1914-04-16

QUESTIONS.

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

Mr. CARVELL:: 1.	Has the Department of Indian Affairs settled with B. Frank Smith for the lumber cut or received by him from that portion of the Tobique Indian reserve north of the Tobique river, since March 31, 1913?
2.	If so, what amount of lumber was cut and how much is to be paid thereto:'?
3.	Has the said amount actually been paid in cash?
4.	Has the said department settled with said Smith for the lumber cut by him on the south side of said Tobique river since March 31, 1913, outside of, and not included in the four lots of land sold to him outright?
5.	If so, what amount of lumber was so cut, and how much is to be paid therefor?
6.	What amount of lumber so cut consisted respectively of green or partly green lumber, and of dry or dead lumber?
7.	What rate of stumpage was charged him for green or partly green lumber?
8.	Has said amount actually been paid in cash?


Mr. ROCHE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	7,500 feet hemlock, 19,400 feet spruce, 77 cords wood, $97.40.
3.	Yes.
4.	Yes.

5 . 27,200 feet B.M. hemlock at $3, $81.60; 56,500 feat B.M. .spruce at $3.75, $211.87. Total, $293.47.
6'. Green or partly green.
7.	Answered by No. 5.
8.	Yes.
AID TO CANADIAN NORTHERN RAILWA*


Mr. BURNHAM:: What are the dates of authorization by Parliament of the various grants, subsidies, guarantees, etc., set out in reply dated April 1, 1914, to question submitted on Orders of the Day regarding the Canadian Northern railway, etc.


Mr. REID:: Cash Subsidies.
Canadian Northern railway: Swan River section, 1899, chap. 7; 1900, chap. 8; Ontario and Rainy River railway, 1899, chap. 7; Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific railway, 1899, chap. 7.
Canadian Northern-Alberta railway, 1913, chap. 10.
Canadian Northern Ontario railway: Toronto-Sudbury, 1903, chap. 57; 1904, chap. 33; 1907, chap. 40; 1908, chap. 63; Toronto-Ottawa, 1913, chap. 10; Hawkesbury-Otta-wa, 1908, chap. 63; Ottawa-Port Arthur, 1913, chap. 10.
Canadian Northern Quebec railway: Gar-meau-Quebec, 1908, chap. 63; St. Jerome branch, 1908, chap. 63; Rawdon branch,
1907,	chap. 40, S. 1-16.
Canadian Northern' Pacific railway, 1912, chap. 9.
Halifax and South Western railway, 1903, chap. 57.
Guarantees.*
Canadian Northern railway, 1903, chap. 7;
1908,	chap. 11.
Canadian Northern Alberta railway, 1910, chap. 6; 1912, chap. 7.
Canadian Northern Ontario railway, 1911, chap. 6.
Lands.
Winnipeg and Great Northern railway, Dominion Lands Act, 1883, sec. 7; R.S.C., 1886, chap. 54, sec. 90.
Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal company, 1890, chap. 4.
*Manitoba 'and 'South Eastern railway, 1890, chap. 4.


P. BURNS GRAZING LEASE.
Mr. BUCHANAN:: 1.	Is the report correct that the Department of the Interior Intends to open for homesteading a portion of the lease to P. Burns, in township 18, range 21, West of the 4th Meridian?
2.	If so, when will the land he opened?


Mr. ROCHE:: 1.	No decision has yet been reached.
2.	If it should be decided to withdraw any lands from the leasehold for the purpose of making them available for settlement, it would be necessary to give two years' notice to the leaseholder.


TENDERS FOR ANKLE BOOTS.
Mr. SINCLAIR:: Referring to an item of ?7,S97.50, found on page 0-132, Vol. 11, Auditor General's Report," paid to Ames, Holden, McCready, Montreal, for boots, what are the names of the newspaper^ in which the advertisement calling for tenders for this purchase appeared and the dates of the insertions of such advertisement?


Mr. HUGHES:: No newspaper advertisement was made. Tenders were invited by circular letter addressed to:	The Slater
Shoe Co., Ames, Holden, McCready Co., George A. Slater, Ltd., all of Montreal, and the Hart Boot and Shoe Go., Ltd., of Fredericton. The total quantity required was 4,050 pairs; half by May 20, and the remainder by June 15. The contract was divided between Ames, Ho1 den, McCready, Ltd., at $3.90 per pair, .and the Slater Shoe Co., at $4 per pair; the latter company's tender offering earlier deliveries. This was the first time tenders for ankle boots had been obtained for about eight years.


INSPECTION OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
Mr. SINCLAIR:: 1.	What are the receipts from inspection of weights and measures?
2.	What is the expenditure?
Mr. NiANTEL:
1.	From April 1, 1913, to March 31, 1914, $106,522.47.
2.	From April 1, 1913, to March 31, 1914, $144,122.98.


UNOPPOSED AND UNDISCUSSED MOTION.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Proulx.-Return showing how many appointments have been made in the Customs Department at Montreal since the 1st of October, 1911; the names of the persons so appointed, and the dates of their respective appointments; after what recommendations they have been appointed; the salary of each of these new employees; the increases of salaries granted in the same department since the same date, and to whom, and why.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Mr. WILLIAM CHISHOLM:: I desire to call attention to the fact that question No.

18 does not appear on the Order Paper in the form in which it was first submitted. It has been emasculated. The resolution referred to was set forth, and the questions were directed to' it. A resolution addressed to the Premier of Canada, to the Rt. Hon. Winston -Churchill and to Sir Edward Carson is surely proper enough to be printed in the Orders of the Day, and a resolution passed by -such a body as the Vancouver County Orange Lodge cannot be of such a character that it should not appear in public print. Therefore, I -submit that whoever emasculated the question had no right to do so.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I understand that it was somewhat irregular in form, and, following the usual practice in regard to long questions, we reduced it as much -as possible. I will, however, look into the matter.


William Chisholm: I desire to -ask that the question be put on the Order Paper in the original form, because the -answer cannot be intelligible without the resolution.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Of course, the hon. member will understand that -questions and resolutions submitted cannot always be put on the Order Paper in the form in which they are presented to the House; if so, they would frequently be irregular. After conference with the hon. member, it will be decided in what form the question will be put.


THE BUDGET.
[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Hon. W. T. White (Minister of Finance) for the House to go into Committee on Ways and Means, resumed from Wednesday, April 15.
Mr. J. A. MACDONALD ARMSTRONG (North York):: Mr. Speaker; I have no intention of imposing on the good nature of the members of this House for more than a few moments, and I would not have craved their indulgence at all but for the tact that I consider it my duty to those who sent me to this House as their representative to place myself on record at least-with regard to the more contentious matters in connection with the tariff. The House listened last night with a great deal of attention to the able address made by the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemi-eux). I for one always listen to that hon. gentleman with a great deal of pleasure-I believe in giving credit where

credit is due; in rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. I congratulate the hon. member on having delivered what, to my mind, was a very capable address. As a work of literary art, I think it would class as a masterpiece. I also congratulate the hon. member on his wonderful command of the English language and his extensive knowledge of the Latin tongue, as evidenced by the several Latin quotations he gave last night. I do not pretend to be a Latin scholar, but I recollect the phrase- ' He-reditas damnosa.' I noticed that my hon. friend from Rouville repeated that expression several times, and that he laid stress upon the first syllable of the last word. I presume that he sought to- convey to this House what he would like to do with the members of the Conservative party if he had the chance. I will willingly and freely congratulate the hon. member on that speech and on the manner in which it was delivered. But I regret that I cannot congratulate him upon the subject matter of that speech. If the hon. member's political epitaph is to be carved or framed according to the standards of that speech, I am afraid it will be this -and nothing more: ' He talked much and said little.'
The hon. gentleman did, in one respect, follow the lead given by other hon. gentlemen since the early days of this -session; he began by telling the House that there were many, many unemployed in Canada, and that a very unsatisfactory condition of affairs prevailed. He said it with a gleam of satisfaction in his eye. His political partisanship, his desire for political preferment, no doubt overcame his interest in the welfare of the Canadian people. He said that hundreds and thousands of unemployed were walking the streets of Montreal, a-n-d that the same condition prevailed in other cities throughout Canada. Apparently he is not satisfied with that condition, but wants to make it worse. According to his own showing, he wishes to recruit the ranks of the unemployed, to see more destitute homes and more hungry children in his native city of Montreal. For, forsooth, he has asked this House to eliminate the duties on agricultural implements. He is not satisfied with the condition of unrest that prevails in the manufacturing world, but wishes to disturb it to a greater extent, to remove any feeling of confidence that may exist, and to compel the manufacturers to retrench furtherf and to throw more hands out ot employment, Showing clearly that the hon. member for Rouville and many other hon.

members behind him are willing, in order to bridge the gulf that separates them from the Treasury Benches in this House, to walk over the half fed and half clothed bodies of the wives and children of the artisans of Canada. Hon. members opposite have at last come out in the broad light of day; at last we know where to place them. They have nailed their colours to the mast and have said: we will make a hid for the votes of the farmers of the plains and for them alone. That is what it looks like. They have no regard for the interests of the workingmen. I trust it will be heralded throughout the length and breadth of Canada just how anxious these hon. members are to help the artisans and labourers at the present time.
The hon. member made some very peculiar statements. He said that the big interests won the last election for the Conservative party. Well, there is one 'big interest we did not have, and that was the interest of the Honourable Lyman-hyphen-Melvin-hyphen-Jones. We did not have it then, and did not want it, and I do not know that we want it very badly now.


An hon. MEMBER:: But you have it.


Mr. ARMSTRONG:: perjurers and impostors. I ask the hon. member for Rouville to take his mind back over the. history of his own party; to look over the list of broken pledges and neglected promises; to look over the record of the public treasury plundered and the public domain squandered for the benefit of a few of the political barnacles which were fastened on the Liberal ship of state. I can only say that if the shortcomings of this Government merit the punishment that the hon. member for Rouville mentions, the only punishment which I think would meet the political sins of hon. gentlemen opposite would be the tortures of the Inquisition.
I was never in my life as proud of the fact that I am a Conservative as I have been since the moment the hon. Minister of Finance took his seat after delivering the Budget speech. I am proud to be a Conservative, because once more we can make the proud boast that iso far as tariff matters -are concerned this party can claim consistency. From 1878 down to the present day the people of the country haye known exactly where to find hon. gentlemen on this -side of the House; I wish I could say -as much for hon. gentlemen opposite. I am -almost constrained to pity when I look across the floor of this chamber. First of all I would see, if he were in his seat, the hon. member for Red De-er (Mr. -Clark), a very able man, and a pronounced exponent of the principles of free trade. I would see sitting not far from him the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) who in his heart is a protectionist, and who not long ago informed this House that reciprocity was dead. I would see sitting near him the smooth-tongued, soft-spoken member for Carleton, N.B. (Mr. Carvell), whose honeyed utterances so often have a tendency to pour oil upon the troubled waters of debate in this House. According to the public press, in the city of Hamilton the other day, that hon. gentleman said that reciprocity was not dead. Not far from him I would see the really genial and popular member for Beauce (Mr. Beland), convicted out of his own mouth the other night as being at heart a Conservative so far as the tariff is concerned. I would see also the smiling countenance of the hon. member for Welland (Mr. German), a pronounced opponent of the principles of reciprocity, a gentleman who was man enough to stand out from his party and declare his principles upon the floor of Parliament. Then, last but not least, we have the right [Mr. J. A. M. Armslroug.l
hon. leader of the Opposition himself. I do not want to unlock the door of the cupboard and expose to view the old party -skeletons; this House has heard about it ad nauseam in the years gone by. I shall only remind the House of the days when the right hon. gentleman, in sonorous voice, proclaimed himself in the market places of Boston as being the Moses of the Canadian people who was going to lead them out of thraldom, and assured the people of the republic to the south that the ultimate aim of this country was independence; that we would break away from British connections as the ripe fruit would drop from the parent stem. I do not want to follow the right hon. gentleman in his varied career; I am not going to dilate upon the time when he advocated unrestricted reciprocity and continental free trade as they had it in England. The right hon. gentleman has turned more political somersaults as far as tariff matters are concerned than any man in the history of this or any other civilized country.
I wish to say a few words with regard to -some of the matters upon which hon. gentlemen opposite and those of us on this side -of the House disagree with regard to the tariff. I am going to confine my remarks to the two items of free wheat and free agricultural implements, because person-ally I am not sufficiently conversant with the steel industry in C-anada to make any comments upon it. I, may -say -at the outset that hon. gentlemen opposite, especially those who represent western constituencies, have taken, to my mind, a very peculiar view of this -question. I listened to the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Neely) when early in the session he introduced an -amendment to the Address calling for free wheat. I beard the tale of woe of the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) when he talked upon the question of free agricultural implements. One would think when listening to the wailings of these hon. gentlemen, that that portion of Canada lying between the western boundaries of Manitoba and the foothills of the Rockies was a plague-stricken country. Listening to their -lamentations I coul-d almost hear the little children on -the side lines and concession ro-ad-s crying for their daily bread. I could -almost see the heartbroken mother, the tear-s of ago-ny streaming down her cheeks, lifting u-p her hands in supplication to the great Architect of the Universe and asking that she -and hers might be provided wi-th the ordinary necessaries of life. I could see in- my mind's

eye the distracted, husband and father pacing up and down outside the little shack upon the homestead, tearing his hair and calling down curses upon the head of the right hon. Prime Mmister and the other members of the Government because, forsooth, they had not seen fit to grant him free wheat and free agricultural implements. It is passing strange, Mr. iSpeaker, that, of the hundreds and thousands of sons and daughters of Ontario who left their native province to settle in western Canada, 999 out of every 1,000, when asked would you like to come back, answer, no. Strange, is it not, that they do not want to leave this plague-stricken land,_ where destitution and poverty are walking hand in hand if we are to heed the baleful wailings of hon. gentlemen opposite. The hon. member foT Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles)^ went further in speaking of agricultural implements and he said that the farmers of Canada, living along the International boundary, could not bear to look across that imaginary line, and I could almost see the tears coursing down his cheeks as he spoke of these men, who could not bear to see the farmers across the line getting their implements a little bit cheaper. Strange, is it not, that, according to the census returns, every year sees hundreds-yes, thousands -of our neighbours from the weste-n States, leaving their farms and coming into western Canada? Strange is it not, that thev wish to leave that country where the fields are always green, where the sun always shines, where the tariff always suits them, where agricultural implements and everything they need are so cheap, strange it is to see them leaving a land flowing with milk and honey and coming to this downtrodden and plague-stricken country? It is high time that members of this House realized more fully their duties and responsibilities. I do not see that any good can be gained or any object attained by members from the West trying, as they have done time and time again, to draw a line of cleavage as between Eastern and Western Canada. It must be realized that this country does not consist only of the East or only of the West, but that it is a great confederacy stretching from ocean to ocean, which can only prosper by all the provinces standing shoulder to shoulder, ready to give and take, and to make sacrifices one for the other. In that way alone can we build up here, on the northern half of this continent, a great, free, happy, united and contented people.
I wish to say a wo"5 or two regarding
another matter, not in connection entirely with the tariff, but of vital importance to the farmers of the whole country; viz, the question of repairs to farming implements. This may be considered a small matter, but any one interested in farming or representing a farming community knows that it is a big item and amounts to a lot.
I have it on the best of authority and it is on account of the information I have received that I want to sound this note of warning to the manufacturers-that on the heavier classes of farming implements, such as binders, reapers, &c., if a man should buy the implement piece by piece and assemble it, the cost would be enormous. A binder may be purchased complete for $140; but I am informed that by buying it in parts and then assembling it, the cost would be nearly $1,000. I know for a fact, I have it from local managers and agents of the Ford Motor Car Company, that a Ford car can be bought piece by piece and can be put together for about $100 in excess of the price of the finished article assembled at the factory. A car is a luxury, but a binder is an absolute necessity; and if the Ford people can produce that luxury and supply the parts of it at the increase I have named, there is no reason under the sun why the manufacturers of implements cannot do the same. According to the information I have received, this is nothing less than legalized robbery. A farmer may break a piece of machinery in the middle of harvest. It does not matter what thait piece costs, he has to have it and will pay the price without squealing. But the fact that he is willing to pay the price is no justification for the charges made by the manufacturers. I draw these facts to the attention of the Government, because I think they are worthy of the attention of this or any other Administration.
I wish to reiterate here what I have said upon the hustings time and time again, although it has no reference to the Budget, that I consider Senate Teform one of the most important matters before the people of Canada to-day. I wish it to be distinctly understood that I am speaking of the Senate as a body and not in any individual sense. I have no personal animus against any hon. member of that body. I have the greatest respect for every one of them whom I know. I know there are many able members of that body, but it is the system to which I object. I say the existence of that body as it is now constituted is unjustifiable in Canada. I say that it is absolutely

out of date, and that its very existence is an insult to the intelligence of a free people.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Older. I think the hon. member is going too far. The rule is distinctly laid down that it is not permissible to speak disrespectfully of the other Chamber.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I gracefully withdraw the remark. I regret that the rules of debate do not permit me to convey my idea in the only language I thought applicable to the case. I cannot understand by what process of reasoning any man will argue or can argue that a body of men who are appointed, not chosen, who are responsible to no one but to God and their own consciences, should have the right to veto legislation passed by the chosen representatives of a free people, who are responsible to the people. I regret that the restrictions of debate do not permit me to deal with this matter quite as lucidly as I would like. I want to make myself clear in this. The Senate of Canada, as is well known, is looked upon with levity throughout the length and breadth of the land. Wherever the name is spoken, it is apt to provoke a smile, and I am satisfied that the people of Canada, from ocean to ocean, year after year, are becoming more seized of the fact that some change must be made in the constitution of that body.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Hear, hear.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I am very glad indeed to hear the right hon. leader of the Opposition say, Hear, hear. I believe that he is not entirely insincere. I would ask him to carry his mind back in the political history of this country to 189.3, to the platform that was enunciated by his party at that time, and he will find as one of the cardinal planks in that platform, on which he went to the country, that he pledged himself to reform the Senate. For fifteen long years he held the reins of power, but no change was made in the constitution of that body except as to its political complexiou.
I have stated that I am opposed to free wheat. I am opposed to the principle of free wheat, because, in my opinion, it is just the thin edge of the wedge, and ultimately will lead to free trade. I am opposed to free wheat because I believe it will not be of any lasting benefit to the farmers of the West, while on the other hand it will be a lasting detriment and 
do lasting harm to the mixed farmers of the rest of Canada, I am opposed to free agricultural implements because it means, in the first place, free trade, and in the second place, more destitute homes, more men out of employment, a bigger army of unemployed, and more hungry children walking the streets of the great cities of Canada. That in my view would be the result if any change such as is contemplated or advocated by hon. gentlemen opposite should be made at the present time.
The member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) dilated upon the hardships that had been endured by the early settlers in western Canada. I appreciate the hardships endured by the early settlers of Western Canada. I do not wish to depreciate or detract from any credit due to them, but I do want to point out that there is another section of this country, a province known as Ontario, whose history will give many instances of just as much self-denial and a great deal more self-denial and privation than the history of the West can ever show. When this province of Ontario was first settled, the .settlers did "not find hundreds and thousands of acres of arable land waiting but the touch of the ploughshare, the drill, and the harrow to yield thousands and hundreds of thousands of bushels of wheat to the granaries of the world. They found a wooded wilderness and in the heart of that they had to carve out homes for themselves, for their wives and for their children. I have the honour of living on a farm that came into the family in 1837-200 acres of virgin forest. Fifty years of unremitting toil was required before that farm was brought into its present state, and it is only a sample of hundreds and thousands throughout Ontario that to-day bear silent testimony to the hardships and privations endured by the generations that have gone before. In dealing with questions such as free wheat and free agricultural implements, in dealing with any question of great end far-reaching importance, it is not sufficient, to my mind, to argue that just because the western part tf Canada or any portion of Canada want a particular law it should be enacted. It is the duty of this House and of every member of this House to realize that in dealing with these questions he must have regard to the interests of the whole of Canada. Canada cannot live by any one industry alone. The farmer must co-operate with the manufacturer; the manufacturer is just as important as any other class. The labourer is just as

important as the manufacturer. The artisan is as important as the labourer, and so on all along the line. They must stand together if they are going to do anything towards the real development of the country, and I say that the members from the West are not fulfilling their duty as representatives of the people of Canada, in drawing, or trying to draw as they have done, a line of cleavage as between eastern and western Canada.
When I commenced speaking I stated that I had no intention of taking up very much of the time of the House and I intend to keep my word. I have endeavoured to make myself clear upon the points that are of most importance in this Budget. I am opposed to free wheat and I have endeavoured to give my reasons why; I am opposed to free agricultural implements and I have endeavoured to give my reasons why. Let me extend to the hon Minister of Finance my hearty congratulations on his having, in my humble judgment, dealt with a very serious question at a very serious time in a very able manner, having due regard to all classes and interests from one end of this Dominion to the other. I am sure that in saying that I voice the sentiments of the majority of the people from ocean to ocean.


