1914-04-08

PRIVATE BILL.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 154, respecting The Grand Trunk Railway Company of 'Canada and The Canada Atlantic Railway Company.-Mr. Fripp.


Right Hon. R. L. BORDEN (Prime Minister) :: Mr. Speaker, I would like,.

with the consent of the House, to mention the recent appalling disaster that has overtaken a great many persons engaged in the sealing industry of Newfoundland. The latest reports seem to indicate that the disaster is even greater than was at first apprehended, as nothing has been heard of one of the ships, the Southern Cross, although two steamers are, I believe, still engaged in endeavouring to find some trace of that vessel. Some days ago I sent a telegram to the acting Prime Minister, the Hon. John R. Bennett-Sir Edward Morris, the Prime Minister, being absent. The telegram was in these words:
Ottawa, Ont., April 4, 1914.
The Acting Prime Minister,
St John's, Newfoundland.
On behalf of the Government and people of Canada my colleagues and I desire to express our profound sympathy with the people of Newfoundland in the terrible disaster to the seal hunters, tidings of which we have just received.
(Sgd) R. L. Borden.
To which the following reply was received on the same day:
St. John's, Nfld., 4th April, 1914. Rt. Hon. R. L. Borden,
Prime Minister,
Ottawa, Ont.
Sincere thanks for kind expressions of sympathy from yourself, Government ar.d people of Canada, which I am sure will be greatly appreciated by the people of this colony.
(Sgd) J. R. Bennett, Acting Prime Minister.
Yesterday I addressed a further telegram to the acting Prime Minister in these word3:
Ottawa, Ont., Yth April, 1914. Hon. J. It. Bennett,
Acting Prime Minister,
St. John's, Newfoundland.
With consent of your Government I propose submitting to Parliament an appropriation in aid of families of those lost in recent calamity and of survivors. Kindly let me know whether your Government will approve. I hope you have news of Southern Cross.
(Sgd) R. L. Borden.
To which, this morning, I received the following reply:
St. John's, Nfld., April 8, 1914. The Rt. Hon. R. L. Borden,
Ottawa, Ont.
Have submitted your message to ministers who greatly appreciate the practical expression of sympathy from the Government of your great Dominion. Government and people here will gratefully accept such contribution as you may offer in behalf of the sufferers by the sealing disaster. Regret that up to the present no tidings have been received of Southern Cross,

but search is still being prosecuted by two steamers.
(Sgd) John R. Bennett, Acting Prime Minister.
The calamity which has befallen those engaged in this arduous pursuit is a very great one, as I have a private telegram that *seems to indicate that nearly 250 lives will have been lost, assuming that the Southern Cross will not be heard from ag?in. It seemed to the Government appropriate that, under the circumstances, the sympathy, which is undoubtedly felt by all the members of this House, by all the people of Canada, towards the Government and people of Newfoundland, and particularly towards those who have suffered by this calamity, should be expressed also in a practical form, as I suggested in the telegram sent yesterday. 1 wish to announce that the Government purposes submitting to Parliament an appropriation of $10,000 for this purpose.
Right Hon. Sir WILiFRID LAUR1ER: The action of the Prime Minister in communicating with the Newfoundland Government,'under the sad circumstances, is worthy of all commendation. On this side of the House we shall be happy to join with my right hon. friend in extending the sympathy of the Dominion in the practical manner he has suggested. While I have no doubt that the Government of Newfoundland is quite capable of extending what relief may be needed, still, being so closely related as we are to our sister colony, the proposal of the Prime Minister meets with hearty support on this side of the House.



QUESTIONS.

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

Mr. CRUISE:: 1.	Has the Government received a demand lor a conciliation board from certain conductors of the Canadian Northern railway in Manitoba and Saskatchewan?
2.	If so, what are the nam6s of the applicants and what was the nature of such demands?
3.	Is it the intention of the Government to grant such request? If not, why not?


Mr. CROTHERS:: 1.	Yes.
2.	(a) Henry Edward Barker, George Morden Anderson. (b) Reinstatement by company of five conductors dismissed

on charges of alleged violation of the Secret Commission Act.
3.	The application is under consideration.


OTTAWA LEASED BUILDINGS.
Mr. MACDONALD:: 1.	Has the Government leased any part of the Temple building, Ottawa?
2.	If so, how much of it, for what term and at what price?


Mr. ROGERS:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Part of ground and first floors for 5 years from 15th November, 1913, at 75 cents a superficial foot, or $6,141 per annum.


Mr. CARVELL:: 1.	Has the Government leased a part of a building in Ottawa belonging to the Journal Publ shing Company or to Mr. P. D. Ross?
2.	If so, for what term and at what price?


Mr. ROGERS:: 
KINGSTON PENITENTIARY INQUIRY.
Mr. EDWARDS:: 1.	How many days were occupied at Kingston by each of the Penitentiary Commissioners in investigating conditions at Kingston penitentiary?
2.	How much was paid to each commissioner for the above service?
3.	How many days were occupied by each of the penitentiary commissioners outside of Kingston in connection with their investigations?
4.	How much was paid to each commissioner for the above service?
5.	How much has been paid to date to each commissioner for his services, his living allowance and his travelling expenses respectively, and how much is still due each commissioner on each of these?
6.	How much has been paid to each of the counsel employed to assist the commissioners and how much is still due to them?
7.	How much has been paid to cover expenses of witnesses testifying before the commission?


Mr. DOHERTY:: 1,	2, 3, 4. Tire accounts have not yet been submitted.
5.	The only payment as yet made to the commissioners are sundry advances on account of incidental and travelling expenses, .amounting to $2,250.
6.	To H. A. Stewart, $731.95; to C. R. Webster, $322.61. Nothing is still due them.
7.	Final accounts not yet submitted. Inspector Hughes has been paid travelling expenses, amounting to $262.66.


PORT DANIEL LOBSTER HATCHERY.
Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	Does the Department of Marine and Fisheries intend to make any improvements at the Port Daniel West hatchery this season for the purpose of securing a better result than that obtained last year, and what are these improvements?
2.	At what distance from the hatchery did the officer in charge reside during the past season, and did the staff employed there have any previous experience at all in their work?


Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	An extra strainer is being attached to the intake pipe, and a different kind of faucets and tubes will be used and the fry tanks rearranged.
2.	His house is at Port Daniel Centre, about six miles from the hatchery. He spent twelve hours daily at the hatchery throughout the season. Four of the staff had previous experience.


LAKE ERIE BUOY SERVICE.
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Mr. PARDEE:: I desire to call the attention of the Minister of Marine to the following telegram which has been received:
Marine Department accepted bid of Kenneth Frazier for Lake Erie and Detroit river buoy service. Frazier's tug John Monk, not registered Canadian vessel as required by specifications, my tender lowest complying with specifications in every respect, enter protest against awarding contract to Frazier; obtain explanation why department's action.
Is the statement in this telegram true, that the tug which has been awarded this service is an American bottom?


Mr. HAZEN:: This is a question that might properly, I think, be given the ordinary notice of. I may say, however, that the Department of Marine asked for tenders for the buoy service on the Detroit river and lake Erie, and the lowest tenderer was Mr. Kenneth Frazier, who stated that he would perform the service with a tug called the Monk, and he would have it Canadian registered. I was informed at the department this morning that steps were being taken to have that tug registered in Canada. In order to be registered in Canada, it will have to be brought into Canada and the duty upon it would have to be paid. Then it would have to be examined by the technical officers of the department to see if it is such a tug as could be registered in Canada. These are the facts, so far as I know, at the present moment.


