1914-04-07

REPORTS AND PAPERS.

[Stage Direction]
Reports of Experimental Farms for the year ended March 31, 1913.-Hon. Martin Burrell.
Papers relating to the Lobster Fishery Regulations established by Order in Council, 25th March, 1914.-Hon. J. D. Hazen.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 150, to incorporate The Prudential Life of Canada.-Mr. Nickle.
Bill No. 151, for the relief of Charles Low Hutcheon.-Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 152, for the relief of Jessie Eleanor Grassett Parkhurst.-Mr. W. H. Bennett.
Bill No. 153, for the relief of William Godfrey Thorp.-Mr. Carvell.

Rt. Hon. R. L. BORDEN moved:: That it be resolved, that tne recommendation of the hon. the Speaker, laid on the table of the House on the 2nd April instant, relative to the yearly increase in salary to certain officers and clerks and employees of the House, including a clerk in the Joint Distribution Office of the House of Commons and Senate, pursuant to section 37 of the Civil Service Amendment Act, 1908, be approved.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Robert Laird Borden: That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their Honours that this House has ap-

proved the recommendation of the hon. the Speaker of the House of Commons for the payment to a clerk of the Joint Distribution Office of the House of Commons and Senate, of the yearly increase in salary, pursuant to section 37 of the Civil Service Amendment Act, 1908.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[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 Monday, April 6.
Mr. A. K. MACLEAN (Halifax):: wheat exports from September to November last were extremely heavy. There was a tremendous pressure on account of financial conditions to sell Canadian wheat. Our wheat was available for export earlier than was usual, and our railways were able to comfortably take care of that export, but financial conditions actually compelled heavy sales of our export wheat in those months of last year, with the result that Canadian wheat declined relatively more than any other wheat of the world which went upon the British market. And while this of course explains a great deal of the abnormal rise in values of our exports of last year, it does not necessarily follow that it was a profitable export trade.
I might say the same thing in connection with the export of oats. I have not the figures, but I understand that our western provinces exported to the United States- that export being made possible by the reduction of duty on oats to six cents a bushel in the United States tariff-24,000,000 bushels of oats which would not ordinarily have gone to the United States, this being a further explanation of the abnormal exports of last year. These figures indicate that the export figures of the present fiscal year will not, upon reflection, appear so favourable by reason of the fact that a great deal of our exports which usually would be credited to the present fiscal year are credited to last year, thus accounting for the abnormal increase in our figures.
This is the appropriate occasion for a discussion of the expenditures of the Government. I ask the attention of the House while I discuss this matter generally and with some degree of detail. A very prominent economist has said: ' The question of expenditure is just as much a financial problem as that of revehue,
4 p.m. neither in theory nor in practice is it advisable to separate them so completely.' Mr. Gladstone once very justly remarked: 'Good finance consists more in the spending than in the collection of revenue.' I submit that these two views should be accepted as axiomatic in *the matter of public expenditure. Particularly is this true of a large country, rich in undeveloped natural resources, and where a system' of popular government prevails. It is fast becoming evident to all reflecting citizens of qur country that we are extravagant in the disposition of our national wealth and income for purposes that frequently are both unnecessary and unproductive, and devoid of sound business principles. I am not ascribing all the blame to bon. gentlemen opposite. BotA poli-

tical parties must assume responsibility in this respect. It is time, however, for a * fundamental change in the character of public expenditure. All public expenditure should answer some substantial purposes or it should not be tolerated.
When out of power the Government party were emphatic and insistent that the late Government were grossly extravagant in expenditure. In the opinion of hon. gentlemen opposite the annual expenditure was so large as to constitute, in the judgment of the Prime Minister, prima facie evidence of corrupt expenditure. It was said that controllable expenditure was so excessive as to be criminally wasteful. To-day it is very much higher, yet we hear no apology or admission of extravagance, criminal or otherwise. They promised much in the way of establishing sounder principles for public expenditure, but so far, their record for reckless expenditure, and expenditure without principle, is without a parallel in our financial history. Their high sounding promises in respect to public expenditure is but as a tale that is told. Never for a moment since their entrance to office, have they disclosed or professed a desire for sound business expenditure.
' Dash away and spend the money ' was the openly expressed injunction of an hon. gentleman opposite this session to the Government. There was no need on the part of the member from Prince Edward Island to inculcate this principle for the guidance of the present Government. They have given ample evidence of their gifts in this direction, although it required the frankness of a private member supporting the Ministry to acknowledge publicly what we all believed to be true, namely, that the Government are more interested and ' concerned in devising means for the expenditure of the revenue than for providing the requisite revenue for necessary and legitimate expenditure. I remarked last year that it ordinarily was the function of Government first to fix its budget of expenditures, and then provide the revenue by taxation, but it is obviously the practice of the Government to obtain all the revenue possible, and then provide means of expending it. As I said last year, the Committee of Supply has become merely the committee of ways and means to spend the revenue. Yes, ' dash away and spend the money ' is the open and avowed programme of the Government. I trust this policy will not receive the support of the people of Canada who are providing the money.

But the Government reply: The Opposition party do not object to the items of Supply voted from time to time. This is a weak and fatuous defence. No opposition has the opportunity of discussing in detail the items of the Expropriation Bill. Protest availeth nothing when it is possible even. The Government must take the full responsibility of its own supply and expenditure. They alone are responsible, and I charge that they are needlessly prodigal in this respect, and are not in any degree, it would appear, guided by principle or policy. Witness the utter lack of principle in the increase of subsidies to one province in the first session of Parliament. What more reprehensible than the arbitration reference provided for aiding British Columbia in its mad policy of expenditure, as if there was anything to arbitrate? Conceding that the province was justly entitled to an increase of provincial subsidies, I say nevertheless that the submission of such a matter to arbitration, when there was no issue to arbitrate, was a piece of administrative folly that should wreck immediately the strongest Administration that ever held office. That one act alone should be regarded by reflecting people as a sufficient ground for a vote of want of confidence in the Government at the first opportunity.
Take the expenses incurred to-day in connection with Fenian Raid bounties. Speaking for myself, I say that the administration of that Act is nothing more or less to-day than a public scandal, and I say that although the people of my province will probably benefit more by the bounties than the people of any other province. Not the slightest business-like attention is given to the administration of the Fenian Raid Bounties Act. In fact, in a by-election in the province of Nova Scotia recently promises were made by prominent supporters of this Government that improper applications for the bounty would be condoned through the influence of prominent Conservatives in that county with the Government administration. It is quite proper to give the Fenian Raid bounty to those who are entitled to it. But I want to tell the Minister of Finance that it would be worth his while to. see that the Fenian Raid bounties are paid promptly and in business-like way and it would certainly be worth his while to inquire how much of the public money of this country is being improperly expended in that connection. To illustrate
the peculiar methods adopted tjy hon. gentlemen opposite in making expenditures, let me refer to another matter. We are promised legislation this year to provide moneys wherewith to reimburse the depositors of the Farmers' Bank. If that legislation is introduced, if the money is voted and subsequently paid to the losing depositors of that defunct banking institution, it will not be because of any sympathy on the part of the Government with those who lost their money in the failure of that bank, it will not be because of any principle, but it will be because this Government want to pay the election expenses of their own friends in the last Dominion election. That is a pretty strong statement and perhaps requiring some little explanation, but I have no doubt hon. gentlemen opposite can understand my meaning very well indeed. Many hon. gentlemen now occupying seats on the other side of the House, in the election of 1911, promised that if their party was returned to power, the depositors, at least, of the Farmers' Bank would be refunded their losses by the Government of this country. That was a corrupt bargain to make as between a candidate and the electorate to which he was appealing. If he were using his own money it would be a corrupt bargain; but there would not perhaps be so much objection to it, as to those hon. gentlemen who have secured seats in Parliament coming to the Government and saying:	I cannot liquidate the promises I
made to the depositors of the Farmers' Bank, myself, as I have not the money, will the Minister of Finance he good enough to do it for me. I repeat that if that expenditure is made it will be absolutely devoid of principle as are many of the other expenditures made by the present Administration.	_
Now let us investigate briefly the actual expenditures of the present Government. In the year ending March 31, 1912,-and the Government was not responsible for the Appropriation Act of that year,-the expenditure chargeable against revenue, amounted to $98,161,440.77, in 1913 it had grown to $112,059,537.41; for 1914 the estimate is $129,000,000, and for 1914-15 it doubtless will reach $150,000,000. The Expropriation Act for this year will provide for expenditures on consolidated fund account in excess of $146,000,000, and the Supplementaries will contain a substantial amount also. The following figures may be of interest:
24S8


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: Never, never.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I just wish that a
detectaphone had been within range of tha hon. gentleman in that election, and that it were here to-day, so that we could hear its record. I will accept the hon. gentleman's statement that he never used the exact words which I have suggested; but if he will give to me and to the House the exact words he used in discussing privately and publicly the tax upon agricultural

implements, I will merely ask that he allow me to interpret the meaning.
I know that my hon. friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) would not place himself in such a compromising position as to display the banner: 'Vote for Meighen and free agricultural implements.' He is a very skilful dialectician, and he knows how to make a statement that is open to many constructions. I know that my hon. friend never promised free agricultural implements in the last campaign, but he will not deny that many people in his constituency thought he did promise it.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: I have never met one.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I see my hon. friend from Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) in the Chamber. He was in favour of free agricultural implements, and yet he voted against it the other night. I have in my possession a card which he circulated amongst his very intelligent electors, and it was a strange one. His slogan was: 'One King, one flag, one fleet-and free agricultural implements.' This is rather an anticlimax to a trinity of election platitudes which did not mean much and which my hon. friend did not intend to mean much, but he gave the cry of free agricultural implements a royal and imperial importance by ranking his policy for free agricultural implements with: one King, one flag and one fleet.
The Minister of Finance advised us yesterday that he had had the advantage of special information respecting agricultural implements. He said:
We have made inquiries. For considerably over a year past we have been making inquiries and investigations into the question of agricultural implements. We have made an investigation into the prices of agricultural implements on both sides of the line, in Canada and in the United States. We have made an inquiry as to the factory cost of production of the principal agricultural implements in Canada and in the United States. We have examined the balance sheets of manufacturers with the idea of ascertaining what their position is and whether or not they are making undue profit upon their business.
I think it is only fair that when the House goes into Committee of Ways and Means we should have the advantage of the researches of the Department of Finance into the agricultural implement industry and that we should have all the knowledge which the hon. minister has respecting the balance sheets of the respective manufacturers of implements on this continent. I trust it is the intention of the minister to

give us this information. When we have that 1 am sure that we on this side of the House will be pleased to engage in a fair and businesslike discussion of the tariff upon agricultural implements-and there I must leave the subject.
I wish to discuss at some little length the question of removal of duty upon wheat in chis country in order to secure from the United States admission into that country of our wheat and flour. I also wish to discuss the policy enunciated by my distinguished leader (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) in favour of the principle of the elimination of the duty upon staple foodstuffs in order to secure for the people of this country the vital necessaries of life, food-
5 p.m. stuffs, at the lowest possible price, which is a pressing, serious human problem for us who are the representatives of the people to discuss and legislate upon in this Parliament. Dealing first with the question of wheat, the United States Government in effect say to the Government of this country: If you place wheat upon the free list you can have entry into our market for wheat and wheat products, inclusive of wheat flour. Members upon this side of the House say it should be done. We proposed a resolution to that effect only a few weeks ago. Hon. gentlemen opposite say it should not be done and that Canada should maintain the duty as it now stands. The issue is clear, clean-cut and well defined. It is an interesting issue to debate It is one of great interest and importance to this country. I believe that the position that we upon this side take upon this question is the correct one. I believe that the position which the hon. gentlemen opposite take, is wrong and cannot be supported, and I do not think that they have up to this moment given-us, or that they will be able in the future to give us, reasons which will sustain and justify the position which they assume . in respect to this question. There are many people in this country who will sustain the Liberal party in the position which they take respecting the wheat duty. I think that the people of the Prairie provinces almost unanimously will do so. The Legislature of the province of Manitoba passed a resolution on this subject and, as hon. gentlemen know, the dominant party in that Legislature is one in sympathy with hon. gentlemen opposite. In fact, it is this "" Legislature which gave this Government its present Minister of Public Works, and I have no doubt that that hon. gentleman is

