [DOT] To my astonishment the leader of the Opposition stood up in his place and defended the action of his friends in the Senate, although the Bill in the form m which it left the House of Commons had been unanimously assented to not only by hon. members on this side but by hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House as well. So-the Bill failed to carry because we could not accept the Senate amendments. And so it was with the Tariff Commission Bill.
My right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition has referred to the Naval Aid Bill, and I desire to say a few words in explaining the action of the Government in that regard. Let me review the situation in a few words. Firmly convinced that the conditions disclosed in the Admiralty memorandum demanded immediate and effective aid from Canada, the Government, in accordance with its mandate from the
people introduced in this Parliament on the 5th day of December, 1912, the Naval Aid Bill by resolution. That Bill provided for the construction of three battleships of the most modem and powerful type to be placed at the disposal of His Majesty for the common defence of the empire and to be subject to recall upon reasonable notice if and when the Canadian people should decide to establish one or more fleet units or other distinctive naval forces. The measure was debated at great length in this House and was persistently and defiantly obstructed. It did not pass this House until the rules had been so amended as to prevent such obstruction. Eventually the Bill was rejected in the Upper Chamber by senators appointed by the late Government previously to its defeat in 1911. The measure proposed by the Government created a profound impression not only within this empire, but throughout the world. There is little doubt that if the Bill had passed, the determination of Canada thus expressed would have constituted an important influence in bringing about a most desirable cessation in the rivalry of armaments. The partisan considerations and misguided influences which occasioned the perverse and maladroit action of the Senate were not realized or understood either within the empire or throughout the world. In certain important quarters the Senate's action was welcomed with rejoicing as a clear indication that in providing for the common defence of the empire upon the high seas the mother country must stand alone so far as Canada is concerned, and that this Dominion must be regarded not as a strength but as a weakness to the empire in time of peril. That the impression created by the Senate's action was profoundly unfortunate and mischievous is evidenced by many comments in great European journals. As an illustration one quotation must suffice, although many might be given. The quotation to which I allude is from the Hamburger Nachrichten of June 5, 1913:-
Whatever may be decided upon later, the decision of the Canadian Senate means at any rate a heavy moral and material loss for the defence of the empire.
I heard, a moment ago, some gentlemen opposite cheering the Senate's action; Would they still cheer in face of that? Well, we are at least glad to know their appreciation of the duty of this country to tne empire. (Reading):
Whatever may be decided upon later, the actual decision of the Canadian Senate means at any rate a heavy moral and material loss for

progress in the past two thousand years. I trust that the day is rapidly drawing near when differences between the nations may be settled by appeal to some great tribunal established under international authority, and so constituted that its decisions will command unquestioning respect and obedience. But, until that day dawns, and while w'ar is still the last court of appeal between the nations, we cannot forget that a great heritage has been committed to our keeping, and that we are the trustees of its safety, not for ourselves alone, but for those who are yet to be born.
The Government are naturally most desirous that the aid which we proposed last year, under conditions of urgency and need, and which we still propose to bring in due course to the common defence of the empire should be so proffered or given as not to prejudice or retard any international agreement for the cessation of battleship construction. When we are in a position to press the Naval Aid Bill to a final and satisfactory conclusion < in the Senate, it will be our duty to consult with the Imperial Government respecting these grave and important considerations. If it should then appear that, by any naval arrangement entered into or about to be entered into by the great powers, a restriction or diminution of the present lamentable rivalry in armaments could be brought about, we should always be ready, until our ships have actually been begun, to review the situation so far as these proposals are concerned; and if a general cessation or temporary suspension in the building of great ships of war were at any time to be seriously entertained, Canada would gladly participate in such a desirable result. Otherwise, we should proceed in due course with the construction of the three ships, holding it to be our duty, under the conditions disclosed last year, and for reasons then elaborated with great fullness, to bring this assistance as speedily as possible to the great purpose of our common defence and security.
Our opponents, especially in the Senate, have taken the ground that our temporary proposals of last year, although not embodying a permanent policy in any respect, ought not to be undertaken without an appeal to the people, but that a permanent naval policy might properly be formulated and carried out without such an appeal. We entirely dissent from that remarkable and unjustifiable view'. So far

as a permanent policy of naval defence is concerned, I gave my pledge to the people, on more than one occasion previous to the last election, that it vmuld be submitted to them at a general election before it should effectively be undertaken. That pledge still holds good, and faith will be kept with the people in that regard.
Now', my right hon. friend, in the course of his remarks, w'ent into some matters upon which I do not desire to detain the House at any length. He spoke of the good relations between the British Empire and the German Empire. I am glad to know that they are good relations. It is my fervent hope and wish that those relations may always continue to be as satisfactory as they are at present; but, as I pointed out last year, the destinies of the world are sometimes influenced by the mere fact that predominant naval power does exist and can be utilized in one quarter or another, and I venture to think that if the right hon. gentleman will look at the observations made by the First Lord of the Admiralty in the British House of Commons on the 5th day of June, 1913, and on the 17th day of July, 1913, he will lind that his view as to the necessity of maintaining and even increasing the strength of the naval forces of this empire is not borne out by the view of the British Admiralty. Mr. Churchill, in the observations which I have under my hand, but which I will not weary the House with repeating here to-night, takes it to be the duty of the British Government to make good that which was lost to the Empire by the unfortunate action of the Senate. That is the situation, so far as I understand as it exists to-day.
Just one other observation with regard to my right hon. friend. He has on various occasions during the recess urged that the people of this country should not embark on any project of aiding in the naval defence of the Empire; and he put the question of the high cost of living, I think, against dreadnoughts in the speech he made at Hamilton. He deplores, and his organs deplore, the establishment of any armament trust in Canada. Well, who was it that, last year in this Parliament, advocated the establishment of an armament trust? If I mistake not, it was the right hon. gentleman who has since made these interesting speeches in various places throughout the country. Who was it that last year desired this country to embark on a permanent naval policy which within the next ten or twelve years would have cost this

country at least $150,000,000? And who was it who desired that this should be done without giving to the people of Canada any opportunity to express ttfeir views on the subject? Why, it was my right lion, friend and his supporters on the other side, and their partisans in the Senate who desired to take that course. If there is any advocate, any strenuous advocate, of the establishment of an armament trust in Canada, that advocate is to be found in the person of my right hon. friend who leads the Opposition. But I have heard that in various parts of the country my right hon. friend was not quite so explicit as he was in his speech in this House. I did not observe that in his speeches in the county of Chateauguay he put that policy in the very forefront. If, however, I am mistaken in my appreciation -of the course which he took in that campaign, I will sit down in order that he may [DOT]correct me.
My right hon. friend seemed to be distressed at the condition of affairs in connection with the terminals at Quebec. I had the honour and pleasure of speaking at a banquet in the city of Quebec a few months ago, and I went into the question somewhat fully at that time. I regret that my right hon. friend is so much under a misapprehension as to some matters on which he has spoken to-day. He has taken it upon himself to say that the management of the [DOT]Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company are not in accord with this Government in regard to certain changes that have been made. I would like him to state his authority for that declaration. I am informed by my hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Cochrane) that that statement is not stamped with the hall mark of accuracy.
Sir WILFRID LAUR1ER: I did not say it was so. I said that no information has been given to show that the Grand Trunk Pacific Company had agreed to the changes.


Robert Laird Borden: I am sorry if I misunderstood my right hon. friend; I did really understand him to say what I have just stated. If it is merely a thirst for information which led the right hon. gentleman to allude to this subject, I may give him the information now, that the Grank Trunk Pacific Railway have assented to the changes. I trust that declaration will do much to relieve the inquietude from which my right hon. friend seems to be suffering in that regard. The terminals at Quebec will be ready, I am assured by my hon. friend the
Minister of Railways and Canals, by the time the road is completed, and the road is being advanced with all possible expedition. Unfortunately, certain delays arose out of incidents connected with the Quebec bridge under the administration of my right hon. friend which I shall not pause to consider to-night. These have put the enterprise back to a certain extent. The station at Champlain market, and the joint station to be used by the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, which will be a station worthy of the city in which it is situated, and of the great railway companies which it will serve, will shortly be under construction, I am assured. The shops at St. Malo are already commenced and will be proceeded writh as rapidly as possible. Further than that, we have taken a step at Quebec, which my right hon. friend might well have taken long ago, that is, we have undertaken the construction of as fine and commodious a dry-dock, for the use of the great ships using the St. Lawrence waterway, as can be found anywhere in the world. The contract has been let for that work and the work will be proceeded with as soon as the spring opens, in fact my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Pelletier) informs me that it has already been begun.
My right hon. friend has summoned to his aid the cry of hard times, and he considers that the Speech from the Throne is absolutely insufficient inasmuch as it does not point out any direct or immediate remedy for hard times and for the high cost of living to which he also alludes. He confused these two subjects in the course of his remarks, as it seemed to me, and I was not sure from time to time, whether he was dealing with one or with the other. However, it may be that they are properly dealt with together. I would like to refresh the memory of my right hon. friend in one respect. He seems to think that the reference in the Speech from the Throne calls for the expression of some declaration of policy which will provide an immediate and effective remedy. He has forgotten the words which he put into the mouth of the then Governor General in 1908, words which were much more calamitous, if I may use that expression, than anything to be discovered in the Speech from the Throne on the present occasion:-
The Dominion has been blessed by a long series of prosperous years, and though at the present moment its business is being restricted by the financial stringency which prevails throughout the world, I feel assured that this