THE BUDGET.
[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Hon. W. T. White (Minister of Finance) for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means, resumed from Tuesday, April 7.
Mr. J. G. TURRIFF (Assiniboia), resuming:	Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my
thanks to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) for allowing me to adjourn the debate last night at eleven o'clock. I was then dealing with the duty on agricultural implements, and I was pointing out that the Budget Speech delivered on Monday last was a raw, cold deal for the farmers; that the farmer had got practically nothing, and that the manufacturers got practically everything that was given by that Budget. I pointed out that the reduction of five per cent on the duty on binders and mowers would mean $5 on a binder and $2.50 on a mower, and as these implements would ordinarily last from eight to ten years, that therefore each farmer was getting a reduction of about ninety cents per annum. While the Minister of Finance (Mr. W. T. White) did that with one hand, on the other hand he enabled the manufacturers to take ten or twenty dollars a year out of the pockets of the farmers, by the increase in the price of materials, in giving the manufacturers increased duties on iron and steel. The Minister of Finance stated that the reason he was able to put these two items on the free list was because the Canadian manufacturers of binders and mowers had been so successful that they were able to compete with the whole world. But the hon. gentleman might as well have said, in so many words, that the manufacturers of all other Canadian implements were behind the times, that they were not able to compete, and that they were not able to make as good an article as could be imported into Canada. I take issue with the Finance Minister. I sold Massey-Harris implements for a good many years, and I would not say the Canadian manufacturers could not make as good a wagon, or as good a plough, or as good a seeder, or as good a disc, or as good a disc-harrow, or as good a rake, or as good a manure-spreader, or as good any other kind of implement, as could any other manufacturer. The reason given by the Minister of Finance is, therefore, not a good reason for making the reduction on these two specific items. If my argument is right, it means that while 
the farmer has an advantage of $5 on a binder and $2.50 on a mower, yet the Canadian farmer is to be salted because in the opinion of the Minister of Finance the Canadian manufacturer cannot make other implements as good as those we import. That is the logical conclusion of my hon. friend's argument. If I am misrepresenting him, I shall be very glad to be corrected ; but I do not think I am misrepresenting his argument, and that would be the last thing I would think of doing.
Mr. W. T. WHITE:: I do not assent to the view that my hon. friend is not misrepresenting my argument, but of course I do him the justice of saying that he is not wilfully misrepresenting me.


Mr. TURRIFF:: All right; we will leave it at that-difference of opinion. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance, during the course of his speech, told us that he himself made an investigation of the books of the different manufacturers of agricultural implements in Canada as to whether or not they were making undue profits. When he came to that part of his speech, I asked him a question. My hon. friends opposite seemed to resent my doing so. I do not think my hon. friend the Minister of Finance resented it at all. He had no reason to complain of the number of questions asked or the manner in which they were asked. I was simply seeking for information; but my hon. friend the Minister of Finance certainly satisfied the members behind him, because he absolutely refused to answer my question. He did some very fancy sidestepping and also took considerable credit to himself for being an expert auditor. I believe the hon. minister is fully entitled to take credit to himself for being an expert auditor. If I had to make a choice of hon. members for that class of work, I would choose my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. He has youth, ability, brains and experience; and when he made an audit of those books, he knew something about them. The question I asked was a very mild, modest one. I will read it to the House. My hon. friend had just spoken as follows:
We have made an inquiry as to the factory cost of production of the principal agricultural implements in Canada and the United States. We have examined the balance sheets 6f manufacturers with the idea of ascertaining what their position is and whether or not they are making undue profit upon their business.
MR. TURRIFF: Would the hon. gentleman state whether, in making that examination, he also examined as to what amount of cash was in the stock and what amount of water?

Of what use is an examination as to the profits of any manufacturing concern unless one knows how much money they have in their business and how much their paid-up stock represents in cash and in water. This is the reply of my hon. friend:
MR. WHITE : The' examination as to selling price was made hy a trusted official of the Customs Department, Mr. Thomas Costello. He examined into the cost of production. I examined the balance sheets myself and I think, without paying myself too much of a compliment, that I know something about a balance sheet. After having given this matter the most careful and painstaking consideration, we are satisfied that on only one range of implements can the duty be lowered without violation of the fiscal policy of reasonable protection which is designed to encourage and promote the establishment of industries in Canada.
I venture to say that, when my hon. friend was through with that examination, he had a very good idea of the financial conditions as shown on the books of the companies; but if he did not make an investigation as to the amount of water and of cash put originally into what is represented to-day by paid-up stock, he knew absolutely nothing about what profits the companies were making. Will my hon. friend say now whether or not in that examination he looked into the question as to how much 'water and how much cash were represented in the paid-up stock of the company.


William Thomas White: I am not called upon to answer my hon. friend, but I shall be very glad to do so as a matter of courtesy. The financial position of any company, the amount that is owed to its banks, the financial obligations that confront it are shown in its balance sheet, quite apart from any question of stock; that is to say, whether an institution owes 55,000,000 or $20,000,000 is shown by its statement. Where I regarded it as necessary, I inquired into the matter to which my hon. friend has drawn our attention, and I made the necessary inquiries to satisfy myself. In connection with some of the companies, that question as to watered stock did not arise for the reason that no dividends whatever were paid on the stock that in any degree represented water.


Mr. WILLIAM SMITH:: Try it again.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend across the way says, ' Try it again.' I do not have to try it again. My hon. friend has acknowledged that only an occasional investigation was made in that respect. Was evidence taken under oath on that investigation? No, it was not. Will my hon. friend put that information before the
House? No, he will not do that. I did not expect that he would. I want to tell my hon. friend and the House and the country that the answer he has given may apply to some manufacturers of agricultural implements that are not paying dividends, but it does not apply to the main manufacturers of agricultural implements. The Massey-Harris combine was effected many years ago. A few years afterwards I was told by one of the original holders of the stock that went into the combine that that stock did not represent fifty cents on the dollar in cash, although it was made to look as if it did. One of the holders of stock told me how it was done. Any hon. member who has had anything to do with agricultural implements or who is a farmer knows that a company like the Massey-Harris company, with hundreds and hundreds of agencies from the Atlantic to the Pacific, must keep at every agency hundreds of dollars' worth of repairs. Every year certain of their implements are changed. New patents are got out and the old repairs become junk, worth from $10 to $14 a ton for scrap iron; but those repairs were put into this merger at their retail list price, representing thousands of dollars a ton. I have sold too many repairs for binders and other machinery not to know. Repairs that would not weigh half a pound or a quarter of a pound retailed at 25 cents and some of them at $1 or $1.50. In that way the companies were able to put in value as it were, but were really putting in water to the extent of over 50 per cent. For years after that, the Massey-Harris company paid 14 per cent on their watered stock. Then when profits became too great, I understand that a stock dividend was made, so that the company would not show too great profits. Let us see what the prices of agricultural implements in Canada are compared with the prices in the United States.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: What year was that
when my hon. friend got that information from the manufacturers?


John Gillanders Turriff: It was many years ago, and the information was given me in the ordinary way of conversation by one of the members of one of the original companies.


Mr. ARTHURS:: Was it given under oath?


John Gillanders Turriff: It was just as much under oath as was the investigation of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. The gentleman who was telling me this did not think there was any necessity of

making a statement under oath; he was quite satisfied.


William Thomas White: Was the conversation to which my hon. friend refers had prior to 1911?


John Gillanders Turriff: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Did you communicate it to the Government?


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend need not worry; I will he as busy as he desires before I am through. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance says that the duty cannot be taken off these implements because that would hurt the manufacturers. Let us see for a moment how the prices that the Canadian manufacturer gets for his goods compare with the prices quoted in the United States. I will read from the Grain Growers' Guide of April 1, only a week ago.
Mr. SAM. SHARPE: A good authority.


John Gillanders Turriff: 
William Thomas White: Can my hon. friend tell me from his statement the difference between the Winnipeg and the Minneapolis price of an 8-foot binder?


John Gillanders Turriff: Eight-foot-cut binder
with sheaf carrier, 4-carriage and 4-horse hitch, $164 in Winnipeg and $150 in Minneapolis.


William Thomas White: What is the difference between the freight rates from Toronto or Hamilton to Winnipeg and from Chicago to Minneapolis?


John Gillanders Turriff: I could not give my hon. friend an answer just off-hand, but if the
freight rates in Canada are too high, my hon. friend, as Minister of Finance, should take the necessary steps to have them lowered.


Arthur Meighen: What about the distance?