Mr. A. B. McCOIG (West Kent):: Mr. Speaker, in the first place I wish to congratulate the hon. member for North York (Mr. J. A. M. Armstrong) on the force which ho has put into the remarks he has offered this afternoon. After congratulating him on the energy he has displayed, I regret that I cannot extend my congratulations further. I also wish to add my thanks to the Minister of Finance for allowing not only ditching machines but also their repair parts to come into Canada free. That is appreciated by the farmers in our sections of the country and I feel satisfied that it will assist them in working out what they have long wished for, that is, a better system of drainage for the farms in Kent and other counties in southwestern Ontario. In passing, I might also say that I appreciate the assistance that has been given the farmers in our section of the country by the Postmaster General in extending to them the free rural mail system adopted by the previous Government. I trust the present Postmaster General will not forget his solemn promise to me personally that he will continue to extend the routes in sections of West Kent in which there is now no rural mail service. The farmers are very much indebted both to the
former Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) and to the present Postmaster General (Mr. Pelletier) for the way in which that system has been and is being carried out. The system of free city delivery is also working wel in the city of Chatham with possibly one ot two exceptions in the business portion of the city to which I am pleased to call the attention of the Postmaster General in the hope that the delivery will be improved in the near future. I do not think it is necessary to reply further to any of the remarks of the hon. member for North York except to say that there may be more in his remarks with regard to repair parts of farm machinery than some men not familiar with farm machinery may be aware of.
Speaking of free agricultural implements, let me go back to the time of the first amalgamation of the Massey-Harris Company, concerning whose president the hon. member for North York says he is not particular whether he joins the Conservative party or not. In 1891 an amalgamation took place of the Massey Company and the Harris Company, then enjoying a protection of 35 per cent-for the express purpose of controlling the entire machine trade of the Dominion of Canada. Some time after the amalgamation, the Patterson Company of Woodstock and the Wisner Company of Brantford also amalgamated. The Massey-Harris Company feared the opposition of this new amalgamation, which received a large portion of the trade of Canada in the short time of its existence. The Massey-Harris Company tried to make some arrangement with them, either to amalgamate or buy them out. They were successful in making one big company of the two concerns, and for a time after they bought the Patterson Company out in 1891 the Massey-Harris Company controlled the machine trade of the Dominion. During that time they were successful in receiving for their agricultural implements just what prices they saw fit to ask from the farmers. I can prove that, and if the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) were in his seat I would ask him if that is not correct. They received at that time from $125 to $145 for their binders, which at that date were not to be compared with the machines supplied at the present time. Up till 1894 when the Government reduced the tariff from 35 per cent to 20 per cent they practically had a monopoly of the machine business of this country. When the tariff was reduced in that year they

had to compete with the Deering Harvester Company and the McCormick Company. What was the effect of that competition? What was the benefit to the farmers of the Dominion? Sir, the minute that the Deering and McCormick companies began to bring their implements in they made a reduction on repair parts of 25 per cent, and the Massey Harris Company were compelled to do exactly what the hon. member for North York has been complaining of, they were compelled to reduce their price on repair parts 25 per cent. Furthermore, they were compelled to provide an entirely different machine. The binder that they had been manufacturing for years was a heavy, cumbersome machine, and one that necessitated the use of an extra horse to draw it. It was far from being equal to the machines that were brought in from the United States. When the competition started they at once found it necessary to improve their machine. They got out a machine in a few years which was a great improvement on that which they had formerly produced, *a machine with roller and ball bearings, a transport truck and a sheaf carrier, and they sold it at exactly the same price to the farmers of this country. The point 1 wish to make is that when competition was brought in they were compelled to give the people of the country a far superior article at a reduced price as compared with what they were giving them prior to 1894. I believe that what the hon. member for North York has said is true, that the Massey Harris Company controlled me machine business of this country, and that was possibly one of the reasons why we find that not later than this last general election the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers), who, we are all sorry to know, has been indisposed, and whose early recovery and return to the House will, I am sure, be a source of gratification to us all, made the following statement in the city of Chatham, as reported in the leading Conservative paper in the southwestern part of Ontario:
What the farmers of the Dominion want is not free wheat coming into the country, but free farm machinery.
That was the statement of the present Minister of Labour, one of the leading members of the Opposition at that time, and one of the hardest things I had to do in my own constituency was to convince the farmers that the Minister of Labour was only joking, and that if a Conserva-

tive Government came into power it would do nothing to carry out the principles which he advocated upon that occasion.
Let me go a little farther. I do not doubt, Mr. Speaker, that you remember that the former Conservative member for Maeleod, Mr. John Herron, .speaking on the 30th of March, 1910, as reported an ' Hansard,' used the following language:
I wish to say a few words on the resolution now before the House. I think it would be a much greater benefit to this country to put binders on the free list than feathers or perfumery, and things like that of which we have: heard tonight. I think this would have been a grand opportunity for the Government to fulfil some of the pledges they made years ago to the farmers of the Northwest. We know that prior to 1896 the Prime Minister and his followers made pledges that if they were in power they would put farm implements on the free list. I do not know whether the Prime Minister himself made that statement emphatically, but many of his followers who afterwards became ministers did make it. I think this would have been a fitting opportunity to insist upon reciprocity in agricultural implements between the two countries as well as* in wheat and other grains.	*
Mr. SAM. SHARPE: What is the date?


Archibald Blake McCoig: March 30, 1910, page
6,000.	We hear hon. gentlemen opposite talking about the difference of opinion among members on this side of the House and explaining that on the other side of the House they aire a united party and all of one opinion. That statement will not be borne out if we .read a little further in.
' Hansard ' and see what the hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Reid) said, speaking on the same day, and upon the same important matter. As reported upon the next page of ' Hansard,' the Minister of Customs, who, I .am sorry to say is. not in his seat, said:
What surprises me is that the Minister of Finance did not try to negotiate a reciprocity in so far as agricultural implements are concerned. Then there is wheat, the great output of the northwest. If we could get wheat into the United States it would he a great help to the farmers of the northwest.
Then he goes on further and states:
But the Minister of Finance did not take the farmers into consideration at all, in so far as the northwest was concerned, and did not try to get any of these articles on the free list.
4 p.m. Is this not amusing to one who was sitting silent there on the other side and hearing these gentlemen, day after day, appealing to the Government of the day rto do just exactly what we are proposing to do at the present time? Yet these hon. gentlemen, holding posi-

tions in the 'Government now, 'are.not offering to do one of the things which they urged the late Government to do. We heard the hon. member for North York declaring that hon. gentlemen opposite were a great and united party.
In view of the situation which confronts us mow what is the conclusion at which we must arrive? It is that they were taking an insincere position 'at that time and that they were merely saying these things fox the purpose of stumping the country. It is reported that Sir Wilfrid or some of the members of his Government promised free wheat and free implements in days gone by. The hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. White) came into my riding, to the old Liberal 'Stronghold of Tilbury, which returned a Libaral majority in the past and will, I have no doubt, do so again. While addressing a meeting in that town, and being asked to give an account of the condition of the country by Mr. John Richardson, an old stalwart, we find the hon. gentleman, as reported in the leading Conservative newspaper, the Chatham Planet, of September 16, 1911, making nse of the following language:
First of all, I would thank Providence.
Where does the Government come in? followed up Mr. Richardson.
I am coming to that. T will be perfectly fair to you as a L'beral. I would first thank Providence, then Canadian brains, Canadian pluck. British mo"ey. and. lastly, the successful administration of a government which has crowned a constructive policy with this reciprocity folly. If it were not for this reciprocity agreement I would he following Laurier to-day.
Mr. Speaker, we all remember how, on many occasions, you stood up and advocated. the opening up of other markets for the natural products of the country, and when you now see your old colleagues going back upon the pledges which they made in days gone by, is it not a matter of regret that you are now, by reason of your position, deprived of the privilege of coming to the assistance of those now fighting in the interests of the farmers?
With reference to the implement proposition, we have had our friends going all over the country and saying that they would not hesitate for a moment to join with us on this great and important question and endeavour to do something more than merely reduce the tariff on binders and mowers. We know that the Minister of Finance smiled when he said to the House the other day that he was going to make a reduction of five per cent and then followed it up by saying that this reduction was to be on
binders and mowers. He knows that a small reduction upon binders and mowers does not amount to anything as far as assisting the farmers is concerned, because he is aware of the fact that in the United States there are only three leading manufacturers, the McCormick, Deering, and Massey-Harris concerns, and that a reduction on these implements would only mean that they would send binders and mower3 into this country to compete with the machines that they themselves are manufacturing here. They are the only people who are manufacturing binders and mowers in the United States to any great extent. If some hon. gentleman opposite may wish to include also the Plano, Champion, and Milwaukee, I would say that they were all in the big merger which was in existence up to a few months ago in the United States and will, I suppose, be working the same old game that they worked previously. This five per cent reduction on binders and mowers only means that they will be taking the money out of one pocket and putting it into another. If the American manufacturers came over here, because they are all one and the same concern on both sides of the line, they would simply be fighting themselves.
But what does the minister do? He leaves the tariff on the most important implements just as it was before, and tries to make out that he is doing something for the farmers. In my own constituency and in other parts of the country it is a well known fact that one binder and one mower in many cases will be sufficient for the purposes of two or three farmers. I see the hon. member for North Essex (Mr. Wilcox) smiling. He will agree with me that in many sections of the country two or three farmers will use one binder and one mower. In many sections of Ontario binders will last from ten to twelve years, but never more than fifteen or twenty with ordinary use and good care.


Mr. WILCOX:: My hon. friend said that the Minister of Finance must have smiled when he announced his reduction of 5 per cent. Did my hon. friend's party laugh out loud when they reduced the duty by 2$ per cent in 1897 ?


Archibald Blake McCoig: I do not catch the point. The hon. gentleman does not understand what I am trying to get at, and I am sure I do not understand what he is trying to get at. If he is desirous of encouraging the agricultural implement industry, as he

claims he is, he cannot have any objection to reciprocity.


Oliver James Wilcox: My hon. friend misunderstood me. He said that the Minister of Finance must have smiled when he was about to announce the reduction of duty of 5 per cent on binders. I ask my hon. friend what effect it had upon his party and his Government under the Fielding tariff when they only reduced the duty by 2i per cent.


Archibald Blake McCoig: My hon. friend knows that we did not stop at binders; we made a reduction of 5 per cent on all implements with respect to which the farmers desired the duty removed.


Oliver James Wilcox: And you raised the valuation.


Archibald Blake McCoig: The hon. gentleman was not interrupted last night, and I trust he will not continue to interrupt me. I am sure we enjoyed his address very much, and we listened to it without interrupting him.
The point is this, that as to the important machinery which the farmers at present require, such as manure spreaders, disc drills, hoe drills, dump rakes, side delivery rakes, hay loaders, hay tedders, disc harrows, drag harrows, riding ploughs, gang ploughs and walking ploughs, my hon. friend the member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) saw to it that there was no interference in any shape or form. I might also mention land rollers and other tools such as corn planters, corn cultivators, corn shredders and huskers, and sugar beet tools, which are most important to the counties of Essex and Kent, where we grow so much corn and on which the farmers get no concession in the way of a reduction of duty. My hon. friend (Mr. Wilcox) sat in this House for six years and never agitated for a duty on corn. He is supposed to be very close to the Government, but never before last night did he use the old argument for a duty on corn which Mr. L. Wigle in 1,900 used up and down the concessions of South Essex when fighting the former member of this House, Mr. M. K. Cowan. This old argument in regard to free corn which the hon. member for North Essex (Mr. Wilcox) put forth in this House last night, was thrashed out election after election, but never once did Mr. L. Wigle defeat Mr. M. K. Cowan, who fought for free corn. I want to inform the hon. member for North Essex that the county of Kent can grow corn just as well as any other county in the province of Ontario. I am not prepared, as the representative of  .
that county, to ask the Government of the day to put a tariff on corn, and I can tell my hon. friend that not later than last Tuesday I saw Mr. John Sewell of the township of Raleigh, which is in the com belt of Canada, actually buying corn to feed his stock. There are other counties which are not so fortunate as ours, in being able to grow corn, and the people of Kent are not so selfish as to desire to tax the farmers in these other counties on the corn they use to feed their live stock. I challenge my hon. friend (Mr. Wilcox) to tell me on what occasion, when there was a duty' on corn, the farmers of Kent and Essex got as high a price for corn as we have been getting during the last few years. I wait for a reply.


Oliver James Wilcox: ,How can my hon. friend justify arguing for a higher duty than 28 per cent on tobacco, and at the same time advocate free corn ? If protection is good for one, why is it not good for the other P


Archibald Blake McCoig: I	knew my hon. friend
could not give me a straight answer. I expected the answer he gave. As far as corn is concerned, we want to let- the farmers of the province of Ontario in the different counties where they cannot raise it have the advantage of free corn which is a necessity for them as being a raw material of the livestock industry. We want to give free corn to the farmers in your riding of Grey, Mr. Speaker.
On the other hand, tobacco is a luxury, not a necessity. I drew the attention of the hon. Minister of Agriculture to the unfortunate position in which the tobacco growers of Kent were; in that they were held up by buyers, and that there were only two firms that could buy tobacco whereas thousands of men want corn to feed their stock. If the hon. members wishes to be fair, he will join with me in doing everything possible to assist the tobacco growers Nwho are to-day in an unfortunate predicament. If they were not in that position, I would not have appealed to the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Labour, to take action under the Combines Act to compel the tobacco buyers to do what was fair and just to the growers who are trying to make a living on their farms. Tobacco is a comparative new industry, encouraged and fostered in its infancy by the late Government of this country who spent thousands of dollars, in working out a scheme that was in the loest interest of the tobacco growing industries. The Liberal Government, supplied free seed; and

gave lectures and instructed the farmers how to grow the crop. The farmers were encouraged to go into the business, and they did so; they bought tools to work the crop, and they built tobacco barns, which cost a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars each, and which are practically of no u"e for any purpose except for hanging and curing tobacco. Then the tobacco buyers stated that they were willing to pay a handsome price for the crop, but to-day these buyers, afraid that the Government will take some action, are going down to the county of Welland and telling the farmers there that they can grow tobacco equally as good or better than they can in Essex or	Kent, the	object being
to depress the price of the leaf. For what little tobacco is growm there they pay four cents a pound more than they pay in the county of Kent. And I challenge the hon. member for North Essex, I challenge the combine, to place samples of those tobaccos before the Minister of Agriculture, and I am willing'to stand corrected if he does not say that the Kent tobacco is as good as that produced in Welland. The combine are paying four cents a pound more in order to encourage the farmers of Welland to do the same thing as the farmers of Kent have done-to go into this business; and after they have got them into it, they will squeeze them, paying them just such prices as they choose. This tobacco can only be disposed of in the end to the tobacco users, and only through this combine can the farmers reach the consumers. I appealed to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers) to take action under the Combines Act. I appealed to the Minister of Inland Revenue (Mr. Nantel) on this subject. He gave us a ray of hope; he said he would take up the matter with his colleagues. I ask him now has he taken up the matter with his colleagues, or is he allowing the farmers to be held up as before? The hon. minister has nothing to say. I venture to believe that he has not taken the matter up with his colleagues; he has not broken the news to them. He allows the farmers to remain in the hands of the combine, and leaves the combine free to take the farmers' crop at whatever price they choose to give.
So much for tobacco. Now I come back to the question of free corn. My hon. friend is anxious to have a duty on corn. I am not in favour of a duty on corn. But what I am prepared to agitate for-and I hope the Minister of Finance will consider it- is the removal of the duty on the implements which the corn producers must use. Hundreds and hundreds of farmers are growing corn 'who have to import corn binders, corn huskers, corn shredders and other implements. They must have these implements because of	the shortage
of labour, yet these	machines are
practically not manufactured in this country. The Massey-Harris people intended to manufacture, and for a time, I believe, actually did manufacture, corn-binders. But their machines did not work successfully in the corn-belt of Essex and Kent. For the last two years they have been importing the Johnston corn binder, the Deering and McCormick binders are manufactured in Chicago. If it should turn out as the Minister of Finance stated, that corn harvesters would come in on the same basis as grain harvesters, the duty on these implements hereafter will be 12$ per cent. As the price of corn huskers and shredders runs from $250 to $300 and even more, and as the farmer must have them because hand labour cannot be found to do the work as cheaply as it is done by the machine, it is easily seen that even this duty represents a heavy tax upon the producers. If the hon. member for North Essex is so anxious to benefit the corn producers, I would suggest that he join with me in urging upon the Minister of Finance that these machines should be allowed to come in free. That would be a relief to the farmers who are supplying Ontario with corn in competition with the United States. If the hon. gentleman will assist, I will do everything I can to secure for the farmers the benefit of the removal of this duty.
Now, we have the hon. member for North York (Mr. J. A. M. Armstrong), who, I believe, represents a constituency of farmers, saying that he is absolutely opposed to free wheat. As representing a farming constituency in the province of Ontario, I wish to show you and this House why I am in favour of free wheat. Unless we remove this duty of 10 cents a bushel on wheat and 45 cents a barrel on flour, see what we shall be up against. The estimated wheat production of Canada in 1913 is
231.717.000	bushels, while the estimated consumption of Canada is only about
50,000,000 bushels, leaving a balance of
181.717.000	bushels to find a market. What are the farmers of the West going to do with it? They must sell it if they are going to pay the manufacturers of Ontario for the machines they have bought to seed and harvest that wheat; otherwise, the condition will be

worse than that at present, when, we are told, they are able to collect only 25 per cent of farm machinery notes in the western country. And if we do not leave the western farmers free to dispose of their wheat, oats, barley and flax at prices that will enable him to pay for his farm machinery and live, they will be compelled to go into mixed farming. We find the Minister of Agriculture in the province of Manitoba to-day issuing a pamphlet to show how mixed farming can be carried on in that province. And if the Government is going to tie up the western farmers in such shape that they cannot get rid of their wheat, they must turn to the production of something else. So they will go into the raising of cattle and hogs. And I would ask the hon. member for North Essex what is the man who is raising hogs in the East going to say when the western provinces are sending their cheaply-grown hogs down to our markets by the trainloads? This is too serious a matter to monkey with in politics; we have to consider it from a broad national standpoint. If we do not so consider it, the farmers of Ontario will find themselves in the position of having to compete with those carrying on mixed farming in the western provinces, where they can produce as cheaply again as we can in Ontario. It was only the other day that the morning papers announced that seeding is on in Alberta and that large tracts of land are being set aside to plant rape. Rape, as you know, Mr. Speaker, being a practical framer, is one of the best crops you can sow in the spring to feed hogs. Evidently they are preparing to go into the hog industry. If it were not that the United States Government has removed the tariff on hogs and cattle, we should have the hogs from the West competing with our hogs in this market. If my hon. friend from North (Essex, who is recognized as a practical and successful farmer, will look at it in a fair and nonpartisan light, he will see that it is in the interest not only of Ontario, but of all Canada to give the people of the West a market for their grain and allow us to continue the production of articles that we have produced in the past with such splendid success.
We hear hon. members opposite crying against going into other markets and saying that we want to retain the home market for ourselves. Let me just give you a few illustrative figures on that point:

During the month of November not a single bullock, calf, sheep or lamb was shipped from Canada to Great Britain. To the United States the shipments were 70,746 cattle valued at $2,864,809; 5,297 calves under one year old valued at $64,348;	7,936 lambs valued at
$37,592, and 490 sheep valued at $3,201.
If these are the figures for the month of November alone-and they can be proved by the information in possession of the Minister of the Department of Trade and Commerce, tvho knows more about the figures than I do-is it not important that we should try to do something along the lines suggested by the Opposition? Let me go a little bit further. I should like to know what the hon. member for North Essex would have to say if reciprocity had passed and he were still in Opposition; if, going up and down his concessions, he found the farmers who went into the horse industry a few years ago having to sell their horses at $25 on the hundred '.ess than the price they received for them prior to 1911? Would he not be one of those who would hold up both hands in holy horror and say that reciprocity had ruined the horse industry of this country? No later than last Saturday I bought a team of horses for $400 which would have cost $500 prior to 1911. It says here that the reduction of duty on horses to 10 per cent resulted in a shipment of 400 horses to the United States in November worth $101,496. In the face of the present 10 per cent duty against our horses, we sent 400 of them to the United States in November. What is o-ur esteemed friend the Minister of Militia going to do at this time? No later than yesterday the right hon. leader of the Opposition made an inquiry of the Minister of Militia with regard to certain information which. had been sent throughout the country in connection with an arrangement being made by the Minister of Militia with the National Livestock Exchange. The despatch is, in part, as follows:
An important arrangement has been made by the Minister of Militia with the National Live Stock Exchange, Limited, whereby the latter will lease for twenty-one vears 65,120 acres of crown lands in Alberta, south of the Red Deer river, and will breed thereon cavalry .remounts for the Canadian militia and the British army. The annual rental will be two cents per acre, and the exchange undertakes to raise not less than 1,500 horses per year.
Are you not proud, Mr. Speaker, in the thought that the Minister of Militia will take 65,000 acres of the land belonging to the farmers of Canada, who contribute their share to the revenues of this country, and

rent it to a company at two cents an acre to go into the horse raising business in opposition to the farmers not only of Ontario but of the whole of Canada? What will the hon. member for North Essex say about this? Will he appeal to the ministers from the province of Ontario, the people of which have been doing their duty and maintaining the dignity and prosperity of Canada for a great number of years? The Minister of Finance a few days ago said: we are going to educate the farmers with the money that is being given by the Minister of Agriculture. Is this the way we are going to educate them? Are we going to fight them, on the very thing that they are trying to work an existence out of? Or are we going to say that the Minister of Militia is making expenditures which are not condoned by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Trade and Commerce? I believe that the time will come when the money of the people will not be .spent so extravagantly as it has been duiing the last couple of years Let me read to the House what a Conservative paper in the city of Toronto says. I think that members on the opposite side of the House will agree with me that the Toronto Saturday Night is recognized as a Conservative paper-at least, we may say that it is independent. This writer in Saturday Night, who is recognized as one of the best editorial writers we have in Canada to-day, says:
Peace-loving Canadians will be tickled almost to death when they view the estimates now being brought down in respect to the construction of drill halls. Here are a few specimens in Ontario: Barrie drill hall, $25,000; Berlin, $50,000; Brantford, $75,000 ; Fort William, $30,000 ; Galt, $35,000. And so on by the tens of thousands is the pap distributed throughout the country. A more useless, criminal wasW of public moneys has never taken place in Canada than is now being experienced in this fever for drill halls. If some of these funds were put) into an insane asylum for the incarceration of those who voted these estimates, something of real service to the country would be accomplished. I
I aan glad to see, by his smiles, that the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster) enjoys the truth. I hope that he and the Minister of Finance will use their influence, as coming from the province of Ontario, to see that the money of the people of this province In particular, who are contributing a large portion of the revenue of this Dominion, is not 'Squandered in this way.
So far- as the people of my section of the country with whom I came in contact during the Easter recess are concerned, among
both Liberal and Conservatives I have not found one man who has not asked me to stand up, when the proposal to extend further aid to the Canadian Northern railway comes before Parliament, 'and vote against it in the interests of the people of Canada. I understand that there rare a few independent members on the other side of the House; if the hon. member for North Essex happens to be one of them, I join hands with him and assure him that we will stand together on this important question and endeavour to see that the Canadian Northern railway gets no more money out of the treasury of this great Dominion. The reports show that this railway has received from the different provinces and from the Dominion in guaranteed bonds, cash and Lands, over $200,000,000. If this be true-arid it will certainly be investigated by the hon. Minister of Finance before he thinks of bringing down any resolution in the matter-and it is found absolutely necessary that we should do something to assist this road, speaking for myself I think the 'Government would be justified in going into the matter thoroughly with a view to iseeing whether or not they could take the road over from McKenzie and Mann and operate it for the benefit of the people of this country, the revenue thereby obtained going into the treasury of Canada-particularly in view of the fact that it has cost the people so much money up to the present and, under these conditions, the people would own what they are now paying for instead of the Canadian Northern Railway Company.
I assure you, Mr. 'Speaker, that I appreciate the kindness of hon. gentlemen in the courtesy they have extended to me in listening to my remarks, "and I again assure the hon. member for North Essex that if he is with me on the proposal to which I have referred, we will vote together against any proposed aid to the Canadian Northern railway when it comes before Parliament.


Mr. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, I desire first of all to add my congratulations to those which have already been tendered to the hon. Finance Minister, not only for the logical and convincing manner in which he delivered bis Budget Speech, but as well for the candour and sincerity which he displayed in his statements. The Minister of Finance, according' to the representations made by the hon. gentle-

mail who has just taken his seat (Mr. MeCoig) has, on more than one occasion, given evidence of his candour and fair mindedness. The hon. member was good enough to say of the Minister of Finance that, in making an address in some part of Ontario, he gave credit to Providence, first of all, for the prosperity of the country. I am not surprised that this should have attracted the attention of the member for West Kent, because hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House have not been accustomed to hear their Cabinet ministers giving credit to Providence for any prosperity that may have existed in this country while they held the reins of power. It was their custom to attribute the prosperity to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and to contend that Providence had very little to do with it. If, however, there was a crop failure, or anything of that kind then Providence took the whole blame, and the Government was exonerated.
I do not intend'to occupy much time this afternoon in referring to the finances of the country. I am sure every hon. gentleman in this House, whether he sits on this or on the other side, is pleased with the state in which the finances of tlhe country are, and have been, during the regime of the present Government. In 1896 the net debt of the Dominion of Canada amounted to $258,497,432. In 1911, when the Laurier Administration went out of office, that debt had increased to $340,042,052, or an increase in the net debt of Canada, during the years of the Liberal regime, of $81,544,620. At the end of the fiscal year after this Government took office, the debt was decreased by $122,591. At the end of the next year, there was a further decrease of $25,617,835, a decrease without any parallel in the political history of Canada. At the end of the year just closed, the net debt was increased by $19,000,000, but this increase, when compared with -the increase of $46,000,000, which took place in the years 1907 and 1908, under the Liberal Administration, the Conservative party has no reason to be ashamed of. The net result, so far as the debt of Canada is concerned, is that our debt is over $6,000,000 -less to-day than when the Borden Government assumed office.
It is also a matter for congratulation that Canada's trade did not stop when the Government changed. We had been led to believe, and -the people of this country had been led to believe for many years, that the only Heaven-born statesmen that this country had ever produced were in the Liberal party, and that if there should be a change of Government everything would stagnate,

trade would stop, and business would go to the dogs. Well, trade has -not stopped. Our trade has continued to increase steadily and enormously since this Government took office, until now it has passed the billion dollar mark. The increase in our aggregate trade last year alone, over the trade of four years ago, exceeds the average total trade of Canada during the last ten years of Liberal Administration. Inasmuch as the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) drew particular attention to the aggregate trade of Canada, I draw his particular attention to that statement. Our greatest trade was with the United States, amounting to over $608,000,000. Our trade with the United Kingdom came next, amounting to over $316,000,000. The next countries in order are France, Germany, and the West Indies, with each about $17,000,000 in aggregate trade. Our aggregate trade is made up of imports of $692,000,000 and exports of $393,000,000, showing an adverse balance of trade of over $298,800,000. Our imports from the United States amount to over $441,000,000 and our exports to -the United States to $167,000,000, or a balance of trade against Canada of over $274,000,000. Canada sells to the United Kingdom $177,000,000 worth and buys from the United Kingdom $138,000,000, a balance of trade in favour of Canada of $39,220,000. It may be of interest here to note that of the fourteen larger countries with which Canada does business, all buy less from Canada than they sell to Canada, with the exception of the United Kingdom, Newfoundland, and Belgium. I know t-ha there are persons who have given considerable thought to trade questions who do not attach any importance to an adverse balance of trade, but I must say that I would prefer to see the balance the other way. It may be noted also that $198,386,000 worth of our exports, that is over one-half, go to the British Empire, and that over ninety per cent, of our exports to the British Empire go to the United Kingdom. It is also worthy of note that over fifty-two per cent of our total exports frem Canada are products of the farm.
I represent a farming constituency, so that I may be excused for paying special attention to the products of the farm. Our exports of animals and their products to the British Empire amount to $31,166,000, and to all other countries $14,607,000; or a total of $45,773,000. Our exports of agricultural products to the British Empire amount to $120,163,000, and to all other countries $38,792,000; or a total of $158,-
955,000.	Our total exports of animals and

agricultural products to the British Empire amount to $151,330,000, and to all other countries $53,398,000; or a total of $204,-
748,000.	Allow me to briefly summarize the destination of our exports. Of the products of the mine 22 per cent go to the British Empire and 63 per cent to all other countries; of fisheries 37 per cent to the British Empire and 63 per cent to all other countries; of the forest 25 per cent to the British Empire and 75 per cent to all other countries; of manufactures 29 per cent to the British Empire and 71 per cent to all other countries; of animals and their products 69 per cent to the British Empire and 31 per cent to all other countries; of agricultural products 76 per cent to the British Empire and 24 per cent to all other countries. These figures indicate very briefly the immense interest which the Canadian farmer has in the United Kingdom and the British Empire. They also indicate to my mind very clearly the paramount importance of maintaining Great Britain's supremacy on the sea, as the only safeguard of the integrity of the empire and of the safe conduct of our farm products to the various countries of the world. Canadian exports of grain and the products thereof, amounting to nearly $98,000,000 in 1913, and of cheese $20,697,000, are not offset to any appreciable extent by imports into this country of like commodities. But in regard to live animals, meats and vegetables, our imports for home consumption are about equal to our exports. As to butter and eggs we export none at all. In fact we import butter to-day to the extent of $2,783,000, and eggs to the value of over $2,000,000.
I contend that the best consumer the Canadian farmer has to-day is the citizen of Canada, and that any policy which has a tendency to build up industries here thereby providing a consuming population and home market for Canadian farm products, is the only proper and sane policy for this Dominion. Canada's second best customer is the United Kingdom. If increasing exports of our farm products to the United Kingdom is an indication of an increasing demand in that country for those commodities-and that may he fairly assumed-I maintain that the figures representing our exports to the United States and imports from the United States of products similar to what our farmers produce do not indicate that the United States is the natural market for the Canadian farmers, but just the reverse. During the fiscal year 1913, 165
Canada imported 37,433,745 lbs. of meat for home consumption, valued at $5,000,000. With the exception of 1,617,000 lbs. from Great Britain, and 2,500,000 lbs. from Australia and New Zealand, all of that
37,000,000 lbs. of meat came from the United States, which hon. gentlemen opposite are continually declaring is the natural market for Canadian farm products. At the very time we were importing over $5,000,000 worth of meat, our exports of meat amounted to $6,250,000 worth. I maintain to-day what I have always maintained when in opposition^ that a duty of 2c. a pound on meats is not now and has never been a fair, just and reasonable protection to the farmer who is producing meat in this country. There is a far greater difference than 2c. a pound in the advantages which the American farmer has over the Canadian farmer in the production of .meat, and I contend that in fairness to our Canadian farmer that duty should be materially increased. Yet, if hon. gentlemen opposite had had their way in 1911, they would have removed or materially reduced that duty, and exposed the Canadian farmer, not only to the *competition of the immense surplus of meat of the United States, but also to the immense surplus production of meat, amounting to over two billion pounds per year, which is indicated by the exports of various countries which would have had the right to send their meats to Canada. Five hundred million pounds of that represents the export from the United States; Australia and New Zealand alone export over 363,000,000 lbs. of meat a year; Denmark over 300,000,000 lbs., and the Argentine over 900,000,000 lbs. I contend that the proposed reciprocity agreement was the most unfair deal, so far .as the Canadian farmer is concerned, ever suggested in this Parliament since Confederation. Will any man attempt to .argue that it is a fair deal to the Canadian farmer, who has to provide against climatic *conditions such as we have here, who has to spend thousands of dollars in erecting barns and stables, who for months of the year has no income at all, who has to keep his stock under expense till the summer opens up-will any man argue that it i-s a fair deal to make the Canadian farmer, under .such conditions, compete on equal terms with the farmer, for instance, of the Argentine, who is not put to the expense of housing his stock-it runs out the year round-and where the rate of



wages paid by the farmers is about one-third or one-fourth what the Canadian farmers have to pay? There is only one fair way to look at this question of protection. The only way in which the Government of a country like Canada can deal fairly with the people of this country is to place a duty on certain products which come into competition with like products in this country, endeavouring by that duty to discount the disadvantages of the Canadian farmer in the matter of climatic conditions. If that is not done our tariff is unfair to the producers of farm products in this country.
In regard to butter, our exports have reached the vanishing point. Our imports last year amounted to about 8,000,000 lbs.,
6,000,000 lbs. of which came from New Zealand, over 1,000,000 lbs. from the United States, and 767,000 lbs. came from Great Britain. We also received butter from Austria, Holland, Russia, Turkey and India. I mention these latter imports not because of the large amount coming to Canada, but to indicate that if we had no protection for the butter-makers of Canada these countries would avail themselves of our market whenever the price was such as to induce them to do so. When we remember that England alone imports every year upwards of 500,000,000 lbs. of butter, that Denmark exports every year upwards of 200,000,000 lbs. of butter, and that butter can be brought from Denmark or Liverpool and laid down in the city of Montreal for less than one cent a pound for carrying it, I am justified in asking that the farmers of Canada be protected in regard to butter.
In regard to eggs, the same thing holds good. We export no eggs whatever, but we imported last year of eggs 13,240,111 dozen, mostly from the United States; of vegetables, 33,242,214 worth from the United States; of lard, $1,520,450 worth from the United States; of apples, 320,325 barrels mostly from the United States; and of animals, living, $2,519,249 worth. While our exports of animals, living, amounted to $2,949,677 worth.
Hon. gentlemen opposite have been contending that the United States was our natural market. I want to devote a little attention to that argument. I have here an official bulletin issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, and that
bulletin says that the domestic farm products of the United States exported in 1911 were equal to 51.2 per cent of the total exports of domestic merchandise of that country, as compared with 50.9 per cent for 1910.
Hon. gentlemen opposite are contending that the United States is our natural market for farm products, and yet we have an official document from the United States Government which declares that over 51 per cent of the domestic merchandise exported from that country in 1911 is merchandise of the farm. The exports of domestic farm produce from the United States in 1910 amounted to $871,158,425, and the imports to $687,509,115. There is a balance on farm produce in favour of the export trade of the United States of $198,118,937. In 1911 the exports of domestic farm produce from the United States amounted to over $1,030,794,402, while the imports of farm produce decreased from $687,509,115 to $680,204,932, showing a balance in favour of United States exports of farm produce of $365,254,018. While Canada's exports of farm products are a little over 52 per cent of her total exports; while we are sending to foreign markets about $200,000,000 worth of farm produce, the United States is sending over $1,000,000,000 worth. The United States has a surplus of farm produce of over $365,000,000 a year, or $160,000,000 more than the total export of farm produce by Canada, and a clear surplus of over double the net surplus Canada has in farm produce. While Canada sends to Great Britain $180,000,000 worth of farm produce, the United States sends to Great Britain $413,000,000 worth. While Canada's export trade with Germany amounts to a little over $3,000,000, of which only a part is farm produce, the United States export of farm produce to Germany in 1911 amounted to $207,000,000, -which was $29,000,000 more than that of the preceding year.
I am giving these figures 5 p.m. for the purpose of trying to demonstrate that the United States, in place of being a natural market for Canadian farm products, is Canada's chief competitor in the markets of the world for the farm produce which we have to sell. I want to go a little farther into detail in regard to some of these articles, and in this connection I would submit the following table of figures:

Exports of Domestic Merchandise of United States.
	1911.	1912.	1913.
			