unfavourable condition will be temporary and that the illimitable resources of Canada and the world-wide recognition of them give us ample guarantee of continued material progress.
I have examined this speech-it is very lengthy-and up to the present time I have not discovered in it a statement of any immediate or effective remedy. Perhaps, if I yielded the floor my right hon. friend would explain to the House why that omission occurred. We did not put the word ' unfavourable ' into our speech on. this occasion. The Government of that day seemed to take a very gloomy view of the situation. We do not take a gloomy view of .the situation. We do really believe that the resources of this country are so great and so widely recognized that any slight restriction in business is not to be seriously regarded and that this country in 1914, as in 1908, will make it manifest to the world that the check, if any there be, is only for the moment.
My right hon. friend has alluded to the inquiry which the Government has directed into the increase in the cost of living. We have thought it wise to follow the British example in this regard, and to select civil servants of ability and experience to make an examination into this question. We have selected them without regard to what may be supposed to have been their political views, knowing that they are all men not only of ability and experience, but of integrity as well, and that they will bring to this important task the best that is in them, and give to the country the very best of their services in coming to a conclusion.
My right hon. friend has moved a resolu-iton on this subject. He desires that the Address to His Royal Highness shall not pass in the words proposed, but that the following shall be added thereto:
We regret to have to represent to your Royal Highness that in the gracious speech with Which you have met Parliament, whilst it is admitted that business is in a depressed condition, yet there is no indication of any intention on the part of your advisers to take any steps towards relieving such a situation.
When I said that my right hon. friend had forgotten the speech which he put into the mouth of His Excellency the Governor General in 1908, I evidently made a mistake; he was thinking of that speech when he drafted this resolution. His Royal Highness has not stated in the Speech from the Throne that business is in a depressed condition. I would like to observe in regard to this amendment that it does not quite come up to some of the speeches which the right hon. gentleman has been making in the

provinces of Ontario and Quebec; there is a remarkable difference. When my right hon. friend spoke at Hamilton on the 26th of November last he was ready with a policy. Why is it that the policy which he announced at Hamilton is not embodied in the terms of his resolution? Have some of his friends expressed the opinion that he was a little hasty? What is the reason for the marked difference? In the one case he shouted loudly; in the other case he whispers softly. My right hon. friend did not wait until the opening of Parliament to change his policy. His policy as expressed at Hamilton was this:
The policy I give you at this moment; the policy 1 believe every patriotic man in Canada ought now to support, and the policy I believe it to be the duty of the Government immediately to inaugurate, is a policy of absolutely freed food-food free from customs duty.
That was on the 26th of November, and on the 9th of December he reached Montreal. But in the meantime, he seemed to have received a new light and wisdom. His proposal when he reached Montreal was to have a few perambulating commissions of ministers such as he had in 1897, and in 1907, if I mistake not. That was a remarkable change, but he has not suggested either one or the other of these policies in the resolution which he has introduced to-night -a resolution of the vaguest character, which permits my right hon. friend to retire within the lines of Torres Vedras whenever he finds it convenient to do so. Let me point out to the right hon. gentleman-because he has insisted, outside of this Parliament, if not within, that the high cost of living is due to the customs tariff- that a perfectly impartial observer and writer, and one whose opinion would not be influenced by any lack of sympathy for him, has made a rather remarkable pronouncement on the tariff of 1897, which was not materially altered in 1907. In his recent work published in the latter part of 1913, Professor O. A. Skelton, in dealing with the general economic history of the Dominion, says at page 201, with regard to my right hon. friend's tariff of 1897:
Yet, with all this tinkering, the tariff remained substantially the National Policy tariff of the old regime.
I do not intend to-night, especially having regard to the fact that a commission is investigating this question at the present time, to deal at any length with the causes that have brought about the increase in the cost of living. My right hon. friend himself has admitted that the increase in the cost of

living is world-wide. In the same work from which I have just quoted, a General Economic History of the Dominion, 1867-1912, by Professor Skelton, I observe at page 272 the following:
After 1896 the rise was rapid and almost unbroken ; the index numbers prepared by the Dominion Department of Labour showed that by 1912 the average wholesale prices of the most important commodities had risen nearly thirty per cent above the average from 1890 to 1900, and the retail prices and rents had soared to still higher levels. This rise, as English railway strikes, French food riots, German Socialist victories and United States urban discontent revealed, was not peculiar to Canada; under the price-equalizing influences of international exchange, all the leading countries shared in the increase, in fairly proportionate degree.
That is the opinion of a disinterested writer who has made the study of economics his lifework. Many considerations have been put forward by economic writers as reasons for the increase in the cost of living. It has been asserted that a higher standard of living has been established throughout the world during a period of great prosperity. According to the opinions of others, it has been based, to a certain extent, upon the increase of urban population and the relative decrease of rural population. It has been urged that the large immigration to Canada of persons, many of whom locate in cities, and none of whom became producers of food within a year or eighteen months, has also had its effeet. The increased cost of labour, resulting in an increase in the cost of producing and distributing food products, including the cost of delivery in cities and towns, has been put forward by others as a contributing cause. Then it has been urged that the increase is to some extent dependent upon the lack of organization among producers and consumers, and part of it has been laid at the door of waste and extravagance. Great losses occur in all civilized- countries through unnecessary fires; Professor Skelton says that in the United States there is a yearly loss by fire of buildings which placed side by side would constitute a block extending from New York to Chicago. Waste, loss and extravagance of this character are' urged as causes. Then other economic writers put forward the decrease in the purchasing power of money owing to the remarkable increase in gold production in the last two decades.
I do not intend to pass upon any 9 p.m. of these causes. It may be that all of them have contributed in one way or another. But when my right hon. friend urges, as he has urged, that
this increase in the cost of living is due to the tariff, I would like to point out to him that the increase has not been restricted to recent years. Taking the number 100 as representing the average prices from 1890 to 1899, the index numbers, so-called, were as follows: in 1890 it was 110.3. In 1897 it had decreased to 92.2. My right hon. friend will observe that that was under the National Policy which he had undertaken to destroy. In 1907 it had risen to 12d. In 1908, during a period of financial stringency and business restriction, it fell to 120.8. In 1911 it had risen to 127.4. In 1912 it had risen to 134.4. In 1913 there was a trifling increase to 135. It is a remarkable fact that from 1890 to 1896 the cost of living in this country decreased, and an equally remarkable fact that from 18% until the right hon. gentleman went out of power, the cost of living increased in every year except one, 1907. By 1901 the cost of living in this country had reached the figure at which it stood in 18%, far above the figure of 1897. If my right hon. friend believes what he seems to believe, if one may judge by his speeches throughout the country, that this is all due to the tariff, why was it that during the fourteen years between 1897 and 1911 he took no step whatever to apply a remedy? But, if I mistake not, in the United States it is almost universally admitted that the reduction or abolition of the duties on food has had little or no effect upon prices in that country. My right hon. friend makes a comparison between the cost of living in this country and the cost of living in Great Britain. I have here a quotation, but I shall not take up the time of the House by reading it, from Mr. uoats, the statistician in the Department of Labour, who points out that although the cost of living is higher in Canada than in Great Britain, it is not by any means so much in excess as is indicated by the figures which the right hon. gentleman gave to the House this afternoon.
The abolition of duties as against the United States could hardly have the effect which the right hon. gentleman has claimed for it in his speeches outside of this House. He has declared, as I have understood his speeches, that the cost of living had been increased in Canada by the fact that the markets of the United States were taking our food products, and then, in connection with that, he suggested that the people of this country could obtain relief by abolishing the duties on food as

against the United States. If the prices in the United States are so much higher than they are in Canada as to cause a flow of food products from this Dominion into the United States, how in the name of common sense are you to get relief by going to the United States and buying food products there at the high prices prevailing in that country? But, my right hon. friend may say: Let us throw down the bars altogether and open up our home market to all the nations of the world. Does he not realize the truth of what was expressed by Prof. Skelton, and what is expressed in more homely phrase in one of the United States journals which was attracted by certain utterances of my right hon. friend, that if we are going into the markets of the world to buy food products for the people of Canada, we shall meet Uncle Sam there, and the prices in the United States will, to a certain extent at least, control the situation? The markets of the world are governed by international conditions and demands.
Further, it has been pointed out by one of the foremost journals in the province of Ontario that the most obvious deduction from the speech of my right hon. friend in Hamilton would be this, that the only relief that could be brought to the people of Canada, if his theory is correct, would be to place an export duty on cattle, sheep, hogs and meats. I do not think my right hon. friend will be prepared to maintain a proposal of that kind.
He has also alleged that the high cost of living is due to trusts and combines. Well, if it is due to trusts and combines now, was it not due to trusts and combines during the fourteen years in which he saw it increase? If it was due	to the
causes which he suggests, why did he not apply some of those remedies which he has been putting forward to the people of this country but as to which he was absolutely silent when he rose to speak in this House? And, further, does he not think that the trusts and combines in the United States are more numerous and highly developed than in Canada, and does he not believe that if we threw down our tariff bars and exposed the home markets of every province in Canada to competition from the United States, the trusts and combines of the United States would be just as powerful in Canada and just as detrimental in Canada as they could be in the United States?
Just one thing more in that connection. I would like to point out to my right hon.

friend that the difficulty is not wholly due to decreased production in Canada. Between 1901 and 1911 the population of Canada increased 34 per cent. The total production of milk increased 44 per cent. The export of dairy products decreased 11 per cent. The importation of dairy products increased 14 per cent and the total consumption increased 74 per cent. The per capita consumption in Canada during that period increased 30 per cent. Between 1900 and 1910 the production of eggs increased from 84,000,000 dozen to 143,000,000 dozen and their value increased from ten and a quarter million to twenty three and a half million dollars. During the same period the export of eggs decreased from 11,000,000 dozen to 92,000 dozen and the imports increased from 950,000 dozen to nearly two and a half million dozen. This indicates that the standard of living in Canada has increased, and the consumption in Canada, not only the actual but the per capita consumption, of a great many articles of food has very greatly increased in the meantime. What is the remedy? I say that the remedy is properly to be considered in this country and in this House, and the Government is giving it consideration. I say, in the first place, give every reasonable assistance and encouragement to maintain and increase the number of people on the land. I say, in the second place, assist the farmer with good roads, as we proposed in the Highways Bill against which the Opposition voted, and which was defeated by their friends in the Senate. Aid him with instruction in improved methods of production, as is proposed by the Agricultural Instruction Act. Thus increase the ratio of production to the labour and capital employed. Promote co-operation among the producers and the consumers and find more effective and cheaper methods of marketing. I do not say these are the only remedies that can be devised, but they are remedies that commend themselves strongly to me, and so far as is possible this Government will be prepared to act along those lines and to assist in every possible way in keeping the people upon the land, and in promoting co-operation between the producers and the consumers throughout Canada.
My right hon. friend's remedy is to abolish the protection now afforded the farmer in the home market and at the same time to subject him to a tariff protecting other industries. That seems to be a remarkable proposition. If my right hon. friend makes that proposal to