John Gillanders Turriff: The distance is not too great to prevent train-loadfe of Cockshutt ploughs being sent a thousand miles west of Minneapolis to compete with American-made ploughs after duty has been paid-and the same may be said of other makes.
The list I have read is the list given by the Grain Growers' Guide. I have taken the trouble to figure out the difference in percentage of cost. On binders, the main item that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance selected for a reduction of duties there is the least difference of all. On binders there is a difference of only fifteen per cent on the average between Winnipeg and Minneapolis, On the other item on which he has made a reduction, mowers, there is a greater difference, twenty-nine per cent. But these are the two items on which there is the least difference and on these two he made a cut in duty. But the implements that sell for a much greater percentage higher in western Canada than in the United States are the ones on which he has refused to make any reduction whatever in the interests of the farmers. Let me give the percentages:
Grain binders, 15 per cent; com binders, 30 per cent; reapers, 29 per cent; mowers, 29 per cent; hay rakes-dump (all steel), 37 per cent; manure spreaders, 29 per cent; single disc drills, 8 per cent; double disc drills, 35 per cent; grass seed attachments for drills, 65 per cent; disc harrows, 65 per cent; ploughs, 28 per cent; wagons, 32| per cent.
My hon. friend has reduced the duty on mowers, but a farmer must have a rake as well as a mower. Why could he not have given the farmer the benefit of a reduced price for his rake? The duty on rakes is not reduced.


Arthur Meighen: How does the hon, member account for these differences of sixty-five per cent, thirty-nineper cent and forty-two per cent when the duty is only twenty per cent? What is his method of accounting for the difference?


John Gillanders Turriff: The Solicitor General is a very clever hair-splitting lawyer in an argument and I will just leave that for him to explain when he comes to speak, as I know nobody that can do it any better, to his own satisfaction, than the Solicitor General.


Arthur Meighen: I cannot give your view, that is what I want.


John Gillanders Turriff: I was about to ask how it came that after the general expectation, [DOT]after the general statement by many members opposite that there was going to be a great and. general reduction dn the duties on implements that in the end it simmered down to about ninety cents a year to the average farmer who runs a 320 acre farm, a reduction of 5 per cent on binders and mowers and absolutely nothing else. I wonder if the refusal of the Government to go any further than that synchronizes with the flop-over of Senator Jones from the Liberal party to the Conservative party. It looks very much as if it did. It seems to me that if there was any man in Canada who had good reason to stand by his party it was Senator Jones, the president of the Massey Harris Company. When, years ago, this party was on the other side of the House and made some reduction in the duties on agricultural implements, a drawback was given' on the duty paid on the material that went into their manufacture, and I am told that, according to the Auditor General's Report, last year the Massey-Harris Company drew $165,000 in drawbacks. But because the Liberal party came to the conclusion that 'the time had come when free implements should be given to the farmers, this man, who had got every consideration, who was made a senator and who was knighted, who had ' Sir ' put before his name by the kindly offices of this party-I do not know whether the leader of the Opposition at that time put the hyphen in his name or whether that was put in by himself-at all events he is the last man who could say that he was not well treated by this party. But because this party favoured helping the farmers, he apparently went to my hon. friends opposite and made a deal by which, if they would only cut the duties to ninety cents a year for each farmer, he would transfer his allegiance from the Liberal party to the Conservative party. Hon. gentlemen on the Government benches are getting the benefit of this deal but they are not paying for it, it is the farmers of Canada who are paying for the support of my hon. friend, Senator Jones, to the Conservative party. Every farmer in every province in Canada must pay an extra price for his agricultural implements in order that hon. gentlemen now on the Treasury benches may have the support of Senator Jones in the future.
[Mi-. Turriff.]


Mr. BEST:: You can have him back if
you want to.


John Gillanders Turriff: I have no doubt; and
judging by the remarks made by the Conservative press throughout the West they consider that the iGovernment here has made a bad bargain, that they paid too much for Senator Jones.


Mr. BRODER:: Put him up at auction.


John Gillanders Turriff: Oh, you have him now.


Mr. ROGERS:: Does that include his
title?


John Gillanders Turriff: 

one-half of the wheat is shipped. But he might have added that it was the entry of cattle into the United States during the last three months of the last .calendar year that helped to swell the exports. The Wilson Tariff came into force on the 6th of October and up to the 31st of December, 150,000 head of cattle had been exported from Canada to the United States and only 1,000 to Great Britain during those three months. I am speaking in round numbers. One hundred and fifty times as many cattle were exported to the United States, and why?-simply because the American people offered a bigger price than the Canadian farmer could get at home. Does the fact that the American people are shipping cattle to Great Britain cut. any figure in that respect? What does it matter to the Canadian farmer who has ten head of steers to sell if he can get $10 or $20 more in the United States than he can get from a Canadian buyer to ship to Liverpool? What difference does it make to him if the United States ship out -some hundreds of thousands of catttle to Great Britain? That shows the Minister of Finance what the taking off of duties will do.
If he would only take the duties off other farm products he would have no trouble with delegations coming from the manufacturers, because, by putting the farmer in a position to get value for his products, he would keej^ the manufacturers, busy. As long as you hamper the farmer, as long as you keep him from getting value for his products, just so long will you keep him a poor man and just so long will you keep the manufacturers working half time and coming here and asking for more protection in the hope that it will do away with the depression. You cannot do away with the depression by increasing the burdens of the people. You cannot do away with the depression by taking the money that the farmer earns and preventing him from putting it in his own pocket.
Mr. SAM. SHABPE: Are you advocating free trade?


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend is a
worthy disciple of the Finance Minister. Free trade, in my hon. friend's mind is free trade in everything; free trade in food means free trade in everything. There is no man in Canada less anxious to hurt the manufacturers than I am. If you want to help the manufacturer .make a market for him at home; put money into the pockets of the farmers so that they can buy and pay for the goods of the manufacture

.
CMr. Turriff.]
Why are the manufacturers working half time to-day? Is it because of a falling off in the exports of manufactures? No, but it is because the Canadian farmer, the worker, the artisan and the labourer are not able to buy the products of the manufacturer If you want to remedy that condition, put the farmer in a better position and do it in such a way as not to hurt the manufacturer. How is it going to hurt the manufacturer if you give the farmer free wheat? How is it going to hurt the manufacturer if you secure a free market in the United States for the farmer's oats, barley and flax? Hon. gentlemen opposite have a habit of saying that because we have free cattle and a few other items such as free hogs and sheep-


An hon. MEMBER:: How many hogs went over to the United States last year?


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend can give that information to the House if he sees fit. He is probably a great deal better posted in that respect than I am. I do not happen to know very much about hogs. We do not export many from the West and I am not familiar with the figures. But my hon. friends opposite, for some months past, have been heard saying to the people of the West: You do not need reciprocity now, you have practically got it because you can send your cattle over to the United States. Let me tell the Minister of Finance and every hon. gentleman opposite that this is very far from the truth. We have a free market for our cattle, and see what it means-a dollar a hundred at least on the price for every farmer in the West for his steers, but the artisans and the consumers in the cities are suffering on account of that. Under reciprocity corresponding advantages should occur, but under the present arrangement, while the farmer gets more for his cattle, the artisans in the cities who are working on half time are paying more for their beef, and they are not getting the fruit, vegetables or anything else that would have come in free under reciprocity to counteract the increased price they are paying for their beef. Under reciprocity a certain quantity of eggs, butter and other farm products would have come in. Why should we not get those things? We cannot get those things now from our neighbours without paying duty. They are coming in, as a matter of fact, and we are paying the duty. They always come in and they always will come in. Why not take off the duties and give the people a chance to get cheaper food? .

Let me draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the question of oats; and this will he interesting, I am sure, to my hon. friends from the West who sit upon the other side of the House. The duty on oats going into the United States prior to the 6th October last was 12 cents a bushel. Practically no oats were then going into the United States. On the 6th October the duty was cut down to 6 cents a bushel. Shortly after that time I was up on the Manitoba and Northwestern line, at Saltcoats, Yorkton and other places, and while there I met several grain dealers and they told me that immediately the duty was lowered in the United States they had an influx of American buyers. Prior to the 6th October the price of oats at Saltcoats, Yorkton, and different points in that vicinity, was 22 cents a bushel at the elevator. The moment American buyers came in they advanced the price to 28 cents a bushel and then paid 6 cents duty. From the 6th October to the 31st December over 20,000,000 bushels of Canadian oats went into the United States and paid 6 cents a bushel duty. Thus $1,200,000 was taken out of the pockets of the western farmers that might have been left there if we had had reciprocity. With reference to flax and barley the condition is much worse. What we have now is not reciprocity. I heard one hon. gentleman on the other side of the House saying yesterday that they would be delighted to contest another election on the question of reciprocity. I want to say that he would not be half as delighted as we would be to contest an election on reciprocity.
Some hon. MEMBERS : Oh, oh.