still strong and influential in the councils ol the government party in the province of Manitoba. That resolution reads:
Whereas the Congress of the United States of America have by recent legislation reduced the duty on wheat and wheat products entering the said United States of America.
And whereas provision has been made in the said legislation for the total removal of such duty on wheat entering the United States of America from any foreign country who would likewise remove such duty.
And whereas it is the opinion of this House that the removal of such duty by the Govern-nv t of the Dominion of Canada from the United States of America would be beneficial to the agriculturalists of Manitoba.
Therefore let it he resolved that in the opinion of this House the Parliament of Canada should enact such legislation as would give the farmers of Manitoba the benefit of the countervailing duty on wheat and wheat products as provided in the Underwood tariff.
T!i is is an important question. I do not wish to say, even though I may think so, that there is nothing in the contention of hon. gentlemen opposite.
Let us take the wheat industry in our northwest and ascertain, if we can, the present condition of that industry, and what its future prospects, so far as we may safely venture. And I refer to the prairie provinces, because it is the seat of the major portion of our wheat production. Let me first call attention to the relative importance of this industry in Canada.
The total value of our exports of agricultural produce to all countries in 1913 was $150,000,000 cf which wheat and wheat flour comprised over $107,000,000. Wheat and its flour comprised in 1913 in value nearly 75 per cent of our exports of agricultural produce to the United Kingdom, and over 30 per cent of our total exports of Canadian productions of all kinds. Those figures alone will sufficiently impress one with the importance of the wheat industry alone; while there is much to say about other natural productions in that part of Canada.
Now, what are some of the outstanding facts regarding the actual condition of the industry at the present moment, and what I am about to say is applicable to the grain industry as a whole, and agricultural conditions generally in the prairie provinces. The acreage under cultivation has not shewn any increase during the past three years. For the year ending March 31, 1913, there were 10,000 less homestead entries than in 1911. In 1911 the land sales were 19,000,000 acres, while, in 1913 it had fallen to 9,000,000 acres. In 1914 the figures to these matters will, I fear, be less favourable. Further, let me say the number of immi-,	158
grants settling on western lands, has been declining, and we are now face to face with the problem how to procure for the future a substantial quantity of land immigration. It is from Eastern Canada and the United States that furnishes land settlers for the West, the major portion of immigration from Europe including the United Kingdom have for some time past been settling in our towns and cities. Our free lands are pretty well disposed of, and European immigrants, as a rule, are not possessed of sufficient capital to purchase. To-day we find ourselves with an immigration policy that has passed its usefulness and it is unsuitable to our needs because it lacks selection methods. Consequently, I say that without the adoption of some new land immigration policy -we cannot look for any substantial increase in land settlement in the West.
Further, we have the following facts particularly relevant to the wheat industry. It is baiely remunerative, if at all, to the producer, the average cost being at least 55 cents per bushel, and the cost of production is apparently increasing, it is said lj,i per cent since 1909, while marketing ar.d exporting charges have as well increased. These facts are important because a large section of the prairie provinces it is conceded must remain grain producing areas, and not easily convertible into mixed farming lands. Important also because the production costs are important to Canad-', whose exportable surplus is large and must consequently meet export prices.
It is to be remembered also that we have tremendous areas not yet devoted to grain growing, which must, if utilized, and if we are to make the desired progress, double and quadruple our production, and that is only possible if the costs of producing are reasonable and the markets available. The production costs and the markets for our western wheat is therefore of vital importance, and always worthy of the most careful consideration. It is true that we usually proceed upon the assumption that our wheat production is to continue to increase greatly, and many at least, presume that markets are awaiting not only our. present productions, but any anticipated increases as well. Now, a>-e we reasonably sure of such markets and under what conditions are any of the world's markets open to us ? Let me present to the House some considerations respecting markets.
Our important wheat market to-day is the United Kingdom. In 1913 the value of our total wheat exports was $88,608,000,



of which the United Kingdom took $74,-
978,000	or over 88 per cent. In the event of an increased production is it sufficiently capacious to consume any considerable proportion of the same ?
The United Kingdom imports about 200,000,000 bushels of wheat, of which to-day Canada supplies about one-fifth, British India one-fifth, Australia one-tenth, the United States one-fifth, and the Argentine one-seventh. While the volume of our exports have grown in the last 15 years, so has that of foreign countries. Two facts should be here noted, namely, that the domestic consumption of the United Kingdom is an almost constant quantity, and that she will continue to buy from all exporting countries of the world which offer the most favourable prices, and particularly those with whom she has an export trade and of which she is creditor nation. It is therefore clear that our only hope of increasing our exports of wheat and wheat flour substantially to the United Kingdom, is by displacing foreign wheat by advantages in quality and price. It is a fact that at present prices the growing of wheat is not very remunerative when in competition with other export wheat, consequently, the price at which we can produce and sell is of manifest importance to Canada.
Now, let us consider the United Kingdom as a market for wheat exported in the form of flour. In 1913 our total exports of flour was 4,478,061 barrels of which 2,880,167 barrels were taken by the United Kingdom, or nearly sixty-five per cent, and the total consumption of flour of the United Kingdom is about 35,000,000 barrels. Will our exports of flour to the United Kingdom increase substantially? I do not think so, because her millers are to-day our strongest competitors. The British miller buys the export wheat of the world and consequently it is cheap. Britain will continue to buy foreign wheat to employ her ships and in payment of interest upon her foreign investments. Again the British miller mixes his wheat, and the British consumer likes the resultant of the mixed product, and consequently the British miller has an advantage over the Canadian miller in buying the variety of raw material.
It is true that Canadian wheat is well regarded for flour purposes because of its strength in gluten, but the United States, Russia and Argentina grow a wheat also strong in gluten, which the British miller buys, consequently in quality of flour required for the United Kingdom we meet strong competition from the British miller.

Again the most modern mills of the world are now found on the docks in Great Britain, and they probably produce flour as cheaply, if not more cheaply, than any country of the world. Newspapers recently reported that a Scotch mill recently exported flour to the United States.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Has the hon. gentleman the figures showing the amount of wheat the United States exports to Great Britain?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: No, I have not these figures. Let me continue. I saw in a Canadian paper last week, the statement that soon Canada will supply the United Kingdom with flour. The conditions rather indicate the fact that we will be sorely pressed to hold what we have, unless we can undersell the British miller. The United States miller doubtless thought the same at one time. In 1906 the United States sold to the United Kingdom 10,152,770 cwt. of flour, in 1913 it was 6,157,644 cwts., and it is said that so keenly do American millers find British competition that they are largely withdrawing their selling organizations. And why? There are, I suppose, many contributing causes, hut chiefly the high cost of producing wheat there, and I believe it is even greater than in Canada, unremunerative prices obtained, whether in the form of wheat or wheat flour, in competition with other wheat growing countries and the ~ British miller. To-day we have a milling capacity of over 30,000,000 barrels per year, with an actual production of 15,000,000 barrels, and a domestic consumption of say
10,000,000 barrels, and I ask you, while we talk glibly of increasing our wheat and flour production, where are we going to obtain the market, the consumers?
We have the opportunity, if we want to accept it, of free entry into the markets of the United States, of wheat and flour. Is it worth accepting? The man who produces the wheat is apparently anxious to accept the offer. The Canadian miller objects and the Government objects also or at least it sustains the objection of the Canadian millers. Is his objection just or sound? Our millers are labouring under the mistake that Great Britain will largely absorb our flour exports no matter to what dimensions it grows. Facts rather prove this is an hallucination of the Canadian miller. If it is expected that our exportable surplus of flour is to grow, and it should, our millers should be more alarmed over the competition of the British miller than that of the United States miller, I understand that our miller has requested an ocean steamship service

specially .subsidized for flour exports. This would be a discrimination that- is unnecessary, and would, I think, prove futile, as it has whenever tried. I think if our millers devoted the same energy in utilizing the advantages they possess and in fighting for markets close by, that would consume even the milling capacity we now have, thus reducing the cost of production per unit, it would be found .more profitable to themselves and advantageous to their country than .persistent solicitations for Government favours which I venture to believe would not be helpful. Surely it is clear that we do need other markets for wheat and flour, and it is equally as reasonable a proposition that to ensure this we must do everything to make it possible to produce more cheaply
We can have an additional market. The United States market is open to us. The decision rests with the Government of Canada. The sooner we accept this market the sooner will we there establish ourselves and displace American grown wheat and flour. There would be another .set of mills grinding our wheat. It would enable our millers to grind more steadily and thus more cheaply because our milling capacity would be in use. The problem of the 'Canadian miller is the lack of stomachs to consume flour and cattle to consume offal. The British market is not the panacea nor are ocean freight rates the cause. We want a readjustment of tariff taxation to enable cheaper production. This can be done without any injury to Canadian interests, and it should be done. This matter' should have had the sympathetic consideration of the Government at this session. Wheat should have been placed upon the free list to afford an additional market and other tariff adjustments should have been enacted to encourage all productions in order to render more effective our position with competitors, and particularly for the producers of the prairie provinces where conditions are not too healthy.
Yesterday the Minister of Finance urged as a reason why it was not advisable to put wheat upon, the free list, that it would withdraw traffic from our transcontinental railway lines, which were specially constructed with the view, and in the hope, that our exports would travel east and west thus affording these railways profitable long haul traffic. I wonder if the Minister of Finance was in earnest in propounding that idea? During the campaign of 1911, I often wondered if any man in ,	158i
the Conservative party was really sincere . when he said that free wheat between. Canada and the United States would be inadvisable, because it would destroy the east and west-bound railway traffic, and consequently injure our railways. That, in my opinion, is the most absurd proposition ever propounded. If it be true that the Canadian, railways are at 'the mercy of the United States Government, then the United States Government can withdraw the tariff upon wheat any day and destroy our railway systems. Hon. gentlemen opposite say: why do you want the American market; Canadian wheat will not go there? If that be true, then Canadian wheat will continue to go over the Canadian railways, and the Canadian railways will not be hurt. Hon. gentlemen opposite further say: the price of wheat to Canadian producers, will not be increased by its free admission to the American market. I do not think it is important either to deny or to affirm that contention, but if American wheat is not higher in. price than Canadian wheat, then Canadian wheat will not go to the United States in great quantities and again railway interests will not be hurt. But I go father, and I take the position that there is no reason for imagining that we cannot export to other foreign countries the amount of wheat we are now exporting, and ship it over Canadian railways, while at the same time sell wheat to the United States. Surely the export of our wheat to the United States i.3 not going to destroy our export wheat trade with the other countries of the world. Carry it to the most absurd conclusion the human mind can imagine, and suppose that all our wheat went to the .United .States and none went abroad over the Canadian railway systems, would that hurt the Canadian railways?
I doubt it very much, and I challenge the hon. member for St. Antoine to make good his position, if I understand him to controvert the position which I am now taking. The purchasing power of the people of the Canadian West would be all the greater if they were selling their wheat in the United States alone and not anywhere else in the world, and they would only do it if they were doing it to a greater advantage than by selling their wheat elsewhere. Consequently, the purchasing power of the producer would be increased, and the imports of the West would be much greater. It would mean a higher grade of railway traffic, and the net