the urban population of Canada, I venture to say it will be no more effective among them than it is among the farmers of Canada. If we are to protect our industries, that of agriculture is at least entitled to the same consideration as any other. I say, however, to the labouring and urban population of Canada that if the farmers' home market is not protected, then the labouring population of the cities cannot expect that the industries which afford them employment can be protected. We believe that under present conditions in this country, Canadian industries ought to enjoy reasonable protection in order that our natural resources and raw materials can be worked up into the finished product by our own population instead of being exported to foreign countries to be employed in the support and development of their industries.
My right hon. friend has had many fiscal policies. He has had, in the first place, the policy of protection with which he started out in public life. He has had the policy of commercial union. He has advocated the policy of unrestricted reciprocity, and, among other policies, Continental free trade, free trade as it is in England, revenue tariff, restricted reciprocity, and now free food. My. right hon. friend has not stood by these policies very thoroughly. He has asserted them in very energetic terms, but when it came to the final conclusion of the matter he has not lived up to the mark. I have a great many quotations from my right hon. friend's speeches, but I shall use only one or two of them. In 1894 my right hon. friend was very strong upon the theory of free trade as it is in England. He said in Winnipeg in 1894:
*When the Liberal party are in power they will at once give a measure of freedom of trade and step by step they will follow it up, and if God spares our lives we shall progress steadily until we have it as full as Great Britain has it. I come before you to-night to preach to you this new gospel of free trade. I denounce to you the policy of protection as bondage, yes bondage and X refer to it as bondage in the same way as American slavery was bondage. Sir, our policy is freedom of trade such as exists in England, such as is practiced in Great Britain.
There are many similar references. In a letter written by Sir Wilfrid Laurier to Mr. Bertram less than two years afterwards, my right hon. friend did not stand very closely to that policy. He said:
Whether a policy of absolute freedom of trade would or would not be injurious to the manufacturing industries of this country, is a question which X will not stop to discuss here. There is no occasion for such a discussion as the 3
intention of the Liberal party is not and never was to establish [DOT]free trade in this country.
Under these circumstances, it would seem to me that the people could not have a great deal of confidence that my right hon. friend will persevere in the policy of free food which he advocated at Hamilton, which he partially abandoned at Montreal, and which he seems to have altogether abandoned now that he has reached this House.
My right hon. friend has also referred to unemployment. He has stated that there are 100,000 people in Canada at the present time- out of employment. Has my right hon. friend any authority for that statement?


Wilfrid Laurier: I think that I am within the mark.


Robert Laird Borden: Of course, we can all have our own opinions on such subjects. I would like to point out to my right hon. friend that his somewhat despondent opinion as to conditions in this country does not seem to be shared by some of his political friends. I observed in a great Liberal organ, in its issue of January 1, a number of messages from the provincial premiers. Four of these gentlemen are friends of my right hon. friend. I shall only extract a sentence or two from each one, and I am bound to say that it is to the credit of his friends who are at the head of provincial' affairs, that they do not take the same pessimistic view of conditions in Canada as that which my right hon. friend has expressed to this House. Sir James Whitney, whose illness we all so sincerely deplore, and who will, I hope, shortly be restored to health, said:
Ontario has had a year of great prosperity and can see still greater things ahead.
He was not looking at conditions in Ontario through the same spectacles that my right hon. friend uses.
Sir Lomer Gouin, Premier of Quebec, said:
The province of Quebec has every reason to be satisfied with the measure of progress and prosperity which has been vouchsafed to it in 1913.
There is no note of pessimism in that such as my right hon. friend has uttered.
Hon. G. H. Murray, Premier of Nova Scotia, said:
There was much less decline in trade in Nova Scotia than in the western and central provinces. Moreover the present indications are promising.
Hon. J. K. Flemming (N.B.):-
Notwithstanding ' tight money,' the slackening of business energy within the province dur-

;4

the last year has been limited. We are hopeful that 1914 may prove a banner year. Our people are optimistic and better satisfied than formerly to remain and help to develop the wealth and possibilities in New Brunswick.
Hon. J. A. Matheson (P.E.I.):-
Generally speaking the year has been characterized by great corporate activity, as above referred to, and in other lines by a large and profitable trade, a fair production in the farming and fishing industries, a good measure of general prosperity, and the largest provincial revenue in our history.
Sir Rodmond Roblin (Manitoba): [DOT]
The year 1913 has been one of steady and satisfying progress along all lines for the province of Manitoba. In agriculture, in commerce, and along all industrial lines the year has been especially satisfactory.
Hon. Walter Scott (Saskatchewan):-
Saskatchewan reaches the end of the year with her farming population in better position and in better spirits than was the case a year ago.
Hon. Arthur L. Sifton (Alberta):-
Judged by every standard of the economist, Alberta exhibits a condition of prosperity. Nineteen hundred and thirteen has been one of the best years in this period.
Hon. Sir Richard McBride (B.C.) .-
British Columbia has made remarkable progress in the year just ended, and there is every reason to anticipate continued growth and prosperity in 1914.
Under these circumstances my right hon. friend cannot afford to sing the doleful song he has chanted to us.
Let me tell the leader of the Opposition that if he looks abroad he will find that there are countries in the world possessing magnificent resources and which are undoubtedly looking forward with certitude to a great future, in which the conditions as to non-employment are very much worse than they are in Canada. Between November 15 and December 1, idle freight cars in the United States increased from 22,000 to 57,000.
Any observations which I purpose making as to conditions in the United States for the purpose of comparing those outlined by my right hon. friend as existing in Canada, are not made with the idea of reflecting in any way upon the future of the United States. I might point out, indeed, that
.
that great economic and business authority, Sir George Paish, is convinced that conditions! in the United States at present are such as will lead to an early and. very marked advance of prosperity and business activity in that country. I am merely pointing out that there are conditions in the United States of a temporary character which seem to me to transcend anything that my right hon. friend has been able to point to in Canada, even if we accept his statement as to non-employment at its face value. The Daily Iron Trade estimates that in the United States there are in the iron and steel industry 1,000,000 men on the idle list with a wage loss of fifty millions a month; also 270,000 miners out of work. Blast furnaces in operation declined from 306 to 183. The Daily Iron Trade also estimates that one million men have been thrown out of employment who were engaged in industries allied to the steel and iron business. In South Chicago district nearly 6,000 men were recently discharged within three weeks and a much larger number placed on half time. In Washington 227 shingle" and lumber mills have been closed and 15,000 men thrown out of employment. The New York Journal of Commerce estimates that the present wage payments throughout the United States are 1,250,000 dollars per day below the normal, indicating a falling of four hundred million dollars for the year-The same journal states that out of a total of 627,000 union men employed in New York state, 101,150 are out of work, representing the highest unemployed average for many years.
Although, the conditions in Great Britain are fairly satisfactory, so far as most branches of the trade are concerned, there were, during the year ending November, 1913, 38 blast furnaces (pig iron) out of 321 closed down, 28 tin plate mills out of 508 closed dowm, and six steel sheet mills out of 77 closed down. There are similar statistics as to loss of employment in other European countries, but I will not inflict them upon the House to-night.
I will merely add this, that when my right hon. friend asserts that there was not any non-employment in Canada from 1897 to the present year he is absolutly forgetful of the conditions which prevailed during the latter part of 1907 and the early part of 1908. If I am not mistaken the conditions as to

non-employment during that period were 'quite as severe as those which prevail in Canada at present, I hope the manufacturing and commercial establishments in Canada, and other large employers of labour will bear in mind that during a period of great prosperity things have been going well for them and well for the country, and if owing to a certain financial stringency which pievails throughout the world, business may be checked a little now, it is not desirable that they should be too ready to throw men out of employment. They ought rather to have a little patience and to use a certain foresight and to look forward to that recovery of business which we have every reason to believe will begin when spring opens.
I have transgressed upon the time of the House much longer than I intended to. Let me say in closing simply this. The Government have in mind and will have in mind the prevailing conditions, whether restricted to Canada or of world-wide scope, and the Government will endeavour to do their duty by the people of Canada and by this country. The Government are firmly impressed with the belief that any little check at the present time is purely temporary and that the people of this country have every right to be optimistic and to look forward to the future with confident hope that the development and progress in the years to come will be infinitely greater than any which have characterized past years. .
As to the resolution which my right hon. friend has proposed: it is designed to invite the opinion of the House adversely to the Government;, it is a want of confidence resolution pure and simple. Under the circumstances, in view of the paucity of argument which my right hon. friend was able to bring forward in its support; in view of the fact that we have these conditions under consideration at the present time; in view of the fact that my right hon. friend has not been able to point out in his speech one single measure which he himself would advocate at present for the purpose of relieving the conditions which he claims to exist, I ask the hon. mem-ers of this House to mete out to this resolution the treatment which it deserves and to reject it by an overwhelming majority.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):: I
should like to be allowed to associate myself with the expressions that have been used on both sides of the House, both as to the sympathy of the people of Canada with 34
their Royal Highnesses and as to the ability displayed by the mover and seconder of the Address. I would like to congratulate my right hon. friend the Prime Minister also on the fact, that he appears to be in very good health as compared with the reports we heard about him during the recess. I am very glad he has been able to give us abundant evidence that these reports were very much exaggerated.
I have a somewhat unpleasant duty ter discharge in my next sentence, and that is to take absolute sides with the leader of the Government and against my right hon. friend in one particular. I am a western man, and personally I am gi-ate-ful to the Government for the time at which they have called the House together. I have good reason to know that that action of the Government was taken not without sympathy for the members of this House who live at great distances from the seat of government. I do not think that the late meeting of the House should lead to any undue lengthening of the session. I think that, if we get to work as we should do, it would rather have the effect of the business going through in a more expeditious and business-like way than sometimes it has done.
There is a great deal of purposeless talk, I think, in all parliaments. Not that I think that that applies to the talk of the Opposition last session. There was nothing purposeless about our talk. We had a very definite purpose in view and we accomplished it. Our purpose was to bring the Government and their supporters to a better frame of mind in regard to naval proposals. What that frame of mind is now, I am in a little haze about, so far as the Prime Minister's speech is concerned. I am glad, however, to recognize, in the business-like address which has been brought down, that the Government desires to shorten the session and to shorten discussions. Certainly, the programme of the Government for this session is most unambitious in its nature. I think they have introduced only one Bill, and that they are compelled to do, under the circumstances, by the last census-the Redistribution Bill. With regard to that Bill, I would only say this: that I have found a very general opinion amongst the people of this country-and an opinion which I share- that there will be two considerations, which at any rate will be present in the mind of the Prime Minister of this country in regard to that Bill. The first is that he is most unlikely to go outside the recognized constitution of the country,