John Gillanders Turriff: I would say:	Welcome
the day, welcome the hour, when the question is submitted again as it was last time, because then Laurier will return to power.


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: Never.


John Gillanders Turriff: The hon. member for
Souris (Mr. Schaffner) had better cinch that senatorship, because he had better not risk an election again in Souris.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I will take my
chance.


An hon. MEMBER:: It will be a long
one.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend will take his chance. Of course, he says he represents eighty-five per cent of the voters. I do not see how he does that on sixty-two of a majority, but that is his affair and not 1601
mine. My advice to the hon. gentleman is to get a sure grip on that senatorship, because then he will be in a much better position to explain to the farmers of the West why he voted against free wheat and against free implements. The hon. gentleman would be more comfortable with a seat in the red chamber than in an attempt to secure the votes of the farmers of Souris another time. Therefore, my advice to the hon. gentleman is to get a good, firm grip on that senatorship.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: I vote for a Government that has done ninety-five per cent of the things the farmers of the West have asked for since they came into power, when the late Government did absolutely nothing along that line.


John Gillanders Turriff: I may tell my hon. friend that every local Tory member in the province of Manitoba voted for-free wheat, and I will also tell him that he cannot go into his constituency and get any farmers' organization to endorse what he says. Now, enough of free implements-


Mr. HENDERSON:: I thought the hon. gentleman whs getting sick of it.


John Gillanders Turriff: I have undertaken not to be too long, or I could give you a good deal more. I have it lying all around here. I want now to say a word upon the question of immigration. The Minister of Finance referred to it, but he did not tell you that during the year 1912-13, the first time for many years back, there was a greater emigration from Canada to the United States than there was immigration from the United States to Canada. More people went from Canada to the United States in
the year	1912-13 than came	into Canadafrom the	United States. I	can give myhon. friend the figures for	the last fiveyears:	Year.	From	FromCanada to	United StatesUnited States.	to Canada.1907-8	.. .. 58,000	58,0001908-9	. . .. 84,000	59,0001909-10	.. .. 94,000	103,0001910-11	.... 105,000	121,0001911-12	.. .. 107,000	133,0001912-13	.... 143,000	139,000In the	year 1912-13 our hon. friends on	
the other side of the House were mismanaging things in Canada, and we very soon had a return to the old condition of affairs that existed when they went out of power in 1896. The result was that 143,006 people left Canada for the United States, while only 139,000 people came from the

United States to Canada. The results for the years 1913-14, for which we have not yet the figures, will be much worse, and for the year 1914-15, upon which we have just entered, they will be worse still. There is no question about that; you only have to keep your eyes open to see that.
The class of immigration coming into the country has changed also. In 1911-12 the immigrants from continental Europe represented 23.2 per cent of the total immigration, while in 1913-14 (11 months) the proportion was 35.2 per cent, or an increase of 12 per cent from continental Europe. In 1912-13 American immigration was 34.5 per cent, and in 1913-14 (11 months) it was 25.7 per cent, a reduction of between 8 and 9 per cent in the volume of American immigration.
So, you see that the defeat of reciprocity by hon. gentlemen opposite is bringing about these results, and it is going to be bad for the West. That is a matter that the Minister of Finance did not explain.
My hon. friend the Minister of Finance threw out as a sort of sop to the farmers the statement that this Government were going to devote their efforts to getting better rates to compensate them for not getting a greater reduction in duties on agricultural implements. At the same time the Minister of Finance knows that, since he came into power less than three years ago, it costs the western farmer from six to eight cents a bushel more to send his wheat from the West to the Liverpool market. If his efforts during the next three years are productive to the same extent as his efforts have been in the past three years, I do not think the western farmer will have very much to thank the Government for.
There is another thing that I would like to point out to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that the cotton manufacturers, we will say, came to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance and made this statement to him. Suppose the cotton manufacturers, or any other manufacturers, were to say to the Minister of Finance: We have been enjoying protection for a long time, but it is now more or less circumscribing our markets and we have come to the conclusion that the duty, which was put on in our favour, should be taken off forthwith, would not the Minister of Finance'at once take off the duty on such articles ? Would he not reply: All right, surely the man who makes the goods ought to know whether he wants protection or not; I will put that article at once on the free list.

But now the wheat growers of Canada have come to the Finance Minister and to the Government, and they have said: We do not want the duty on wheat; we do not want protection on what we grow; we are satisfied to meet the world in open competition. And the reply of the Minister of Finance to the farmers is: You cannot be trusted to know what is good for you; we cannot give you what you ask; we will have first to consult the millers and the railways. So the Minister of Finance turns a deaf ear to the farmers, but he turns a mighty quick-hearing .ear to the voice of the railway manager, and the voice of the manufacturer. Does the Minister of Finance think that the Canadian farmer cannot size up what is going on just as well as can the Canadian manufacturer ? If the hon. gentleman has any belief of that kind, he is entirely mistaken. I have dozens and. scores of farmers in my constituency who can argue out public questions in a systematic and forcible and sensible manner; men who are the equals of any in this House, men who are much more competent to treat of public questions than I am, and such men the Minister of Fiiiance cannot hoodwink. Make no mistake about it; the farmers of to-day are not what they were fifty years ago, and if their demands are not paid attention to by the Government in power, they will make it uncomfortable for those who deliberately set their requests aside, while at the same time they hasten to comply with the requests of the manufacturers and the railway companies.
The Minister of Finance told us that Canada was the second best customer the United States had, and that Canada only ranked fifth in selling goods to the United States. Why not equalize that; why not let us pay for in kind what we are now paying for in cash? Surely that would be to the advantage of everybody.
In connection with the cheapening of freight rates, to which my hon. friend has referred, I wish to say that in my judgment this present Government has deliberately and with malice aforethought degraded the Grand Trunk Pacific, at the instigation, or at least in the interests, of the Canadian Pacific railway.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. gentleman is out of order in imputing motives.


John Gillanders Turriff: If you say I am out of order, Mr. Speaker, I shall not question your ruling just now, but I certainly fail to see wherein I am out of order. However, I accept your view.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The rule says it is not permissible to attribute improper motives to the Government or to members of the House. To say that a thing was done out of malice aforethought is not a proper expression.


John Gillanders Turriff: All right, Mr. Speaker;
I withdraw those words. I would not like to say anything that is not in accordance with the rules of the House, but I will say this: that the Grand Trunk Pacific has been deliberately degraded by the Government, and that the only other company that can benefit by it is the Canadian Pacific railway, and the men who are to suffer by it are the western farmers, because the Grand Trunk Pacific, degraded as it is, cannot carry the products of the farmers as cheaply as if the road had been completed up to the standard originally intended.
There are other things I should have liked to refer to, such as lumber and cement, but the time at my disposal having expired, I hope to deal with them on another occasion. I trust that the next time the farmers of Canada come to see the Minister of Finance, they will get more consideration than they have obtained up to the present time, judging by the Budget speech delivered on Monday last by the Minister of Finance.