result would be that the Canadian railways would be better off than in hauling low grade traffic such as wheat. But I am taking an impossible and absurd position, one that cannot happen for many years. Whether we have free trade with the United States on wheat and wheat flour or not, will not in the slightest degree affect our present export trade with other countries. In fact, there is no reason why we might not have a trade with the United States in wheat to a greater or less extent, while our export trade with other countries would go on increasing, thus giving more business to the Canadian railways than they have now; and even when the Hudson Bay railway, that doubtful project, is completed, there is no reason why any shipments of wheat which can be shipped through Hudson bay should affect the railways of this country, because in a few years we should have such an export of grain from this country that it would tax every system of transportation we have to handle it.
But I want to urge upon hon. gentlemen opposite that peculiar conditions prevail in the West, and I feel that the Government are not properly seized of the actual facts. I believe that at this moment it will be in the interest of Canada, east and west, of the Canadian producer of wheat, of the Canadian miller, and of the Canadian consumer, to place wheat upon the free list, and consequently we upon this side of the House regret that the Government has seen fit not to place wheat upon the free list.
I would go further, because in the Budget debate it is not necessary that we should tonflne our discussion merely to matters of finance and of tariffs. .We should discuss generally the condition of our country. I would not limit the efforts of Government policy and Government action in dealing with problems of the West to the question of tariff alone. I believe we have reached the time when we should extend more direct and practical aid to agriculture, with special adaptation to the peculiar problems confronting the pioneer farmers of the three prairie provinces. They should be helped in other and more direct and practical ways which would produce immediate, permanent and profitable results. I am sure that hon. gentlemen on this side of the House are in favour of any policy which will extend some aid of a practical nature to the people of the West, who are endeavouring under difficult circumstances to produce from the soil wealth which this

country needs. From the West for many years in the future must come the exports of natural products which alone will pay for the imports of this country.
Hon. gentlemen opposite speak a great deal about the new agricultural policy, which means an expenditure of a million dollars a year. I congratulate the Government upon doing that much, but after all it is not very much. I do not know that it justifies a great volume of boasting, or that it indicates a great deal of careful study or reflection upon the actual agricultural conditions of this country. We have reached a stage in this country when we should do more for agricultural interests, and we would do so if we realized more clearly and accurately the tremendous part agriculture plays in the business and prosperity of this country. Hon. gentlemen opposite speak about the so-called National Policy being beneficial to agriculture. The policy of the present Government in respect to agriculture generally, but in reference particularly to the question which I have just been debating, namely, the wheat tariff, is not designed in the interest of the agricultural producer.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 148, for the relief of George Gracie Smith.-Mr. McKay.
Bill No. 149, for the relief of Harry Cracroft Pugh.-Mr. Douglas.

Alexander Kenneth Maclean: At six o'clock I was urging that, in view of the prevailing conditions in the Northwest provinces, in addition to encouragement in the way of possible tariff revision, we should not hesitate to afford them aid that would apply directly and practically to the needs of that country and to the peculiar difficulties confronting the farmers of that section. I have been informed since six o'clock, that a decision has been made by the Board of Railway Commissioners in the way of reduction of railway freight rates which will mean a great deal to those provinces, particularly to Saskatchewan and Alberta. I am sure this will be received with much gratification by all citizens of Canada, and particularly by those most directly affected. The Railway Board is a

creation of the late Administration, and the measure which created them was one of the acts of that Government to which hon. members on this side of the House always point with a great deal of pride and satisfaction. The Railway Board is a body which has rendered very important service to Canada, and if in the determination of the issue of railway freights which has been before them, they have succeeded in effecting such reduction as will prove an important factor in the interest of the people of the western provinces, then the Act establishing that commission has been still further justified.
There is just one more matter I propose discussing before concluding my remarks, and that is the question of tariff policy respecting food products. We had very little from the Minister of Finance on that subject yesterday; in fact, nothing. I was somewhat surprised by this omission, because the question of the cost of living is of extraordinary importance and is receiving very serious consideration on the part of all classes of people. I think, further, that it is a condition of affairs that calls for practical, serious consideration on the part of the Government. I do not propose to engage in a detailed discussion of the high cost of living, or of what remedy should be applied by way of tariff amendments. I rather purpose asserting some general principles in respect of this question. The high cost of living, the phenomenal increase in the prices of the actual necessities of life, requires no proof or evidence from me. The prices of articles which are the actual necessities of life, particularly of foodstuffs, have been constantly rising for years, until to-day the wage-earners and the small salaried classes are facing the lowering of the living standard, or they are obliged to forego many of the actual necessities of life and cease to enjoy many of the advantages which hitherto they have enjoyed. In this respect, phenomenal conditions prevail throughout the world, conditions intensely interesting, and deemed of sufficient importance by all countries to receive the most thorough and careful consideration by their best-trainea economists. Now, I am not going to assert that the Government is entirely responsible for the prevailing high cost of living so called. For this phenomenon many causes are assigned, but I do not propose to enumerate or discuss them. Some probably are beyond our control, while the effects of some may be at least minimized if not removed. I do not propose either to
give any comparative statement of prices. This is too well known. Neither do I propose discussing any lengthy list of articles, the prices of which are considered high. However, I wish to discuss very briefly the matter of the prices of foodstuffs, and to suggest what we should do in the circumstances.
To-day most foodstuffs are taxed or subject to duty, and this undoubtedly contributes to the cost. The tariff duties must affect the prices of foodstuffs, else no one would object to their removal, and they would never have been established. Is this not right? Does there exist any real justification for the continuance of the imposition of duties upon staple foodstuffs, in view of the existing prices, and in view of the fact that it apparently carries no real advantage to the producer? Let us consider a few articles. Take the matter of meats, so essential a foodstuff. What is the world-wide condition? The world is hardly producing sufficient for its needs. That is true of Canada to-day. Our production of live-stock is declining, and, this being an important consideration, I desire to give the House some figures bearing upon this point, as helping to an intelligent consideration of the question. Canadian head of live-stock:
1908	1912.
Swine,	3,369,858	2,655,400Sheep	2,831,404	2,360,600Milk cows,	2,911,746	2,890,100Other cattle, 4,629,836	4,093,600Total cattle receipts at Winnipeg stockyard:	1906-130,426	1912-101,044
The export of cattle from the port of Montreal in 1909-1 am not sure whether it was 1909 or 1906-was 94,294; while in 1912 it was but '6,184 head. The export of sheep was 1,616 in 1909, and only 178 in 1912. It is quite obvious, therefore, that our production of live stock available for meat supply is decreasing, and that affects very seriously the whole question of meat prices. An idea of our decline in live stock exports can be [adequately gathered from the fact that in 1902 the value was $10,480,000, while in 1913 it was $2,183,000.
It might be of interest to give the House some statistics respecting the live stock productions and export in the United States, which is of importance in considering this subject from the Canadian view point. Let me first give some figures regarding exports from the United States :

Exports of cattle:
1909	 397,286 head
1913 (June) .. .. 105,506 head
Exports of beef:
1909	
674,284,723	lb.1913	
123,000,000	lb.
Exports of pork and its products:
1909	
1,538,024,466	lb.1913	
965,000,000	lb.In the United States the number of live stock of all kinds have fallen as in Canada,	only in greater proportions,and, I think, everything points	to that
country becoming a very large importer. Now, under such conditions, is a tariff in this country upon live animals and meats either just or necessary? The removal of United States tariff upon meats will lessen materially our limited supply for domestic consumption. Why should not the tariff upon foodstuff of this character be removed? I cannot detain the House further upon this point.
Let me now give the House some statistics showing our imports and exports of important ai'ticles of foodstuffs for the year 1913, with the duty paid thereon:
	Imports.	Duty paid.
Pork	$1,043,916	$210,990.00Poultry .. ..	407,815	80,201.00Meat, canned.	388,566	97,627.19Eggs	2,828,607	97,123.48Butter	2,123,688	252,311.76Potatoes. . . .	538,106	114,353.67Mutton . . . .	554,758	169,339.45Bacon .. ..	1,938,726	270,893.06


Mr. EDWARDS:: If		the duty
Exports.
$	57,960
72,477 26,718 35,519 223,578 749,363 6,742 5,350,845
were re- moved, does the hon. gentleman think that more butter and eggs and bacon would be imported than formerly?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Probably. In this country to-day, particularly at certain seasons of the year, many of our people are compelled to abstain from purchasing some of these articles by reason of the cost. If we have to import these articles why not let those who require them have free of duty taxation if possible. I am simply asserting that policy as a general principle. There may be exceptions to it which I shall discuss later.


Mr. MORPHY:: Does the hon. gentleman argue that the list of foodstuffs last mentioned should be admitted to this country free of duty?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am going to argue that in a moment.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Will the hon. gentleman not answer me now?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Yes. My .position is this: Staple food products, as a general rule, should be admitted into this country free of duty unless for very good and substantial reasons. In formulating and readjusting a tariff upon foodstuffs the guiding principle should be to make foodstuffs free of duty. The necessities of revenue would of course be a natural exception to that view.
To-day -we are in receipt of ample revenue, tout one can easily conceive that almost at any time the Government might require further revenue. I do not mean to assert that I would carry this principle so far as to say that such imports should not be taxable for purposes of revenue.
I go a little farther and perhaps this is what my hon. friend wishes me to discuss. I think the maintenance of a tariff in this country upon foodstuffs was more defensible for the purposes of retaliation against our neighbour than upon other grounds. I do not accept it as a fact that tariff imposts upon agricultural produce imports into this country have been beneficial to the producers. I assert that, as a general principle. I would think it only fair that any government, in taking into consideration the readjustment of the tariff upon foodstuffs, while guided mainly by the principle of giving the consumers untaxed foodstuffs, should take into consideration the question of how -such articles, when imported into a foreign country from Canada, are treated in the way of tariff duties. I am, willing to concede that that is a fair matter for consideration, but as a general principle I say that staple food products might well be admitted into this country free of duty.
To-day we are trying to drive Canadian trade across a continent 3,000 miles: with a dead section intervening between the West and the East. It is an ambitious scheme on the part of Canadians. It is perhaps in many respects deserving of commendation. We have all done our part to develop trade between the eastern and western parts of Canada, as well as intexprovincial trade, but in a country extending from ocean to ocean it is not sound, economically, and I deny its justice, to be endeavouring to force traffic and trade in foodstuffs particularly across a continent some 2,500 or
3,000	miles in extent. It is unnatural, and economically wasteful. If the Canadian Northwest develops its agricultural productions in the next few years, as it should, it will become the strong competitor of the farmer of Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime provinces. It will not he the competitor of the farmer in the United States.

We will have the same condition of affairs that prevailed in the United States some years ago. When the western states [DOT]were heavy exporters they were able to dispose heavily of their products in the eastern -states with the result that the eastern farmer felt the competition. That *will be the result in this country if the West develops in the production of agricultural commodities as I believe and hope it "will. It will be to the advantage of the eastern farmer, therefore, if the farmer of the West has an outlet in the western or middle western states so that there he may find a consuming market for his surplus products. It apparently will happen in this country that while we are exporters of certain products, such as bacon, for instance, where our exports are much larger than the quantity imported, we can still have an import trade to the advantage of the consumer.
It is not wise to say that we should consider only the interests of the producer of agricultural commodities, for we must remember that we have a large number of consumers, in fact, numerically greater than the producers to-day in Canada. It is not fair or just to the consumer to say that in all cases in respect to foodstuffs he must accept and purchase from the Canadian producer regardless of circumstances, or pay the import duty.
Peculiar economic conditions prevail today respecting the price of the real necessities of life throughout the country and we must take them into consideration else we cannot deal logically or in a businesslike way with the problem that I aim now attempting to discuss. The situation today is altogether different from what it was some years ago. A new set of facts and conditions confronts us and it is our duty,
' in providing a remedy and in seeking some alleviation of present conditions on behalf of the consumer, to study the actual facts and conditions so that we may discuss the remedy in an intelligent manner. The effect of a tariff to-day is not what it was a few years ago. The same is true of the United States and of all the world. Trade has become internationalized, and many duties exist upon imports which do not affect the quantity of the imports hr the price of the article or articles imported. I believe that if the duty ware removed from some articles it would not vary in one iota the quantity of imports of such articles, nor perhaps would it affect the price. There are combinations of trade between some
producers, between transportation systems, and between middlemen that absolutely nullify the effect and intention of a tariff. For that reason I say that the question of tariffs to-day must he considered in the light of new conditions. This, I think, was well expressed in the following annual crop report of the Department of Agriculture of the United States issued January, 1914:
The long line of distributors and middlemen between the farmer and consumer are in a position to take advantage of the market and to a certain extent control the market in botli directions, because they are better organized to keep informed of crop and market conditions and to act more promptly than either farmers or consumers, who are not organized and as individuals are helpless.
The high prices paid by consumers, ranging from 5 to nearly 500 per cent in some cases more than the farmer received, indicate that there is plenty of room for lowering the cost of farm products to consumers and at the same time largely increase the cash income per farm without increasing farm production.
This, Sir, is, I believe, an actual fact in the working out of things to-day. When one discusses the removal or reduction of tariffs upon agricultural products, it does not follow that the producer will be affected in the least, although it may operate to the disadvantage of the middleman or possibly some transportation system. I do not think it is the opinion of many farmers or producers of foodstuffs, that the tariff now existing is in their interest. I do Pot say that statement is not subject to some exception, because I dare say there are some producers of certain agricultural foodstuffs, who would contend, and perhaps with some measure of success, that a tariff was of some advantage to them. But generally speaking, the producer does not get the advantage of any substantial proportion of the price paid today by the consumers of staple foodstuffs, as has been proven time and again in many instances in Canada and the United States. There are some producers of foodstuffs in this country, who are no, asserting that the removal or reduction of duties upon foodstuffs will operate as an injury to him. A memorial from the Dominion Council of Agriculture was presented to this Government in December last, and in that memorial I find these words:
We ask that all foodstuffs he placed on the free list, as we believe that the taxing of foodstuffs is a crime against humanity.