and the second is that there is a widespread confidence that he would not lend his personal authority to anything like a gerrymander. I share that view, and I shall continue to share it until evidence is brought to the contrary.
Now, there are one or two points in the Speech that I think the Opposition may fairly pass. We are promised an econi-mical administration. There is a good deal of the compulsory feature that overtook the prodigal son in that promise. The fact is that that promise would have been more useful to the country, if it had been followed by performance, if it had been made two years ago. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. White), in the art of dissipating a fortune, has made the prodigal son a beginner. He got a legacy of $50,000,000 of a surplus. That surplus has gone, and then he, who, I presume, is responsible for that particular paragraph of the Address, promises economy. Even deathbed or late repentances, however, are not to be discouraged in this world, and I can only express the hope that that paragraph of the Address will at any rate be carried out, and I am sure that is a hope which is shared by a very large majority of the people of this country.
My right hon. friend the Prime Minister has taken rather a peculiar course in the very lengthy speech which he has delivered to us. He has shown a distinct disposition to revive the controversies of last session, while he has dropped the Bills of last session. That is a most peculiar course. In fact, this is a very peculiar Government. Last session they gave us the Bills and they gave up the controversies. This session they have dropped the Bills, and my right hon. friend renews the controversies. Well, I can only say in regard to that that if there is a general disposition to renew the controversies of last session, we still have some physical strength and ideas left, and the challenge will be taken up at once. I am very glad to take it up in regard to the Highways Bill. There have been very numerous statements made about this Bill, and very peculiar statements. My hon. friend the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Roche), who is usually a man of very moderate language, went into the west, and I think in the town of Minnedosa he said that the Senate had throttled or killed the Highways Bill. This is a fair selection of the words he used. There was some excuse for his using strong language on that occasion-I do not believe in using strong language my-
,
self-because he was accompanied by no less an exemplar than the Premier of Manitoba. The Premier of Manitoba on that occasion referred to my fellow countryman in the person of the Postmaster General of Great Britain, first as a grampus and then as a jelly-bag Englishman. Well, they say that evil communications corrupt good manners, and so I can understand the strong language of my hon. friend.
Now, against all this talk about strangling and throttling and killing and throwing" out, what happened to the Highways Bill? I have never found any difficulty with any audience in this country in getting them to be absolutely enthusiastic about the Senate's action in regard to the Highways Bill, when they knew the facts. This talk of strangling and throttling must all be given up when we come to the facts. There were six clauses in the Highways Bill. The Senate passed five of them. Is it fair controversy to charge that Chamber with having killed the Bill when they absolutely passed five-sixths of it without alteration? What was the sixth clause? My hon. friend from York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod) talks about this Bill having reached the hearts of the people of this country. The sixth clause was devised to reach their votes, and to reach their votes by using the money, as the clause gave them power to use it when and where they liked, and we know an election was on, and for the purpose of helping Tory candidates. Now, my right hon. friend says, in the only answer he gives to this charge, that he intends to fix the responsibility for the killing of this measure upon the Senate. My right hon. friend will not have the fixing of the responsibility. The responsibility will be fixed by the people of this country when they know the facts. He says that he and my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane) expressed an intention that the moneys would be spent pro rata among the whole of the inhabitants of the country. I want to put it to my right hon. friend: is it a fair manner of conducting the legislation of this country that it should depend upon the expressed intention of any minister? Is there not a possibility of binding all ministers, so long as the Act remains in force, by the simple process of putting their intentions in the Bill? This they persistently refused to do, and by persistently refusing to do it, they showed that they wanted carte blanche to spend the money when and where they liked. Now,

these are all the facts in regard to the Highways Bill.


Robert Laird Borden: Is my hon. friend referring to clause 6?


Michael Clark: The amendment made by the Senate provided that the money should he spent according to population, that is according to the way that my right hon. friend himself said he personally intended it should be spent. Clause 6 was cut out altogether, because the Government refused these amendments. But, with the five clauses and the Senate amendment, every cent of the money could have 'been spent upon the highways. No one on the other side will deny that. But the Government refused to spend it, without their precious sixth clause. The Senate threw out that clause and the Government destroyed the Bill. The action of the Government in this affair reminds me of an incident that occurred in my own professional practice. I happened to be present at the birth of a baby born with a supernumerary thumb- six digits upon one hand. With the help of the nurse and the approval of the parents I took off the extra thumb. The child looked better, and it lived and throve. What would have been thought of the parents if they had killed the child because I took its deformity away? But this Government was much more unreasonable even than these parents would have been if they had killed this child themselves, for they killed their child and then blamed the Senate for doing it.
I thought it better to take up this highways matter at once. But a number of interesting things politically have occurred since last session. My right hon. friend referred to the Chateauguay election. I wonder he mentioned it, especially in connection with the Naval Bill. I wonder if he knows what went on in that election. The Chateauguay election was won by a double appeal. The first appeal was to the cupidity of the electors-and about that I do not want to talk. I do not wish to spend my time upon it, and, to be candid, I am afraid that such appeals are all too common on the part of both political parties in Canada. The great majority of the people of this country hope that the time is soon ooming when we shall have purer politics in that regard. But there was another appeal made, that to the pusillanimity of the electors, and to that I wish to refer. I am personally concerned. Words that I used last year in the naval debate were
printed upon a leaflet and circulated in that constituency. I will read them to the House. I said, in the course of a few brief and imperfect remarks that from time to time I had to make last winter:
If the storm of which Mr. Borden speaks were to break, not a drop of Canadian blood would be spilt or risked.
When I used that language, in the innocence of my heart I believed that I was pointing out a defect in the scheme of contribution which would make it stink in the nostrils of every right thinking Canadian. But here it is reproduced as a recommendation of this measure,-and then the Prime Minister comes here and makes a feeble effort to revive his flag-waving. What a lot of tame jingoes my imperialist friends become when they get into the neighbourhood of Mr. Bourassa. There was another election in the recess which was quite a good offset to what happened in Chateauguay. I make my compliments to the Government upon the win they made in Chateauguay, especially to the imperialistic section of the Government. But there was an interesting election in South Bruce. My hon. friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) went down there. I do not know why the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) sent him. He seems to have made a very good diagnosis as to the scenes in which he himself should operate. I should like, by the way, to join my compliments, my very sincere and heartfelt compliments, to those of my right hon. friend and leader on the appointment of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen). I think he knows that I am very sincere in offering them; but I noticed that -when he went to that election he made the remark that the Government, everybody must admit, had been riding on a flood tide ever since they came into power. It occurred to me it was a pity he went there, he soon turned it into an ebb. It was not quite so apparent to some of us that the tide had been so strong behind them; certainly, it was not so strong as in the case of other governments that have come into power. The reason why I mentioned the South Bruce election was that the Naval Bill was an issue, a very distinct issue, in that election. I heard in Nova Scotia a most interesting instance of how it was made so. In Amherst, the Tory journalist wrote a long article-such articles were written all over the country-to the effect that this was an ideal constituency to test the naval issue. This gentleman wrote just such an article

as any Tory journalist would have written who was a prophet and saw a Government victory ahead. And when he got the result of the election, I am told, he nearly fainted. I refer to the election to say that the result of that contest in the province of Ontario has had far more to do with the dropping of the Naval Bill than even the action of the Senate itself. I cannot understand the method of discussion followed by this Government and by its right hon. leader. I should have thought that he would have admitted that there had been an enormous change in the position of naval matters since last session. The fact is that during the recess there has been a great clarifying of the empire's position in the naval issue.
My right hon. friend mentioned the memorandum of Mr. Winston Churchill, the first memorandum, and he actually defended his contribution policy in a kind of postscript by referring to that memorandum. He seems to forget that in the course of the debate his first memorandum went by the board, and Mr. Churchill sent a second. The second memorandum shifted the trouble from the North sea a thousand miles to Gibraltar rock. The right hon. leader of this House is very curious in his dealings with Mr. Churchill. First, he goes with Mr. Churchill, he bases himself on what Mr. Churchill sends him; and then, at the end of the session, he takes him up once more and makes a considerable part of his speech by reading from recent speeches of Mr. Churchill in Great Britain. The whole case of contribution was a case of emergency, and the emergency disappeared when the fleet went to Gibraltar. And if it disappeared at that time, where is the emergency to-day? My right hon. hon. friend knows, and every one of his supporters knows, that the fleet has been dispersed to the seven seas and the German fleet with it-and every lover of civilization is very glad to see that come about. And that dispersal of the fleet is the second absolute justification of all that the Opposition did last winter, whether it was in the House of Commons or in the Senate. If they required further justification for their attitude, if they required any further defense as being as good British Empire men as sit on the other side of the House, it would be found in the fact that during the recess the little colony of New Zealand has given up the policy of contribution and has taken the policy of the Liberal Opposition in this Parliament.
Now, I want to come a little nearer to the amendment and dwell upon some other
,
aspects of the Address. I felicitate the Government on being able to announce an increase in the foreign commerce of the country. By the way, I am the only man in this House, if it be true that I am the only free trader in the House, who can thoroughly and properly rejoice in thalt paragraph. The contradictions of protection are most wonderful things. We have a Government which puts a paragraph in the Address rejoicing in the extension of our foreign commerce, and then lecturing me, a solitary free trader, for a year after that on the importance of a home market. I do not know what right the Government has to rejoice at the extension of foreign commerce in a protection country. However, there are some things in connection with our foreign commerce which would give students of economics good reason to pause. The fact is that our foreign trade has been largely increased by the increase in prices, and that the increase of exports is not anything like what it should be if Canada were doing her duty in the development of her resources. As a free trader, I am confronted not only with this paragraph of the Address, but with another very interesting spectacle. Under the predecessors of my hon. friends opposite we had eighteen years of what has been called the National Policy; then we had sixteen years under a Liberal Government, with what I am bound to confess were somewhat microscopic modifications of that policy; then we have had two more years of a continuation of the policy with the microscopic modifications. Now I am confronted with an amendment to the Address asking us to recognize that the Government has taken no steps to remedy the depression of trade in this country. It is a remarkable spectacle; there is something wrong with tile country. The slogan ' leave well enough alone ' now appears to be supplanted on the part of this Government by the slogan ' leave ill enough alone.' I do not think that at the present moment, despite the brave show my right hon. friend puts on this matter, that he would repeat his slogan of two years ago, and tell us to ' leave well enough alone.' In the presence of this depression, which the Government sees fit to admit, what do they do? They fall back upon the boundless resources of the country. Well, the boundless resources of the country, Mr. Speaker, are not an asset peculiar to this Government; they were in existence when there was practically nothing in the country except buffaloes and Indians, but they did not make a prosperous and happy country. What is wanted by the country is