Butter	6,374,000 ibs.	5.105,000 ibs.	3,114,00u lbs.11,745,8S0 "	2.726,065 "	2,475,743 "13,276,000 doz.	18,962,000 doz	17,668,000 doz.Apples	1,436,335 brls	1,813,456 brls.	1,920,221 brls.Beef, fresh, canned and pickled	82,300,000 lbs.	47,100,000 lbs.	36,000,000 lbs.Hog products	1,121,000,000 "	1,057,000,000 "	1,083,000,000 "In which are included :	Bacon	193,968,000 lbs.	188,048,000 lbs.	210,098,000 lbs.Hams and shoulders	183,728,000 "	168,687,000 "	167,160,000 "42,434,000 "	42,497,000 "	45,687,000 "Lard	529*689,000 "	470,752,000 "	509,786,000 "Principle meat and dairy products	$136,630,376	$123,244,132	$138,924,092Principle breadstuffs	$122,837,787	$149,814,877	$191,477,180Barley	3,555,000 bus.	8,194,000 bus.	12,782,000 bus.Oats	2,125,000 "	30,374,000 "	5,274,000 "Oatmeal	$933,843	$525,575	$1,337,599Corn	59,807,877 bus.	30,185,713 bus.	44,709,954 bus.Cornmeal	$1,506,025	$1,374,234	$1,240,904Wheat	31,662.550 bus.	60,426,494 bus.	99,360,278 bus.Wheat flour	$52,653,960	$49,186,765	$56,568,699
United States Exports of Wheat and Wheat Flour sent to Canada.
771,342 bus. 81,295 brls	700,368 bus	2,577,337 bus.Wheat flour	85,802 brls	116,179 brls
United States exports of domestic foo-d animals dropped from $14,289,508 in 1911 to $895,603 in 1913, and exports of bran and middlings from $3,071,000 in 1911 to $123,316 in 1913.
I want now to direct attention to the United States exports of wheat. I do so for the reason that the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) a few days ago took exception to the criticism made by the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. Wright) in regard to the quantity of domestic wheat exported by the United States.
The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff), being a western member, should have a special knowledge in regard to all matters concerning the exportation of wheat; but the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. Wright) had to correct him, and the hon. member for Muskoka was right, and the hon. member for Assiniboia was wrong. I have in my hand a document issued by the Department of Commerce of the United States dated December, 1913, which gives the exports.of domestic merchandise. Under those exports I find that, in 1911, the United States exported of their own wheat 31,662, 1651
550 bushels; in 1912, 60,426,494 bushels; in 1913, 99,360,278 bushels. They exported of wheat flour in those years $52,000,000 worth in 1911, $49,000,000 worth in 1912, and $56,568,000 worth in 1913. Those figures show that the United States is not starving for our wheat and farm products at the present time. On the contrary, their official publications indicate that their exportations, and therefore their surplus of these commodities', are on the increase rather than on the decrease, for the last three or four years. I am free to admit that there has been a decline in the United States of exports of beef -and of beef cattle, and of several other articles. I am also free to admit that the Wilson-Underwood tariff, which was designed to lower the cost-of food in the United States-although I think I can show it has not had that effect -would have a tendency to increase the importations into that country of the articles which have been made free. In regard to the importation of cattle into the United States, several hon. gentlemen opposite have called attention to the increase. It is a fact that, after the Wilson-Underwood tariff came into effect in October last, the
260S

exports of cattle from Canada to the United States for the months of October, November and December of 1913, very much exceeded the exports for the same months in 1912. It is also true that in the month of December, 1913, the exports of cattle from Canada to the United States were only about one-third of the exports for the preceding month, and in the month of January of this year the exports of cattle to the United States were practically the same as in the month of January, 1913. What are the reasons for this? Hon. gentlemen opposite contend that this is all due to the removal ' of the duty. I do not agree with that statement by any means, but I am willing to admit that the removal of the duty would accelerate the movement of cattle to the United States. There were conditions in the United States independent entirely of the tariff which amply justified the movement of cattle from this country to the other side during those months. The country from which the United iStates has for years obtained her greatest number of cattle is Mexico, and conditions in that country have been such lately that the exiporta-tion of cattle from Mexico has very much decreased. I think I can show conclusively why cattle have been exported from Canada to the United States and why the price of meat has gone so high in that country, and also in this. The United States census of 1910 contains the information that the number of beef cattle in the United States in 1910 was 9,840,239 less than in 1900. The United States Government also furnishes us with the fact that from 1910 to 1913 there was a further reduction in the number of beef cattle in the United States of 10,249,000, a total reduction in thirteen years of over 20,000,000 head. While I think I may fairly estimate the increase of population in that country for the same period at over 10,000,000 people. If there is anything at ail in the basic principle of supply and demand, these figures amply justify the movement of cattle from this country into the United States where their herds have been largely depleted. In the United States from 1910 to 1913 there was a loss of 7,734,000 sheep and from 1911 to 1913 a loss of 4,442,000 hogs. Surely these figures are significant; and I think, apart altogether from United States tariff reduction, we have in these figures ample justification for the increase in the price of beef and for the movement of cattle from this country to the other side of the line. The

Wilson-Underwood tariff lias made some things very clear to my mind, and one is that you cannot reduce prices through the tariff until there are sufficient importations to affect potentially the supply within the country. I think we may accept that as a truism and it has been clearly demonstrated in the United States since the Wil- * son-Underwood tariff came into operation. Prices in the United States have not as yet been appreciably affected because the imports have been practically negligible as compared with the home production of the articles imported. But the conditions in Canada -are vastly different from the conditions in the United States. If we were to remove the duty, as the United States has done by the Wilson-Underwood tariff, and these importations, or even a portion of them, were to come into Canada as they have gone into the United States, the importations into this country would not toe a negligible quantity <as compared with our production; they would absolutely swamp the Canadian farmer -and put him out of business. This is the proposition which hon. gentlemen opposite offered to the farmers of Canada in 1911, and which they are offering to them to-day.
I have said that the prices of food in the United States have not been materially affected since the Wilson-Underwood tariff came into operation. I want to give proof for that statement. I refer hon. gentlemen opposite to Bulletin No. .138 of the United States Department of Labour. This bulletin takes into account the retail prices of some fifteen articles of common consumption, and the prices have been carefully obtained from forty principal cities on the otheT side of the line. These ^articles are: potatoes, eggs, round steak, ham, rib-roast, sirloin steak, bacon, poultry porkchops, milk, cornmeal, lard and butter, flour and sugar. The prices of these articles, obtained in the way I have indicated, are given for the months of October, November and December, 1913, and for the same months in 1912. According to this bulletin, in the month of October thirteen out of fifteen articles increased in price, while two diminished; in December twelve out of fifteen articles increased in price, and three diminished as compared with the same month in the preceding year. I give these facts as I get them, and I assume them to be correct. The United States Government took means, as we should naturally expect them to do, to ascertain whether the Underwood-Wilson Tariff was having the effect hoped for in

the reduction of prices. Perhaps I had better put these figures on record for the month of October, 1913, as compared with October, 1912. The increases were: potatoes increased 42-3 per cent; eggs, 14-2 per cent; Tound steak, 12-9 per cent; ham, 10-6 per cent; rib roast, 8-8 per cent; sirloin steak, 8.3 per cent; bacon, 8-2 per cent; poultry, 7.5 per cent; pork chops, 6.3 per cent; milk, 2.7 per cent; cornmeal, 1-7 per cent; lard, 1 per cent; butter, 3-7 per cent. The decreases were: sugar, 8-8 per cent; flour, 2-6 per cent.
Now, I wish to refer to another matter, to which a good deal of attention was paid by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) in an address delivered in this city of Ottawa. He called this address 'Parallels of history,' and he was moved to make that address because of the passing of the Underwood tariff in the United States, which he looked upon as an indication that the United States was going to follow the example of England and become a free-trade country. The hon. member for Red Deer is not at present in the House to-night. Since he came into this House he has on every possible occasion advanced his views in favour of free trade. In England in 1841, 49 per cent of the population was rural, and in 1861, 45 per cent of the population was rural. I think I am right in assuming that at the time when the Corn Laws were repealed more than half the population of England was urban. At the same time the conditions in continental Europe were very different. In France, 75 per cent of the population was rural; in Prussia, 72 per cent; in Belgium, 75 per cent; in Norway, 87 per cent, and in Sweden 87 per cent. I mention these facts to indicate that there were reasons why England adopted that free trade policy, and there were reasons also why that policy did not appeal to other countries in Europe. There is another point: About the middle of the last century, when England adopted free trade, there was no other country in the world which could be classed with England as a manufacturing country. It has been said that in certain parts of England, standing on the top of a high building, one could look in one direction and see the spot from which they brought the iron, and looking in another direction he could see the spot from which they brought the coal, while past the half-way point flowed the river which would take to market the manufactured product due to bringing together of the iron and the coal. In other words, the giant levers of national progress in England represented by coal and iron lay close together and gave the country an advantage which other countries did not possess. England relied upon her ability to more than compete in manufacturing, and she relied upon the freight rates on goods coming into the country to protect her farmers. Sir, I contend that there is no such condition as that existing in Canada, and never has been, neither is there a similar condition in the United States today. It is true that in the United States the urban population has grown very enormously as compared with the rural. In 1890 the urban population of the United States was 36 per cent of that total. Twenty years later, in 1910, the proportion of town dwellers had increased to 46-3. I think we may fairly assume that the population of the United States is now about evenly divided between urban and rural, specially when we allow for the fact that in these figures only those are counted as urban who live in towns with a population of not less than 2,500. In 1910, there were nine states in which between 40 and 45 per cent of the population was urban, and 15 states in which from 50 to 96 per cent of the people dwelt in cities and towns. The-e were 115 cities of 50,000 population and upwards; and of these 13 cities had a population of from 250,000 to 500,000; 5 cities had a population of from 500,000 to
1.000.	000, and 5 had a population of over
1.000.	000. If these facts in regard to the enormous increase in the urban population in the United States furnish any indication as to why the Underwood-Wilson Tariff was inaugurated in that country, I submit that there are no similar conditions in Canada and nothing to warrant the people of Canada in moving in the direction of free trade or taking off our protective duties.
The question is often asked why the boy leaves the farm. That has been the subject of a good deal of comment in the newspapers and in this House. Well, Sir, I believe the reason is simply this: The educational advantages, which twenty-five or forty years ago were more or less restricted to the cities and towns, have now become general, and the boy in the country, through education, has come to realize that there are opportunities for him in other walks of life as -well as in farming. In other words, the cities and towns have been making a bid against the country for the boy, and the city has outbid the country. The country must

Northwest. I ask hon. gentlemen to give that due consideration when they are considering this very important question.
When we compare conditions in the West with conditions in the East we find that, so far as the rural population is concerned, conditions in the West are better to-day than in the East. I will give some reasons for making that statement. The value of livestock and poultry in Manitoba for the year 1911 amounted to $62,707,000; in Saskatchewan to $155,767,000; and in Alberta $83,231,000. The value of field crops for the same year in the same provinces was $76,500,000 in Alberta, $115,426,000 in Saskatchewan and $48,475,000 in Manitoba, a total for the three provinces mentioned in live stock, poultry and field crops, of over $502,000,000. Let me remind hon. gentlemen that in Ontario the total value of live stock, poultry and field crops amounted to $421,610,000, SO' that this one province of Ontario cuts no small figure in the production of live stock and field crops. But allow me further to state that the people of Ontario, the farmers in this province, have invested in land at least $758,000,000; in buildings $335,000,000; in implements over $86,000,000 and in live stock $225,000,000, or a total of $1,405,000,000. If you take the rural population as given by the last census of the Prairie provinces, and of Ontario, these being the only ones I have taken for purposes of comparison, you will find that the average value of live stock, poultry and field crops per family in Manitoba, amounted to $2,727; in Saskatchewan, $3,203; and in Alberta, to $2,829; while in Ontario it amounted to $1,772. In all earnestness, I would ask our friends from the West to consider that, and also that- in the province of Ontario it has taken a great many years for our farmers to attain even at the present day what wealth they have. They have had ups and downs. There was a time in Ontario and Quebec, and many hon. gentlemen here will remember it perhaps more distinctly than I do, when our farmers were dependent on the production of barley as their staple crop. A prohibitive tariff was placed on barley by the United States. It excluded our barley, and the farmers of Ontario and Quebec were up against it very strongly indeed. They hardly knew what way to turn, and it was a severe blow to them. But the farmers of the eastern provinces met that disaster, because it amounted to a disaster to them at that time, by going into dairying and building up the dairying industry, 
of which, in Ontario and Quebec to-day, the farmers have every reason to be proud. It may be that under present conditions in the Northwest the farmers are not realizing what they should realize and what they would like to realize from their grain, but I hope they will meet those conditions with the same fortitude that their forefathers did in the eastern provinces, and will fight their way to a better state of things.
The hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) drew attention to the report of the Grain Markets Commission, issued by the province of Saskatchewan. He commended that report as one well worthy the attention of members. Through the courtesy of some person in Saskatchewan, a copy of that report was sent to me during the Easter vacation, and I have carefully read it over. There are some things in it to which I wish to direct the attention of the House. On page 103 of that report, I find it stated that the wheat requirements of the principal importing countries for the year ending 1912-13, which were estimated by deducting their exports from their imports, -were as follows:
Requirements of importing countries, year ending July 31, 1913, obtained by deducting Exports from Imports.
Bushels.
United Kingdom	 213,054,943
Germany	 77,936,246
Belgium	 53,358,353
France	 45,741,363
Italy	 77,110,184
Netherlands	 13,468,326
Total	 480,669.415
We also learn that of the great wheat producing countries Russia is first with 799,814,000 bushels, the United States comes next with 728,748,000, and then India with 350,229,000; Canada, 199,821,000; Argentina, 198,000,000, and Australia with 91,777,000; so that the United States, which hon. gentlemen opposite say affords a market for our w'heat, ranks second amongst the wheat producing countries of the world. How do these countries rank as to exports:
Bushels.
1st.	Roumania	
173,000,0002nd.	United States	
100,000,0003rd.	Canada	
95,000,0004th.	Russia	
94,000,0005th.	Argentina	
93,000,0006th.	Hungary	
53,000,0007th.	Australia	
33,000,0008th.	India	
30,000,000


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: Those figures do not include flour?


John Wesley Edwards: No; I will deal with flour in a few moments.
Where does Canada stand in regard to the imports into the United Kingdom for the year ending May, 1913?
Imports into United Kingdom for year ending
		Bushels.
1st.	United States . . ..	. . . . 49,540,0002nd.	Argentina	. . . . 42,647,0003rd.	India	. . . . 41,855,0004 th.	Canada 	
,	. . .. 38,229,000
For the year ending August 31, 1913, Canada supplied only 19 per cent of the wheat sent to the United Kingdom. It is made manifest in this report that the United States gets a larger share of continental markets than Canada both in wheat and flour. It may also be noted that this same authority tells us that as regards imports of flour into the United Kingdom, the United States supplies nearly half of the total and over 1,000,000 cwts. more than Canada. In this connection let me say that France imposes a duty of $2.50 a barrel on flour and 37c. a bushel on wheat. Germany imposes a duty of $2.20 a barrel on flour and 36c. on wheat. Belgium 35c. a barrel on flour and nothing on wheat. Canada imposes a duty of 60c. a barrel on flour and 12c. on wheat. France, besides imposing duties on flour and wheat, gives agricultural credit to the farmers of that country, a subject which I hope will engage the attention of this House at an early date. At the present time our Canadian farmer pays more for his credit than any other class of the community. Agriculture is the basic industry of this country, and if it is possible for this House to arrange matters so that the farmers will be able to borrow at a lower rate of interest, anything along that line will receive my very hearty support. If we compare the duties imposed by Canada on wheat and flour coming into this country with the duties imposed by other countries, some of which are large importers of wheat and flour, it cannot be said that we have an exorbitant protection for those industries in this country.
I want to place on ' Hansard ' this sentence from the report of the Saskatchewan Grain Commission:
Canada's principal competitors among the wheat-exporting nations of the world are, Russia, Argentina, India, Australia, and the United States.
Last night the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) referred to all these countries except the United States, until I
jogged his memory. I also wish to draw particular attention to the following taken from the same report:
Whether the Canadian miller could continue to compete successfully with the United States miller were the United States duty taken off Canadian wheat is a question that only the event can prove. The commission sees no reason why, in view of the protected home flour market which he enjoys, he would not still be able to compete successfully.
These are not my own words but are taken from the teport of the Saskatchewan Grain Commission. The commissioners very distinctly indicate that they have doubt in their minds as to whether the Canadian miller could if the duty were taken off wheat,, compete successfully with the American liil-ler. They say that only the event can prove whether it would be successful or not, but if the duty on flour coming into this country is retained the commissioners think the Canadian miller might be able to compete successfully even if the duty were taken off wheat. But that is not what hon. gentlemen opposite would have us do, although that is precisely what Mr. Fielding proposed to do in the reciprocity pact of 1911 and which hon. gentlemen opposite then applauded and sa,d was the proper thing to do. Mr. Fielding said:	'Let the wheat
come in free, but we will not let flour come in free. We can compete in wheat but we wild not subject the millers to free competition in the matter of flour.' Every member on the Liberal side approved of that in 1911, and every member on the Liberal side if we may judge by their attitude to-day repudiates it at the present time.
There are many suggestions in this report of the Saskatchewan Grain Markets Commission which are worthy of earnest consideration. For instance:
1.	Toe possibility of developing a waterway from Alberta to Port William.
2.	Cheaper credit for the agriculturist.
3.	More equitable ocean freight rates and insurance rates especially out of Montreal.
4.	A larger measure of mixed farming in the West as an undoubted means of reducing the cost of wheat production.
The commissioners took evidence in regard to that latter suggestion from the farmers of the West and they report that the consensus of opinion is that mixed farming would materially reduce the cost of producing Wheat in the West.
5.	The improvement of country roads to shipping points.
There is mighty little comfort in that suggestion for hon. gentlemen opposite, who by their course in this House have deprived the country of hundreds of thousands of

dollars for the improvement of country roads. I fancy they will, be up against it when they meet their constituents in regard to that matter. There is one other quotation to which I wish to direct attention particularly of the hon. the Minister of Public Works. After referring with marked approval to the deepening and improving of the Welland canal which When completed will admit to the waters of lake Ontario any vessel now on the Upper Lakes, the report says:
In readiness for this looked for business, the Dominion Government is constructing an entirely new port in the mouth of the Rideau river at Kingston. At the new ouays any lake vessel will be able to berth in safety. Kingston hopes, and the farmers of Saskatchewan should hope and urge that the Dominion Government will erect and operate as part of these new facilities a transfer elevator just as their predecessors did at Port Colborne, only with this exception, that they will take into account the success of the latter elevator and build the new one very much larger at the outset.
I do not represent Kingston, but as my constituency adjoins Kingston my interest in that city is secondary only to that of its member. Whatever benefits that city will undoubtedly benefit the surrounding country. I commend that quotation to the Minister of Public Works and hope the suggestion will receive his consideration.
Now, I come to another matter to which I wish to direct the attention of the House for a while, and that is the question of farm implements.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. EDWARDS (resuming):: Before
touching on the matter of agricultural im- * plements, I desire to make one or two brief references to the question of wheat. It has been stated that within the last year or two the ocean freight rates on Canadian wheat have been very materially increased, and that there is a decided discrimination in these rates against Canadian flour. If that assertion be correct, if there be a combine or merger amongst ocean freighters, exacting an unfair and unjust tax for carrying wheat and flour from Canada across the ocean, I for one would favour seeing this Government embark upon a policy of constructing ocean freighters to carry Canadian wheat and flour across the ocean, and thus relieve the producer of these articles from the unjust exactions of any such combination.
The other matter to which I wish to refer is this, that in my judgment free wheat, 
and therefore free flour, if it has the effect which hon. gentlemen opposite claim it will have of sending our western wheat across the line south to Minneapolis, will have the result of increasing the price of bran and shorts to the farmers of this country by at least $3 a ton. That would be a serious matter for the Ontario farmer, for the Quebec farmer, and also for the farmers of the West. Every encouragement should be given to the western miller to mill the wheat of the West in that country, and to the western farmer to produce stock in the West. The hon. member for West Kent (Mr. McCoig) said that if the western farmer were driven into mixed farming, the result would be disastrous to the farmer of the East. I can imagine the hon. gentleman picturing trainloads of stock coming from the West to the East, and prophesying dire calamity to the eastern farmers if they had to face that competition. I do not think the hon. gentleman need have any fear or that the eastern farmer will have any fear on that ground. I believe the eastern farmer will wish the western farmer every success in the producing of stock, although that stock may compete in the eastern market, with stock raised in the East. The hon. member for West Kent seemed to be trembling with fear for the eastern farmer on account of that competition. I can imagine what cold shivers must have gone up and down his spinal column when his right hon. leader in the city o.f Hamilton spoke of free food. Free food meant, if it meant anything, the opening of our doors and the introduction into Canada of food from all parts o*f the world. Let it come in as freely as possible, was the Liberal proposition in 1911. That is what I understand to be meant by free food today, and it does not seem to terrify hon. gentlemen opposite. Yet the prospect of a few car loads of hogs coming from western Canada to Toronto or Montreal sends cold shivers through the hon. member for West Kent. He said that in his part of the country three or four farmers would combine and buy a mower which they would use amongst them. He also very vigorously declared that what the farmers wanted were free hay loaders, and free hay tedders. If three or four farmers can get along with one mower, I fancy their need for hay loaders and hay tedders would not be very great. The hon. member for West Kent wants ian increased duty on raw tobacco. I am not finding fault with him for looking after his own part of the coun-

try. It is all right for him in behalf of his constituency to advocate in this House, as he did a short time ago, a bounty of a cent and a half a gallon on crude petroleum, but I submit that the hon. gentleman, in advocating protection for |Certain things which belong to his particular locality and free everything else is getting down to the narrowest form of localism. That is not an unusual sight, however, to see on the other side of the House. The hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. Carroll) travelled all up and down the scale, advocating free food, free implements, but plenty of protection on iron, on steel and on coal. He was echoed in times past by the hon. member for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie). The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) and the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) will not advocate free coal, they dare not do so. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) advocates free trade in everything. 'Not at all,' says the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux), that will not do.' 'Reciprocity,' said one hon. gentleman on the other side of the House. 'I will not stand for reciprocity,' says the hon. member for Welland (Mr. German). In January, 1911, the right hon. leader of the Opposition said, ' We are a united party on this side of the House in regard to reciprocity.' The hon. member for Kings and Albert (Mr. Fowler) on November 28, 1912, put this question :


Mr. FOWLER:: Is the hon. member for
St. John in favour of reciprocity?