William Cameron Edwards: Who said that?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The Dominion Council
of Agriculture represents a very large body

of the producers of agricultural products in the province of Ontario, and of the West. I be-lieve that very shortly after this memorial was presented to the Government, a countermemorial was presented by another delegation from the province of Ontario. Am I right in that?


Mr. BEST:: The members of the first delegation were agriculturists; the members of the second delegation were farmers.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I think the truth is that the first delegation was composed of farmers and the second was composed of politicians. It appeared that way to me at least. The second delegation appear to me to hav<-been staged to counteract the representations of the former delegation or memorial. I do not know whether the first one was or not; at all events, they were quite frank.


Mr. ROGERS:: If my hon. friend will excuse me, I would like to say that that statement is not in accordance with fact.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Which statement ?


Robert Rogers: The statement that the delegation was engineered and brought down here for a purpose.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Though I am always glad to accept the word of the Minister of Public Works, I must say that it had to me that appearance.


John Best: The farmers of Ontario, who came here on the 21st of December, 1911, did not say they wanted free wheat.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not know that the hon. gentlemen opposite would be glad to submit that issue once again to the farmers of Ontario.


Mr. BELAND:: South Bruce.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The question of the
high cost of living and of placing foodstuffs on the free list, subject to the possible exceptions and considerations I have mentioned, deserves a more complete argument than I intend to make to-night. When I commenced to speak upon this point, it was my intention merely to assert some general facts and principles in connection with the question.
The Minister of Finance stated yesterday that free food means free trade. Surely that is an untenable proposition. Where does the Minister of Finance get authority for that view? He did not endeavour to substantiate it, and I doubt his ability, or that of any other hon. gentleman, to do so. You may resort to history, to experi-
ence, or to facts, but you will fail to find anything which would support the proposition of the Minister of Finance, that free food means free trade. The theory that free food means free trade is a protectionist doctrine. It is the idea merely of those who try to make the farmer believe he is a beneficary of the protection given to others. This idea I thought was long ago discarded.


Robert Rogers: We do not want to discard it.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I suppose the .Minister of Public Works is right in saying that he and his friends do not want to discard protective duties, and therefore they take refuge in the absurd doctrine that free food means free trade. He wants food to support his protective tariff duties. When protection was first established in Canada and in the United States, it was said to be for the aid of infant industries; but it is obvious that argument could not last forever, and it has been abandoned. The old established industry seems to want protection as much as the industry started but yesterday.
In the United States they abandoned that thirty years ago; and when they did so, what did they take up? They said it increased the wages of labour. That argument was urged for a period, but it has also been abandoned. Nobody urges that to-day. Experience has proved that it cannot be established as a fact., Up to the year of 1890 or thereabouts there was no such thing as protection for the farmer in the United States tariff. It was the McKinley tariff Bill which imposed upon agricultural products a tariff for protection purposes. It was in the time of McKinley that we first heard the campaign of protection for the farmers. He was placing the responsibility of the continuance of the high protective tariff upon the farmer, hut he really intended it for other classes. Even the protectionist, I thought, had abandoned the justification of the tariff upon the ground that it is necessary for the farmer's interest. He has resorted to another argument, namely, that there should be a tariff to equalize the aifference in the cost of production in. the home country and in the importing country. That is the doctrine put forward today in the United States in support of the policy of protection. That was the doctrine held by the Minister of Finance last session or the session before when he introduced his Tariff Commission Bill. That was his justification for it. He never then

urged that-, if you have free foodstuffs, you will have free trade. He did not then mean to suggest that it costs more to produce foodstuff in this country than it does in the United States, and that it was necessary to determine the precise difference by a tariff commission. Therefore, I say that the proposition that the placing of foodstuffs upon the free list necessarily means the adoption of free trade, is untenable and absurd. I do not propose pursuing my argument further upon this point.
In conclusion, considering the peculiar economic conditions - prevailing tc-day, considering the high cost of living which presses iSorely upon many classes of our people, considering the extremely high prices of the actual necessities of life, particularly foodstuffs, considering the fact that the producer of foodstuffs apparently receives little if any advantage from the Canadian tariff to-day imposed upon foodstuffs, I ask: have we not reached that stage when we might, for the benefit of the consumer, place foodstuffs upon the free list? That is the position which we upon this side of the House take, and I think the position is sound as a general principle. I believe we have the human side at least of the issue. Hon. gentlemen opposite say we must continue it upon foodstuffs or the whole fabric of our tariff will fall. That position is unsound; and the Min9 p.m. ister of Finance, in making his tariff changes yesterday, demonstrated to some degree at least that that doctrine was unsound, because he made decreases as well as increases, in the tariff rates, and in some instances he placed articles upon the free list.
Economically our position upon this question is sound. I believe it is in the interest of both the producer and consumer, I submit that the Government should immediately take into consideration the matter of taxation upon foodstuffs in this country. If the Minister of Finance desires to adhere to the position- that he asserted yesterday, that he will not consider the demand of the Canadian consumer for the remission of taxation upon foodstuffs, if he will continue to adhere to the position that he will not consider the revision of the tariff upon foodstuffs, we are satisfied to meet hon. gentlemen opposite before the people of this country upon the issue. We are ready to meet them at Philippi upon that policy.


Mr. H. B. AMES (St. Antoine):: Mr. Speaker, it has fallen upon me to endeavour to deal with some of the arguments laid before this House by the junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. E. Maclean). It is not my intention to occupy the time of the House for a period of four hours, but I shall endeavour in a few moments, as speedily as I can-for I am a man of rather few words-to deal with some points at least which the junior member for Halifax has made, and which I think should not pass unchallenged.
In his opening remarks he made two observations, one of which I can re-echo, the other of which I would take issue with him upon. He expressed the hope that the present depression was only temporary, and that full prosperity would very speedily arrive. While hardly admitting that Canada to-day is not fully prosperous, I shall still be quite prepared to'join with him in hoping that greater prosperity may come to her in the near future.
When the junior member for Halifax characterizes the remarks made in this House yesterday by the hon. Minister of Finance as being apologetic and fearful, I confess that I cannot share his views. As near as we could judge from this side of the House-and the hon. Minister of Finance must have presented an altogether different appearance from the other side, if the remarks of the junior member for Halifax hold goodr-the Minister of1 Finance seemed full of optimism, vigour and determination-and, I trust, of good health to carry to a successful issue those projects which he brought forward. The junior member for Halifax laboured long and arduously	all afternoon	in	anendeavour to convict the hon. Minister of Finance of some wrongdoing. I f-eel very much like letting the verdict go as 'not proven.'	I do not think	the	hon.gentleman has	brought home	in	hiscriticism anything very serious	with	reference to the policy of the Government or of the Minister of Finance. And yet, I am hardly willing to even let him have the -benefit of such a verdict, because I believe that the teeling of this House is that the Minister of Finance, in dealing . with this question and with his own record, has been, if anything, over modest, as is his wont, and has not taken to himself the full meed of praise to which he is certainly entitled. After three years of successful -administration there begin to emerge a sufficient number of facts and figures to make comparison with previous
administrations possible; and I propose to take a few moments to emphasize some of the points which seem to me worthy of being spoken of and being again emphasized in the remarks of the Minister of Finance.
The Minister of Finance is no pessimist; he is a conservative optimist. He sees things as they are, and he does not see shadows where shadows do not lie; and 1 think he is prepared to fearlessly face the future in the belief that Canada will be able to continue her forward and prosperous career. We all admit that there are periods of temporary depression; we ail admit that a new country goes ahead very much like the kangaroo, by long leaps with occasional rests between. We ail admit that progress cannot be measured in absolute equality year after year, that there are years when we recuperate, and years when we expand with such rapidity that we hardly know ourselves as we grow. One has only to look out upon the spectacle which nature gives us here, and will give us in the next few weeks. There are days when the buds open rapidly, when we can almost see things grow; there are other days when the winds are cold and the sun is hidden, when for several days it does not seem as if there was any progress made m growing vegetation. But we all know that spring and summer will come, that the bud will appear and the leaf and flower and fruit. And so do we believe it will be with Canada, that, though there may be days, though there may be years, when progress is not quite so rapid as in others, yet we are certain that the growth and expansion which we now note is but begun.
Now, the year 1912-13 has already been referred to and was referred to by the Minister of Finance one year ago. It may almost be termed ancient history. And yet the figures were not fully before us -a year ago, but are now recorded in a blue book. This being always the istate of affairs, it is customary, when the Budget Speech is made, to deal with two years instead of one. That the year was wisely administered, we all admit, that was the year when the Finance Minister, looking out upon the world-and the Finance Minister of Canada must consider conditions in every part of the world-anr seeing dark clouds gathering, with war threatening in certain quarters, made preparations, as he wisely should, 
to meet this storm when it should gather, to offset a depression which might come. For, as we all know, Canada and the rest of the world are so intimately linked together that no part of the world can suffer in nonproductiveness without all the world suffering in consequence; and when war breaks out in one part of the world we, like all other parts of the world, feel the results of it even in this peaceful and prosperous country of ours. So the Finance Minister exercised caution to such an extent that out of the revenues of that year 1912-13 after meeting all the running expenses, everything that could be properly charged to consolidated revenue account, he had. no less than $56,630,000 to the good. And he took that sum, as lie wisely should, and invested it-invested it in permanent public works, to the extent of over $32,400,000, works which are, for the most part productive, and he invested the balance in the reduction of the debt. So, in that year, our public debt was decreased by $25,617,000. In other words, having a revenue of $3, he spent $2 in current expenses and laid $1 away partly in supplying revenue producing works and partly in liquidating our indebtedness to the world. Could anything be more wise or more conservative than that? Can any year in the history of Canada show a better record than that?
And what had been foreseen with wise foresight by the Finance Minister came to pass. The year from which we have just emerged 1913-14 was not a year of the greatest prosperity such as Canada sometimes sees; it has been a year in which there were trying conditions, and we were able to meet those conditions and overcome them very largely because of the wise foresight exercised in the administration of our affairs for the previous year.
We have before us, the approximate figures for the year 1913-14. They are not complete, but they will serve for the purposes for which we wish to use them. We find that we have had a revenue on consolidated fund account of $163,000,000. The diminution was due mainly to a falling off in customs duties, which is no cause for special alarm, for it means that importations have not been quite as great as usual, and that means that there has been a general reduction of stocks held by our leading firms and that their renewals of these stocks have been more or less cautious owing to the falling off in the demand of the country. But we are perfectly sure, since the quantity of goods that must