Mr. W. F. COCKSHUTT (Brantford):: Mr. Speaker, I shall have occasion to refer to a few of the remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. Turriff) later on. The hon. gentleman assigned me an hour and a half to dispose of him, but I hope to be able to deal with his remarks in much less time than that. The Budget speech of the Minister of Finance (Hon. W. T. White) this year has been looked forward to with more than ordinary interest, and I think I may say, without flattery to the hon. minister, that he has more than fulfilled the expectations the people of Canada have of him. The air has been materially cleared by the pronouncement made by the hon. gentleman on financial matters, and in masterly style he has dealt with every phase of the commercial and financial life of our country. The question of our national finances has been ably dealt with by the Finance Minister and by the hon. member for St. Antoine (Mr. Ames), so that, in the time at my disposal, I shall endeavour to treat of other features of our financial and commercial life.
The clean-cut and well defined line which
the Minister of Finance has drawn between the political parties in Canada, in reference to the protective tariff, will carry assurance to the minds of all Canadians, and in declaring that the Conservative party shall stand by Canadian industries, whether agricultural industries or manufacturing industries, the hon. gentleman has enunciated a policy in the best interests of the Dominion. When the policy announced by the Minister of Finance in his speech is fully understood, and when his speech has been read, as I believe it will be from end to end of the Dominion, his utterances will bring reassurance to the minds of those who may have been panic-stricken by the vagaries of hon. gentlemen opposite. The immediate outlook, as foreshadowed by the Minister of Finance, though not as good as it has been in some years,-is still very encouraging. The country as a whole is sound; but we have, I am sorry to say, several legacies left over by the late Government that have imposed tremendous responsibility upon the people of Canada, and very onerous duties on the Minister of Finance to provide for them. I am safe in saying that no Government ever existed in the Dominion which left a greater legacy of debt and encumbrances than did the late Laurier Administration.	.
I regret' that the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) is not in the House at the moment. He bewailed that a settled gloom was spreading over the Dominion of Canada. I think those were his words. Where are the good times gone, he bemoaned, that were in vogue during the Laurier regime? How is it that depression is spreading over the land and you cannot see a ray of sunshine anywhere? This, if it were true, would be a very great reflection upon the gentleman whom he supported in power for the past sixteen years. Let us ask for a moment what constitutes good times; what is the sum and substance of good times. Is it to pick up on the streets money that you have not earned? Is it to get a contract at twice as much as should be paid for it? Is it to have a cinch in supplying some Government department with goods that are not worth 50 cents on the dollar for what should be supplied? If such be the case, then certainly we have had good times during the past sixteen years, because at no other time has money been scattered about in the Dominion of Canada without

receiving returns for it in the way that it has been by the late Government. I am sorry to make so severe a statement as that, but I am speaking exactly what I believe as a business man when I say that there have been millions-it would almost startle me if I were to mention the figures, after hearing that $40,000,000 had been squandered in one enterprise-of the money of the country paid out, for what? For nothing that is a tangible asset to-day, and for nothing that can ever hope to earn a dividend for the people of Canada.
Take the railway that I have just mentioned, conceived, as I believe, in political jobbery and carried on with extravagance and political iniquity, so that to-day we are face to face with a report that says that upwards of $40,000,000 of the public "money has been spent in that extravagant way. My right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurierj, a gentleman whom I respect very highly, stated that he admitted that mistakes might have been made, but that anything that had been misspent had been the result of a mistake.
I only wish I could accept those words at their face value; but I am sorry to say, after looking into the report and after reviewing very carefully the course of my hon. friends opposite for the sixteen years they were in power, I cannot accept that -statement at all. That railway, which was built as a monument to my right hon. friend and to the Dominion of Canada, was not a mistake according to his own judgment, in the first place. He went into it with his eyes open. Why do I say it was not a mistake? Let my right hon. friend refer for a moment to the speech of his then Minister of Railways, the Hon. A. G. Blair. Let him read that speech from beginning to end, and tell me whether or not he was warned that he was embarking upon an enterprise that was of the very worst character in every way, both political and national. What did the Hon. A. G. Blair say? He told these gentlemen that their figures were all fake; that their $13,000,000 and their $61,000,000 were false. He said:	I
cannot support a iproposition like that before my fellow members. I will resign my seat in the Government and'step out rather than tell the people of Canada that a railway can be built for $13,000,000, or $61,000,000, that I know is going to cost $120,000,000. All credit to the Hon. A. G. Blair, who stepped out of the Government and said:
I refuse to be a party to a Government that 
launches a scheme on the Dominion of Canada, knowing that it is going to cost five to ten times more tUan it was said it would, and that, in the building of it,
* takes none of the ordinary business precautions to see that a dollar's worth is got for a dollar. The whole thing from start to finish was carried on with the idea that, no matter how much money we put into it, the Grand Trunk Pacific has to pay 3 per cent on the cost and the country cannot lose. Thus they went on and spent that vast sum of money -in an enterprise, a large part of which to-day hangs in the balance as to whether it will pay in the next fifteen to twenty-five years-in an enterprise vastly in advance of its time, vastly in advance of all the requirements of the eastern section of the country through which it runs, and according to the best information we have in railway circles, entirely unnecessary in so far as the section from Levis to Moncton is concerned, because it- parallels a road that is already short of traffic. No wonder that good times, according to their measure, prevailed in the estimation of hon. gentlemen, opposite. Can good times consist simply in making money rapidly, regardless of how it is made? Oan good times consist in a party throwing money around to its friends without receiving value back in the interest of the country? If such can be done, certainly they had good times ; but, as I understand good times, they are a very different matter.
Let hon. gentlemen opposite look back over their career and see some of the deeds they committed during those so-called good times. I think my hon. friends, if they review their whole course, will say:	We
did something more than make mistakes; we condoned offences that never should have been condoned. If there is one fault I have to lay to my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition-and I am sorry to have to lay this charge against him-it is that he was too fond of power to punish the wrongdoer in his own party, and, on account of that, he was led into committing many offences against the public interest. That is a strong statement to make, but let me recall two or three of those mistakes. Let me refer to the North Atlantic Trading Company, a creation of my hon. friends opposite, which got from $300,000 to $500,000 from the people of this country with no value received. Let me refer to the cruise oi the Neptune, which went up among the Esquimaux and converted some of the

heathen to the ways of the Laurier Government and spent some thousands of dollars of Government money in visiting the wilds of the North and brought back a tale of rascality the like of which was never before unravelled in the history of this country. Let me recall a similar matter, which shows a spirit that should never have entered this House-which took place only in the last Parliament, when Mr. Lanctot, the former member for Richelieu, painted his house at Sorel and fixed it up in good shape at the Government's expense. Small matter, you say; but often small matters show which way the wind blows. That was proved up to the hilt and admitted by himself, and his cheque was sent to, cover it after he was caught, and not before. Good times for the hon. member for Richelieu; very good times. The lamentable part of it was that, instead of meting out to that hon. gentleman the punishment that was due, the Liberal party, headed by the right hon. gentleman opposite and supported by every man behind him, whitewashed this gentleman from head to foot and gave him a character to go free. Does that constitute a high ideal, either commercial or political, to set up before the people of Canada? I do not call that good times; I call that evil days. If there is one charge against my right hon. friend that stands out and that will stand out in the history of Canada, it is that, under the Laurier Government, political morality and commercial morality sank to the lowest ebb at which it has ever been since Confederation. If hon. gentlemen on this side will take warning by what has happened on the other, we shall be glad; but if we should harden our hearts and run astray, as hon. gentlemen opposite did, for any part I hope I shall be lashed rather than sit in this House and vote through such rascalities as those I have mentioned in order that we may stay in power.


Mr. PROULX:: Did you vote for the
Prince Albert deal?


William Foster Cockshutt: I never heard of any Prince Albert deal.


Edmond Proulx: The Prince Albert land
deal.