Mr. PUGSLET:: I may say emphatically
yes. ...	,	,


George William Fowler: . . . Perhaps the right hon.
the leader of the Opposition will he willing to answer now.


Wilfrid Laurier: With great
pleasure. We are a united party on this side. We never vary.


George William Fowler: That is a still more clever
lawyer's evasion. I ask the right hon. the leader of the Opposition: 'Were you in favour of reciprocity as It was presented to the people of Canada during the elections of 1911?


Wilfrid Laurier: I know of some
Liberals who have varied their views upon that. I am not one of them. I stick to my ideas.
It is quite true that the right hon. gentleman knew of some Liberals, quite a number of them, who had changed their views very materially. The election figures of 1911 demonstrate that ? rettv clearly. The hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) in his speech last night was at times advocating protection and again he was talking along free trade lines. The hon. gentleman seems to be troubled with a kind of political ague. At one time his political temperature ran
up along free trade lines above 104; the next moment his temperature dropped by crisis to subnormal.
But the hon. gentleman seemed desirous of bringing these two extremes together and reaching a happy average. To use his own words, ' a man can prove almost everything from the law of averages,' and the hon. gentleman endeavoured to strike an average between the high political temperature and the subnormal, and wound up by calling himself a ' moderate protectionist.'
Now, I desire to deal with the question of agricultural implements. But before coming directly to that point, let me say that I was struck very forcibly by the manner in which the hon. member for West Kent rather denounced the Massey-Harris Company, and in fact pretty nearly all agricultural implement companies in this country. He was very strong in his advocacy of free trade in agricultural implements. I understand the hon. gentleman is the agent in his part of the country for the McCormick Manufacturing Company, which has its head office, I believe, on the other side of the line. So, we may see the reason for the hon. gentleman taking the course he did. He naturally would like to see the McCormick implements come in here-it would bring more grist to his mill.
In 1894, the duty on agricultural implements was reduced by the Conservative party from 35 per cent to 20 per cent. The Liberal party denounced protection for eighteen years. The Liberal platform of 1893 declared explicitly against protection. And the present leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) was very emphatic in his utterances on that subject. As he is a man of peaceful and mild appearance, one would naturally suppose that strong words from him would have all the more force throughout the country. There are some men who, if they made use of such blood-curdling expressions as those of the right hon. gentleman, would not impress people greatly. But when a peaceable-looking gentleman like the right hon. leader of the Opposition declared that if the Liberals were returned to power ' they would cut off the head of protection and . trample on its body,' people would naturally believe that the right hon. gentleman was opposed to protection. Sir Richard Cartwright was equally emphatic. He declared that the policy of the Liberal party was death to
261b

it. We will follow this up; trust us and see what we will do in the future. Then they turned to the manufacturers and said: fear not; we will not hurt you. We will simply increase the valuation for duty purposes and point out to the farmer that we have reduced the duty from 20 to 174 par cent, and he will think he is getting things cheaper. Of course you know that when we increase the valuation for duty purposes it will not hurt you a particle. That is what they did. In April, 1907, the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Schaffner) moved in this House the following resolution:
That the committee reconsider item 445, and that it he amended by striking out the figures 17 J per cent in the general tariff and inserting in lieu thereof the figures 10 per cent.
This resolution, the vote on which stood twenty-two to fifty-six, was, of course, voted down by the Liberals. Amongst hon. gentlemen in the House at that time was the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) and the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles), who voted against the reduction in duty proposed by the hon. member for Souris. The hon. member for Assiniboia, who was very earnest the other night in advocating free agricultural implements,' spoke against that reduction. I quote from his remarks at page 5597 of ' Hansard ' of that year:
I shall give the Government hearty support, fcr I believe that the policy of the Government is in tile interests of the country.
Contrast that, if you pleas-e, with the motion supported by this hon. gentleman a few weeks ago. The Hon. Mr. Paterson also ispoke on that occasion. On page 5582 5rou will find these words:
I do not disguise the fact that we propose to give these people-
That is, the manufacturers.
-nearly the amount of reduction in duty, that has been made. For it must be remembered that 17i per cent is no more than a revenue tariff.
What are we to infer from that? Every hon. gentleman on the other side of the House agreed that 174 per cent was no more than a revenue tariff. What do they mean by that? That when a Liberal Government is in power, with their peculiar methods of administration and expenditure, you must have at least a 174 per cent tariff, but when a Conservative Government attains office, you must look for an entire abolition of the duties. Another very distinguished gentleman, the Hon. Mr. Fielding, then Minister of Finance, spoke on
that occasion. On page 5621 may be found the following remarks made by that hon. gen ti e man:
By a careful calculation we are advised that the drawbacks we allow are somewhat less than the disadvantage under which the manufacturer is placed by the reduction of the tariff. Fven suppose for a moment that he got everything free and had a duty of 17 J per cent on the implements, would that be an extravagant duty as things go in this country? I believe this proposal of the hon. member for Souris, if adopted, would do an injustice to an established industry.
My belief is that if this motion were passed we would strike a severe blow at one of the great industries of the country. I believe the International Harvester Company would find it to its interests to close up its business in Hamilton*, at least so much of it as is devoted to mowers and binders and have them made at the American branch and bring them from the United States. The factory in Hamilton is an American concern. With a moderate duty we have induced American capital to come into Canada and to establish that great industry and after we have brought it in and established it in Canada I believe that if we were to pass this resolution the company operating that industry would find it profitable to close the Hamilton factory and bring in the goods which they make in the United States.
That is an expression of opinion by no less a person than the Finance Minister of the Laurier Administration in 1907, and that expression of opinion was endorsed by every hon. gentleman on the other side of the House. I find it very difficult indeed to reconcile the position of these hon. gentlemen to-day with the position they took at that time. The hon. member for Assiniboia made use of these words, and they may be found at page 5624 of ' Hansard ':
The tariff commission got information all over the country and I do not think the farmers to the West, at all events, asked for a great reduction such as is proposed by this resolution on agricultural implements. They asked that the duties be left alone. I shall give the Government hearty support on this question.
So that according to the hon. member for Assiniboia, in 1907 the farmers of the West, for whom he spoke, were opposed to any reduction in the duty on agricultural implements; they wanted the duty left alone.
Let us follow the history of this matter a little bit further. In the reciprocity pact of 1911 the proposed reduction of duty on agricultural implements was from 17J to 15 per cent. On that occasion the hon. member for Dundas (Mr. Broder), who is ever alert when the interests of his fellow farmers are at stake, and who was mindful of what took place after 1907, when there was a reduction of duty from 20 to 17| per

intend to pursue that policy? What do they suppose the Almighty placed iron in such large quantities in this country for? Was it simply for ballast, or was it to be made use of? I contend that the proper thing for this country to do is to make this country what it was intended to be, a great iron-producing country.
I want to direct attention for a moment to the election returns of 1911. Hon. gentlemen opposite on different occasions have said that they would welcome another election on reciprocity, but I notice that those declarations are getting beautifully less as more light enters the heads of hon. gentlemen opposite as the days go by. In 1911 the Conservative vote increased over 1908 by over 21 -2 per cent, and the Liberal vote by 5-2 per cent. Hon. gentlemen opposite are welcome to what comfort they can get out of that. I find that the Conservative increase in Ontario over 1908 was 13J per cent, whereas the Liberal vote was actually 4-6 per cent less than it was three years before. In the province of Quebec, which is erroneously supposed by many to be almost solidly Liberal, I am pleased to say that the Conservative increase over 1908 was 38 per cent, while the Liberal increase was only
I	-2 per cent. In Nova Scotia the Conservative increase was 1-8 per cent, and the Liberal increase 1 -7 per cent. In New Brunswick the Conservative increase was
II	-6 per cent, and the Liberal vote showed a slight decrease. In Manitoba the Conservative increase over 1908 was 14-3 per cent, and the Liberal vote showed 13 3 per cent. In British Columbia the Conservative increase was 47 per cent, and the Liberal increase 23 per cent. In Prince Edward Island there was a slight increase in the Conservative vote and a decrease in the Liberal vote of 7 per cent. In Saskatchewan the Conservative increase over 1908 was 54J per cent and the Liberal increase 57J per cent-not too bad a showing when you consider the total vote polled. In Alberta the Conservative increase was 45 per cent and the Liberal increase 60.8 per cent. The Yukon, with such a candidate as the Conservative party had in the field, very properly heads the poll, the Conservative increase being 279 per cent and the Liberal decrease 6 -7 per cent. In every province except Alberta the increase in the Conservative vote polled over that polled in 1908 was greater than the increase in the total vote polled in each province over 1908, whereas the Liberal narty notwith-

standing the increase in population polled fewer votes in 1911 than in 1908 in Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the Yukon, and in Quebec and Nova Scotia the percentage of increase was less than the percentage of increase in the total vote polled. That shows a few things in regard to the election of 1911, but there are one or two other points which I might call to the attention of hon. gentlemen just to disabuse their minds of any notion that the people were not very pronounced in their verdict in regard to reciprocity in 1911. I do this in all kindness because I would like hon. gentlemen opposite to get up a new policy. So many policies have been advanced by the Liberal party that I think it would be an imposition on the people of Canada for them to go to the country again on the same policy. I would like to assure them that if they go to the country on their policy of 1911 there is not a particle of a chance of success for them, nor would there be any possible chance of a good square fight on that policy. Although I am a peaceable man I would prefer that they have a policy which would give us a good scrap. In the election of 1911 it is noteworthy-I do not 'think it ever occurred before in the history of Canada-that every one of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Cabinet ministers was either defeated or had his majority reduced. In the case of the right hon. gentleman himself he was elected by acclamation in East Quebec under somewhat doubtful circumstances. We will leave it at that. He also ran in the constituency of Soulanges, which is the smallest constituency in the Dominion, and there he had the handsome majority of 142. In regard to two others of his ministers, the Postmaster General of that time (Mr. Beland) ran in two constituencies and was defeated in one and elected in the other. The hon. member for Eouville (Mr. Lemieux) also took a chance in two constituencies. He met ignominious defeat in one and was elected in the other. That is an interesting little event worthy of putting on ' Hansard.' The hon. member for Eouville was elected for Gaspe in 1896 by 42; in 1900 by 1,362; in 1904 by acclamation; in 1908 by 1,492. In 1911 he ran in the same constituency, but was defeated by 570 votes. He also ran in Eouville, where he was elected by 278. It is interesting to note that the combined vote of those two constituencies is not as large as the ordinary vote in an ordinary constituency. There are twelve constituencies in the province of Quebec which have a larger number of

voters than are on the lists of the two constituencies which the hon. member for Rouville contested in the election of 1911. So that I think I am quite fair in adding the name of the member for Rouville to the list of the Cabinet ministers who went down to defeat in 1911, because in the two constituencies he contested there was a net majority against him of 292.


Mir. PROULX:: Gaspe was a deferred
election.


John Wesley Edwards: Well if the hon. member for Rouyille was elected in Rouville on the 21st of September, 1911, why in the world did he run in a deferred election in Gaspe? .


Edmond Proulx: He was nominated on
the 14th of September, like other candidates.


John Wesley Edwards: At 'all events the figures are there which indicate that in the two constituencies the vote was in favour of the hon. member for Rouville staying in the province of Quebec and not coming to this House. I have nothing further to add in regard to the last election except that I think the figures indicate very clearly and conclusively that the people expressed themselves most decidedly against the policy of free trade in natural products, which was proposed by the Liberal party at that time, and it is idle for hon. gentlemen opposite to declare that they were stampeded. The Hon. Mr. Fielding introduced that pact into this House in. the month of January, 1911, and the elections did not take place until September of the same year. The people of Canada had a splendid opportunity to settle this question, it was thoroughly discussed and I firmly believe that if the election had been twq weeks later in the province of Ontario the result would have been even more disastrous than it was to the Liberal party.
The hon. member for Rouville, in the course of his remarks, made some allusions to the naval question. I am not going into that any further than to say that I hope the day is not far distant when-and I am not wishing any of the senators harm when I say that-we will have control of the Senate. I do not know that I can put it any more kindly than to say that I will be delighted to see the Conservative party get control of the Senate and that I do not wish any of the senators harm. But it is a matter of doubt whether the translation of some of them would be a loss to 166
earth or a gain to heaven. This is a matter which only the future can solve and in the meantime I can only reiterate my own strong convictions upon this question. I think that the proposition, made by the Conservative party to grant $35,000,000 for the maintenance of the .supremacy of the British navy was one which appealed to the people from one end of Canada to the other. I am sorry that the grant was not made. I need not say any more, but if I am permitted I will close my remarks with a quota-9 p.m. tion from an utterance of one of the greatest Canadians that this country has ever produced. I refer to Sir George Etienne Cartier, who, in a speech delivered in 1869,'made use of these words:
Canadian people desire to remain faithful to the old monarchical flag of Great Britain, that flag which waves over all seas, that flag which tyranny has never been able to overcome, that flag which symbolizes true liberty.
Canadians know that if they wish to become really great they have only to continue their union with the mother country, so as to share in her power, her prestige and her glory.
These words express my sentiments and those of the great majority of the Canadian people far more eloquently and completely than anything I could myself say. 1 thank you, Mr. Speaker, and the House for the very patient hearing which you have given me.
Mr. E. B. DEVLIN (Wright) Mr. Speaker, it is not often that I rise to take part in the Budget debate, but, representing a constituency in which the agricultural and labouring interests largely predominate, I deem it my duty to make a few remarks, which remarks, I hope, will reach the ear of the Government. To-night, Sir, I would very much like to see the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Borden) in his seat, because I would like to have a heart to heart talk with him, but in his absence I .am going to ask the hon. gentlemen who represent the Cabinet to see if something cannot be done to meet the present commercial stagnation or depression in this country. I am not going to follow in the line of the previous speaker. The hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) finished his remarks by dealing with the election returns of 1911. He and his friends opposite take a certain amount of credit out of the fact that the Conservative party did win the election of 1911. I admit that. It is not in contention in this



House. Hon. gentlemen opposite did win the election of 1911 and promised during that election to do certain things which they have failed to do, and which I hope, before the end of my remarks, to call to their attention. They won the election through certain combinations in the province of Ontario and in the province of Quebec.
In Quebec they won the election through a friendly alliance between the Conservative party and the Nationalists. Will they have the same alliance at the next election?


An hon. MEMBER:: Time will tell.


Mr. DEVLIN:: Time will tell-there is
no doubt of it; but the Nationalist members of the House who went before the electors of the province of Quebec with a certain programme and who will go back before them at the next election will find that time will tell how that aniance has worked out between the Conservative and the Liberal party.


Mr. SMITH:: Chateauguay.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: You won Chateauguayyou won it with whisky and money. I know something about Chateauguay. I was in Chateauguay during that election, and I believe that a tale will be told before the courts that will not redound to the honour or the dignity of the Conservative party.	'
A more inapt, a more hopelessly helpless Government than that now in power I do not think this country has ever seen. In listening to the speeches delivered during the last few days, one would imagine that the Conservative party had absolutely nothing to their credit except the memory of the work of Sir John A. Macdonald upon the tariff and the building of the Canadian Pacific railway. My hon. friend (Mr. Edwards) dwelt, as did the hon. member for North Essex (Mr. Wilcox), at some length upon speeches delivered in this House in 1876. Do they believe that it would be an answer to the people of this country, who are clamouring against the high cost of living, to tell them what the men who in 1876 had seats in this House have said about protection, reciprocity, or free trade? The first one to speak about the policy of Sir John A. Macdonald was the hon. Minister of Finance. Here are his words:
Before taking these up in detail I desire to affirm the adherence of the Government to a fiscal policy of reasonable protection to Cana-
[Mr. Devlin 1
dian industries including of course the great basic industry of agriculture. That policy is the historic National Policy of Sir John Macdonald, inaugurated by him and continued by his successors in office down to the present time.
That was not the policy of Sir John A. Macdonald. The policy of the present Government is the policy of the manufacturers. To bear out my words, I want to allude to the speech delivered in Halifax by Mr. Robert S. Gourlay president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, on the 7th of September, 1913. Speaking upon the tariff, he used the following language:
Our tariff has undergone very little change since we met a year ago. A few inequalities were corrected by legislation in the regular way, hut their application was limited to specific lines with no resulting disturbance to business in general. This has been in keeping with the policy of tariff stability for which our association has so consistently stood and to that extent the policy of the Government as thus far manifested has our sympathy and support.
Mr. Gourlay goes on to say:
The woollen schedule is not what it should be; otherwise an industry that should be indigenous in an agricultural country like Canada would not have languished as it has. Neither is the iron and steel schedule satisfactory. As at present constituted, it is to some extent encouraging the establishment and expansion of what might he called secondary industries.
When I say that the policy of the present Government is the policy of the manufacturers, I am quoting exactly the words contained in the address of the president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. What was the policy of Sir John A. Macdonald? It was not by any means the policy of high protection. I will refer to the life of Sir John A. Macdonald by George R. Parkin, an authority which will not be disputed by hon. gentlemen opposite. At page 219 of The Makers of Canada, here is what I find:
Macdonald did not place himself at the head of the movement without careful study of the Canadian 1 situation, nor until he was convinced that the time was ripe for change. Some of his supporters were impatient with his deliberation. ' Sir John was timid unto death of protection, had to be bullied into it; led into it; committed to it by others. But when he thought it grown, he used it as a bridge to reach the jiower he liked to wield,' wrote in after years one of his parliamentary followers.
At page 223, I find the fallowing, citation from Sir John Macdonald's own words:
The question of the day is that of the protection of our farmers from the unfair competition of foreign producers, and the protection of our manufacturers. I am in favour of reciprocal free trade if it can be obtained, but so

long as the policy of the United States closes the markets to our products, we should have a policy of our own as well, and consult only out own interests. That subject wisely and vigorously dealt with, you will see confidence restored, the present depression dispelled, and the country prosperous and contented.
Then the author says:
While Macdonald and his followers were advocating what was at least a specious remedy for the industrial depression, the Liberals had no alternative to offer save the recommendation to the electorate to practise thrift and to wait for the swing of the economic pendulum.
Listening to the words of the hon. Minister of Finance, when he delivered his Budget Speech, you will note, Mr. Speaker, that he said, 'We will wait; better times are coming.' Sir John A. Macdonald, when he inaugurated his national policy, did so to meet the circumstances of the time. Again, the same historian tells us:
It should be noted that to the extreme protectionists of his party, Sir John A. Macdonald steadily refused to commit himself. In June, 1878, he endeavoured to assuage the anxiety of the Maritime provinces by a telegram stating that he had ' never proposed an increase, but a readjustment of the tariff,1 and his motion in the House of Commons earlier in the same year was drawn with characteristic skill.
You, Sir, no doubt were in the House at the time Sir John A. Macdonald presented his motion, and you remember that it ran as follows:
That this House is of opinion that the welfare of Canada requires the adoption of a national policy which, by a judicious readjustment of the tariff, will benefit and foster the agricultural, the mining, the manufacturing and other interests of the Dominion;	.	.	.
and, moving (as it ought to do) in the direction of reciprocity of tariff with our neighbours, as far as the varied interests of Canada may demand, will greatly tend to procure for this country, eventually, a reciprocity of trade.
If we are to believe the very letter of his motion, Sir John Macdonald never would have inaugurated a national policy if it were not a lever to obtain reciprocity with the United States of America. Let me quote a last passage from the same historian :
More than one breeze of popular opinion was caught by this resolution. It appealed at once to the deep-seated Canadian suspicion of the United States, and to the strong desire of the farmers for the American market. It was, in fact a blow at the enemy with the ostensible object of forcing him into a more friendly attitude. Equally important was its appeal to the rising national sentiment of the Dominion of which the National Policy was the crystallization.
It is apparent from the very wording of the motion presented by Sir John Macdonald to the House that reciprocity with 166J
the United States was what he sought; and what is sought to-day by the Conservative party of Canada is nothing more or less than reciprocity with the manufacturers of Canada, for their votes, for their influence, because we have on the one hand the wording of the motion of Sir John A. Macdonald, and on the other the words of the president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association.
I do not think I am putting it too harshly when I say that the masters of the Administration of the day are not the people of this country, not the farmers and labouring: classes, but the manufacturers. And the-moment the manufacturers say: ' Raise the duties,' this Government cannot resist, and: so the duties are raised regardless of the: farmers and labouring classes.
Now, having dealt with that part of ancient history so particularly referred to in this debate by hon. gentlemen opposite, I may be allowed to take up one other remark made by the hon. member for Fron-tenac. He said that since the Underwood Tariff had come into force the_tebd?rcy of prices of commodities in the United States had been to increase. I find that he is not borne out by Bradstreet's. Bradstreet's for the 7th of March makes this reference to commodity prices:
Commodity prices have moved irregularly this week, storm interruptipn to wires and mails dulling trade early. Cereals have made a slight downward swing, wheat leading with a decline of IS to 2 cents, largely on good reports from the new crop and bearish reports from Europe, growing out of the large movement from the southeast offsetting reports of shortage in Argentina- Corn is off 3, to 1 cent on slow cash demand, and oats sympa-' thized to the extent of J cent.
And the issue of Bradstreet's for the 14th of March dealing with the index number says:
Bradstreet's price index number as of March 1 shows a slight decline from that of February 1, and marks the third consecutive decline from the level set on December 1, 1913.
In the issue for the 21st of March, we find:
Tariff changes, large crops and springlike weather alike find reflection in the notable declines shown in prices of sugar, butter and eggs this week. Lowered tariff duties, effective March 1, are a partial explanation of the sharp break to the lowest price ever known for refined sugar, but neither this cause nor the sharp competition between refiners, developing since the tariff reduction, would have sufficed to have broken raw sugar to 3.01 cents per pound and refined to 3.77 cents per pound, prices respectively 1 cent and 2-5 cent below a year ago, were it not for the fact that the world's sugar crop the past year was 700,000 tons, or 4 per cent larger than ever before.