be consumed in Canada does not greatly vary year by year except as it expands with out increasing population, we may be sure that in a very short time out customs revenue wiill again expand, because stocks throughout Canada are low and must be increased. So, there is no reason to expect a serious falling off in revenue within the next few years.
Now, the year 1913-14 which by the junior member for Halifax has been subjected to much criticism, will, I think, bear most minute scrutiny and careful examination. In that year our revenue was $163,000,000. We expended on current expenses chargeable to consolidated fund $126,500,000. In other words, the balance to the good after paying running expenses, was $36,500,000 That was not enough, says the junior member for Halifax, to pay all capital demands. That I admit. Nor do I lay it down as a rule that enough should annually be collected to pay all capital demands. It has always been the custom in new countries-dominions, provinces, cities -when a great public work was undertaken which would be for the benefit of generations yet to come, that a portion at least of that expense should be borne by those who eventually will profit by it. And so when a great capital expenditure is made it is customary that a portion of the required amount shall be paid, for by money borrowed and the carrying of sinking fund and interest shall not be merely upon the shoulders of the present generation, but upon the shoulders of those who may come alter and are likely to enjoy the benefits. So, I would not lay it down as a rule, to be deviated from never that all the money spent on capital account must be taken from the annual taxation of the people, and must be paid for year by year. A reasonable amount may each year be borrowed, and, provided it is invested carefully so that we get one hundred cents on the dollar in productive enterprises, there can be no criticism of this course as being bad finance. But there are a good many of the accounts that bad to be paid in the last year for which this Government is not at all responsible. We beard more than once, to quote the classical phrase of the Minister of Finance, that it is the hereditas damnosa which has taken away our apparently surplus revenue. Let us see just what are the reasons why this year also we did not reduce the public debt. In the first place, we had to provide for a certain number of public works. We could not bring them suddenly to an end. There is construction
in various parts of Canada-work on the Intercolonial, the canals, the public building's, harbour improvements- all had to go on, and upwards of $19,000,000 was spent in that way which it would have been difficult if not dangerous to have curtailed. Then, let us also remember that during the last year we had to meet $12,600,000 for the National Transcontinental railway; we had to meet $2,800,000 for the Quebec bridge, and between one and a half and two million dollars for the Hudson Bay railway. Let me in all fairness ask members of this House which of these three projects are the ministers now in power responsible for; and if that $17,000,000 has to be provided for this year, can it be said that it is due to the extravagance of this Administration, when all these projects were originated before this party came into power?
But the feature of the expenditure last year which strikes one most forcibly, although it was passed over very lightly indeed by the junior member for Halifax, was the great sum that was required to be paid out in railway subsidies. Railway subsidies have been paid in this country for the last thirty or forty years. If you look back over the list of expenditures you will see that in the twenty-nine years which end with 1913 there has been paid out for railway subsidies $48,430,187. It is to be presumed that this resulted in the construction of many lines of railway. That is an average of a little over one and a half millions a year, and never before in a single year has the amount exceeded $5,000,000. How much was it last year? I wonder if the members of this House, I wonder if you, Mr. Speaker, have any idea of the sums that were expended during the year 1913-14 in railway subsidies? They reached the enormous sum of $19,036,236, almost enough to account for the entire addition to the debt that has taken place during the last year. Now, we admit that the present Government is to some extent responsible for expenditures on capital account, which I have totalled at $19,000,000. We admit that they may be held responsible because they would not allow great works to cease in connection with the National Transcontinental railway, the Quebec bridge and the Hudson Bay railway. But for these railway subsidies you have only to look back at the legislation to find that, with one exception, I think, they are not primarily chargeable to the present Government. Some of

thes-e railway subsidies have run away with very large sums of money. If, for example, you total what was paid last year to the Canadian Northern Pacific, the Canadian Northern]	Alberta;	the Canadian
Northern Ontario, you will find that they took $14,301,000, and every one of the original Acts was passed in 1910 or 191Lamd were part of thie hered'itas darrmosa which has fallen upon this Government. And recent events demonstrate, I think clearly, that the stand which the present Prime Minister took when in 1911 the former Government brought into this House a measure for the building of the Canadian Northern Ontario railroad, has been more than justified by the events. He asked at that time some very pertinent questions as to whether there was room for a third transcontinental railway at the present time, and he expressed a good deal of doubt in that respect. I am sure that the doubt he then expressed has become firmly fixed in the minds of many people to-day. How do you get railway competition? Not always by building railroads. It is possible to build so many railroads that you cannot get railroad competition. When you have two railroads serving a district where there is not quite enough traffic for both but pretty nearly, you get competition and a reduction of rates. Where you have three railroads serving a district where there is not enough traffic for two, you get a combine and a general keeping up of rates, or one or two of the railways go under the hammer. So this country, I think, has frequently been led away with the idea that it was always justifiable to build a railway, always justifiable to subsidize a railway, always justifiable to give a bond guarantee to a railway, and yet it may happen that we in Canada are considerably anticipating our railroad needs and that it becomes necessary for us often times to take money, that we need for other things far more, to carry out the promises of a previous Administration.
But to come hack to our financial discussion for a moment, I want to congratulate the Finance Minister on his foresight, as I have already said, in preparing for this year 1913-14. Many demands were made upon him and yet the year has a showing of which he need not in any way be ashamed. True, he had the disagreeable task of frequently refusing to lend the aid of the Government to propositions supported by many a member, propositions which were unquestionably valuable but which will have to stand over becruse of other 
needs that must be met. Well the clouds are clearing and the time will come, I trust, when we shall be free from the inheritance that has been left us and be able once again, on our own initiative, to decide wlrat shall be done with the money which the taxpayers contribute. I -said that the Finance Minister, seeing that hard times were coming, made preparation by laying aside one dollar out of every three that came into his hands 'in 1912-13. His predecessor, the Finance Minister of some years ago, has been referred to to-night and has been held up as a shining example, yet I hardly think if our present Finance Minister had followed his example, he would have found himself in the enviable position in which he is to-day. Five years ago there was one of these cycles of depression. 1907-8 had been a bumper year. The revenues had reached nearly $100,000,000. Hon. members used to brag about that. The actual figures were $96,000,000, and yet in that year, with $96,000,000 of revenue there was an over Expenditure of $11,000,000, all kinds added together. In that year there were ominous signs of troubles to come. Did the Finance Minister of that day put on the brakes? No, there were threatenings of stringency, and yet full steam ahead was the watchword of the Government at that time. In 1908-09 the revenues fell, as they were expected to fall, by $11,000,000, to $85,000,000. The total expenditure of that year was $131,000,000, and the net result was that we added $46,000,000 to the net- debt of Canada in a single year. Oh, yes, the former Finance Minister did put on the brakes, but he did it one year too late. He could not do it in 1908, for obvious reasons.
The junior member for Halifax indulged in a comparison of records. We are quite willing to submit to such comparisons. We have only three years that we can point to as having held the reins of power, while our predecessors had between fifteen and sixteen years, but we are quite willing to compare our three with their fifteen or sixteen. Turn, for example, to the net debt. In 1896, when the Conservatives went out of power, the net debt of Canada was $258,497,000. In 1911, when the Conservatives came into pow'er, it stood at $340,042,000; it had increased in the sixteen years of Liberal rule by $81,500,000, or at the steady rate of about $5,000,000 a year. I am not seriously objecting to a moderate increase of debt, because, as I previously explained, it is sometimes necessary that capital expenditure should be distributed over a term of years

but I do not like to hear people bragging about what they really have not accomplished, and consequently it becomes necessary to make a comparison of this character. The net debt in 1911 was $340,000,000 odd. The net debt on the 31st of March, 1914. was $333,300,000. In other words, the previous Government added $81,500,000 to the debt in sixteen years while the present Government in three years have not only not added a dollar, but they have reduced the debt by $6,750,000-and that although they have put $125,000,000 into enterprises that are usually chargeable to capital account- at least, not chargeable to consolidated fund.
If you take the three years before and the three years after that great event of the 21st of September, 1911-the years 1909, 1910 and 1911 showed an increase in the public debt of $62,000,000, -while the years 1912, 1913 and 1914 showed a decrease in the public debt of $6,750,000. It will therefore be seen that we are in a better position by nearly $69,000,000 when you compare the three years previous to September, 1911, -and the three years that followed.
We all remember how the changes used to be rung in this Chamber on the annual surpluses Somehow or other, however much might be added to the public debt it was always stated that there was a surplus at the end of the year and the previous Administration prided themselves on that. We used to criticise the method by which it was calculated, and perhaps we should criticse it even now, but at least we will call it by its right name and only use it for purposes of comparison. What do we find in this matter of so-called surpluses; because what used to be regarded as a surplus was the amount of money you had left after you took the total revenue and deducted therefrom the current expenses ot what was chargeable to consolidated fund. That is what was called a surplus even although it might be wiped out two or three times over in a year by capital account. Taking the fifteen years from 1896 to 1911 we find that these much vaunted surpluses aggregate $167,000,000. Although the debt had grown $81,500,000 in that time, the claim was always made in this House that there was an annual surplus. Using the same method of comparison we find that the first year after this Administration came into power there was a surplus of $37,946,000; in the second year a surplus of $56,630,000, and in the third year, which
lias just passed, a surplus of $35,000,000, or somewhere around that figure-the figures are not yet complete. In other words, the surpluses during the last three years have totalled $130,000,000, and if we have good luck for one year more, the total surpluses in the lifetime of the present Parliament will he equal to the surpluses of the four Parliaments of the 16 years that preceded it.
Some of our liabilities have been referred to by the hon. gentleman who preceded me, and perhaps it might be well just here to say a word regarding some of the maturing liabilities that have been dealt with in the last two years. It is always a pleasant thing to pay your debts, and when they are paid promptly it is worth while taking credit for it. On the 1st of May, 1912, there were liabilities falling due to the extent of $22,785,000 odd. Of that we were able to redeem 80 per cent in cash and we had only to continue a loan of some $5,440,000. On the 1st of October, 1912, we had $6,010,000 falling due, every dollar of which was paid in cash. On the 1st of October, 1913, we had $8,273,000 falling due, every dollar of which was redeemed in cash; and on the 1st of November, 1913, we had $1,446,500 falling due, all successfully met, and now we are happy to say that for the first five years with the exception of temporary loans there is no more of our funded indebtedness to be dealt with. The Government has come to the end of the woods.
In connection with this indebtedness, an interesting feature came to my notice which perhaps is not really pertinent to this discussion, but which, nevertheless, from an historical point of view at least will be interesting to the House. We paid off last year the last of the old Imperial guaranteed loan. On the 1st of October, 1913, we paid off $8,273,333, the last loan that had the underwriting of the British Government as guaranteeing it in the markets of the world. There was a day when Canada had not the credit she has to-day, and when she could not undertake any great work without first having made very careful preparations as to where the' money was coming from. In those days the lenders of the world were not so ready to give us money on our own face value as they are to-day, and it is interesting to look hack and see -how the Imperial Government stood behind Canada in those early days and made it possible for this country to carry on some of her great works. In 1869 there was $7,300,000 outstanding of imperial guarantee loan at four per cent. In 1874 that had reached $16,000,000; by

1877 it was up to $23,300,000; and in 1885 it stood at $31,633,333. In other words $31,600,000 of the debt of this country was at one time underwritten by the British Parliament. Why was that done? In the first place we find the objects for which the money was used. It was used for. the purchase of Rupert's Land, for Canadian defence loans, for the Canadian Pacific railway, for canal construction, and for other public works which in those earlier days were more than this country could carry upon its own credit. It was not after all, though, a matter so much of credit as it was a matter of saving of interest that really led the British Government to come to our assistance in that respect. That is brought out very clearly by Sir Francis Hincks who in 1872, spoke in the House of Commons as follows:
But if we went into the market for $40,000,000, one half our own, and the other half guaranteed by England, and, with the prestige that England sanctioned our great public improvements, the advantages would be very great, so much so that I am persuaded that under those circumstances we should get our 5 per cent bonds floated at par, and therefore we should be able to float half at 4 per cent and the other half at 5 per cent, or equal to 4J per cent on the whole amount. This would, therefore, make a difference of 1J per cent on the whole amount of $40,000,000, equal to $600,000 a year.
In other words, when Canada found it necessary to borrow $40,000,000 in order to undertake the necessary public works, canals, railroads, and so on, the British Government undertook to guarantee half of that amount in order that half that loan should be floated at four per cent and the other half at five per cent, instead of all being floated at six per cent, bringing about a saving of interest of $600,000 a year. If that had been persisted in, it would have amounted in forty years to upwards of $24,000,000. In other words-and this is the interesting part of it-when our credit was not what it is to-day, the motherland was prepared to help us out and guarantee our loans, even though the money was to be spent in Canada. The mother country was prepared to make it possible for us to borrow in the markets of the world at a rate of interest otherwise impossible, and now the time has come when we have paid off all those loans and we can to-day go into the markets of the world and borrow what we like without the imperial guarantee. Now that that time has come, there has come with it certain responsibilities and duties which this part of the empire, which regards itself as no longer needing a guarantee, should take upon itself.

