1914-04-17

IMMIGRATION OF HINDUS.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Mr. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver):: I desire to ask the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Roche) if he has received information that four hundred Hindus are on their way from Shanghai and Hong Kong on a steamer of the Maru line, under the leadership of one Gurdit Singh, and that the intention is to test the regulations of the Government with regard to Hindus and others; and, if the minister has heard of it, whether the Government are taking any steps in the matter?


Mr. ROCHE:: This morning a telegram was received by the deputy minister from out agent in Vancouver to the effect that a number of Hindus were on their way to Vancouver, -and instructions were sent to prevent the landing of all those who attempt to gain entrance to this country in violation of the Order in Council recently passed.



THE BUDGET.

[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Hon. W. T. White (Minister of Finance) foT the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means, resumed from Thursday, April 16.
Mr. J. A. ROBB (Huntingdon):: Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member for West Peterborough (Mr. Burnham) does not expect me to follow him in his interesting trip through the empire of China and the Principalities of India. That non. gentleman is always interesting, and last night he brought forward for the consideration of the House many questions that are of real moment. But we must not forget that the mother country, to which we go to borrow money, has had her markets open for many years to the products of -China and India, and that course apparently is helpful to the prosperity of that country.
I have had the privilege of listening to three Budget -speeches by the present Minister of Finance (Mr. White). Listening to his Budget speech of this season, it -seemed to me that -conditions are not improving under this Government. In his Budget -speech of 1912, the hon. gentleman was able to present some very rosy statements, by reason of the administration of his predecessor, -and the splendid condition of trade at that time. The Budget speech of this year -sounded very much like an excuse for continued borrowing and de-

pressed trade. I will not attempt a discussion in detail of the Budget, so carefully presented by the Minister of Finance, and so ably reviewed by the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean). But one feature of the minister's speech encourages me to make a suggestion to the Government. He told us that Canada had reached such a condition under this Government that we could not expect for some time to borrow money in London	for less than 4 per cent.
Indeed, the hon. gentleman frankly told the House and the country that during the past year he had made loans in London at 4J, 4J .and 4J per cent. I ask the Government: is there .any good treason why we should continue to borrow money in London at 4| per cent while we pay but 3 per cent to our own Canadian depositors in the Post Office savings banks? I submit in all frankness to the consideration of the Government the suggestion that they take this matter up and give some little attention to the savings of the people. If, as the Finance Minister says, Canada must for some time expect to pay 4 per cent in the London and New York money markets, is there any good reason why we should continue to take the savings of our own people at 3 per cent.
We are apparently .all agreed that agriculture is the basis of our prosperity. The Finance Minister told us that during the past seven years the increase in exports had .been largely agricultural. We are all agreed that good crops are good for Canada and that poor crops mean stagnation, but we are divided on .the question of how to turn those crops into money. Our hon. friends opposite say: Tax everything you produce, everything you consume, everything you buy, everything you sell, and build up the home market. We on this side have a policy of larger and wider markets and reduction of taxation on the food of the people. Apparently that i.s the difference between the two parties. While we on .this side of the	House
have a -policy of larger and wider markets, our hon. friends on the other side, if we can interpret their policy from the speeches of those who spoke yesterday and the day before, have a policy of sympathy for the western farmer. I submit to the consideration of hon. gentlemen opposite that there are times in a man's life when sympathy is very desirahle, but sympathy is of little use in Hiving wagons