some little resource on the part of the Government, and there are a great many people who, however brave a show my right hon. friend may make about this depression not being very serious,* are of the opinion that dreadnoughts at the present moment are not so important as the cost of living, and who are coming to the conclusion that in a country of boundless resources it is unfortunate to have a Government of very limited resources.
I am bound to say that in that view they will be largely borne out by the Address, and by the speech of my right hon. friend in regard to the high cost of living. But hon. gentlemen opposite not only tell us about the boundless resources of the country; they tell us also that they have appointed a commission. I went down to Halifax the other night and said we had a government of dissolving views, not of strong convictions and settled policy, and we certainly have a government of dissolving views in regard to the matter of commissions. In the first session of Parliament they brought forward a Bill to establish a tariff commission, and one of the horrible misdeeds of the Senate is that they are said to have destroyed the tariff commission. They did nothing of the sort; they put in an amendment which would make the commission look after the interests of the consumer as well as the interests of the producer, and the Government would not accept the amendment, thereby showing that they were tied to the producing interests and cared nothing about the consumer. Where does the condemnation of the Senate come in? My right hon. friend says of that most experienced member of this Administration who went down to Lanark and used the language quoted by my right hon. friend this afternoon, that he is now on the sea, coming back from England. Well, personally, that does not strike an extraordinary amount of terror into my heart; I only wish he were here now. I would like to have asked him what he meant by his language in South Lanark, especially when it is considered in relation to other lan-gauge used in regard to this very tariff commission. We have not forgotten how at the end of the first session, with finger outstretched and voice upraised, he charged my right hon. friend with having opposed the mandate of the country to appoint a tariff commission, and one would have thought he were going to carry the fiery cross through Canada. When you have a government that means business in regard to an upper chamber, then that business will be done. When Mr. George's budget
was thrown out by the House of Lords, he did not hesitate about what he should do with that body-he went to the people, and for the life of me, in regard to the Naval Bill, I cannot see why my right hon. friend should not follow that example, if he feels as courageous as he seems to be. For the life of me I cannot see what my right hon. friend's quarrel with the Senate is on the Naval Bill. I did not wish to speak about this; I said so at the end of last session, but if my right hon. friend persists in charging the Senate with these things, we must see where the blame really lies. My right hon. friend came home from Europe after being there the summer before last, and, I think, on three occasions he said: 'I have consulted the Admiralty, as I said I would; I will lay my proposals before Parliament.' He did that, as he said he would, but he also said:	' If they are
not accepted by Parliament, I will submit them to the people.' Now, in regard to the Naval Bill the Senate only said:	'Very
well, submit it to the people.' Where is the quarrel between my right hon. friend and the Senate? That is another case of our having no fear of where the people stand once they know the cold facts in the matter. However, speaking of the tariff commission, my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce excommunicated my right hon. friend with bell, book and candle because the Senate had destroyed the Tariff Commission Bill in opposition to the mandate of the people. But he himself is the best justification of the action of the Senate, because, having heard from the people of South Bruce, he goes to the people of South Lanark and says:	'The Lord
knows we have far too many commissions; they are as plentiful as the berries in Kazua-bazua.' That is one of the places, I suppose, where the hon. gentleman has been seeking'a market. And then he goes to England, and, after he has expressed this opinion to the people of South Lanark, the Government straightway appoints another commission. If that is not a case of dissolving views, I never saw one. The real emergency to-day is, as I think my right hon. friend has said, not a question of dreadnoughts. The German scare never was a real emergency; it was a sham emergency, and the high cost of living is the real emergency which confronts the people of this country. I do not propose keeping the House very long, and I certainly do not purpose making a budget speech upon the Address. I think that would be a highly inconvenient method of conducting public discussion in this Par-

liament. I want to show that I am rising to grace just as the Prime Minister is falling from it. I have had occasion to compliment him on short speeches before, but he will have to reform a little to get back to my good graces in that matter. I want to show that I am following his good example and not his bad one. But I do want to state this that I do not think there is any doubt whatever about the main cause of the high cost of living in protectionist countries. The Minister of Finance said last year in a somewhat light and airy way which be puts on with very great grace, that this is not a local trouble, it is all over the world-and there he left it. But we must look into this a little more closely. We are told that the high cost of living exists in Great Britain as well as in this country. It is not the case, not to anything like the same extent. The simple fact on that matter is that in the one free trade country in the world today, the one absolutely free trade country, you can get pretty well value for your money. In regard to foodstuffs the prices are high because Great Britain 'has to import the surplus of other nations and I think a very good argument could be set up in favour of the view that protection in other nations raises the price of foodstuffs in Great Britain, for if you talk the home market you will produce for the home market, you will have no surplus to sell and that must make a scarcity in Great Britain. But the British Board of Trade has issued a publication recently in which, taking the index number as 100, they show that the cost of living has risen since 1902 to 115 in Great Britain, while it has risen to 151 in Canada. That is a very serious question, and it will not be settled by party quips and passes as to what happened during the previous administrations. That is a very serious matter for the people of this country and a matter upon which we could have got light without the establishment of this commission of inquiry. Let me say that the cost of living in Great Britain ought to have risen far more than in Canada according to all a priori reasons. For what have you in Great Britain? You have five hundred people or nearly so to the square mile on an area, including Ireland, of one-half the province of Alberta. Here you have less than two people to the square mile upon a continent of resources. That is a most singular and significant fact- Why, wre should be all well off in this country and well off at a cheap rate, if our economic arrangements were proper. Although not making a budget speech I wish to state my ,
conviction that in protectionist countries the high cost of living is due, in the first place, to tariff and, in the second place, to combines which arise out of the protection of the tariff. I do not have any 10 p.m. doubt upon that subject. If I had, I think I could quote from good authority to convince hon. gentlemen opposite of both those opinions. The effect of a tariff is no mystery. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce said years ago in this House: Of course it is perfectly true that the effect of a tariff is to raise the price of the article carrying that tariff by the amount of that tariff.
There is no good economist on the face of the globe who can successfully controvert that position, and that settles all controversy on the matter. It cannot be successfully controverted. When an article costing say flOO comes to one of our ports and a tariff of 33 per cent is put on it at the port, that 33 per cent goes into the price of the article and the $100 becomes 5133 and more than that, because a profit must be charged upon the tariff as well as upon the original price of the article. In regard to the effect of combines, I am going to quote an authority who ought to have more weight than even the Minister of Trade and Commerce with my hon. friends opposite-I am going to quote the Prime Minister himself. In a memorial which he put out last election in regard to the objections to the reciprocity pact, he remarked in the first place, that they are profound and abiding. After that remark he went on to enumerate those objections, and I want to call my right hon. friend's particular attention to this objection. He said: The reciprocity pact will for the most part reduce the prices which our producers will receive for their output while the control of the trusts will prevent any reduction to the consumer. That language is an admission on the part of my right hon. friend that at the last election lie knew that the effect of the trusts was to raise the prices to the consumer and on that point he need not have appointed any commission now. If he will put together the opinion I have quoted from the Minister of Trade and Commerce and his own opinion he will find himself in this position that he is bound to admit from their own statements that the rise in prices in a protectionist country is due in the first place to tariff and in the second place to the combines which arise under the protection of the tariff. Confronted with the difficulty of living, what did Peel do ? He attacked the tariff. What has Woodrow Wilson done in the United