William Foster Cockshutt: No Prince Albert
land deal has ever come before the House so far as I know. With regard to land deals, I may say that mighty little land was left to deal in after my hon. friends went out of power. If my hon. friend had applied to the hon. member for Assiniboia
(Mr. Turriff) the remark which he has made, he might have obtained some information on the point; the hon. member for Assiniboia could tell him a thing or two about land deals. The Saskatchewan Valley Land Company and other such matters are still fresh in the public memory. Although I have mentioned a few scandals,
I have touched only the fringe of them, as the .hon. member for Assiniboia knows full weli, though he was so (busy with implements that he did not have time to touch upon the land deals of the late Government.
I should think that my hon. friend, in talking so much about implements and advocating their free importation into this country, should have had in mind the one implement that his party imported in connection with the deal of which I have spoken. Our Finance Minister has had to pay $12,000,000 for that implement already. Land deals certainly came on thick and fast during the time the late Administration held office.
I have mentioned this in order to draw to the attention of the people to the difference between the two parties in this respect. So far as the practical work of the country is concerned, this Government has been in power about thTee years. We are nearing the end of the third session of Parliament. We have the financial statements; we know what the Government has done in the matter of expenditure. Have any hon. gentlemen opposite charged that even $100 has been wrongfully taken from the treasury since 1911 by the powers that be? If they have, I have not heard anything about it. This ' is the great difference between the two parties of the day, and I trust that the Finance Minister, in whose honour I have the highest confidence, will continue the same straight course that has been pursued in the two and a half years during which this Government has been in ipower.
Let me give our friends opposite a piece of history. It is not always pleasing to Conservatives to remember this, but ^ I think it will help to bring out the point I am making. Between the years 1872 and 1874 we had what was called the Pacific scandal, in which Sir John A. Macdonald, probably the greatest statesman Canada has ever seen, was the central figure. It was charged that he received a subscription of $25,000 from Sir Hugh Allan in order that he might hand the contract for this railway over to him. In the year 1874 the Sir John A. Macdonald Government was condemned and punished by the people of Canada-turned out of office and relegated


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Hear, hear.


William Foster Cockshutt: And if hon. gentlemen opposite would consume a little more sense and give it to the people it would be a good thing.


Wilfrid Laurier: Give us the
food and we will consume it.


Mr. CARROLL:: Has the hon. gentleman gone into the matter of the relative cost of living in Canada and Great Britain?


William Foster Cockshutt: I can tell my hon.
friend that a British commission was sent out to this side to study conditions, particularly in the United States-and conditions are better in Canada to-day than they are in the United States. This commission reported that there was a very large margin in favour of the American working-man as compared with the British working-man, not only as regards wages, but with regard to the cost of living. Does my hon. friend know that meat rarely appears on the table of the British workingmen? On the continent it is almost an unknown article. Horseflesh occasionally gets on the tables, but never a good piece of beef. My hon. friend must know that we in Canada today are living in clover as compared with other countries, and that our working-men are paid as well, if not better, than any other working-men in the world, and they would be contented if such agitators as
appear occasionally on the other side of the House would only leave them alone.
My hon. friend from Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) was so anxious to prove his case that he quoted an article on one side and then killed it on the other side before he got through. Let me point out what he said- and I will deal with this a little more fully later on. He says the Cockshutt Plow Company pays the duty when they ship ploughs into the United States, and that they sell their goods cheaper there than they do in Canada. Who pays the duty on ploughs coming into Canada? My hon. friend blows hot and cold. When the manufacturer ships goods from this country he pays the duty, but when the American manufacturer ships implements here the Canadian farmer pays the duty.


John Gillanders Turriff: If my hon. friend understood me to say that-


William Foster Cockshutt: You certainly did.


John Gillanders Turriff: If I said that, I did not express what I had in mind. What I meant to say was that the Cockshutt Plow *Company could sell their goods so cheaply in the United States that the consumer in the United States purchased them even although he had to pay a duty of 15 per cent on the implements and 45 per cent on repairs. I did not intend to say that the Cockshutt Plow Company paid the duty.


William Foster Cockshutt: Did the American farmers pay the duty?


John Gillanders Turriff: Yes. That is what 1 intended to say.


William Foster Cockshutt: My hon. friend knows to what place good intentions pave the way. If my hon. friend had only carried out his intentions he would have omitted a lot of stuff that he has put on ' Hansard,' which will rise in judgment and condemn him in this generation. That is only one illustration, and I could quote several more. He did the very same thing in regard to wheat. It is not a mistake on his part; he goes into it with his eyes open. He says the western farmer pays the duty on the wheat that he sends to the United States, and then he turns round and tells us that it is the consumer in this country who pays the duty. My hon. friend had better decide where he is at before he speaks on these questions. He cannot make the consumer on the one hand and the exporter on the other pay the duty just as it suits his case.


John Gillanders Turriff: The farmer understands it.


William Foster Cockshutt: The farmers will never be caught with such claptrap as that. The trouble with my hon. friend-he has quite a number of troubles-is that he cannot see beyond Weyburn. They have a bank there, he told us a good many times last year. No doubt it is a very respectable place, but if my hon. friend is ever going to be a statesman-of which I have my doubts-he should take a little wider view than the immediate surroundings of Weyburn. He has given us a policy very much in line with that of my hon. friend from Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles), who I regret is not in the House, because I wanted to pay him a similar compliment. The hon. member for Moosejaw led our friends opposite into one of the worst holes they have ever been in, and which they would be glad to be extricated from to-day. My hon. friend from South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie)-I do not see him now; soon after I got up he retired to a back seat, and now he has disappeared altogether-


William F. Carroll: We are all afraid of you.


William Foster Cockshutt: indulged in the old game of quoting the wholesale price on one side, and the highest retail price on the other; and the cash price of one side and the credit price on the other, and so he got all astray in his figures. I understood him to say-he can correct me if I am wrong-that in some cases fifty per cent or sixty per cent was demanded in the Dominion of Canada over the prices which prevailed in the United States. Did the hon. member say that ?


John Gillanders Turriff: And some of the grass seed attachments.


William Foster Cockshutt: I have never known any political economists to contend that the price of an article could be raised above the amount of tariff exacted, that is, the whole duty, which is twenty per cent on some articles and fifteen per Cent or seventeen and one-half per cent on others. Prices could not posssibly be more than the duty in advance of the prices in the United States, because the manufacturers there would immediately send their implements over the border. I have here an immense list of articles that have been imported into Canada. This list, which is from the Department of Customs, is entirely authentic. The imports of agricultural implements under the existing duties, which are, as I say, from seventeen and one-half per cent to twenty per cent, are as follows: in 1911, $4,510,000; in 1912,	$4,221,000; in 1913,'
$4,440,000; for nine months in 1913, $2,658,000. If you take the whole line of articles which I understood were included in the argument of t-he hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) in his resolution the other day, and which embrace engines and threshing machines and all the larger items, then we have the following, which is very much more: in 1911, $4,887,000; in 1912, $8,237,000; in 1913, $10,104,000, under the tariff of from fifteen per cent to twenty per cent. If $10,000,000 worth could come in in 1913, under the tariff of from fifteen to twenty per cent what would be the.result if they were put on the free list, and all that vast amount of agricultural implements brought into Canada free of duty? It would mean that all the capital invested in that business in Canada would be wiped out; that over fifty manufacturing concerns employing from $45,000,000 to $50,000,000 of capital,
10,000	hands and supporting 45,000 to 50,000 dependents, would be wiped out at the behest of my hon. friend. He says he is a strong friend of the manufacturers. Well, if he will trust the manufacturers to look after themselves and not take them under 
his wing, we will feel a little more comfortable.


William F. Carroll: Has the hon. member figures to contradict those supplied by the hon. member for Assiniboia as to the prices in Winnipeg and Minneapolis?


William Foster Cockshutt: I am only making the bald statement that, on the face of it, his information is false, for the reason that the prices could not be advanced by more than the amount of the duty. No tariff could advance the prices of goods beyond the amount of the duty that is exacted. When my hon. friend quotes a sixty per cent advance, he must know that he is not speaking by the book. I think my hon. friend must realize that, and i do not think he will get any farmer to believe that the price of implements is fifty to sixty per cent higher in Canada than in the United States.