from the manufacturer in Chatham, engines from the manufacturer in Kingston or cotton from the manufacturer in Valleyfield. Sympathy is not much good for the help on pay day, and so what the western farmer wants is not so much sympathy as a policy of bigger and wider markets for his products. Canada had a fair crop in 1912, and a good crop in 1913. Our western provinces had a big crop but a very narrow market, and as a result the western farmer is without money to pay his store bills. Eventually that condition must back up first on the factory and then on the eastern farmer who feeds the employees of the factory, because if the employees who have been working in a factory are without work and cannot get money, they will be unable to buy the butter and cheese and other products of the eastern farmer. So I say that the farmers of the East are very much interested in the products of the farms of the West.
Recognizing that the growing production of the West demanded larger and wider markets, the Liberal party in 1911 appealed to the country on a policy of larger and wider markets. The subsidized interests throughout this country had grown fat and selfish. Our hon. friends with their aides, the subsidized interests, organized a campaign to defeat the policy of larger and wider markets-not upon economic grounds, but upon a policy of flag waving; in the province of Quebec, a no-naval policy; in the province of Ontario a big navy policy to which was attached a race and religious appeal that was not creditable to the great sister province. That appeal being before the country, the policy which we had sought for forty years was defeated. For forty years the people of Canada, represented by both great parties, the Conservative party and the Liberal party, have looked with longing eyes upon the great markets to the south. We made continual trips to Washington without much success, until in 1911, when the Hon. Mr. Fielding, who was then Minister of Finance, brought home what in my judgment was the best trade offer that Canada ever had. I insist that many years will come and go before Canada receives a better trade offer than that which she received from the great Republic to the south in 1911. Had that policy not been defeated, trade from the Atlantic to the Pacific would have been .stimulated; the great producing West would have had more money with which to buy the products of eastern Canada and so, instead of the stagnation and unemployment which we have to-day, this

country would have been in a more flourishing condition.


Mr. SMITH:: How?


James Alexander Robb: The farmer of the West would have had more money to buy the products of the East. My district was not stampeded in the campaign of 1911. At Brysons, in the valley of Chateauguay, surrounded by the best farms in Canada, there stands a monument to the brave Canadians who in 1812 drove back the invaders and saved the province of Quebec to Canada and the British Empire. To the sons of such sires, the loyalty appeals of hon. gentlemen opposite were hut pure hypocrisy. They knew the value of the American market, with which we have traded in the bright open light of the sun by day, as well as under the protection of the stars by night, for over 100 years.


William Smith: A little on the quiet.


James Alexander Robb: If our United States friends are ready to stand the chance of coming over here and paying $25 more for a horse and $15 more for a cow, we are not going to ask many questions.
The policy of our hon. friends in 1911 was: build up the home market. Now that they are able to put their principles into practice, their policy is build dreadnoughts and drill-sheds. But I submit to hon. gentlemen opposite that this country will require something more than that policy if they are to sustain the Government at the next election. Having listened to the voice of the jingoes, Canada still has a narrow market, and the price of foodstuffs is going up in this country; our United States neighbours on the other hand have revised their tariff to suit their requirements and apparently with some regard for Canadian prejudices. The Underwood tariff has put. the reciprocity issue straight up to this Government. Under the Fielding-Knox policy the products of the farm would have flown freely from the producer to the consumer. But the Underwood tariff, as revised, has very seriously interfered with the wheat industry of this country. The hon. member for West Peterborough (Mr. Burnham), in his interesting discussion of the conditions in China, pointed out that the highest wages paid to the artisan in China is thirty cents a day, and that the average wage paid is five cents a day. I suppose my hon. friend was discussing this from a silver basis, becanca China is on a silver basis.


Mr. BURNHAM:: No, on a sterling
basis.


James Alexander Robb: Listening to my hon. friend from Peterborough, I wondered what the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster) would think of the value of the Chinese market for Canadian flour, with wheat selling at ninety cents a bushel, Fort William. I wonder how much flour the people of China, earning five cents a day each, will be able to buy as long as we keep the price of our wheat at about ninety cents, Fort William. The hon. member for Peterborough says we may" export flour. But. we know that in Manchuria there are-some of the largest wheat fields in the world, and that at Harbin there are as good flour mills as in Minneapolis or in Canada.


Mr. BEST:: Would you be in favour of
free flour?