States ? He has attacked the tariff, and I submit that if my right hon. leader follows the example of these hon. gentlemen and sets up serious arguments about this subject, neither his actions nor his arguments should be made the matter of jollification as they were in this House to-day. Inconsistency on the part of the right hon. gentleman only proves him to be human, but he is, at any rate, following the example of great statesmen both in Great Britain and in the United States, in the course which he has taken, and I submit that amongst all the events of the recess probably the event which most particularly affects the destiny of Canada and which will certainly affect the thoughts of Canada is the fiscal revolution which has been carried out by the President and the Democratic party in the United States. When I first came to this country and dared, I hope always respectfully, to give my opinion upon tariffs, I used to be regarded as a sort of benighted islander who had strayed somehow out of my proper path and the one recipe for my complaint was that some gentlemen on the other side of the House got up and said: Look at the great country to the south. I see the hon. member for York (Mr. McLeod) still gets lessons from that great country, because he quoted it in one particular in his speech to-night. Well, I looked to the great country to the south and I kept on looking, and now I turn to my hon. friends opposite and I say: Look at the great country to the south and what do you see ? We see a great, simple and sincere man coming into office and cutting up protection and tearing its economic fallacies and false arguments into shreds and casting them to the four winds of heaven. There is no argument by which protection has been supported anywhere that he did not expose and we see that man with the approbation apparently of the whole people, because there is one peculiar thing about this reform: both Republicans and Democrats recognize that they have a statesman who means business and they are prepared to give a fair trial to what he has introduced. My right hon. friend in discussing this subject used an argument which I did not think worthy of him. It is an argument which is being sent out, canned (probably from the Manufacturers' Association), and which is appearing in little country newspapers, proving that there has been no reduction in the price of foodstuffs in the United States since the reduction of the tariff. I put it to my right hon. friend, if forty years of the National Policy here and
sixty years of high protection in the United States were needed before the people would take a fair dose of free trade, is it fair to free trade to expect it to produce a revolution in two months? A reduction in food stuffs is the very reduction which would not come at once. How could it? The moment Mr. Woodrow Wilson lowered the tariff a yearling could not become a three-year-old steer. I wish they could have. It would have been a very profitable business for me in Alberta, but it takes two years for a yearling to become a three-year-old. I could give my right hon. friend shoals of advertisement from the business men of the States showing that upon the other articles on which the tariff was reduced, prices came down immediately the tariff came into operation. Wannamaker's had a page advertisement in the New York papers mentioning the articles upon which their prices would be lowered the day the tariff came into effect. So I say the argument of my right hon. friend is scarcely worthy of him. This fiscal revolution in the United States has made it impossible for us to have reciprocity as it was proposed two years ago. I think everybody will recognize that as an absolutely necessary outcome of the change in the United States, but it does not follow that reciprocity is dead. It means that fifty per cent of it is very much alive and in operation on the other side of the line. I see the Minister of Finance making a note on that subject. I dare say he will tell us once more that reciprocity is dead. I very well remember when he first told us that. It was in his maiden speech. He said:
As far as the province of Ontario is concerned, I may say that practically all classes were against reciprocity-farmers, manufacturers and artisans. And, sir, when a verdict is got from such a province as that, is it not the part of wisdom to accept it?
I have a conundrum for my hon. friend in connection with that quotation. When Ontario changes its verdict, what is our duty? _ There have been two elections in Ontario recently which have shown that they are not sure that they took the part of wisdom. They have cut down the majority in Middlesex lower than ever before, and I hope we shall hear from the member for South Bruce that reciprocity was made an issue in his county. After all it is not the name, it is the thing I care for. Reciprocity is a term applied to mutual trade arranged by governments; but while that may fall through, the cry of * no truck or trade with the Yankees ' can never be raised again, because the trading between the two peoples has risen by hundreds of thousands of dollars since the pact was defeated.

This fiscal revolution lias another bearing. While it did not kill reciprocity, it did kill in my judgment the policy of mutual preferences within the empire. May I remind the Government that one of the things they did last year was to pass the West Indian treaty. What has happened to that treaty as a result of the fiscal changes in the United States? The Minister of Trade and Commerce said to the delegates from the West Indies: We will help you by giving you one-fifth advantage on sugar over the rest of the world. President Wilson comes along and says: Little Canada away to the north is going to give you one-fifth advantage on sugar. I will do more than that for you, I will give you a ninety million market, fifty per cent off, and free sugar within three years. What becomes of your preference then, and the charge against the Opposition that we wasted time last session? That West Indian treaty is a piece of waste paper to-day. Their sugar will naturally go into the United States. Take the case of wool. What preference can we offer to Australia upon her wool, which is her staple product? The fact is mutual preferences within the empire are only possible so long as the other countries of the world remain protectionist and Britain stands for free trade. Great Britain shows no sign of deserting free trade, but the moment the other countries of the world desert protection there is no possibility of mutual preferences within the empire. And the fact that my right hon. friend advocates mutual preferences within the empire, shows that in his trade outlook he is a benighted protectionist.
I want to say a word or two in regard to another matter which is of vital and immediate moment to the people in the part of the country come from, and through them to the whole of Canada, a question which is raised in an acute form by the rearrangement of the United States tariff. I refer to the question of free wheat. If I wanted to impress upon them the importance of it, I should call their attention to the fact that the Argentine Republic has already availed itself of the United States' offer, and this I take to be a most vital matter for the Government of this country. I am surprised that my right hon. friend the Prime Minister had nothing to say upon this subject. If we want to increase the prosperity of this country we cannot do it by putting a paragraph in the Address referring to our boundless resources. As my right hon. leader said: you have to develop these resources and you will only develop them if you show yourselves acute ,
enough business men to contend with your competitors in the Argentine and elsewhere for the markets of the world. I put it to the Government that the Argentine Government have already shown that they know the value of the offer of the United States and have availed themselves of it. What is the [DOT] position of the Government of Canada? Echo answers, What? I wonder if they know their own position on this matter. The fact is that they have two positions. They had one in Manitoba six weeks ago; there is no doubt about that. Mr. Harvey Simpson, the Conservative member of the Legislature, was no doubt in communication with the most prominent member of this Government before he dared to put that resolution in favour of free wheat upon the table of the Manitoba House. That resolution has been carried by the political friends of the Government and carried unanimously in a Conservative House.


Mr. E. M. MACDONALD:: Did Roblin
vote for it?


Michael Clark: Presumably, Sir Rodmond
Roblin must have voted for it, because it was carried unanimously. There are some other friends of my hon. friends opposite who came down from Alberta, and there is no possibility of them successfully denying the fact that they came also voicing the opinions of Western Conservatives as well as Western Liberals, to ask for free wheat. But this Government is a government of dissolving views; not only a government of dissolving views, it is a government of double views because the same Minister of Public Works who said to the Manitoba Conservative legislators: ask for free wheat; he apparently said to the legislators from Alberta: don't ask for free wheat. In the presence of such a peculiar spectacle I am surprised that the Prime Minister did not give us some light upon this subject, and I certainly think we ought to hear from the Government and hear from the Government at once: whether in this country we have not statesmen as acute-minded, or at any rate as resolute as the statesmen of the Argentine Republic. Personally I cannot understand the Government hesitating a moment in this matter; that is to say, if they are actuated purely by a desire to do what is best for Canada. Many arguments that were used in regard to the reciprocity pact of two years ago do not apply to this matter at all. This question is not now part of a large general agreement; it cannot be argued that it interferes with our fiscal independence. We simply have to take the

tariff off wheat, which would be no sacrifice whatever, and we get entry into the United States market for our wheat. I want to remind the ministers that they know as well as I know that Western grain growers do not fear competition from the United States or anywhere else. In fact, one of the peculiarities of this	Government,	asdistinguished from the Opposition, is that they have no faith in their own country. They tell us we	must	not tradewith the	United	States or	weshould be annexed; they told us last year we could not build ships in this country, and now	they	are afraid
apparently that our wheat in the West can be successfully competed against from abroad. I want to tell my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, who no doubt is seriously considering this question, that we in the West have confidence in our country, that we have confidence in our wheat, and that we believe that no wheat anywhere can compete with it because we produce the best in the world. That is the kind of Canada we believe in and that is the kind of Canadianism we believe in. There was another argument used two years ago that need not frighten my hon. friends opposite now. They told us: there is no market to the south of us. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in that wonderful four hour speech, used the famous illustration of the jack knife. He said: why, you cannot do any business with the United States because they produce the same materials that we do; it would be like two men trying to make themselves richer by exchanging jack knives. But, let me call the attention of the minister to the enlightenment which they no doubt have already got as to the substantial nature of the exchanges that are going on between us and the United States. The tariff on cattle has been removed entirely. In the year 1912, 7,600 head of cattle all told went from Canada to the United States, and it is admitted that since the Woodrow Wilson tariff went into operation 100,000 head of cattle have gone below the line. So, our friends opposite need not tell us any more that we cannot do business with the United States. I never argue this question on the ground of price, but I am pleased to inform the Government and their supporters that those who argued that reciprocity would bring us higher prices have been fully borne out by events, because it is a fact that the cattle raisers of Alberta have received one dollar per hundred pounds more for cattle last year that they have ever received
during the time I have been in this country. The result of the Woodrow Wilson tariff has been that there is an enormous increase in the sale of Canadian cattle. The tariff on oats has been reduced, and what has been the result? It is established that in the year 1912 we sold the magnificent quantity of 183,000 bushels of oats to the United States, whereas since the Woodrow Wilson tariff came into operation we have sold something in the neighbourhood of twenty million bushels in a couple of months. There is no question any longer as to whether there is a market for us in the United States; we know now we have a market there. And, iSir, I want to point out what would be the result of these dealings with the United States. The result must inevitably be increased production of cattle and oats in the western provinces. Increased production will lead 'to increased settlement; increased settlement will lead to increased immigration, increased immigration will bring in increased capital, which will benefit every portion of the Dominion. That is what we lost by the rejection of the reciprocity pact.
I want to go a little further into an examination of this free wheat project. It is a very peculiar spectacle which presents itself to us in the matter of the grain growers and farmers of the West coming to the Government and seeking the abolition of the tariff upon their own product. I call the attention of the Minister of Finance to the fact that usually when an interest comes to the Government in connection with the tariff it is to request that the tariff be increased upon their products, or that it may be allowed to remain without reduction. And, curiously enough, in a protectionist country like this, and with a protectionist Government like this, these people get an extraordinary amount of consideration. Now, representing the farmers of the West, I want to ask the Government why it is they do not give the same consideration to the men engaged in the industry of agriculture when they come to ask that the tariff upon wheat should be abolished-and that is all they are asking for-that they give to the manufacturers of this country who come to them with respect to the tariff on their products. Have the farmers not the right to speak for their own industry? What is sacrosanct or holy about manufacturers so called that they should receive very much attention from the Government and that no heed should be paid to the plea of the