John Gillanders Turriff: I was quoting the figures * given by the Grain Growers' Guide. The Grain Growers' Guide will prove to my hon. friend that they arc right and he is wrong


William Foster Cockshutt: If my hon. lriend'3 contention is true, supposing he knocked off 20 per cent from his 50 to 60 per cent, he would still be getting 30 to 40 per cent more in Canada than in the United States. In other words, if you remove the amount of duty, you have a vast difference of 30 to 40 per cent, according to my hon. friend. Anybody can see at a glance that those figures cannot be correct, and that wholesale prices must have been taken as against, retail.
My hon. friend has made an accusation against the firm carrying my own name. Although I dislike to refer to a matter that is so personal, I feel that I cannot allow his statement to go unchallenged. According to ' Hansard ' of last night, he makes the following statement, referring to myself:
The hon. gentleman could sell a Cockshutt plough in the United States, years ago, and pay a 15 per cent duty-
You notice that he says we pay the duty.
-and 45 per cent duty on the repairs, and undersell, or compete to the extent of selling trainloads in the United States.
That sounds very fine. I wonder if my hon. friend thinks that is correct. The United States duties on agricultural implements during the last few months have been entirely removed. I have yet to learn of one plough having gone across the line, either our own or any other make. Just the other day I asked a leading implement

dealer, who knows more about such matters than I do, and he stated that, even with the removal of the duty, he does not think that an agricultural implement has gone from Canada into the United States. My hon. friend has rather tantalized me to give him a little bit of history with regard to a shipment of ploughs once to the United States. Let me tell him how his friends the Americans will treat him if he ever gets into their hands, because we know with regret that when we deal with Uncle Sam we have to go in with a coat of mail and with shining armour if we are to come out again with a whole skin. What happened to the train-load of Cockshutt ploughs to which my hon. friend referred? They were seized at the border, condemned for under-valuation, dragged through the courts and fined thousands of dollars, although those ploughs were entered at a higher price in the United States than American concerns were entering their ploughs at in the city of Winnipeg. My hon. friends want to place the farmers in the same position. What has happened with regard to potatoes? We send the potatoes across the border. As soon as we begin to get a market the Americans say that our potatoes are diseased, not fit to mix with American potatoes of high standard. They are condemned because they are diseased. Ship your cattle over the border and, as soon as you begin to get a market established, quarantine and the tuberculosis test will do the trick. My hon. friend would not be sending his wheat into the United States for more than a month or two before the Americans would find smut in it, or that it was not properly classified, and I will defy my hon. friend to go into the United States and get a clean deal on his wheat. The whole history of trade with the United States from start to finish is that, when it comes to carrying out their side of a commercial bargain, they do not do it aright. They have not learned the principle of British fair play and honesty. I am sorry to have to say that, but I can speak feelingly. If my hon. friend tries it with his wheat, he will fare the same as others have done with potatoes and agricultural implements and fish in cans. The fish go in free, but they catch you on the cans.
When my hon. friend the Minister of Finance said that he did not believe in interlocking legislation, he struck a true chord that will find a responsive ring
throughout the Dominion of Canada from every business man. These hon. gentlemen would hand us over, body and soul, to the United States; they would interlock our tariff with that of the United States; they would let Washington dictate the interpretation of the tariff, and we would be hunted in the United States and dragged from court to court for interpretations on this, that and the other thing. My hon. friend knows that that has been the history of trading with the American people from away back. Even when it comes to carrying out financial obligations, we find that they are very slow to do so. We hope to have a fair settlement in regard to the Panama canal tolls, but it is taking a great deal of backbone on the part of Mr. Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States; and if he succeeds in that, he will put a plume into the American flag that has not been there for some years.


John Gillanders Turriff: How does it happen, if the Americans treat the Canadians so badly in all commercial deals, that Canada does about sixty per cent of her whole trade with those same Americans?


William Foster Cockshutt: I can tell my hon. friend that very easily. They are always very ready to sell to you, but they are never ready to buy from you. If my hon. friend knows anything about the returns, he knows that for every dollar we sell to the United States they sell from three to four dollars to us. It is an easy thing to buy; and my hon. friend and some of his friends opposite have the idea that the more you buy the better off you are; the more you buy abroad, the better the country is. I have heard several hon. gentlemen opposite preach that doctrine; they do not take any stock in the balance of trade. A man that buys more than he sells will soon go into bankruptcy; but my hon. friend would let us go on buying four or five times as much from the United States as we sell to them, and say: What a trade we have with the United States! My hon. friend knows that his best market is in Great Britain. The people of Great Britain can yet take his wheat; they are the only people in the world who are taking more from us than they are sending to us.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: What about our cattle?


William Foster Cockshutt: I do not think we
have many cattle to send over there at this time. Out meat would probably bring a

very good price in Great Britain, but judging from the prices now prevailing in the home market, I think every one will agree that we should keep most of our cattle at home to feed our own people. The home market which our hon. friends opposite so often pooh-pooh is really the only good market in which to make money. If my hon. friends would remember that about 80 per cent, of the fann products of Canada are bought at high prices by the citizens of Canada and consumed in the home market, they would realize that the home market is well worth preserving. To those who think that the United States is such a fine market for implements, I may say that they can have that 90,000,000 market for ten cents, so far as I am concerned.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about cheese?
Mr. OOCKSHUTT r If I remember correctly, from 80 to 90 per cent of our cheese product goes to Great Britain'-and they know good cheese when they see it. Canada is producing good cheese, and the result is that it goes over the water. If my hon. friend will think over this matter before he comes down next year I think he will come to the conclusion that the policy which he enunciated to-day is not the right one. The right hon. the leader of the Opposition has said: ' the policy that I give you at this moment is free implements and free food '-and you can change it the next moment if you do not like it. I would advise my hon, friend to change it the next moment, because he can get a better policy. A policy for the moment is no good, no matter what it embraces. We .want a policy that will remain for years; we want a policy in which capital will have faith-a policy in which capital will embark	itself. If	hon. gentlemenopposite are	going	to put down
an industry as soon as it commences to grow, - then they are going to ruin all confidence in Canada and in Canadian enterprise. The attitude taken by the hon. member for Assiniboia, the hon. member for Humboldt, and the hon. member for Moosejaw, is like the Irishman who was asked to help a policeman disperse a gang of lawbreakers. The Irishman said: What shall I do ? The policeman gave him a shillalah and these instructions: Wherever you see a head, whack it. That is what my hon. friend proposes to do; whenever he sees an industry thrusting its head above water, he says: Whack it; down with it. The hon. member for Moosejaw said 
that if an industry were hanging on by the skin of its teeth-whatever that meant -lie would not mind letting it stay. Is that not a fine policy? My hon. friends let a few industries hang on by the skin of their teeth, but whenever they changed the National Policy, they did the wrong thing. Let me refer them to binder twine. They put it on the free list and killed almost every factory in Canada. I have a small extract here from a western paper, which the hon. member for Assiniboia would probably like to hear. It is entitled: ' Fighting the Trust in Binder Twine.' This refers not to the dark ages, when there was protection on binder twine, but to the present time, when binder twine is on the free list. This paper, which, as luck would have it, is from the constituency of the hon. member for Red Deer, says that the article is copied from the Grain Growers' Guide. I think the hon. member for Assiniboia will recognize the authority of that publication. The article says:
Dissatisfied with the high price of twine the Gra n Growers' Association for a year past has been investigating the cause, and as a result has come to the conclusion that the American binder twine manufacturers have created a corner in the raw materials, and established a monopoly.
Under free trade, established a monopoly-and the Grain Growers' Guide is the authority. That is certainly refreshing. The article goes onf
This, says The Guide, is a serious situation for the western farmer, who has to have the twine at any cost, as there is nothing to take its place.
'The secretary of the Grain Growers' Association,' so we are told, 'has had the problem under consideration for a long time, and last fall he took the matter up with some British* capitalists and manufacturers with the object in view of starting a British hinder twine industry in competition with the American trust. It was then that the investigation of the real conditions started, but the project had to be dropped, because it was demonstrated to the satisfaction of the investigators that the United States binder twine trust had such an absolute monopoly on the necessary raw material that effective competition was out of the question.'
The Guide adds: 'There is reason to hope, however, that the western farmer soon will be independent of the American binder twine trust. The investigation by the Grain Growers' Association and the British manufacturers resulted in an attempt now being made to introduce machinery using flax straw instead of the present material. If this experiment is successful it will mean the establishment of a new industry in the western Canadian provinces, a big saving for the farmer, and, besides, let him out of the twine trust's clutches.' So far so good! But while struggling to free the' farmer from one American combine, the Guide -advocates a fiscal policy which would enable