James Alexander Robb: Do not be too impatient,
my friend. The Underwood tariff places the wheat from all the world on the free list on a reciprocity basis, but a clause in that tariff hits Canada. The free list of the United States tariff reads:
That on and after the day following the passage of this Act except otherwise specially provided for in this Act the articles mentioned in the following paragraph shall, when imported into the United States or into any of its possessions (except the Phillipine Islands and the Islands of Guam and Tutuila) be exempt from duty.
Article No. 664 of the Underwood tariff says that the following shall be free:
Wheat, wheat flour, semolina and other wheat products not specially provided for in this section, provided: That wheat shall he subject to . a duty of ten cents per bushel, that wheat flour shall be subject to a duty of forty-five cents per barrel of 196 pounds; and semolina and other products of wheat, not specially provided for in this section, 10 per centum ad valorem, when imported directly or indirectly from a country, dependency, or other subdivision of government, which imposes a duty on wheat or wheat flour or semolina imported from the United States.
Now, Sir, how does this affect Canada? Does this article not mean that the Argentine Republic now enjoys what Canada refused in 1911, and does it not mean that there will ibe a tariff of ten cents against the wheat of Canada unless this Government are prepared to open the Canadian market to the competition, not, as in 1911, of the United States alone, but to the competition of the Argentine Republic and of every country that exports wheat? That is the position in which the h-on. gentlemen

have placed this country hy their opposition to the pact of 1911. In 1911 tihe big millers of Canada opposed a proposition that would have given them two markets wherein to 'buy their wheat without paying duty, and would have given them a protection of fifty cents per barrel in a market that was gaining ait the rate of a thousand barrels mill every year. Under the policy of 1911 the millers of Canada could have gone down into Kansas, Michigan or Ohio and bought wheat; and this would have been of special benefit to the Ontario miller right on the direct transit route to the sea at this season. Every year about May, the millers run short of winter wheat. The Ontario miller could have gone into the southern markets and bought wheat, kept his mills continually running exporting flour, and would have had the bran and shorts for the dairy interests of this country. They opposed that policy, and it has taken them less than three years to wake up to the fact that the reciprocity pact was not the worst thing that could have happened to the Canadian milling business.
In the Montreal Gazette, a very good Conservative paper, on Christmas day last, the big millers of Canada sent out what must have been intended as a Christmas card to the Prime Minister of Canada. I shall quote not the whole article, but a few extracts from it. The first extract reads:
The present Government were elected on the main issue of reciprocity, the provisions of which were more favourable than those offered under the present United States tariff.
And, not believing that that was quite strong enough, a little further down in the same column we find from the same big millers this further reminder to the Prime Minister:
Those who are agitating for the removal of the duty on American wheat and its products are the same who so strenuously fought for the late Government at the last election when, if anything, the proposals under the reciprocity treaty were more favourable than the present softer.
Not satisfied with making the statement once, they throw it into the Prime Minister a second time that the policy of 1911 was better than the position in which this Government has placed the farmers of the West and the milling interests of Canada.
There is another feature of the card which the big millers addressed to the Prime Minister that is worthy of some attention- because it will be remembered that the great issue in 1911 was a loyalty issue. Our friends opposite contended, and the big interests contended, that to give the western

farmer permission to sell his products to the United States meant disloyalty and possibly annexation, and that we should keep closer to the mother country. Here is what the millers have to say on that proposition:
If flour is admitted into Canada free from the United States, Great Britain and other countries in the empire might with reasonable justice ask that the same privilege be extended to them.
They say further that the millers would have to meet competition from the millers of Great Britain on our eastern coast and of Australia on our western coast. Imagine the men who in 1911 shouted loyalty and closer association with the mother country, on Christmas day, 1913, sending to the Prime Minister a Christmas card, saying: Do not let our western brother sell his wheat to the Americans or we will have to meet the competition of the motherland on the Atlantic coast and of our Australian brethren on the Pacific coast. .
I contend once more that if the policy of 1911 had not been defeated the western farmer would have had a better market for his wheat, and not only for his wheat, but for his oats, barley and flax. He would have had more money with which to buy the products of the eastern factories and, instead of stagnation and factories running short time as they are to-day, we would have had greater prosperity. This view is supported by no less an authority than the Montreal Gazette. When I am at home, before I settle down to work in the morning, I generally read the editorials in the Montreal Gazette. On May 29, 1913, at a time when there was no general election, the Montreal Gazette laid down this theory to which we on this side can offer no objection:
Much for the future depends on a succession of good harvests because the product of the field is not only the dependence of home industry but is the chief item in the total of the exports which enables the country to pay the interest on its large borrowings.
If it is good for the country to have a good crop surely it cannot be bad for the country to get good puces for that crop. I think the Montreal Gazette might have gone a little farther and pointed out that as Canada produces more wheat,'oats and barley than we can take care of, what we need most is larger and wider markets for the products of our western country so that the people who produce these commodities may be better able to buy the products of the factories in the East.