And practically a similar condition of affairs exists in the following week, according to the same authority. So, I fail to see where the hon. gentleman has found the prices of commodities increasing since the establishment of the Underwood tariff.
The Minister of Finance, in his Budget speech, announced the surplus of $36.500,000. Up to that moment he had had us all in an aeroplane. He had brought us over to the Balkan states where, he assured us, there was unrest. Then he brought us to Mexico and told us that there was anarchy. In this unrest in the Balkan states and anarchy in Mexico he found the cause for his being obliged to pay a higher rate of interest on money borrowed for the Dominion of Canada; and in these same conditions he found one of the causes for the trade depression in this country. But when he directed his aeroplane back to the city of Ottawa he found that the officials of his department had been busy with their bookkeeping, and, while he was away borrowing money, they had made ready to show him that he had a surplus of $36,500,000. I think all that will be pretty hard for the farmers of this country to understand. In fact, I think it will make a cold shiver run down their backs when they find that they had $36,500,000 in Ottawa and yet our gay young Minister of Finance was jaunting abroad looking for money at high interest. When he goes out before the electors and tries to explain that to them, I think I know some farmers who will be too canny to fully appreciate where this surplus comes in.


William Smith: Just Grits; they are the only ones who will complain.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I did not say they would complain; I said the canny farmers may not thoroughly appreciate just where this surplus comes in. However, they are not the only ones. Those of us who have been in this House for the last few years remember that the present Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster) used to speak upon the subject of surpluses. If there ever was a man to whom I loved to listen criticising a Budget speech, it was the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I often read his speeches, because there is so much in them. Here is what he said in the session of 1906-7, as reported at page 405 of ' Hansard ' of that year:
The Minister of Finance has a good time with himself almost every time he makes a budget speech about his surplus. Seventy-seven millions it is now, and every year he

adds a little more, and he says, Just look at my surplus. And everybody on the Government benches looks at it and admires it and applauds it and says it is good to look upon, even though they cannot have it. Well, it is new doctrine for the Liberal party.
Then he goes on, speaking of the Conservatives :
They had surpluses as well, but they were modest ones. When they went up to two millions, It was supposed that that was about the limit; and if by any means they happened to go up to four millions, care was taken pretty soon, by the reduction of the taxation or otherwise, that the surplus should not be inordinate. Why, it is the easiest thing in the world to make a surplus. The Minister of Finance and his colleagues can make it even larger than it is if they wish. All they have to do is to take out more taxation-to add on to the taxation million by million, and the more they take out of the people of Canada in taxation, the larger their surplus will become. But is it really economical? Is it really for the peace of mind of the minister himself and the Government? It is well to have a care that the country's finances will always come out on the right side, in order to keep its credit good; but it is uneconomical and dangerous for a government or a party to attempt to have a big surplus every year, because it means an extraction rf unwarranted sums from the pockets of the people and from the working capital of the country, and it is an invitation to extravagance which cannot be resisted by most governments, and which certainly has not been resisted by the Government at present in power.
You and I, Mr. Speaker, were in the House in 1906 and 1907, and we heard the ex-Minister of Finance make his speech in answer to the Budget. You remember those words; you remember as well as I do how he pounded his desk and appealed to the Liberal Government of the day not to have a surplus because it meant taking more taxes out of the pockets of the people. The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce was in his seat during the last few days; he heard the Budget speech; he heard the surplus referred to. Any hon. gentleman on this side of the House who happened to look at the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce at that moment would have noticed that there was not a smile on his face, while other hon. gentlemen opposite were applauding the Minister of Finance for boasting a surplus of $36,500,000, the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce sat as dumb as an oyster. Yet the hon. member for Frontenac says that only the Grit organs will object to surpluses. Why, one of his leaders, the Minister of Trade and Commerce, does not believe in these surpluses. Let me tell the House that not all the Conservative organs of the country believe that the Minister of Finance has a surplus. On April 8, 1914, the Ottawa

Citizen, a good Conservative organ, said editorially:
To describe as a surplus the $36,500,000 which the taxpayers of Canada paid last year into the federal exchequer in excess of ordinary expenditure requirements, and to do so without indicating that he was speaking in a Pickwickian sense, was not the least achievement of the Finance Minister in the Budget speech.
Let us find out something about where this surplus came in. Referring to the financial returns of the Government, I find that in 1911 the net debt of Canada amounted to $340,042,052.03, upon which the Government was paying $12,535,850.81 interest. In 1913, according to the present minister, that debt had been reduced to the sum of $314,301,625.68, and the country was paying $12,605,882.48 interest. In other words, upon a debt $25,740,426 less, the country was paying $70,031.67 more interest. In 1896 the debt per head of population was $50.82; in 1908, 12 years afterwards, under Liberal Government, it was reduced to $40.50. In 1913-14, with a greater population, greater revenues and a smaller debt, according to hon. gentlemen opposite, it has been increased to about $46 or $48 per head. That is a system of bookkeeping with which I am not .at all familiar. The increase in the total expenditure during the past fiscal year has been nearly $40,000,000, or some $56 per head of population, and the decrease in revenue has been approximately $6,000,000. It is .still falling, but the apportionments for the present fiscal year indicate a still further increase in the expenditure over the $183,500,000 spent for the year just ended. During the past year the national debt has increased by nearly $20,000,000. Last year the increase in consolidated fund expenditure was $14,500,000. For the first two complete fiscal years of the present Administration the increase in the ordinary expenses of the Government totalled over $28,000,000, or nearly $4 for every man, woman and child in Canada. In the last complete fiscal year of the Laurier Government the total expenditure on consolidated fund account was $87,774,198. For the second complete fiscal year of the present Administration the total expenditure on consolidated fund account was $126,500,000. For the last complete fiscal year of the late Government the total expenditure on both consolidated fund and capital account was $122,861,250. For the second complete fiscal year of the present Government this amount was increased to $183,500,000. In the three
years the consolidated fund expenditure has been increased by nearly $39,000,000, while the total expenditure has been increased by $60,639,000-and the increased expenditure has all to come out of the pockets of the people of this country. With that statement before the House and before the country, how the minister can get up and say that he really has in the treasury of this country a surplus of $36,000,000 is, to say the least, marvellous. If I were to borrow the language of Shakespeare, Mr. Speaker, I think I would be inclined to use these words in connection with the attitude of the Minister of Finance:
He swore her fair and thought her bright
While she was black as hell and dark as night.
I think that sums up pretty well the financial attitude of hon. gentlemen opposite. Where is our money going? That is the next question the people will ask. The militia Estimates alone for 1914-15 amount to $10,867,000, and we have yet the Supplementary Estimates for the coming yeat. Mark you, I am not including in this amount the summer trips to Switzerland of the hon. Minister of Militia, nor am I including, .as he is not in his seat at the present moment, his winter trips with his colonels to the hot springs of Virginia. That is just one item. Some of the money is going to pay agents and steamship companies to bring artisans over to Canada to compete with our artisans. A great deal of it is going over to England to bring English immigrants to this country-and I hope that the best immigrants will come over.
But a great deal is going to bring the people who are to be found around Stepney Green and Pigeon Market-those who are familiar with the city of London will know what locality that is in-over here, to be a charge upon the people and the taxpayers of this country. I do not want to be misunderstood. I say a great deal of it is going over to England to bring a good class of immigrants, and we are getting a very good class of immigrants from England, and also from Ireland and Scotland. But we are also getting some mighty poor immigrants from England, and from Ireland and from Scotland. But if we are getting some poor immigrants from the British Isles, we are getting worse from eastern Europe. I wish to protest as strongly as I am able, in the name of the labouring classes of Canada against the labour market of this country being overcrowded by the bringing in of

labourers without the Government knowing where they are going to place them. I have not the figures under my hand, but I think that last year 122,000 labourers were brought into this country. What have they done during the winter? Would it not have been bettter to leave them in their own country where they would have been taken care of by their friends? They are brought into this country to compete with Canadian labourers and are brought here under misrepresentations. This is a good country for Canadians; it is a good country for any man to come to who has capital to invest; it is a good country to come to for any man who has steady employment before him. But to bring immigrants into this country, without any money, without any prospect of employment when they get here, I say it is a crime on the part of the Government to spend the money of this country in encouraging such immigration. That is one way that the money of the people of this country is going. To substantiate my statements upon this point, it is sufficient to look at any number of the Labour Gazettte, a publication of this present Government, to see that thousands of labourers in the larger cities of this country have nothing to do. I think it is about time for this to cease. A resolution was adopted by the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council and has been placed in my hands. I wish to read it to you:
Whereas-Continuous efforts are being made by transportation companies, emigration agencies and other societies to induce employers in Canada to import labour from outside the Dominion, and
Whereas-These companies and societies have received and are now receiving government guarantees and grants of public money, and Whereas-The arrival of immigrants on these shores during a time of severe depression such as now exists not only intensifies the serious unemployment question, but tends to deteriorate the already too low standard of the workers' living, consequently retarding industrial and national progress, therefore be it Resolved-That the federal and provincial governments of Canada discontinue assisting financially or otherwise such corporations and societies and further take steps to ensure that correct information be given to prospective inmigrants in their own homes, and be it further Resolved-That copies of this resolution be sent to Premier Borden, the federal members of the House of Commons, and the press.
I subscribe to every word contained in this resolution, and I hope the Government will take some action.
Let me now say a word upon the question of the tariff. I said that this Government is led by the manufacturers. Why should they be led by the manufacturers 
anyway? Why should they always be catering to the manufacturers? I am not against the manufacturers; there are thousands of employees in the constituency which I represent employed by manufacturers. I suppose in the constituency I represent are some of the biggest factories in the Dominion of Canada, but I believe that while it may not always be pleasant to have to do so, it is the duty of representatives in this House, whether on the right or on the left, to tell the manufacturers when it is necessary that all the legislation on tariff matters ought not to be directed in their interest, but that the farmers and the laborers must get their fair share. In 1912-13 the exports of manufactures from this country amounted to $43,692,708. For the eleven months of 1913 they amounted to $51,204,162. There were 389,873 people employed in manufacturing and mechanical institutions out of a total of wage earners of 1,300,000. For the manufacturers the whole of the tariff of this country is made by the present Government. The agriculturist has no show under this Government. We have the farmers coming down from the West turned down by the Government, and I shall have a word to say of their demands in connection with free wheat. What are the farmers of this country doing? If the manufacturers are exporting forty-three and a half millions what are the farmers doing? In 1912-13 they exported goods to the value of $150,145,661 and for the eleven months of 1914 to the value of $191,707,483. So, in other words, they have exported three times as much as the manufacturers have ever done in this country. How many do they employ? 716,937 out of the total of 1,300,000 wage earners, and yet they have not a voice with the present Government. I have referred to industrial Canada and to the address of the president of the Manufacturers' Association, and his demand for increased duties upon iron and steel. The manufacturers got it: they got more, they got free coal for their smelting institutions. They are not exactly satisfied yet, because I find in the Free Press of this city, of April 7, 1914, that Mr. Rowley, who is an ex-president of the Manufacturers' Association, and president of the E. B. Eddy Company, gave his opinion. He says:
In the first place, Mr. Rowley thinks the farmers have already got too much and are going to get still more under the revisions.
Just imagine any hon. gentleman who has listened to the Budget speech of the Finance Minister and to the speeches of hon. gentlemen opposite upon the tariff, being told by

Mt. Rowley that the farmers of this country have already got too much and are going to get still more under the revision!
In the second place, Mr. nowiey believes the changes will bear too heavily on the paper industry.
Of course, the country knows that his is the paper industry.
The farmers get the best of everything They always have, and they are getting it in the present revision. I think (he said) that the Government acted wisely in not adopting free wheat. It would have been a great mistake to have allowed our grain and fodder to go to a foreign country. Our wheat is better than theirs anyway, and we should keep it.
Well, all right, I am in favour of that. Will he buy it? Will the manufacturers buy the wheat? We are told by the manufacturers that the farmers should keep their wheat. The Western farmer asks for a market for his wheat and we simply wish to give him free entry into the United States in order that the may get all the profit that is coming to him, but hon. gentlemen opposite want to take that profit away. The Ottawa Citizen, that good Conservative organ, which I have already referred to this evening, also spoke editorially on the tariff question on April 10, 1914, as follows:
According to the budget figures Canadian exports to the United States increased from $112,000,000 in 1911 to $161,000,000 in 1913-14. In the same period imports from the United States increased from $274,000,000 to $361,000 000. The aggregate trade between the countries was $387,000,000 in 1911, and in 1913 it reached $523,000,000. Canada is the second customer of the United States to-day.
If I heard anything from hon. gentlemen opposite in the election of 1911, it was that we should not trade with the Yankees, that we should trade within the empire, and yet under the present government I find that Canada is the second customer of the United States. I am sure that the loyalty of hon. gentlemen opposite and the loyalty of certain citizens of this country must be sorely affected when they hear that under the benign protection of the present Government Canada is the second customer of the United States. The Citizen continues:
These facts are interesting from a trade standpoint. But what becomes thereby of an argument frequently heard in the 1911 campaign, that increased trade with the United States eventually meant the annexation of Canada to that country?
When we find a newspaper like the Citizen beginning to doubt the political honesty of hon. gentlemen opposite, our friends
opposite must not be surprised if we do not place any credence whatever in their arguments during the election of 1911. The Citizen says further:	[DOT]
If as Hon. Mr. White pointed out in his speech, this great aggregate increase in three . years is a matter of congratulation, how much more a matter of congratulation would it be if the trade were even greater, as it would be by the abolition of the tariff on wheat, as asked by the western grain growers and the Manitoba legislature?
Here is a good Conservative organ asking for the abolition of the duty on wheat. Hearing Western representatives pointing out to this House the usefulness of abolishing the duty on wheat and hearing also Conservative organs saying that it would he a good thing, no wonder that I myself believe that it would be a good thing, and I will support any measure introduced in this House asking for the removal of the duty on wheat. The Citizen goes on:
'It is not advisable that a nation's tariff should be so arranged as to fit into the tariff policy of another nation,' said Mr, White. Then he advocates a surtax of 25 per cent ad valorem on the imports of countries which discriminate against Canada; in other words, the Finance Minister fits our tariff into the tariff of any other country, and automatically at that, which makes the first move. But, granting that Mr. White's dictum be accepted as a protective principle, it would seem to demolish one of the strong arguments of protectionists, that the advantage of a tariff lies in the fact that while providing a measure of defence it can he modified to meet the hostility or friendliness of another country's tariff, a condition which, protectionists assert, would not obtain in the case of a free trade country competing with tariff nations.
These self-contradictions are evident, hut despite their presence, the claim is made that only by a tariff is our national prosperity assured.
I believe -that if we had better transportation facilities in this country, including water facilities, we should have cheaper food and therefore I was somewhat interested yesterday in 'listening to the demands made by a very large delegation from all over Canada asking for the construction of the Georgian Bay canal. I was rather anxious to hear what answer would be given by the minister. When free wheat was asked for I had heard the Minister of Finance say to the farmers of the West: Wait until more railways are completed, and until the Welland canal is deepened. When I heard the people of Canada clamouring against the high cost of living I had heard the Minister of Finance say:	Wait until
the commission on the high cost of living reports. When I heard the commercial men

of this country complain that money was tight, I had heard the Minister of Finance say: Wait until anarchy ceases in Mexico. So I was somewhat anxious to hear what the Minister of Public Works would say to [DOT] the delegation upon the Georgian Bay canal. - And this is what I heard. The hon. minister in his nice polished manner first of all said: Wait till the Prime Minister comes back from the South and I will tell him all you say. Thinking that might not be a sufficient answer he went on: Wait until the commission which we have appointed reports on the commercial feasibility of the project. I am inclined to call the present Government to-night a waiting Government, but I will not call them an indolent Government. They travel enough but they make us wait a long time for information. We on this side of the House would like to see the Government do something, but they always say: Wait until this commission or that commission reports or until this or that happens. They undertook to build the Hudson's Bay railway and now they are waiting till the ice goes away from the Hudson Bay ports. We want to know, and as representatives of the people of Canada we have a right to know, what they are going to do to reduce the cost of living in this country. But what are we told? Wait till the commission reports. Nobody knows where that commission is. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, where the commission is? At one moment it is in the city of Quebec behind closed doors, and at another moment it is in some other part of the country. The commissioners are all, I believe, deputy ministers. I presume they are in offices now. If they are here why do they not make the report which they must have prepared? Just imagine a commission appointed and sent round the country to find out whether the cost of living in this country is high. We know the cost of living is high and we want the Government to remedy that condition. . The farmers of the West are asking for the very same thing but they put their demand in a different way. They say: Our grain is congested, we want to have a fair chance with the manufacturers of this country and we will have a fair chance if you give us free wheat. The Government answers: Wait. No doubt they will be appointing a commission next to find out whether there is a duty upon wheat.
I believe that there are two causes for the high cost of living in this country, and that one of them is the tariff. I am borne out in that belief by the manufacturers' own statement that the tariff is a eon-
tributing cause, although the manufacturers say it is not the whole cause. The other cause is to be found in the freight rates. The Government ought to grapple with the transportation problem. They ought to wait no longer, they ought not to shillyshally, but to go ahead at once and deal with that important issue. The people in 1911, when they elected these gentlemen to office, at least expected that they would be able to administer the finances of the country, but instead of administering the finances or the affairs of the country, they are handing them over to commissions.
Speaking for the farmers of Canada, I must say that I am not satisfied with what the Government have done in connection with agricultural implements. I do not believe that by a reduction of five per cent upon agricultural implements the Government are helping the farmers. What the Government should have done, and done at once in view of the fact that the taxes bear more heavily upon the farmers than upon any other class, was to give free agricultural implements. I will support any movement in favour of free agricultural implements.
Before I resume my seat, I want to offer to the House some suggestions which I think would be in the interest of the agriculturists and labourers of Canada, and I shall state them in a few words. I believe that the Government ought to establish more experimental farms and to offer bonuses by way of prizes for agricultural competitions. I believe that the Government ought to make agricultural colleges free, that they ought to give the books free, and that the sons of farmers who go to these colleges should receive instruction free; that.in every sense these agricultural colleges ought to be free. I believe that the Government ought to assist farm labourers in this country as they assist farm labourers from other countries in migrating from one part of Canada to another. I believe they ought to offer the farmers of the East facilities to take up the lands of the West. They ought to give them financial assistance so that as far as possible we may be able to keep the land of the country amongst Canadians. I would advocate that a fund be set aside by the Government out of which farmers may borrow, say at two per cent, the Government to pay the balance of the interest and to provide a sinking fund, and that the money coming from that fund should be used 10 p.m. for providing homes and outbuildings for the farmers.