I regret that as yet it has not shown that it appreciates this fact.
We have been told by the hon. junior member for Halifax that no less than $60,000,000 was borrowed last year. This is held up as a huge sum, as a sum entirely unwarranted, and yet I think if we examine what was done with it we will see, in the first place, that we could not help borrowing and, in the second place, that we used the money well. It was used to meet maturing liabilities to the extent of $10,000,000 (that were unavoidable. We have to meet our debts when they come due. We had to buy Grand Trunk Pacific bonds at par; we bought $11,133,473 worth in 1912-1913, and we bought $12,872,233 worth in 1913-14. We did that to save Canada's credit in the money markets of the world. We thought it better to do so than to have bonds with Canada's guarantee upon them sold over the auction counter at a job lot price.
I was much amused when my hon. friend undertook to point out that an investment of money in Grand Trunk Pacific bonds should not be regarded as an asset. He said:	You should at least take them at
75 cents on the dollar. That does not sound very much like the debate we listened to a little while ago. We certainly believe that the day will come when these bonds will be worth par. We look upon these bonds as securities upon which the full three per cent will be paid, and we hope the day will come when we can dispose of these bonds at par. We have apparently more faith in the Grand Trunk Pacific	project than have our hon.
friends opposite when they say to us: You have taken $23,000,000 of Grand Trunk Pacific bonds that should not count at all as assets because we consider them of very doubtful value. That is the hardest knock that the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific have had in this House, and they have had some hard knocks. Then we had to loan the Grand Trunk Pacific last year $8,500,000. So you see that in these three items that I have mentioned $31,000,000, or more than half of the total of the amount is at once taken up. These items go to increase the gross debt, but they are investments bearing interest, and one of the very interesting matters which hon. gentlemen can verify for themselves is to isee how the percentage that we are getting upon our investments is increasing while the percentage that we

are paying for our money is decreasing, showing a very satisfactory state of affairs.
My hon. friend entertained us for some time with a denunciation of the high rate of interest that had been paid on certain temporay loans by the Minister of Finance within the last few months. There are times when it is not desirable to go upon the money markets of the world and attempt to float a large loan. If you happen to have liabilities maturing it may be better to finance them as best you can for a new months. Under those circumstances you negotiate a short loan, sometimes for six months and sometimes for a year. The Minister of Finance, just like all other Ministers of Finance in this country, had at times to raise certain temporary loans. We Were told that the discounting of treasury bills at 41 per cent was something that could under no circumstances be justified. Well, you only have to turn back to the Budget speech of Mr. Fielding in 1909, where he gives a table of the loans which up to that time had been issued, and you will find that a 4 per cent loan issued in December, 1908, and good for four years, carried a rate of interest, or what we speak of as the annual effective rate of interest per unit, of .04796 per cent, or 4^ per cent, although the loan just preceding carried an effective rate of interest of .0288 per cent. This proves the fact that the amount of interest that must be paid upon a loan varies very considerably, and it oftentimes happens that for a short loan the Government have to pay rather a high price for the money they get.
These outstanding temporary loans were criticised severely this afternoon, but they are nothing new. It is not as if the making of temporary loans was a crime that had been committed for the first time. Let the hon. gentleman turn up the public accounts and he will see that temporary Loans were quite customary under the previous Administration, and I do not blame them for it. In 1908, when the figures of the year were cast on the 31st March, there were found to be temporary loans outstanding of $9,300,000; in 1909, $13,600,000, and in 1910, $17,033,000. Therefore, the fact that the Minister of Finance of the present day has a loan of $8,500,000 to-day outstanding is nothing for which, I think, he should be blamed to any extent.
I have also been very much interested in the remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. A. K.
Maclean) with reference to retrenchment. It seems to me that the subject is out of place at this time. If the speech of my hon. friend had been delivered during the National Transcontinental railway debate a few years earlier, or when the National Transcontinental railway was discussed in the House here a short time ago, it would have been extremely pertinent. I would like to take quotations from that speech and insert them in some of the speeches that were made some years ago in reference to the National Transcontinental railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific, or some of the speeches that were made only a few weeks ago in reference to that extravagant expenditure. But I should like to ask my hon. friend this question. He declared that we should have brought some of these great expenditures to an absolute standstill. He did not realize, or, if he did realize it, he would not have made these observations to the House, that at the beginning of last year very large enterprises in all parts of Canada employing large numbers of men were being rapidly pushed to completion. He did not realize apparently, that it would have been a suicidal act to have brought these great enterprises to a standstill while they were still uncompleted and unproductive. It had become necessary, and the Government realized that it was necessary, that these productive enterprises should be pushed to a conclusion. It reminds me very much of a story of a man who had fallen from a high building and who was ' asked if the fall had hurt him. No, he said, the fall did not hurt me, but it was stopping so quickly. The fall is not what would hurt us in this particular ease, but it would be stopping so quickly that, would injure the credit of Canada throughout the world. So that the Minister of Finance, in putting on the brakes gradually in order to bring about a slowing up during the past year, has pursued a course which should be commended by this House.
My hon. friend also endeavoured to gain some consolation from a quotation he made from a statement by the present Prime Minister in the days when he was in Opposition, to the effect that an enormous expenditure was prima facie evidence of corruption. If my hon. friend desired to urge that there is prima facie evidence of corruption in the expenditure of the past year, or the expenditure of the year preceding that, let me say to him that



maintaining for the investment that has been made the traffie which will make it possible for the railways to earn a legitimate return.
. I have reached the end of what I desire to say, because I do not wish to deal at any considerable length with this tariff question to-night. The hon. Minister of Finance stated that we were about to enter upon a year when we would all have to be content to make certain sacrifies; that it would be a year of retrenchment. I am sure we are all willing to make those sacrifices. We are all of us desirous that certain public expenditures, more particularly those in our own locality, should be successfully carried through; but we are all broadminded enough to say that for the present economy should be exercised. We can, I think, assure the Minister of Finance that in his efforts in the coming year he will meet with full support from those who generally vote with him in this House. So, in conclusion, it seems to me we have every reason to congratulate the Minister of Finance and the country upon the Budget speech which was delivered yesterday.


Mr. J. G. TURRIFF (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the speech delivered by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance yesterday was looked forward to by the people of Canada with more interest than any Budget speech that has been delivered in this House for many years past. The reason for that is that Canada now is unfortunately experiencing a period of very great depression, a depression that is revealed in the great falling off in the revenues of the country, in the trade of the country, in the revenues of the railway companies, in the returns of the clearing houses of the banks, and in the immigration to this country. But my hon. friend the Minister of Finance told us that the depression was practically over, and that, with the opening up of ' Spring, Canada would go and prosper. There must have fallen upon my hon. friend the Minister of Finance at least a much better mantle of prophecy than he has been carrying on his shoulders for the #last six months. I remember him .saying in Montreal six months ago that there had been a depression, but that the depression at that time was all over. He was backed [DOT]by his leader the right hon. the Prime Minister who also stated that the depression was over and that Canada had entered on an era of prosperity such as she had never had in the past. When the House

opened in January, my hon. friend the Minister of Finance acknowledged that there was a depression, but stated that it would soon pass over. Therefore I think the people of Canada will be justified in taking with a very large grain of salt the statement of my hon. friend that the depression is now over.
My hon. friend the Minister of Finance stated that this depression existed throughout the world. I do not know where he got that information. Be certainly did not get it from the trade returns of Great Britain, the greatest trading nation on the face of the globe. There is no depression in Great Britain. During last year and the year before there has been one of the greatest periods of prosperity ever experienced in Great Britain, which is a free trade country so that the prosperity there has not been due to protection. Therefore the depression has not existed throughout the world, and my hon. friend will have to revise his opinion if he still thinks that the depression in Canada is only a part of what exists throughout the whole world. My hon. friend for Thunder Bay and Rainy River (Mr. Carrick) did not consider that thei'e was no depression when he was speaking in the House a few weeks, ago. He pointed out that conditions were in a very grave state of depression,
10 p.m. especially as regards the iron and steel industries. The depression existing to-day is much greater than it was six months ago or even three months ago, and there has not been a time since the Conservative party went out of power in 1896 wiien there has been such a great depression existing throughout the Dominion of Canada as exists to-day. There are more men idle to-day than ever before in the history of Canada. While speaking to one of the greatest financiers in Canada a month or two ago, I mentioned that the orders from the West to the manufacturers of the East had been cut in two. ' Why,' he said, ' to my knowledge they have been cut in four or five.' I heard a manufacturer in Montreal stating within the past month that from one end of Canada to the other he questioned whether the factories were running more than half the time: I do not know whether that statement i3 correct or not, hut this gentleman is a manufacturer and he ought to know. Does that look as if the depression was over? What has caused the depression? What step3 have been taken by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance to remedy the depression?

What is the basic industry of this country? Agriculture. What probably is the next greatest industry? Manufacturing-that is one of the great industries at all events. How do you benefit the farmers who form half the people of Canada-what is it that makes them prosperous? They have the land, the climate affords favourable conditions; all you need to make the farmer prosperous is a market for his product. And on whom do the manufacturers depend chiefly for their success? I leave it to the Minister of Finance himself if it is not the money that is produced out of the soil of Canada that is at the root of all prosperity in this country. If the farmers are not prosperous, how can the manufacturers be prosperous? What does the farmer do with the money he gets? He does not bury it in the ground; he spends it chiefly in manufactured goods after all. That money goes into the villages, then to the cities, and then to pay the men who have made the goods that he has consumed. But the Minister of Finance refuses to give the farmer a market and increases the very cause that has led to the depression-over-production of manufacturing. Instead of remedying matters he increases the load that the farmers have to bear.
The hon. member for St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) has made a few statements to which I wish to refer briefly. I notice that he, very truthfully, gives credit to the late Government for having inaugurated the Hudson Bay railway. But let me tell my hon. friend that all his colleagues from the West, and the press there supporting hon. gentlemen opposite, give all the credit to this Government for initiating that enterprise. They never say that the late Government had decided to build the road and had let t'he contract for a part of it; they take all the credit to this Government for having undertaken the construction of that railway. However, the hon. member for St. Antoine was right in that matter. He also referred to the fact that during the last year or two the Government had to pay out a considerable amount of money for railway subsidies under laws that were passed at the instance of the late Government. He forgot to tell the House that last year this Government made a gift of some sixteen and a half or fifteen and a half millions to the Canadian Northern Railway Company, and a great deal of that was paid out during last year. And, if the late Government expended too much in railway subsidies, what about this gift to Mackenzie and Mann?-for it was simply a gift. It is no
use for anybody to say: We got $7,000,000 of the common stock of the company. I say, the Government did not get $7,000,000 in the common stock of the company. The common stock that had been issued was not affected; they simply printed $7,000,000 more for this Government, and $7,000,000 to put in their own safe. But the hon. member for St. Antoine forgot to mention that. Then, if all reports are true, the gift of sixteen and a half millions to Mackenzie and Mann that would enable about $12,000,000 to go into the Canadian Northern railway and about four millions into the pockets of Bill and Dan, is to be supplemented this year by a much larger gift in the way of guarantees.