farmers who are engaged in the most important industry of all. I contend it is the right of the wheat growers to be the judges in this matter. They go on the prairies and they face the hardships of pioneer life, which I have shared with them in another branch of industry for twelve years, and when they come to this Government and say, we understand our industry and we want the tariff on wheat removed. The Government sits passive and lets the Argentine Republic get into the United States markets in front of them. The Government's treatment of the farmers is not fair to the agricultural industry as compared with their treatment of other industries which come to them. Why is it that the Government did not attend to this matter? Have the millers had anything to do with it? Have they had representations from the millers? I am afraid the Government has paid too much attention to the millers. Well, what about the millers? What about the milling industry? Sir John Simon, speaking in Birmingham, England, the other night, said: I do not suppose, at this moment, there is any industry in Britain which is more flourishing than the milling industry under free trade? That opinion is well worth weighing by the Government when the millers come to it. That is the opinion of Sir John Simon in regard to the milling industry of Great Britain, where they have to import their raw material; but here our millers are in the midst of the finest raw material in the world for their business, in the midst of an overwhelming abundance of that raw material. I say that if they cannot mill in Canada, they are not meant to mill; they should come out beside me and take up homesteads. They should certainly not be allowed to prevent the farmers from getting this market, if it is to be of any good to them. The millers say they would be put out of business. They are not afraid of being put out of business. What they are afraid of is that they will have to accept the same price for flour in Canada as they do in Great Britain. I believe they get higher prices for flour in Canada than they can secure in Great Britain. Their fear is that they will have to take the same prices in Canada as in Great Britain, and I do [DOT]not think that a fear of that kind should be allowed to interfere with the Government in this matter.
This is not a western question. It is a Canadian question. I have just indicated how it is a Canadian question. Everybody
.
knows-my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie, the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) knows, and will not deny, that the development of Canada in the last half generation, the great prosperity of Canada has been due to the development of western Canada, not that there has not been a development of industries here; but, if you place more farmers on the land of the west, you benefit every industry in western Canada.
Just compare the methods of freedom in this matter with the methods of protection. Compare the steel bounties' policy which has been supported by both Governments in this country with the method I propose of giving our wheat a free exit into the United States market. Protection begins at the wrong end. I was in Nova Scotia lately, and I looked over the Steel Works in Sydney. Very good works they are; but, while being shown over them, I came to two mills that were standing idle. I said to the manager, a courteous fellow countryman of mine: What is the matter with these mills? He said; We have got no orders. Now, what amount of tariff or what amount of bounty will send orders into those mills? If you gave them a million dollars a day, it would not give orders to those mills. All it would do would be to pay interest on the capital invested in the works. But, if you begin at the other end and develop your farm lands and develop western Canada, you will develop your transportation. You cannot do that without steel and you will, therefore, develop the steel works at Sydney and in other parts of the country. I bring that before the Government as an important consideration in connection with this matter of free wheat. A far-seeing statesmanship-and it does not require a very long sight- would give free wheat at once to the western farmers; and with it, if the Government wanted to do a wise act to cure the present depression, they should take the duty off agricultural implements. I trust my hon. friend the Solicitor General got a guarantee upon that subject before lie entered the Government. It would be customary in Britain for him to have got such a guarantee. When any gentleman, in the position of my hon. friend in the old country, has spoken as strongly as he has in regard to the reduction of duty on agricultural implements, he ought not to have taken his seat in that Government unless he has got a guarantee that his views will prevail there. He must be true to himself

and to his constituents. I have considerable confidence, however, that he has looked into this matter. The two things together would be a splendid start in dealing with the tariff, in the way statesmen have done in other countries., and would have a bearing upon the development of Canada, the relief from the high cost of living, and from the depression in trade from which the speech acknowledged we are suffering.
The Government, so far from providing any means of relief from the conditions under which we are suffering at the present time, rejoice in certain things which are calculated to aggravate our distress. Until we provide more markets for the sale of our agricultural produce, until we alter our economic system, no Government in this country ought to rejoice, as the Address rejoices, in the increase in immigration. Where is our immigration going? I very much fear it is not going on to the land. It is going into the towns. It is increasing the number of unemployed in the towns. A great many people in the cities of the West, who are unemployed at the present time, were working at harvest time and have gone into the towns. I contend that no Government has any right to go on promoting unlimited immigration unless it takes proper means to get the people onto the land. The hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers) tells us that what we are suffering from at the present time is too little production. We shall not increase our production by adding to the unemployed in the towns. The only way in which we shall increase our production is by adding to our rural population. There is something that is wrong with the economic condition of Canada. This question has a bearing not only upon the question of immigration but upon the question of rural depopulation, upon the question of the prosperity of the whole country.
I just want to tell my right hon. friend the Prime Minister and his supporters that this extra price for cattle has not in the slightest degree affected the loyalty of any cattle raiser in the province of Alberta. Personally, I want to give my right hon. friend the assurance that, although I have received, myself, a dollar a head more for cattle this fall than I ever received before, so far as I can search my heart and conscience I am as loyal to the Old Country as ever I was. I am glad to give that assurance, and I want to enter into a similar guarantee on the part of the wheat producers. I am perfectly sure, if they did take their wheat to the United States and sold it there, it would not interfere with their
loyalty. I do not think we shall fight a campaign again when that cry will be raised. It gained a few votes, but it was an extremely foolish cry, because, after all, men are not disloyal on account of thriving under a flag; men are disloyal when they fail to thrive under a flag. Make men poor; make them discontented, and then you will increase their disloyalty. That is the condition that we have as to poverty and unemployment at the present time. The responsibility of the Government is great in this matter. I trust they will not be deterred from doing what is right by any consideration of their own consistency. I trust they will look at this matter from the point of view of the interest of Canada and their duty to the people of this country. The fact of the matter is, there are large numbers of people in Canada, both Conservatives and Liberals, who think that we have had just a little too much attention paid to the great imperial matters upon which my right hon. friend spent so much time to-night, and too little attention paid to the affairs of our own country.
The Government has duties to Canada, and Canada is looking for them to discharge those duties. And if the Government wish to see how those duties should be discharged, they must follow the advice they give to me and look to the great country to the south of us. My right hon. friend says there is unemployment, there are distressed conditions, in the United States as well as here. It is extraordinary to hear that, because his friends the Tariff Reformers of Great Britain have been proclaiming that Great Britain was the only place where you had unemployment, and that that unemployment was due to Free Trade. But you have only to take up a paper published here in Ottawa this evening to see the headline, 'The Old Country cannot see any slackening in trade.' The one country in the world which was a commercial miracle in the year 1913, the country which has the smallest rate of unemployment in the world, the country which has the largest business in the world, is this country of forty-five millions of people living in a territory half the size of Alberta. And against this, we have this admission, this proclamation, of unemployment in the United States and Canada. Look to the great country to the south of us and you get ideas on this subject-for there is one kind of commerce that is not prevented by a tariff, and that is the commerce in thought. I see a market where my right hon. friend does not

see it. That market is there. The Government have a great responsibility with regard to this matter, and we all trust that they will face that responsibility in the interest of the country. If they do not, then I am sure of this-that so far as Western Canada is concerned, they will go down to an inglorious defeat, unwept, unhonoured and unsung.
Mr. JOHN H. BURNHAM (West Peterborough) : I am sure it will be a cause of astonishment that I rise at this juncture, but it is not altogether my fault. It arises, I presume, from a desire on the part of some people to take advantage of this late hour of the evening to take a nap. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, in opening, that I should like to join my humble voice in the congratulations to the mover and the seconder of the Address for the manner in which they carried out that pleasant duty. The strength of argument, the breadth of view, the fluency and finish of their diotion, excited general admiration. It is a great pleasure to see that the Government benches can do something of which the Opposition approve. We all wish to join our voices also in the universal praise of the pluck displayed by Her Excellency after her severe ordeal of illness in returning to preside in Canada. It is very gratifying to us to find that the Opposition unite with us in discerning the good qualities, the very brilliant qualities of the new Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen.)
I cannot understand why so much time is wasted by the Opposition in denouncing the statements made by their own provincial Prime Ministers. We are told that, through the inaction or mistaken action, the ignorance or otherwise, of the Conservative Government, Canada has failed to measure up to the standard as she should have done; and yet in the face of that, in the face of the great problem which .a young country like this has before it, we have the universal testimony of the provincial Prime Ministers, that Canada is exceedingly prosperous. Logically what justification can there be for taking a fling at the conditions in this country at the present time? I think I may safely say, without being considered impertinent, that it is not only illogical and inconsistent, but distinctly improper to fly in the face of the provincial Prime Minister who is the best exponent of local conditions. Are we to suppose for one moment that the Prime Minister of Alberta, or the Prime Minister of Saskatchewan, is anxious
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to place a feather in the cap of the Conservative Government of Ottawa? We know that he is more likely-being human and a Liberal-to minimize the conditions in Alberta and Saskatchewan than to magnify them. We must surely be allowed to rely upon the statements made by these men, and we do rely upon them more than upon the statements of those whose duty it is to find fault and to endeavour to resume their places on the treasury benches where they committed homicide by misadventure in 1911.
It must be remembered that the Naval or Imperial policy of the Conservative party springs from the fact that first and foremost-first, last and all the time-they desire to remain within the British Empire. The weakness of the Conservative position unquestionably is-admittedly is-that $35,000,000 or thereabouts will be expended, to a certain extent outside the country. It is admitted that half of that, even under the divine management of the Liberals, would have to be spent out of the country, because they simply could not build all portions of their navy here. I confess that is the weakness of our position; we do not say-or I presume we do not say- that our position at all points is invincibly strong; we do say that, in comparison with anything else that has been devised or suggested, our position is incomparably strong. But, who want's to embark upon a great military policy such as the Liberal policy is? Who wants to unfurl the Canadian flag of practical, if not nominal, independence, ' and sail the -seas provoking conflict and disaster? The Liberals are either sincere or insincere. If they are insincere, we do not wish to have anything more to do with -them, nor does the country. But if they are sincere, then they propose -to develop a policy which would place us alongside of such nations as Germany and France, who are now making a mad rush to complete a naval policy such as will be suitable to their station. I am told that Canada must do likewise. Now -there is no force in the argument of building a little tin-pot navy. There is no such idea on the part of Liberals Their desire is to build and develop a great naval force. I am free to acknowledge that while that is an exceedingly extravagant and unwise proposition, I am sufficiently imperialistic and sufficiently loyal to wish to adopt that plan rather than do nothing at all. But we find no reciprocity of spirit exhibited by our friends. They will not have the Conservative policy, and, not having that policy, they will t-hrow down