Speaking on behalf of the labourers of Canada, I would say that the Government should set aside annually a sum of money to assist in building labourers' modern cottages, the sum to set aside, to be loaned on the same conditions as I have just stated in connection with farmers' homes and outbuildings; that is that it shall be loaned at the rate of two per cent for a certain number of years, the Government to provide for the payment of the balance of the interest and sinking fund. I would say further that the Government ought to establish more employment bureaus throughout Canada, and see to it that before labourers are. brought to this country the labourers already in the country have been provided with suitable employment.
I conclude my remarks by saying that instead of money being wasted upon useless drill sheds and armouries, instead of money ' being expended in bringing certain immigrants from foreign countries to our shores under false representations, instead of money being expended upon useless public works, as it is being expended at the present moment, the Government ought to provide that Canada shall always remain the home of the Canadian, that the one who shall receive the first protection from the Government shall be the Canadian. Therefore, I advocate this policy of aiding farmers in erecting and improving homes and outbuildings, and I advocate the policy of aiding labourers in building homes, as it is done in other countries. It is well known that the labouring classes can not go to the banks like other classes of society and borrow money to improve their homes because they have not the same security to offer to the banks and the banks will not advance them money as they will advance it to other people. If we have a surplus of $36,500,000, and if that surplus is growing every year, it becomes the bounden duty of the Government to see to it that the cost of living bear as lightly as possible upon the consumer, and it is the duty of the Government to see to the happiness, prosperity and welfare of the people in order to carry out the mission of the statesmen who have gone before the roresent ministers, looking to the upbuilding of Canada in conformity with her position as a member of the great family of nations. Instead of pursuing the policy of expending money upon warships, which are not required by Great Britain, and instead of a policy of lavish expenditure upon soldiers' uniforms, soldiers' clubs, drill halls and armouries, where we simply require sufficient protection, the Government should see to the welfare of e^ery Canadian citizen.


John Hampden Burnham: Mr. Speaker, before referring to what seems to me to be the most important event about to develop in the twentieth century, I should like to make a few remarks in regard to the splendid financial showing of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. White) in his Budget Speech, and in regard to his announcement of a substantial surplus. There can be no question that to be able to announce a surplus at the end of the year in the ordinary and well understood way of book-keeping, is an achievement worthy of consideration. If we juggle with the figures so as to confuse capital with income expenditure, we can bring out a deficit in any country in the world. That, however, has not been done here. It seems to me that fair treatment and praise ought to he accorded to the Minister of Finance for his eminently successful handling of the finances of this country. I also wish to compliment him on the firm front he has shown to the attempt recently made by a large railway corporation to make another assault upon the treasury of this country. I think the mem-, bers of this House are of one mind that anything that is to be done shall be in the nature of salvage, not of coming to the rescue, however, of the men who launched this scheme, who boasted of it, and who manipulated it in every conceivable way to the detriment of the individual and ultimately of the nation itself. The people will not stand for such attacks, and we are thoroughly convinced that the Government has no intention of granting the demands of this corporation.
I also wish to compliment the hon. Minister of Finance on his judicious tempering of the home market. He realizes what protection is. Hon. gentlemen opposite in many cases either are not fair or do not understand the meaning of protection. Protection may in some oases mean free trade. Protection is control; it is doing that which, considering all the interests of the nation together, is best suited to the individual interest which we may be considering. If free wheat, considering the general interest of this country, is best for the farmers and the agricultural interests, let us give it to them; but it is highly improper and wrong to say that that is the proposition before this country. The proposition before this country is to give free wheat, free flour and free semolina, an en-

tirely different matter. The idea is to give free wheat, which they can have at any time, but at the same time to give them control of the manufacturing market; our flour market, and our semolina market. That is an entirely different proposition and ought to be so considered. Yet hon. gentlemen opposite are not fair enough to consider it in that way. Moreover, they ignore the fact, when they say that the western farmers want free wheat, that the western farmers are not the only farmers in this country. The farmers in my district do not demand free wheat. This question must be considered properly; and sending up this everlasting prayer for freedom, for free wheat, free food and free everything else, is not the way in, which the affairs of this world are carried on. We are not living in any great earthly Sunday school; we are living in a place in which it takes us 'all our time to live and some of us do not know very well where we are going afterwards.
I will now endeavour to make a short reply to two of the gentlemen' who have preceded me. They have attacked militarism, backed up by all the splendours of the idealistic principle of peace. Every one knows that, if you are simply going to take it for granted that there is peace the world over, you are going to wake up a badly mistaken man; you will have your pockets rifled if no worse fate befalls you. It is not on the principle of peace that we have our police and other systems of protection. The most preposterous thing of all is that a party which proposes to spend an absolutely colossal sum on a navy, is growling about a few millions expended for militia purposes. If the Liberal plan of a navy is carried out, then I say:	Heaven
help Canada. I grant the militia expenditure is bad enough, but it is a mere bagatelle in comparison with what the Liberal party say they will do. Surely we are entitled to have a little consistency from these hon. gentlemen; we do not ask for much.
As to depression, the hon. gentlemen opposite point the finger of scorn at Canada and particularly at the Conservative party, charging us with being responsible for this depression. The hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) was candid enough to say that the depression was world-wide. Surely that is a sufficient answer unless it can be proved that the depression of Canada is extraordinary. How that can be proved in the face of expanding trade and
[Mr. Burnham. 3
a surplus of $36,000,000 passes my understanding.
Hon. gentlemen opposite speak about the agriculturists, but absolutely ignore all the patent facts arising from day to day. Do not we know that some of the products of the farm are coming from New Zealand and Australia by the shipload? If hon. gentlemen opposite do not know that fact, I can tell them that there are forming in this country to-day companies of Canadians who are shifting their basis of production, of manufacture, to the agency business and are actually preparing to receive large cargoes of farm produce from the Antipodes. One gentleman told me the other day that he had received a wire from Vancouver oi the arrival of a large shipment of butter from New Zealand, and that simultaneously the price of butter in Montreal and Toronto had fallen two cents a pound. Is that what hon. gentlemen opposite wish to offer the farmer of this country? If you want to make the price of food cheaper, that is the way to do it; but we want to protect the farmer and therefore we say: Keep on the duty. We want to build up Canada; we do not wish to build up the Antipodes, and therefore we say: Give us the power to do it. The absurdity that frequently arises is the incidence of 'taxation not the fact of protection. All that hon. gentlemen opposite have to do is to apply the simple geometric principle that, if you add the same thing to the same thing as a constant, the result must be practically and theoretically the same; that is to say, if we add fifty per cent protection to all interests and matters of production in this country, then each in relation to the other will be exactly in the same position as before, yet we shall have all the advantage of protection against other nations. That shows how easy it is to do these things which lion, gentlemen opposite say they do not understand. They point to the inequalities, to the improprieties which exist as if they were the principle, but a simple illustration shows how easy it is to establish the principle. That surely is a vindication of the principle, and I am bold enough to challenge anybody to deny it. It is a simple principle, and certainly cannot be gainsaid. The hon. member for Wright touched upon the alliance with the Nationalists in Quebec. Judging by the votes in this House, the Nationalists are not allied with us; they have voted consistently with the Liberal party here. I do not understand Nationalism myself, but if the Nationalists are people with whom

an alliance should not be made, why do these hon. gentlemen accept that alliance? And they do more than accept it, they profit by it. One strange error was made by the hon. member when he said that the farmers of this country were handicapped in not having the proper or usual securities of others allowed to them upon which to borrow. That is the very thing that was provided for last session in the Bank Act.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I did not say that. I was speaking of the labouring classes.


John Hampden Burnham: Did not the hon. gentleman mention farmers' security ?


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: If I did, it was a slip.


John Hampden Burnham: Then w6 agree that it is taken for granted that the farmer has the same facilities as others, and I am satisfied. I will now branch out on at least an equally important part of this great subject, and that is the rise of the new eastern question. We are well aware- to go back for a moment to first principles -that great movements develop slowly but they actually rise very quickly, and it is a wise people who watch and are ready ' to take occasion by the hand ' in connection with these movements. It is not necessary to go into this subject very deeply from the earliest up to the present time. But we may perhaps refer to the fact that it was the carelessness of the rich Babylonians that precipitated their overthrow. It was the carelessness of the Assyrians, in turn, which put them into the hands of the Medes and Persians.
It	was the luxury	and	carelessness	and	self-complacency	of	the	Medesand	Persians that	put	them	intothe	hands of Alexander	the	Great.
Through the same cause the Shepherd Kings in the early times were enabled to overcome Egypt and overcome its great civilization. The wreck of that great nation, that most ancient nation, was all that remained of it to adorn Grecian civilization. In the course of time that great nation, the Greek, was overthrown by the Romans. Then came the day of fate for the Romans, when the barbarians-our own ancestors, and particularly the ancestors of the Opposition-'Overthrew the Romans. And now we have to watch lest a still greater horde overthrow our civilization. You are well aware, Mr. Speaker, that there has been a great awakening in the East, and that great awakening has been due particularly to two things-the importation and assimilation of western
ideas involving the change from monarchy to republicanism in China, and the importation of western capital. When did it begin? It began the very moment that the tariff in the United States was sufficiently lowered. Wien, of course, it became an easy matter and a great inducement to capture this tremendous American market. And the American capitalist, and the American engineer in his employ, went to China, looked over the land and saw how well it was equipped, with plenty of cheap labour, with plenty of natural resources for them to take advantage of the accumulated wealth and prosperity of the United States, which necessarily will ultimately bring about the absolute breakdown of American labour and American civilization. There is no possible way out of it. The highest paid artisan in China gets 30 cents a day; the ordinary labourer gets 5 cents a day. The Chinese are learning by various means the arts of the western workman, and it will be a long, long time before his ambition or necessities compel him to ask what the western workman gets, namely, all the way from $2 to $5 per day. We find that China contains everything necessary for great economic development. She has coal and iron of the very best quality; she is capable of producing vast quantities of agricultural products; she also has an enormous population. And, since they have a religion which requires them to worship their ancestors, it is necessary for them always to provide the ancestors. As a consequence there are no bachelors and no old maids in China. They must all get married, and they must all have chidren,

and they do. So that source of supply is well provided for. In looking over the China Year-Book, I find that every province of China has plenty of coal and iron of such condition and in such position that it is easily got at and easily worked. In one steel works alone 20,000 men aTe employed. They also have plenty iof copper, lead, antimony, gypsum, gold, and in fact all economic minerals required in manufacturing. And they have a large number of factories. Of cotton spinning and weaving mills they have no less than forty-one; they have also chemical works, cement and brick works, furniture factories, glass works, iron and steel works, leather works, mining companies, oil mills, paper mills, printing works, railway works, rope factories, sawmills, silk mills, smelting works, soap and candle factories, tea factories and sugar refineries. They are well on the way, you

see, to become a great manufacturing nation. All that was necessary was western capital and western management, and these are being given with a lavish hand at the present time. The increase in the export of native Chinese goods to foreign countries has increased wonderfully. For instance in the export of animals, including cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, mules and poultry, the increase has been extremely rapid within a few years. Cotton, especially raw cotton has been exported in vast quantities; it is soon to become a factor in the world. We find that they are also exporting wheat flour, furniture, glassware and matting. Their export of matting, with the low tariff we have and the cheap labour they have, has 'broken up our matting factories-I happen to have a knowledge of that. One thing is evident about the opposition in this matter, and it is this:	When' they cry free
trade, they do not mean it. I have been amazed to hear hon. gentlemen talk free trade and then get up, one after the other, and say they are for protection. Are we not entitled to some consistency and fair-dealing in this matter? I think we are. There is no use coming here if it is merely for the purpose of engaging in a battle of wits, in contradictions and in inconsistencies. Let us be reasonable in this matter, and we may get away from here before the 1st of July.
The Chinese have shown themselves to be expert financiers, easily adapting themselves to 'Complicated situations, and their budget is a fine type of skill and correct book-keeping. Their shipping is not what it ought to be, but they are shortly to begin the construction of ships. They have the men, they have the skill, they have the ambition, and they will very soon have the ships. When they have the ships and the manufactures, the cattle and the sheep and the poultry and the eggs and all the rest of it, they then will be able to ship them over here at low rates. This world would be all right as a free trade world if the people and various civilizations were all equal, but they are not. Distinctions -must be made; those distinctions must be preserved, and they can only be preserved by control. Free circulation of commodities and of capital cannot possibly be permitted if the conditions which naturally follow in their train are to be so vastly different in different communities.
A very singular and instructive thing in connection with the lowering of the tariff in the United States is the fact that Cuba and Chili have suddenly sprung into prominence as sources of supply for iron ore.

In Chile there is an immense mountain of iron ore, said to be wondrously rich. They can run the ore by means of a wire rope from that mountain to the ships in the harbour, and the ships convey it round to the American steel works in the United States, which are built near the water's edge. Thus the Chilian people supply iron ore to the Americans, with the result that Chilian prosperity is rapidly rising. I am sure that we wish no harm to Chile, but we do not wish it to expand at the expense of the American people, and certainly not at the expense of our own people. The same thing happened in Cuba. There a great supply of iron ore has been discovered, and, just like the Chilian ores, it has driven back all the western or Lake Superior ores-driven them almost out of the market. The American steel manufacturer wants cheaper ore; the American machinist wants cheaper machinery; the American consumer wants cheaper product, and the labourer has to suffer as a consequence. Capital can go anywhere. Capital wants cheap food, cheap ore, cheap raw material, as soon as it attains an export basis. The manufacturer in the United States has ceased to care about local labour; he is quite willing to let in cheap labour and the products of cheap labour from abroad, to the detriment and ruin of his own people, so long as he himself makes plenty of money. That is the peculiarity of free trade; the rich become richer under free trade, and the poor poorer. The capitalist does not want protection; what he wants is that the whole world should be in competition, each community with the other, and that the people of all nations should come and beg him to partake of their labour. The minute you have free trade in labour, and the minute you have free trade in labour's products, the capitalist can go where the vantage ground is best-in Canada, China, or Africa, or wherever it may be-while poor Chinese or East Indians are doing his work. In the meantime, Coxie's army is marching upon Washington, and the Liberal Opposition here are crying out about stagnation in Canada. These are the facts, and it is necessary for us to look at them carefully, because our doom is impending if we do not rise to the occasion.
India also is very rapidly developing in this particular. India has laTge steel works, and we find that she is .shipping manufactured steel and pig iron to San Francisco, in face of the $2.50 per ton duty-and, of course, when that duty was

wiped off, they made just that much more profit. These products have been shipped in immense and rapidly-increasing quantities; that is just what is happening at the present moment, and that is what will happen. It will not be long before the American people realize that it is better to be a Mexican or a Hindu or a Chinaman than an American, because if you are a Hindu or a Chinaman you will get work from American capital, whereas if you are an American citizen you will not. Either capital must be harnessed, or labour must be protected.
I was glad to hear the hon. member for Wright speaking about immigration as he did. Like all things, immigration should be tempered; it should be kept within bounds-that is protection. The hon. gentleman voiced .a loud wail against protection one minute, and demanded it the next. He demanded protection against the labourer and the workingman-that is what he did; and that is nothing more or less than pure protection. It is another of those glaring inconsistencies which are so prevalent in hon. gentlemen of the Opposition, but I shall not say anything about these inconsistencies so long as they come home to those who are concerned with them. I shall not object as long as these gentlemen find out the truth in the end; sometimes they only find it out at election time, but so long as they find it out, I am content.
As I endeavoured to point out, capital does not require protection, neither does the consumer want protection. The consumer as consumer wants the cheapest posssible food and raiment, but the two classes that must have protection are labour and agriculture. Because if agriculture is not protected as we have seen, then it, too, must go the way of all flesh and has in addition to cheap labour to struggle against inequalities of climate. We have Gorgas the man who enabled them to build the Panama canal, the greatest sanitary engineer of this or any other age, who has been sent for abroad, who, after making the death rate in Panama and the canal zone less than that of New York, city, has gone to Africa and discovered the causes of plague there. He says he can make Africa as pleasant and healthful to live in as any person would desire, and, as he says, the return in the tropics for toil is four times that to men in the temperate zones, all you need to do is to rescue the tropics from the curse of bad sanitation and
you have their cheap products thrown on the market too. The occupants of the temperate zones must either go then into the torrid zone or suffer the consequences.
It may be just as well at this juncture to cite what the editor of the Toronto Globe said at Providence, Rhode Island, on March 27:
There can be no ' yellow peril ' on the Pacific coast threatening one English-speaking interest alone, said Dr. ,T. A. Macdonald, of Toronto, and a member of the world's Peace Foundation, addressing the New England Manufacturing; Jewellers and Silversmiths Association last night.
The scaremongers tell us, Dr. Macdonald said, that a struggle is coming. They say it will he on the Pacific. But if it comes it will be one struggle all the way from San Diego and the Mexican frontier to the snow fastnesses of the Yukon.
He has evidently thought the question fully over and knows what he is speaking of. I would commend his remarks to hon. gentlemen opposite.
In order to make my case as strong as possible, it will be necessary for me, especially as this question has not been introduced in the House before, so far as I am aware, to quote some, passages from recent works of prominent and credible men. I quote from an article in Public Opinion, an English magazine that has existed for more than fifty years, and, as every magazine reader knows, ranks with the Nation, the Athenaeum and the Academy:
Mr. Eddy's opening chapter fills out the glowing picture of ' The Renaissance of Asia.' A more astonishing set of facts surely are not to be found m any other thirty-nine pages of type. They show the ceaseless work of the roaring looms of time.
During seven months of 1912-13, in a journey across Asia, including India, Burma, Ceylon, the Straits! Settlements* China, Korea, and Japan, the writer has been impressed with a great awakening that is sweeping over the whole of that vast continent of Asia. The same principles that created our Western civilization are at work to-day in the ancient East, bringing about the same great transformations there that they wrought in the West. So vast and widespread is this awakening that it might well he called ' The Renaissance of Asia.' And yet it is more than this; it is an intellectual renaissance, a religious reformation, and a nineteenth century of scientific and industrial development all combined. Greater in volume, in depth, and in power than the Renaissance in Europe four centuries ago, it may prove to be even greater in significance also. The population in the fifteenth century was less than one hundred millions, while that of Asia to-day is over nine hundred millions. Greater in rapidity than the awakening in the West, this combined renaissance and reformation is crowding into decades in Asia what was the slow growth of centuries in Europe.