Herbert Brown Ames: If the hon. member will
allow me: I may have inadvertently made a statement not strictly accurate in connection with the subsidy for the Canadian Northern Ontario railway. What I wanted to say was that the Canadian Northern Ontario railway subsidy of $12,800,000 paid this year largely was made necessary on account of legislation which was passed in 1911-not that it was authorized by legislation passed in 1911, but that it was made necessary by that legislation.


John Gillanders Turriff: That is a different statement-


Herbert Brown Ames: I did not intend to make a misstatement; I desire only that the hon. gentleman clearly understand what I meant.


John Gillanders Turriff: Of course, the hon. gentleman would not deliberately make a mistake, but the fact remains that if he criticises the late Government for giving subsidies to the Canadian Northern railway and other railways how does he better the position of this Government by going away beyond and giving an additional sixteen and one-half millions? It was not rendered necessary by any previous legislation, in my judgment, for the simple' reason that the owners of the Canadian Northern railway could very easily have put back sixteen and one-half millions of funds that they have taken out of the unfortunate Eritish bond-holders and out of the people of this country in subsidies and guarantees from the different provinces and this Government and the previous Government. They d;d not have to come to this House; they could have put up the money out of their own pockets. But do you think they would do that? Oh, no; they have not

come to that; they are not built that way. And my hon. friend, while criticising the previous Government ' raises ' them with this fifteen and one-half or sixteen and one-half million.
The hon. gentleman took a good deal of credit for the present Government for surpluses, and gave the total of the surpluses for the fifteen or sixteen years of Liberal rule at $167,000,000, and the total of the surpluses for the three years of the present Administration at $130,000,000. But when hon. gentlemen opposite came into office they found a surplus of $38,000,000 in the treasury, and they surely cannot take credit for that. Had the hon. gentleman (Mr. Ames) been exactly fair he would have given the figures for Liberal rule not at $167,000,000 but at $205,000,000, and for the present Government not at $130,000,000, but $92,000,000. Hon. gentlemen opposite, I know, do not always consider it necessary to be exact. But my hon. friend from St. Antoine rather prides himself on being pretty handy at figures, and I should have thought that he could have come a good deal nearer to being right than he managed to do.


Herbert Brown Ames: My authority is the public
accounts.


John Gillanders Turriff: That is a good excuse.
But the hon. gentleman knows as well as any man in this House that that is not a fair statement-although the public accounts are all right. He knows that his friends found a surplus of $38,000,000 in the treasury when they came into power.
My hon. friend had a good deal to say about the junior member for Halifax having made reference to the fact that the bonds of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway which were purchased were at present worth only about seventy-five cents on the dollar. It was not the junior member for Halifax who made that statement; it was the Minister of Finance who made that statement yesterday and the junior member for Halifax was only quoting the words of the hon. Finance Minister in his Budget Speech. My hon. friend also gave great credit to the Finance Minister-and I am not going to say anything against that-for his good judgment in going slow in granting subsidies to railways. I only hope that my hon. friend will follow that up and that when the Finance Minister comes to deal with the tremendous demands which are now being made on this country by the Canadian Northern railway he will be able to induce the Finance Min-
ister to go slow. That is a matter that we can discuss better when it comes up in the regular way.
My hon. friend from St. Antoine division took up the question of new markets, and in that he was rather more vague than he usually is. I shall not blame him for being vague on that question. How can he help being vague on that question? We have had the Minister of Trade and Commerce travelling all over creation during the past two years trying to find new markets for Canada. He made a deal with the West Indies, a twopenny-halfpenny deal in connection with which we will spend far more in subsidizing steamers to carry what little trade can be got than the trade is worth. He spent months in Australia and New Zealand trying to make a deal but he could not do it. He went over to China and Japan and now he tells us that the Chinaman and the Jap are going to commence to eat flour and that there will be a market for Canadian wheat and flour in far-off Asia.
I think it is an acknowledged fact that the home market is the best market, and also that the nearer you get your market to home the better for the producers of the articles you have to sell. The Minister of Trade and Commerce is going to do such great things in the future, according to my hon. friend from St. Antoine; he is going to put a blue book on the table, a report that is going to change the whole face of nature and provide a market for the Canadian farmers. Unless his success in the future is a great deal better than it has been in the past two or three years it will nol amount to very much, although my hon. friend from St. Antoine says: Wait a little. But if hon. members on the Government . benches want us to get a market for the producers of Canada, is it necessary to run to Australia and New Zealand and China and Japan? There is a market right at their own door, a market awaiting them, a market in the country of the richest people on earth, people who want our goods, people who have got the money to pay for our goods. That market is there, open at rar door, open for acceptance by the people of Canada. S'et my-non. friends on the Treasury Benches, like the dog in the ' manager, will not allow the people of Canada to have that market, they will not allow the Canadian farmer to get the best out of his own product; but they say, we will send our Minister of Trade and Commerce to try and educate the Japanese and Chinamen to eat flour and then we will

be able to send a few shiploads of wheat to China and Japan. And the hon. member for St. Antoine says wait a little while, you will get your market there.


Mr. WRIGHT:: Would the hon. member consider a country a good market for Canadian produce that has more of the same kind of produce at home than they can use, for which they have to find a market abroad?


John Gillanders Turriff: I consider a country a good market for Canadian wheat that will buy the wheat and pay the money, and I do not care if they send ten times as much out. I would ask my hon. friend where the western farmer is going to sell his wheat five years from now.


William Wright: He will have to sell it to some country that needs it. I consider the United States as good a market for our wheat as Wales is for our coal.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend says that you have to sell your wheat in some country that needs it. How many countries are we selling to now? One country, and that country never takes more than one-fifth of what she wants from Canada, and what is more, it is doubtful if she ever will. Why? Because there is a crop of wheat ripening in every month of the year in some quarter of the gloUe. She sends her ships with British goods to those countries. Do you think she is going to bring those ships home empty and then send them over to Canada for Canadian wheat when she can buy it there, and buy it cheaper in many cases? Not at all. You have got to get another - market for the western farmer in wheat or only one thing can follow, and that is that the western farmer has got to go out of growing wheat. You cannot dump all the wheat that we will have to export in a few years on England, even if England took her whole wheat supply from Canada. But, as I said, she will never take more than one-fifth to one-quarter of her wheat from Canada. My hon. friend asks: How can you sell wheat to the United States when they export wheat themselves? We can sell wheat to the United States when they want to buy it, and conditions are becoming such in the United States that there is a great deal of land now growing wheat that is growing wheat at a loss, and that they will have to take out of wheat growing. You must have one of two conditions to produce wheat, either cheap land or cheap labour. In the United States they have neither cheap land nor cheap
labour, and on land that is worth $100 an acre there is not a man on earth can grow wheat and get interest on his money at the present prices of wheat.


William Wright: Notwithstanding that,
they have 80,000,000 bushels of wheat annually to export.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon friend is astray if he says they export 80,000,000 bushels of wheat.


William Wright: I have the United States statistics from the Agricultural Department at Washington direct.


John Gillanders Turriff: At all events, the American people offer to buy our wheat, they offer to pay higher prices for it than we can get at home, and is that not enough for our farmers ? Why do our farmers need to go beyond that ? Why does each individual farmer need to bother his head whether the United States buy that wheat from him and then export a bushel of their soft wheat. The reason the American people want our wheat is because it is a hard wheat. Only a small portion of the United States can grow wheat of the quality we raise in Manitoba. The state of North Dakota and part of Minnesota grow the hard wheat, but all the other states produce the soft wheat, which does not make the class of flour that the people of the United States want. They have to mix one bushel of hard wheat with every four bushels of soft wheat in order to get the desired quality of flour. That is why the Canadian farmer can get more for his wheat in the United States than anywhere else, and that is why the farmer in North Dakota gets more for his wheat than the farmer 500 miles south of him. That i3 quite plain. But yet hon. gentlemen opposite, including members on the Government benches, have argued time and again that wheat is not dearer in the United States than in Canada, and they very dishonestly quote No. 1 and 2 Manitoba Northern as against No. 1 and No. 2 Minneapolis. My hon. friend the Minister of Public Works knows perfectly well that No. 1 Manitoba Northern is a different wheat altogether from No. 1 Minneapolis Northern. He knows that No. 2 Manitoba Northern is much better wheat than No. 1 Minneapolis Northern, and that No. 3 Manitoba Northern is in many cases a great deal better than No. 1 Minneapolis Northern.


William Wright: Does not my hon. friend know that they have no fixed grade for wheat in the United States ?


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend shows how little he knows about the subject. I propose to give my hon. friend some information on the subject of grades in Minneapolis. He says they have no stated grade. Here is what the Act says:
No. 1 Northern spring wheat shall be dry, sound, sweet and clean, may consist of the hard and soft varieties of spring wheat and weigh not less than 57 pounds to the measured bushel.
No. 2 Northern spring wheat shall be dry, spring wheat, not clean enough or sound enough for No. 1, but of good milling quality and must not weigh less than 56 pounds to the measured bushel.
No. 3 Northern spring wheat shall be composed of inferior, shrunken spring wheat and weigh not less than 54 pounds to the measured bushel.


William Wright: What I stated was that there was no general grade for wheat in the United States. Every state has its own grade, and in .several places the wheat is graded by the different hoards of trade.


John Gillanders Turriff: Let us contrast No. 1 Manitoba Northern against the Minneapolis grades:
No. 1 Manitoba Northern wheat shall be sound and well cleaned, weighing not less than 60 pounds to the bushel, and shall be composed of at least 60 per cent of hard red Fife wheat.
No. 2 Manitoba Northern wheat shall be soound and reasonably clean, of good milling qualities and fit for warehousing, weighing not less than 58 pounds to the bushel, and shall be composed of at least 45 per cent of hard red Fife wheat.
Any wheat not good enough to be graded as No. 2 Manitoba Northern shall be graded No. 3 Manitoba Northern in the discretion of the inspector.
So that if there was only 40 per cent of hard Red Fife wheat it would not be classed as No. 2 Manitoba Northern, but would be graded No. 3, and we would have *a wheat weighing 58 lbs. to the bushel graded as No. 3 Manitoba Northern that had 40 per cent Red Fife wheat in it; whereas No. 1 Minneapolis Northern only has to weigh the same, and does not need to have one grain of Red Fife wheat in it; It will also be seen that there is a difference of 3 lbs. to the bushel between No. 1 Manitoba Northern and No. 1 Minneapolis Northern, and that No. 1 Manitoba Northern has to have at least 60 per cent of hard Red Fife wheat, whereas No. 1 Minnesota does not need to have any hard Red Fife wheat at all. Any one can see how absolutely unfair it is to quote No. 1 Manitoba Northern against No. 1 Minneapolis Northern, but that is just exactly what 
hon. gentlemen opposite and the Conservative press throughout the country are doing and have been doing right along. I have heard the Minister of Finance himself doing the same thing, but I do not think he will do it again, as he knows better now.
As I .said before, only two states on the other side of the line can grow anything like the quality of wheat we grow in the West, so you can understand, Mr. Speaker, why hard wheat grown in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan commands a much higher price in the United States than the softer wheat that is grown in most of their states. It has been the custom of * hon. gentlemen opposite and their press to take the quotations for the month of July or August. For a week or so in those months wheat is quoted at a lower price in Winnipeg than in Minneapolis, but even then, considering that No. 3 Manitoba Northern is about equal to No. 1 Minneapolis Northern, the Winnipeg price is (really better. Hon. gentlemen opposite quote the figures just at that time of the year to show that Canada has lost nothing by not having free trade in wheat. There are times in the months of July and August, when no wheat practically is coming into the Winnipeg market, and when any wheat that has been carried over the winter has been marketed, that shippers who have engaged space in the steamers carrying wheat across the lakes and the ocean find that they are short of wheat and they have to get an extra 10,000, or 20,000, or 50,000 bushels to make good their contracts and occupy their space and then perhaps for a week or two wheat may jump two or three cents. The farmers are not bringing in any wheat and it is just a matter of speculation. The farmers of the West are losing millions of dollars a year on account of the refusal of this Government to take advantage of the offer that was made under the tariff of the United States in October last. Millions and millions of dollar are being lost by the farmaris, and at whose instigation ?-the millers and the railways. The Minister of Public Works knows that free wheat would be to the advantage of the farmer. When my hon. friend was in the province of Manitoba not many months ago, participating in the Macdonald election, he made a very ingenious promise to the farmers he was talking to there as a result of which every one of them believed that he had promised them free wheat. Other speakers went

through the country promising them free wheat. One of his particular friends introduced a resolution into the Manitoba Legislature recommending free wheat. Yet we find that hon. members opposite representing Manitoba constituencies all voted against free wheat. Do they think that all the local members are wrong? Do they think that they have made a mistake? Does my hon. friend the Minister of Public Works believe that free wheat would not be to the advantage of the farmers of Manitoba and that the members of the Manitoba Legislature were wrong?