their arms and wreck the whole scheme; they will sneer at emergencies, and let everything, to use a common phrase, go to the devil. We are not like that. If these gentlemen were on the Treasury benches we might disapprove of their policy and say we had a much better one, but we are not so narrow, so stupid, so unloyal, if I may not use the word disloyal-so unloyal, so entirely anti-imperialistic as to decline to do anything to help the empire which we are supposed to adorn, if we cannot have our own way. It is well to talk about sheep and cattle, but.we had better see if we cannot develop some sort of a manly spirit as well. What kind of an education did they give in Newcastle to the Leviathan of Alberta? Is it absolutely impossible for us to develop an indepen lent spirit, a loftiness of conception, along with the material advantages of the world? Has the hon. gentleman never heard of Athens? Does he not know that twenty-five hundred years ago there was developed the spirit of freedom, of independence, of philosophy and of science the like of which the world has never seen? The whole history of Athens simply teems with the spirit displayed by her people. Many and many a time she might have sacrificed herself to material advantage, but she preferred to bequeath to posterity a noble name and a noble example. This we should never forget. Canada is in danger of becoming very materialistic. From one end of this country to the -other we hear -talk about free food,	about	dear food,	about
the high cost of living, and about the tango.	That is all that is going
on in the country now. Theories of government are not being worked out; they are not working themselves out, and the Liberal politicians will not allow them to be worked out. The hon. member for Red Deer is deluded by baits; he sees a fish flashing by, with sparkling scales, straightway, makes a bite at it. He would say: ' Why do' you seek fish in the South Sea when you can get them right here? He has no broad conception of things. The evolution of government has brought us to the time when the freedom of the people allows them and prompts them to manage their own business, but, strange to say, there are so many anomalies in the twentieth century, and we are now confronted with a vicious paradox. Over-supply produces scarcity; over-production produces starvation, and surplus of material produces stringency. It would be difficult indeed to unearth anything more absurd than this illogical fact. Why is it that we do not set ourselves to find out why these
things are so? Is. it that we must devote ourselves to something sentimental; to some esoteric theory such as the free trade which exists only in the imagination of the hon. member for Red Deer, the gentleman who voted for bounties? He despises tariffs; yet he overlooked the tariff which collects money for the public treasury and voted for bounties that put money into the private pockets of individuals.


Michael Clark: I rise to a point of order. If my hon. friend is stating this as a fact, I may say that I have never consciously voted for the imposition of a tariff or the payment of a bounty. I do not think my hon. friend has the information as to when I gave such a vote.


Mr. BURNHAM:: I do not wish to be in the slightest degree inaccurate, and I was particular to make my assertion when the hon. member was present. I refused to vote for the lead bounty last year, but the hon. gentleman, on one occasion at least, I think, voted for it. If, however, he did not vote for it, if I am not misinformed, he certainly spoke in favour of it.


Michael Clark: I rise again to correct my hon. friend. I made as good a speech as ever I could against it.


John Hampden Burnham: All I have to say, then, is that I am utterly unable to understand the English language as spoken by the hon. member for Red Deer. I could a tale unfold, but I will not unfold it. However, as the hon. gentleman said in the course of his fine speech that he has a conscience, I will leave the matter with that conscience.
No branch of industry-and I must be excused for being, perhaps, a little irrelevant-could possibly thrive if it were not given proper attention; if the stock were not taken and a balance struck; if there were not some intimate control and supervision exercised in regard to it. And yet, notwithstanding the fact that this House and the people generally are concerned most intimately with everything that takes place in this country, they are reproached in the most scathing language by the hon. member for Red Deer for failing to know all about the conditions of industry in Canada. He reproaches us with our ignorance, but would not allow us a commission which would find out why we do not know these things. And yet he says we are inconsistent. There are some very striking passages in the hon. gentleman's

address, but I would direct your attention, Mr. Speaker, to this fact, that whilst government ownership and government control, that is to say, public ownership and public control, are spreading the world over, there seems to be a disposition to leave them in a haphazard condition here, so that they are neither one thing nor the other, and we are confronted witjr the extraordinary fact that we decline to provide a decent living wage for the working man, and yet demand that he shall live in a decent manner. We also decline to deal with the problem of unemployment and wonder that a starving man is inclined to strike. The injustice is done on both sides. We fail to regulate and provide for the employer those peaceful conditions which would enable him to develop his industry and we decline to provide conditions which only a government can provide for employees which will enable them to provide for the present and for the future in some respectable and certain manner. These things of course are extremely obvious. Books galore have been written upon them. Every president of every university in the world has written a book this last year or two upon that subject. Every man of prominence in every government has dealt with the question. Commissions have found out causes and commissions have failed to find out causes, and yet here we are in Canada, industrious as we are, painstaking as we are, capable as we are-and I think I may be forgiven for saying so-and yet we are not endeavouring to bend our energy to the solution of the most obvious and the most pressing of problems. It is useless to say that free trade is a powerful or effectual buttress against such a thing as the unduly high cost of living. It is admitted by the very speaker who lauds free trade in this connection that it has not had the effect of lowering or preserving the cost of living in Great Britain. That cost has risen by fifteen per cent or thereabouts. Well, all we can say about that is that it is not a question between free trade and protection. It is a question of the comparative effect of economic policies under the conditions that exist. It is idle to suppose or to assert that the logical conclusion is that one is right and the other is wrong because they are diametrically opposed when, as a matter of fact, they both run in the same groove. We must be consistent. There is no use listening to great statesmen and the enunciation of tremendous principles if those propositions and the enunciation of them do not bear out the conclusions.
,
I would like to deal just for a moment with one or two statements made by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark). He scoffed at an emergency. Are we to understand that there is no emergency, in the British Government at this minute over the navy question? I do not wish to meddle in other people's affairs, but the cables all tell us that at this present moment Great Britain is convulsed with an emergency and yet, because the hori. member for Red Deer has not had it proved to him in black and white so that everybody would laugh at him if he did not admit it, he will not provide for an emergency, he will do nothing, he will throw his arms down and let it all go. He follows only too well the motto of the free traders, laissez faire, let everything go, let well enough alone, that is what that means. There are 4,500 millionaires by the last census in Great Britain, and who has the audacity to tell us there is no 11p.m. poverty there? Why are people fleeing from Great Britain? If the people were leaving this country as they are leaving Great Britain wages would be high and there would be no unemployed; but the fact is they are leaving Great Britain in such tremendous numbers that they themselves consider it a reproach that the people should leave Great Britain for another country under the conditions. It is not fair to argue in that way, it is inaccurate.
One half of the magnificent speech of the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) referred to the very bad business of the Prime Minister in calling the House on the 15th of January instead of the 15th of October. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) knocked that all on the head in one minute but all I can say is that if the Opposition are going on like this, fighting each other in mortal combat, we will have to put a ring around them and charge an admission fee. * Strange to say in criticising the Highways Bill the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), admitted that five-sixths of that Bill was perfect, five clauses out of six were all right, the Senate admitted that. The sixth clause, which refers to the administration of funds under the Bill being apparently the key to the position and referring to what the hon. member considered possibly a political advantage, was so distasteful to him and to the Senate that they decided to throw it out. That is to say, rather than forego a political advantage they would throw the material advantages of the people of this country to the four winds of Heaven. Are

they aware that this Government is not responsible to the Senate? This is not oligarchical government, notwithstanding the fact that they are trying to make it so; we have still popular government in Canada, and if the Government passes a Bill against which the Opposition think it their duty to make a protest let them make a protest and preserve their position without prejudice if they like; then, when this Government go to the country on their record, if the people disapprove they will turn the Government out. But the hon. gentlemen opposite knew that the people would not disapprove and that is the reason why they burked that Bill. If that Bill meant that the Government were committing suicide, does anybody tell me that the hon. gentlemen opposite would not have provided a halter? Not at all, they would have said: certainly we disapprove of the Bill, go to the country; go further if you nKe, that is where you will end. But they did not do that, for they knew that with that Bill and other Bills oi first importance and advantage to this country, they were not only out of the Treasury benches but hopelessly out, and that they might never see them again in their lifetime. That is what affected them, and that is why the Senate was called upon to be so judicial Let me say one thing which convinces me, although it may not convince hon. gentlemen opposite. Living is cheapest in this world in that country which has the highest measure of protection, namely, France. Of all the countries on the face of the earth the country that is the cheapest to live in is France. She, two years ago, so approve 1 of the policy of protection that she raised her whole system of protection by 20 per cent. If that is not a direct argument in flat contradiction of the statement of the hon. member for Red Deer I do not know what is-and it is not borrowed from theory but from practice and fact. I was very much upset,-although I may recover-by a statement of the same hon. gentleman about free wool from Australia. Why, Australia is a protected country the same as Canada. Why does he not treat the question in a logical way and treat free wheat from Canada the same as Australians do their wool from Australia? But that unfortunately is generally his failing. He is very quick, very picturesque, very defiant and very polite, but as to being cogent we must confess to having our reservations. He said the price of Canadian flour was higher in Canada than in Great Britain. Is he aware that quality for quality it is not so? Flour is flour, he thinks. Well, I can tell him it is 4
not. There are several brands of flour and that makes all the difference in the world. If he wants an analogy, a small one it is true, let him take the case of the old country tailor who sends his goods out to this country, pays the tariff and yet sells them at the same price he charges in England. How does that happen? I do not buy these clothes myself, I make my own, but if we are to have these monstrosities of trade brought up before us all the time, why are they not- dealt with in a fair manner? There can be no question that the Conservative party has made mistakes in the past and has profited by them. It is admitted that different conditions are suitable to different countries and to argue at large as if Canada were Britain and Britain were Canada but shows the ineptitude of the hon. gentleman on these questions. However, I fancy that a due regard to patriotism and a certain virility which we have inherited from our ancestors both Gaelic and British, will enable us to weather the storm. I know that the Americans do not start to howl as if everything had gone to the bowwows. When they get into a bit of a slough, they set to work to get out of it, and they have set an example to the whole world. They cannot be excelled for strength of mind, and body and character, and surely we are not going to throw our doors open and howl as if the country was something we should be ashamed of. Let us bend our energies together. Let us find out by commission and cease to draw our illustrations from impossible and irrelevant conditions. Let us face the facts in a scientific manner and deal with them accordingly, and then we shall be much more edified than by a tissue of sarcasms, and, I am afraid, absurdities.
On motion of Mr. A. K. Maclean the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Borden the House adjourned at 11.10 p.m.
Tuesday, January 20, 1914.