Further, he says:
The economic awakening or Asia is as clearly marked as the political and intellectual. During the latter half of the nineteenth century tlie trade of India increased fourfold and that ot China sixfold, while that of Japan has increased sevenfold in twenty years. But the twentieth century will see far greater developments in the East than in the nineteenth.
The chimneys of the great factories of Osaka and Calcutta tower like those of Birmingham. We travelled round the world on Jaranese steamship lines, comfortable, highly efficient, and paying dividends, while some of the American lines on the Pacific can scarcely pay expenses.'
China has the greatest coalfields in the world. Shansi province has enough to supply it for a thousand years. American steel magnates say they cannot compete with Chinese iron on the Pacific coast.
I shall further call attention to a remarkable publication headed ' Shall the White Races Dominate the World ' by Major Stewart L. Murray. Of this Public Opinion says:
Major Stewart D. Murray calls upon the Anglo-Saxons of the British Empire and the white men of Europe and the United States to stand together so that they may hold dominion in the world.
Major Murray writes in the Nineteenth Century, and his article is extremely lucid and interesting, and many will agree with his arguments" and aims who do not accept his God's-white-man point of view.
He calls for ' an Anglo-Saxon policy ' because there are ' causes at work to-day which, if adequate counter-precautions are not taken by us, may in the fullness of time result in the expulsion of our race from Australia, New Zeland, and Africa, where we are least firmly established.'
In the event of a great European war he sees ' Europe, including Great Britain, helpless and impotent as regards the Pacific. Then will come the opportunity of the Japanese, with the Chinese behind them.' 'Africa is beginning to stir; Asia is beginning to arm.'
If we can only hold the Anglo-Saxon lands for the next fifty years all may end well,' says Major Murray; 'the Yellow Danger, at least in its acute and menacing phase, may pass away and be succeeded by some working agreement.
And let us note what Napoleon said:
Napoleon at St. Helena foretold that 'the force of circumstances' would eventually drive the European powers into some form of union.
These statements are given, great prominence in the English press, and it is not for us, who have already received our warning in a more practical way to ignore them. We have already had to take measures on the Pacific coast to prevent an undue influx of the Orientals. It has given, rise to a great deal of trouble and heart-burning, but they are only the skirmishers, they are only the outposts of 900,000,000 of people of which 150,000,000 are working-men, who

are only too eager and too willing to get an opportunity to trade which would enable them to compete with us and to put us out of sight in the great world competition. Then we would know what stagnation meant; then we would know that our working-men who must draw from $2 to $4 to make a decent living, would have to become as Chinese and Orientals or suffer the consequences. We see how the Chinese who are here work. They all live togther in their laundries in a way that we do not consider proper for white people to live, but that does not seem to attract our attention particularly. We do not seem to observe that these men aTe in direct competition with our own. They are very successful, they have cornered the laundry market, although they charge high prices. The simple reason is that their cheap living enables them to have a margin of profit that prevents white competition. Would any hon. member in this House dare to say that he believes in the free admission of the Oriental or of the products of Oriental labour? Any one who would dare to say that would not be a member of this House after the next election. It is too absurd, it is too plain, it is something that he who runs may read and understand. To temper it is protection; and these gentlemen will employ protection, still howling for free trade, something which the hon. member for Rouville frankly said was a mere fanciful dream-and that is all it is.
I also have something here from the Free Press of Winnipeg, in which the manager of the Ogilvie Milling Company says:
As soon as there is a fair market for high grades, the milling will be done in Japan and China where it can he done cheaper than in Canada or the United States.
The next thing the Ogilvie Milling capitalists will do will be to go to China or India or perhaps to Africa, to employ cheap labour there and then ship the goods back here. There is nothing to prevent it.
It is interesting to note the immigration to the United States of America since 1825. From Austria-Hungary about 3,000,000; Germany about five and a half million; American countries other than the United States, one and a half million; Russia, one and a quarter million; Ireland, nearly 5,000,000; and Canada 1,100,000, mostly French; from England a little over 3,000,000. You see, Mr. Speaker, there has been a vast immigration from those countries, and as pointed out by the hon. member for

Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) a very great immigration from free trade England. Immigration such as that indicates two things, first of all that it is necessary to leave that country to get work, and, secondly, it makes better conditions for those left behind.
I wish to turn for a moment to what I regard as of almost equal importance', what seems to me the foundation of all economic life-I refer to the minimum wage. The whole case of labour unrest is based upon that. The great bulk of labour unrest is absolutely genuine and is caused by the fact that labour has aspired to a higher civilization than labour is able to maintain. Those people who are not prepared to assist labour in maintaining that civilization condemn it to degeneration and to a degradation to which labour will never submit. A standard of life is something that is possible. It is something that can be guaranteed and as long as there is some point to start from variations can be made. The point that is started from at the present day is the reward of capital. If capital is well rewarded it will continue to employ; if it is not, it will cease to employ and labour will consequently suffer. But if the basis of all calculations was the minimum wage that labour can exist upon and develop the civilization of which we were speaking, there would be no further difficulty. The cost of living would be higher, but the ratio would be the same. Whatever else happens there must be a living wage-I emphasize the words ' living wage.' The testimony given before the Old Age Pension Committee, the testimony on this subject before every committee held here or anywhere else, goes to show that there must be a falling off in the standard of life if labour is to be able to live. I am not speaking of well-paid labour; I am speaking 'of that very large proportion of underpaid labour. A living wage makes no difference to the employer because if he has to pay so much more to labour he can charge so much more, but it makes all the difference in the world to labour, and when a thing can be so easily done-I am sure you will find that this proposition is economically and scientifically sound-why is it not done? Why is it that charges and counter-charges are hurled across the floor of this House which if true show that both sides have plundered this country of millions and millions of dollars. I hope that it is not true, but the gentlemen on this side have said it about the gentlemen there, and the gentlemen there have said it about the gentlemen on this
side, either they have all actually plundered the country or the people who made the charges have said what is not true. You can take your choice. It is a very painful alternative. If one half of it is true, labour, agricultural and industrial, could have been endowed and be living in comfort. We have been sustaining more or less a lot of tramps, not necessarily in rags but tramps in fine clothes, and it has got to be stopped. Common sense must be infused into the conduct of the industrial, agricultural and economic affairs of this country. This frightful waste must be stopped. Is it not a remarkable thing that in one day of the week labour could produce all that is required for the maintenance of all the people of this world in comfort, if it were not that people are so greedy and so desirous of laying up wealth in the form of capital for their own aggrandisement and luxury and enjoymeiit that they will not hand it out because it would lower the market. Yet it is a fact that one day's labour a week would provide all the people of this world with a comfortable living. There must be a screw loose somewhere, when we consider that men have to work long hours every day of the week. I am sorry the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. M. Clark) is not here to-night. He might believe me when I say that the public reports show what I am unable to believe, namely that 576,000 children under 14 years of age have to work in England for their living, and some of them are no older than three. England has been able to compete in the world's market because when a mechanic or an artisan gets married there his wife goes to the factory and helps him to earn a living and if they have children they also go out and bring in money when they are old enough. In Canada the man is supposed to provide for the home, the wife does the work of the home and is supposed to maintain herself in comfort and perhaps some dignity and her children. She is not supposed to be a domestic and industrial slave. We do not want that kind, of thing in this country. Nowhere in the world ought there to be such a high standard of life- as in Canada to-day and we must see that it is not lowered by competition from anywhere. Mr. Lloyd-George-I am sure his authority will not be impeached, has written the preface for the forthcoming volume of Professor Ernst Sieper's series of monographs dealing with the whole range of the culture of England to-day.
Professor Sieper, who occupies the chair of English Philology at the University of Munich, has, in his work of familiarizing

Germany with English conditions and achievements, the support of the German-English Friendship Committee, and this particular volume of the series he edits deals with the new social reforms that have been brought into force in England.
What does Mr. Lloyd George say? He says:
Not too late, perhaps, but certainly not too soon, we are beginning to apply sound com-n ercial principles to national life and enterprise.
He says there must be higher wages for a vast body of men. He goes on:
But there was also the national aspect of the question. No nation whose prosperity depends upon its industrial efficiency can afford to tolerate on a large scale deplorable labour conditions of the kind which made the Trade Boards Act necessary.
The Trades Boards Act is the Act just passed in England.
For of what use is it to level up the condition of the working classes by Factory, Insurance and other Acts while at the same time it is subject all along the line to the downward pull of a mass of underpaid labour, altogether outside the influence of organization.
That is the condition of affairs in England. It is idle to keep on indulging in various forms of recrimination. Let us look at things as they are critically and seriously and endeavour, if possible, to profit by it. We find that the majority report of the Poor Law Commission in England states that:
No country, however rich, can permanently hold its own in the race of international competition if hampered by an increasing load of this weight, or can successfully perform the role of sovereignty beyond the seas if a portion of its own folk at home are sinking below the civilization and aspirations of its subject races abroad.
That is a very severe indictment, hut it is the report of the Poor Law Board of 1909:
Nearly five years later, the Times makes the melancholy confession that the amount of destitution now existing in London is greater than it was at the end of the last century.
Then the report says that it is utterly useless for the Board of Guardians to attempt to deal with this situation as ' it i= impotent to touch the roots of destitution.' That is, of course, the underpayment of labour.	[DOT]
The next thing on the programme, however, is to look at the Bank Report. There we see the rewards of capital and there see that the average accumulation of profits is at the rate of twenty-one per cent. We can see no suffering on the part of capital.

At no time has capital suffered to any alarming extent. There should be some remedy. If this enormous profit can be obtained for capital, is there no way to obtain a little decent living for these destitute people, who should he rescued, who are willing to work and who cannot find employment? Is there no way of relieving this condition? Is it possible that in this twentieth century we are more concerned about the tariff, about politics and about procedure than 11 p.m. about life? Is there no man who has the intellect, the ability, the influence wibh the public and who represents the public, who will get up and, as Lloyd George is endeavouring to do in England, try to equalize the conditions of this country so that all men who have no capital but their labour and health, both somewhat uncertain, shall have a chance? I am not speaking in any sentimental strain. I am not discussing it in that way, I am talking about it as a matter of ordinary justice. This condition has continued for a long time and it can he done away with by the adoption of the minimum wage. All those who do not come within the scope of the minimum wage and steady employment will have to be taken care of under any system-it does not matter what. It is not those people that I am considering. I am considering the people who are well, strong and willing to work and yet can not find work, and who, if they do find work, have either to sacrifice their civilization or submit to underpayment. These are the things that concern us and it is for us to accept the burden of endeavouring to provide some solution. We seem to be at the very beginning of our civilization. If we could look upon a fairly contented people without being conscience stricken, if we could say that the psople who are not able to enjoy .the fruits of their toil are only the people who are not able to toil and who must be provided for by public munificence and perhaps by private charity, well and good, but to condemn so large a number of able a,nd willing men to all the risks and privations of non-employment, is to neglect the most important and fundamental part of our national existence.
I nave only now a few words to say about the disagreement between the free traders and the pseudo free traders. We know, for example, that capital thrives particularly upon inventions. We know that it is the patent rights that the great concerns own that are really the foundation of their prosperity and the life of their enterprise. If they had to give up their patents they

would be done for. Inventions are the source of a large proportion of the profits of industrial capital. But every time there is an invention, every time an invention is registered, it is just so much taken away from the workingman. That shows how tremendously in his legitimate sphere the workman is handicapped.
I have some letters here, one from local union No. 78 of the Brotherhood of Operative Potters, at St. Johns, Quebec. I had hoped that the hon. member for St. Johns and Iberville (Mr. Demers) would have been here to-night. I think he is not very well, but I know that he agrees with the request of these people that they shall be afforded protection against the underpaid labour of. England, the competition of which has compelled the works at St. Johns which makes white glazed ware far superior to the sort they make in England, to go out of business. There has been a lockout, not through any spirit of unfairness, but simply because this ware could be made cheaper in Staffordshire. The operation of the British preference has resulted in throwing out of employment these people who are nearly all old countrymen, principally Scotchmen. They say: Why did you not tell us that we would have to go back here to old country conditions and send our wives and daughters out to work? If you had, we would have stayed in the old country; but you told us that you protected your labour here. You do not, because we have had to go out of business. Here are these people who left the old country to avoid the degrading conditions existing there and gradually falling wages and came out here to improve their position, subjected to a lock-out. I have their own statement. It is not necessary to read it unless somebody challenges my statement, but the facts are there. These men paid their own way up here to present their ease. They say that they have been out of work for a long time, that they have no prospects, and they do not know what else they can work at. Are we to understand that we prefer the works of Staffordshire and Lancashire to our own works in this country? Are we to tell these men that they must send their wives and daughters out to work, and that they have to produce the same output and accept the same rate of pay as in Staffordshire? Are we to tell them that they have to go back to the old conditions or else remain out of work? That is the alternative. T have here the written 167
statement from these old countrymen in that regard. The writer set it out at great length. It is certainly convincing; it is absolutely and practically true. I also have a communication from the secretary of the Cobalt Miners' Union, in which he says:
The social unrest is so reat, so deep and the workers' economic condition growing worse so rapidly, we are afraid armed revolution will break out In several countries before long. Great Britain, Germany and the United States are drawing very close to the breaking point. Parliamentary action seems too slow, owing to constitutional and state restrictions. International capital has also completed its circle around the world. It will not be long before the cotton, oil and steel industries, etc., in China will, with their exploitation of cheap labour, become a real danger to our home industries.
He speaks of changed conditions even there. Foreign competition has had its effect even in Cobalt, and he says it is impossible, for him to maintain, without any waste or extravagance whatever, the ordinary common condition of a respectable workingman, as he has done in the past, although he has constant employment, because the prices have to come down owing to foreign competition.
I suppose that the Conservatives are to a certain extent to blame for the condition of unemployment in the industrial centres, because when they came into power they promised a development of the home market for the agriculturists, and the home market has developed so rapidly that it has over-developed and has thrown the country somewhat out of balance. The farmers found that the home market, the manufacturing centres, had developed so rapidly that they left the farms. The promise of the Conservatives has been carried out in a marvellous manner. It was denied that the home market would ever develop, but it has developed. These conditions must be to a certain extent equalized, and the Minister of Finance has begun that equalization by lowering the tariff on agricultural implements, something that our hon. friends opposite neglected to do.
Under free trade, cheapness is the great consideration. The only way in which the free trader can command the home market, let alone the foreign market, is by superior cheapness. Cheapness is the death of civilization; it is the ruin of the hopes of those people who would rise above the level of the beast. It is a false theory; the standard should be a true and proper level of economic living where not cheapness but having our own market would be the



rule. If we had our own market, and no other market in the world, in, a short time, with all our great natural advantages, we would have an ideal country to live in. Every industry would be balanced with every other; we would have plenty. This balance of industry is dislocated by such things as the British preference and the competition from abroad.
Apparently, we began at too high a standard, and we shall have to lower it. It will not be observed, perhaps, for some time, but it will ultimately be observed that if these conditions under the existing circumstances right themselves, it will be at the sacrifice o'f the life of the people. Something has to give way. If we are going to have the cheapness which will enable us to control the foreign market and the domestic market against general competition, it must be at somebody's expense; it must be at our own expense and it will be felt in the lowering of the life conditions of our people. It amazes me sometimes to hear the hon. member fox Red Deer (Mr. Clark) speak about the balance of trade, as if it did not make any difference at all whether or not you spent more money than you had. According to him, under free trade, if you did not get the money back, why, it was your own fault; that is to say, we could buy more abroad than we sold and, once the goods came in, we ought to be perfectly happy. That may satisfy him, but I do not think it will satisfy any one else who has given the subject any thought. You may analyse the matter as deeply as you like, but it is just as simple as the case of an ordinary man who spends more money than he makes and who has to draw on his natural resources or receive assistance from -somewhere. The consequences is that all we should be making of our immense natural resources- and advantages is going abroad in interest on capital, in the repayment of capital and in the paying for goods which we should manufacture in Canada. It is positively absurd to send money abroad; to borrow money from abroad and send it -abroad to pay for goods which we can manufacture in Canada, 'his condition could all be brought about by imposing a uniform rate of duty on everything and making it sufficiently high to be protective. I aim not in favour of what is called high protection and certainly not in favouT of unequalized protection, but I am in favour of that protection which will protect and keep us up to a

high level .and standard of excellence in our life and in our industries whether agricultural or mechanical.
The conditions in the country at the present time -are indicative of a slight slump. They are so in the United States, in M-ex-ico and in the various older countries, except perhaps in France, which, as we all know, is the most highly protected country in the world and which is -absolutely the richest and most prosperous of all countries. If we must point to examples -and certainly it is only from our experience that we can draw conclusions, unless we follow the everlasting mistake made by the free tr-ade theorist, who insists upon drawing his conclusions from a priori principles, and who believes that he is inspired by the knowledge of the true principles of Government and of economic life. Therefore he begins to draw his conclusions from his inspiration, and, though he runs up against all sorts of absurdities he simply continues to cry ' Freedom ! Freedom !3 as if every difficulty must be solved by that means. It is time to realize that this ancient theory of inspiration, of dogmatism, is long past and gone. Sensible people, scientific people, now observe and make use of their observations, drawing conclusions from what they see, not from what they have thought beforehand. This it is that justifies us in altering our position from time to time, whether it be with regard to protection or free trade, or living wage, or anything else. And so when conditions demand that we should put up the bars, we put them up, and we put them high enough to keep out a race that threatens our supremacy, or to keep out their goods which would stop our machines from working. We must consider what the conditions are and take our precautions accordingly. But for. the recognition of that principle, nothing modern would have been discovered, since it is by the same process of observation and reason, and the adaptation of means to ends, that all discoveries and inventions have been possible. Only in this way have the wonderful improvements been made in the industrial world-the development of such things as the air compressor, also the new gas engines driven by gas from the chimney tops of smelters and reduction works which formerly went to waste. Only by means of observation and effort to meet conditions were such things achievable. Formerly all these things were attributed merely to

freedom, and especially freedom of trade-* let that be the rule, it was said, and everything will be lovely. That old policy is played out, and if it is not played out, it is time it was, because its very friends are deserting it. I have here, but shall not read, the Monthly Notes of Tariff Reform in which are many amusing instances of declarations by free traders, that is by the present British Government, that they will provide for .all the anomalies that may arise from time to time by the violation of the free-trade principle. And so they will go stumbling along in the good old English way, trusting that things will turn out right in the end, as they did at the time of the Spanish Armada, when they did not know what was going to happen next. But the painful fact about all this is that its free trade triumphs lie in following the line of least resistance, and that line of least resistance is the under-paid labour of those who are compelled to sell their labour to live. This spells ruin for the labouring class, who then must be upheld by factory Acts, insurance Acts, old age pensions, and all sorts of contrivances and palliatives which are substituted for protection. True, in the United States they suffer also, but what they suffer from is not from a great national prosperity they ought to have but do not have, but from the inequalities of protection. We do not deny that causes of complaint arise under protection; protection may be misused, as everything else is likely to be misused if people hold to it long enough-it seems to me that nowadays it is better not to even lay your watch down, for somebody will steal it; there was a time when nobody thought of such a thing. But protection may be the triumph of one class over another as it is the triumph of one industrial system over another. These things must be provided for, they must be controlled by Governments. But do not let us confuse these things with the other issues we are discussing, namely, the inability of the man without capital to protect himself against the man with capital, under free trade.
On motion of Mr. Robb, the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Rogers, the House adjourned at 11.22 p.m.
Friday, April 17, 1914.