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Was there a vote in the legislature?


John Gillanders Turriff: There was a vote in the legislature and every member of the legislature, Conservative and Liberal alike, recommended this Government to accept the offer of the Government of the United States and put wheat on the free list. The hon. member for Souris (Mr. Schaffner) who, I am sorry is not in his seat just now, stated not long ago in the House that he represented eighty-five per cent of the voters in his constituency and that he brought their thanks to the Government for what they had done for the western farmers. I would like to ask my hon. friend if he thinks that in voting against free wheat he represented eighty-five per cent- of his constituents? My hon. friend in 1908 had a majority of 650 and in 1911, because he was against reciprocity, his majority was cut down to 62.
But the argument that was put up then that we were giving a great deal for reciprocity cannot be put up against free wheat. The American people have offered us free wheat and hon. members from the province of Manitoba will have something to explain to their people when they go back. I would venture the statement, Mr. Speaker, that no hon. member of this House can go to the farmers of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta and get any farmers' organization to pass a resolution endorsing the action of the Government in refusing free (wheat. . You can feet individual farmers; that is easily done. That can be accomplished, that can toe staged, that can be organized exactly as the delegation that was brought down here to oppose free wheat was organized, but you cannot get any one farmers' organization in the West, and I doubt very much if you can get a farmers' organization in the East, to endorse the action of the Government, in refusing free wheat.
The Minister of Finance said that you have to protect the farmer. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance, if he were here, who are the best judges as to whether they want protection or not? I would like to ask the Minister of Finance, and in his absence, I will ask the hon. Minister of Public Works, who is leading the House, if any industry in Canada would have protection imposed upon it if it did not desire it. Take the woollen industry or the cotton industry; supposing a delegation elected to represent these industries came to this Government and said: We have had protection a good while, we are in such shape now that if protection were wiped out and our product put on the free list it would enable us to hold our own market at home and increase our exports very materially, to make more money and do more business-would not my hon. friend think that he would toe absolutely justified in saying that these manufacturers of woollen and cotton goods were the people who ought to know best and that if they did not want protection, protection should not be forced down their throats? Yet that is exactly what the Government are doing with the farmer. The farmer says that he does not want protection. The farmer says that protection on wheat is no good to him, that it does not give him anything but the Government say: You do not know what you are talking about; protection is good for you, and you must have it whether you like it or not.
I would like to read an article by a farmer dealing with this very question, and I may say that I happen to know this farmer very well. He lives in my constituency. I have been through some seven or eight elections and this gentleman was one of the most able, sturdy and dangerous opponents that I had for many years, and one who did more against me in several of my elections than any other man in that part of the country. He had the ability. He was a Conservative of the Conservatives, an Orangeman among the Orangemen, a real, genuine Orange Conservative in the old days and a good one. He is_ a high-class man, but he was so bitter in his politics that he could not see anything but: vote Conservative. That man happens to be living close to the boundary line, and he has for a good many years sold a great deal of his farm products in the United States. He is the manager of, or helps to manage, an elevator at the town of Sherwood, in Dakota, owned almost altogether by Canadian farmers living in this vicinity. I would like to give you his views on the wheat question. These are the views of an actual farmer, a man

who grows thousands of bushels of grain every year himself, and who raises a good deal of stock. These remarks were made at a meeting of the municipal officers held in the city of Regina about a month ago. This article is published in the Regina Leader of March 5:
Free wheat must come to farmers' aid-Municipality of Argyle is striking example of need of American market-Paying duty to States-Farmers do better in United States market even when handicapped by tariff.
J. G. Burke, reeve of the municipality of Argyle, and a delegate at the Rural Municipalities' Convention in session at the city hall, is a strong advocate of reciprocity. Mr. Burke at one time was a Conservative but is now devoting both time and energy in the interests of reciprocity as the one solution to the marketing of western grain.
' Why should I not support reciprocity,' asked Mr. Burke.
' When you consider that in the southern part of the municipality of Argyle, including Mount Pleasant, in the past several years the sum of $50,000 has been lost to the farmers by reason of the duty on grain, the injustice of the present duty is at once 'apparent. If all the grain in that district had been shipped to the States the amount would have been three times as great.'
' While the construction of the proposed Georgian Bay canal and the deepening of the St. Lawrence river and Great Lakes waterways would no doubt be a great help in the marketing of the western grain,' said Mr. Burke, ' the quickest, the best and the only solution is reciprocity. Millions have already been spent in the deepening of these waterways, and the result has been that the freight rates have increased. We have no assurance that the freight rates would be reduced with the completion of these proposed works. What we want is reciprocity.'
Ninety per cent of the grain grown in southern Argyle was already being shipped to the States, Mr. Burke pointed out. Forty per cent of the grain produced in the whole municipality from the fall of 1912 to November 21, 1913, 350,000 bushels of grain from southern Argyle, had been shipped through the two outlets, Antler and Sherwood, North Dakota. Duty was paid on one-third of that amount, or a little more than 100,000 bushels. The rest went through in bond. If the American market remained high enough all the time, the farmers of the district would prefer to ship all their grain by way of the south and pay the duty.
Continuing, Mr. Burke said: ' The duty on wheat is 10 cents, on barley 15, and on flax 20 cents. In November last, for flax grown on my own farm and shipped south, I paid a duty amounting to $187. From the middle of September up until a week ago, the average American flax has been from 20 to 21 cents per bushel higher than Canadian flax of similar grades. In November, I received from $1.01 to $1.09 per bushel for all the flax I sold in the States. I realized anywhere from one to ten cents more per bushel by shipping my flax to the States, even after the duty was paid. Why should I not be in favour of reciprocity and with the doing away of the duty? '
Mr. Burke quoted the instance of a man who
IMr. Turriff.]
had a car of potatoes for sale last fall. From inquiries at Winnipeg in October, he found that the best he could get was thirty-five cents per bushel for his potatoes, bagged and all, while in Iowa he could get $1 per bushel. After paying 22 cents per bushel for freight and six cents for duty he realized 73 or 74 cents per bushel by selling them in the States. Mr. Burke believed the States would always be in a position to draw heavily on the resources of Canada, especially in wheat products, because of the inferior quality of wheat grown in the States. They would always require a large quantity of good hard wheat, while in Canada there was no market for barley at all.
These are the views of a farmer who knows what he is talking about; a man who grows the grain and pays the duty and sells his product in the United States, and gets a considerably higher price for it than he would in Canada. And, when the proposition was made by the United States to put wheat on the free list, this Canadian Government turned it down. At whose instigation? At the instigation of the millers and of the railways. For every dollar that the millers have invested in Canada, the farmers of Canada have one thousand invested; for every dollar the Canadian millers pay out in wages, the Canadian farmers pay out one thousand dollars. The farmers of Canada have more money invested than have the railways, while in the case of the farmers it is their own money, and in the case of the railways one-half of it is practically the money of the farmers. But still this Government listens to the railways, and they have turned the farmers down cold, absolutely cold. What did the farmers get out of the Budget of yesterday?


An hon. MEMBER:: Five per cent on
agricultural implements.


John Gillanders Turriff: No Sir, they did not,
*and the statement of my hon. friend shows just how much he knows about it. The hon. gentleman cannot be a farmer; he is probably a gentleman who farms the farmer. What the farmer got was a reduction of five per cent on binders and mowers, but the tariff on the other implements is kept up. My hon. friend from North Ontario (Mr. Sharpe) a.s usual is flip, and he is wrong. The proposition under the reciprocity agreement was a reduction of two and a half per cent on these items, and five per cent off everything else, and yet my hon. friend says that five per cent on two items is more than the Liberals offered to the farmers. Who stopped them

from getting the benefits of the reciprocity treaty? Hon. gentlemen opposite did.


Robert Rogers: My hon. friend has made a mistake, and I am sure he does not wish to misstate the case. He used the words: ' five pei cent on everything else.' In the reciprocity pact there was no reduction provided for in the case of threshers.


John Gillanders Turriff: If I made a mistake I am very glad to be corrected, but I can very soon state what the five per cent was proposed to be given on. It was on, hay-rakes, manure-spreaders, drills, seeders of all kinds, disc-harrows, double-discs, shoe-drills, grass-seed attachment for drills, cultivators, ploughs, scuffiers, and wagons. I notice that the Minister of Finance did not announce any reduction in the duty on ploughs. The hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) evidently was able to step in and prevent that. The hon. gentleman could sell a Cockshutt plough in the United States, years ago, and pay a fifteen per cent duty, and 45 per cent duty on the repairs, and undersell, or compete to the extent of selling trainloads in the United States. But the 'Cockshutt Plough 'Company does not want any reduction of the duty in Canada. The hon. gentleman would not even be satisfied with the five per cent reduction, bringing the tariff down from twenty to fifteen per cent; he must have the full pound of flesh. There are farmers in my constituency who came from the United States and who brought over Cockshutt steam-gang or gasoline gang-ploughs which they bought in the United States, after a duty of fifteen per cent had been paid on them. These ploughs have gone as faT west from the factory as 400 miles west from Winnipeg, and these settlers bought them in the United States and brought them into Canada, and when they went to the Cockshutt office in Weyburn to get another plough of the 'same sort, they found they had to pay from $100 to $110 more for that same plough that they brought into Canada without paying duty. There is no reduction to the farmer on anything but binders and mowers, and when they reduced protection' by five per cent on these items, the Government immediately put on far more in the duties on iron and steel. A farmer will buy a binder every eight or ten years, and the Government take off five per cent, which means a reduction of about $5 in the duty. But every time he buys a keg or a pound of nails, a paper of tacks or anything made of iron or steel,
something which he do^-s every day in the year, under the tariff ns announced yesterday, for the reduction of $5 on his binder and $2.50 on his mower, or a total of $7.50, he will pay $35 or $40 in the increased cost of the articles on which the duty was put yesterday by placing iron and steel in the dutiable list. It was a cold deal handed out to the farmers yesterday, the coldest deal ever handed out to them.
Mr. WM. SMITH: Poor farmers!


John Gillanders Turriff: Yes, poor farmers.


Mr. SMITH:: We can stand it.


John Gillanders Turriff: Yes, you can stand it, no doubt. Political farmers can, but the farmers who have sent you here may have-something to say about the matter. A good deal of explanation will be required,, and my genial friend the Minister of Publie Works will have something to do to get away from the promises the farmers thought he made. I acknowledge that my hon. friend has left a loophole to escape through. Oh, yes, and he will crawl through it all right; but this refusal to give free wheat will cost the party a good many votes, and this cold deal of taking off $5 and adding on $20 to material made of iron and steel bought by the farmers, will require a great deal of explanation in the West. I do not believe even my hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames), with. his magic lantern, will be able to explain that away in the West.
On motion of Mr. Turriff the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Rogers, the House adjourned at 11 p.m.
Wednesday, April 8, 1914,