two or three score United States trusts to drive competing Canadian industries out of business and then advance the prices of many necessaries of life at their own will all over the Dominion.
Hon. gentlemen opposite put binder twine on the free list, and killed fifteen factories which mostly employed farmers' capital. There is about one factory left; the price of twine has been higher since those factories were killed than ever before, and, according to the Grain Growers' Guide, a monopoly exists. My panaoea would be to put on the duty again, and let the Ontario and other factories as far west as Brandon get back into business. Hon. gentlemen opposite killed binder twine; in the same way they killed barbed wire, and in the same way they propose now to take the industries piecemeal and kill them one by one. Wherever a head shows up, hit it; if a head is thrust above water, down with it. That is the policy of my hon. friends opposite. If a thing is doing any good, kill it; if it is going to die, let it. In 1878 there were thirty different makes of mowers and reapers made in the province of Ontario; to-day there are three. They have been brought down from thirty to three by the fierce competition at home, which has more than cut the price in two in that time. Yet my hon. friend is not satisfied. I understand that the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Neely) is a medical man; if his pills are as valuable and efficient as the implements of Canada, he is a good deal better physician than I took him for. It is easy to denounce a business that has had a success; it is easy to attack, but it is hard to build up. I would advise my hon. friend to bring down a policy of construction rather than of reduction or degradation, as he said, referring to a railway. Let him begin to build up and to mould a policy that is for the whole of Canada. Has he ever heard any of us in the East taking any exception whatever to the building of railways, to the construction of canals, elevators or similar works? No matter whether we thought the country was going too fast or not, the East has stood nobly by the West all the way through, and we intend to do so in the future; but we ask the West to remember us, that we are mortals, too, that we have our ups and downs. This is no time to begin to pull down; it is a time to plant and to build, not to pull down and destroy that which, by great thrift, the investment of capital and the employment of great 161
brains and skill has brought Canada to the proud position of being able in some items to cope with the world. But we cannot do that unless we stand together. We want a united policy for a united people; we want to hold together, the East and the West, the West and the East; one policy for all and the greatest good for the whole Dominion of Canada. If we will stand for that we may yet weather what I consider a condition of financial stress at the present time. I have not gone into the financial aspect of the Budget as I had hoped to, but I see that my time has almost passed. It is a time for caution. It is largely the legacy that hon. gentlemen opposite left that is responsible for the need of caution. It is like receiving a bequest on which the death duty is larger than the amount of the bequest. I refer to the railway legacy which our hon. friends opposite left. It was a tremendous legacy, enough to crush any smaller man than the present Minister of Finance. The Finance Minister seems to be able to bear a'most any kind of burden on his shoulders, but a smaller man would have gone down under the crushing weight our friends have left. For what? In order that we may bring down the products of the West to the East and the seaboard over our own railways.
Only the other day the right hon. leader cf the Opposition became eloquent in rehearsing a speech which he made in 1903 in which he said: May Heaven grant that we are not too late in building this great transcontinental railway up by Hudson bay so that our American cousins cannot get at it, far remote from the boundary, to carry our products over our own territory, every inch, to the eastern seaboard. And yet it was but a short time ago that hon. gentlemen opposite proposed a policy that would have been death to the railway interests of the Dominion of Canada, absolute death.	Policy for the
moment, you say? Policy for the moment is not good enough; we want a policy that is going to live, a policy that is going to stay and a policy that is going to get the confidence of people so that they will invest	their	money in	our
enterprises. You cannot build railways for to day and, before they are quite finished, say:	It is good policy to divert all this
traffic to the south. What are these railways for? For what have these hundreds of millions of dollars we have squandered on these railways been spent if not to carry



the products of the western farmer down over our own routes to our own ports, St. John, Halifax, Quebec and Montreal? That is the policy we presumed hon. gentlemen were going to support; but in a moment of weakness they have gone away to other things and would divert this traffic and send it south of the line and leave these railways to trundle along with empty cars. How in the name of all that is practical could you hope that freight rates would be reduced on roads that cost an enormous amount and from which most of the traffic was afterwards to be diverted to foreign countries? The whole thing is too silly, it is not worthy of the serious attention of commercial men or men who want to build up the Dominion of Canada. I ask my hon. friends to think over a policy, now that Easter is coming. Easter is at hand, they will have time to spar for wind. Let me advise them to devise a policy. Do not get one that is just for the moment, but get one that you are going to stay by, not for this session only but for next session. Go to the people and if you can devise a policy that is better than ours we may adopt it; but let it be a policy for more than a moment, because a moment is not long enough to test a policy. My hon. friends opposite have had a good many trade policies in their time that have not lasted very long, and I suppose that, unless Heaven gives them more wisdom than they have had in the past, we are going to have a repetition of that course. But I do beseech of them as patriotic citizens-and we know they are that-to devise a policy in the Easter holidays and then to come down and tell the Finance Minister what they are going to do. If they will tell him that they have got something better than he has he, as a man of shrewdness and brains, will probably adopt it next time; but I doubt if they will be able to find any flaw in the programme laid down or show how it can be improved upon. I think the junior member for Halifax was well advised in not moving or putting on ' Hansard ' those two or three resolutions which he was supposed to have up his sleeve yesterday, but which never came down. I do not think they had been sufficiently thought over, and I hope that the Easter holidays, with the attendant religious services which it is to be hoped my hon. friends will attend, will put them in a better frame of mind to bring down a policy that will command the respect of the people of Canada.
There are several other questions which

I wished to discuss, but the time of adjournment has almost arrived. There is, however, one subject to which I must briefly refer. I regret the attitude of our own side in regard to a great question that it now seems probable will not be dealt with this session, that is the matter that engaged so much of our attention last year, a contribution for the British navy and the upkeep of the empire's defence. I regret that the Finance Minister and his colleagues have not been able to bring down in the Estimates at least one-third of the amount we had proposed last year to contribute. Hon. gentlemen opposite, I think, will admit that we should have acted last year, that it was an unfortunate thing that their Senate majority should have turned down a policy which commended itself, I believe, to the large majority of the people of Canada, a policy that the people of Canada favoured and would have been only too glad to have seen immediately put in force by both parties. 1 would like to see my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition join us for once in a great empire contribution. That would be very much valued by Great Britain and all the other overseas dominions and it is something which is long past due. We could have afforded to send the money over last session when the Bill came up and that would have let Great Britain know that we were willing to take up at least a little of the white man's burden in that part of the empire. Unfortunately the Bill was killed in the Senate. Our good friend the Hon. G. W. Ross, lately passed away-a great man from the province of Ontario who, during his time did many very valuable deeds and great acts, and was considered to be an imperialist of the imperialists in many respects-unfortunately in this particular case got side-tracked by some influence that has not yet been fully explained. Whether it was the influence of the leader of the Opposition or others of his party I do not know, hut I consider that the Senate of the Dominion of Canada in their own interests and in the interests of this country never made a greater mistake than they did under the leadership of the Hon. G. W. Ross when they turned down last session the proposal to give $35,000,000 towards the British navy. We all know what we owe the mother country and whether we are going to be independent-as my right hon. friend opposite hopes-or a self-respecting part of the overseas dominions, I believe the people of Canada from one end of the country to the other, feel that we should do at least a

little towards bearing the .great burden of our overseas mother. I regret that we have not been able to grapple with that question this session. With the overflowing treasuries of the past few years, we could easily have sent that amount where it will be sent in the near future. As a humble Canadian who occasionally goes to the mother country, I feel almost ashamed to step on the wharf at Liverpool while we are doing all the talking and none of the acting- while we are making promises of loyalty, promises of support, and giving everything in the way of encouragement by word, but in deeds not a cent. I say I regret that, but I cannot see that the Government are responsible for this condition. They probably felt that the Senate would again throw out the measure, and therefore it was not proposed. I hope that in the near future- I say this in all sincerity-the people of Canada will unite in contributing either men, money, or ships, or in some other way help the mother country who has for years been staggering, and is still staggering, under an almost more than human load of taxation. We as men are well off. We have a good many of this world's goods and could well afford to pay our share in relieving Britain of this weary load and I hope that we shall not long continue to occupy our present position. For my part I could wish that $15,000,000 or $20,000,000 of our surplus this year had been put in the Estimates in order that we might catch up a little on the payments long overdue. I know, Mr. Speaker, you wish to call it six o'clock and as I have about concluded my remarks I will not weary the House any further.
On motion of Mr. Carroll, the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Rogers, the House adjourned to Wednesday the 15th of April, at three o'clock.
Wednesday, April 15, 1914.