William Smith: Would they buy them?

[DOT]2643


James Alexander Robb: The farmer is generally a
pretty good buyer; my hon. friend should know that. I wish to deal briefly with the dairy industry. I am sorry that the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Borden) is not in his seat. Speaking at Winnipeg on the 19th Ju e, 1911, the right hon. Prime Minister, then the leader of the Opposition, is reported in the Conservative papers to have said that the Conservative party opposed the Fielding-Knox trade arrangement because:
It encourages the export of agricultural and animal products, in their lowest and least finished form. Our cream will be converted into butter or cheese not by Canadian labour but by United States labour.
At that time the United States had offered to admit Canada's butter and cheese free into the United States if Canada would in turn admit the butter and cheese of the United States into Canada. It would have been a mutually advantageous arrangement but our Tory friends, unable to deny its economic value to producer and consumer, raised the cry of British connection. The very thing which'the Prime Minister wanted to prevent is now reaching enormous proportions in this country. The eastern townships and the counties in the valley of the Chateauguay and the lower St. Lawrence are very large dairy districts. In the eastern townships and along the valley of the Chateauguay the factories are either closing down or burning up because the Underwood tariff has discriminated against the butter and cheese of this country. They admit our cream and milk free into the United States but there is a discrimination of 24 cents a pound against our butter and of 20 per cent against our cheese. What is the Tesult? The butter and cheese factories are being turned into creaming stations. The cream is being shipped to the United States and our labour is following that cream. The increased labour that we should and would have bad in Canada, because, had reciprocity carried we would have had a larger market for butter and cheese, is lost, and the manufacturer is losing the work of making the cheese cloth and butter wrappers and his employees are paying 3 cents a pound duty on New Zealand butter.


Mr. WEBSTER:: Will the hon. member be good enough to tell the House what the wholesale price of cheese in northern New York was last week as compared with the price paid in Montreal ?


James Alexander Robb: I have not that price, but I would like to remind my hon. friend of this-he is in the business ?


John Webster: Yes.


James Alexander Robb: And he knows.


John Webster: The price was 14 cents a pound less.	.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend knows that at the time reciprocity was under consideration, Cdnada had an offer of 90,000,000 customers at her door, but, listening to the jingo appeal of hon. gentleman opposite, the majority turned down that bargain. The United States have revised their tariff with due regard for Canadian prejudices and they are admitting into the United States markets the products of all the world. The United States manufacturer, as a result of that, is going to be able to feed his employees cheaper than our manufacturers can, and some day it will be up to our hon. friends opposite to face the situation which will arise; there will be such an outcry in the cities and towns of this country that they will be compelled to deal with the tariff in the future. Admitting that the United States market may at times be better than the market in Canada, our farmers in the eastern townships and the counties that I have referred to are not suffering very much so long as they can ship their milk and cream. Situated as they are, these farmers are to-day selling their milk at $1.40 while the farmer up here is only getting $1.10.


John Webster: The hon. gentleman has not heard that the price has gone down 15 cents.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend knows why that is. You can ship butter a thousand miles or 3,000 miles, but you cannot ship milk a thousand miles because it will not keep -and also because of the freight charges. From Huntingdon and Cowansville you can ship 100 pounds of milk to Boston for $1.50. If you reduce that milk to cream you can ship the cream for 15 cents, which is equal to 3| cents per pound of butter. If you reduce the cream to butter you can ship by express for 1J cents a pound, and if you ship by freight you can ship it for half a cent a pound. To ship 100 pounds of milk from Renfrew to Boston will cost you $1.90, while the cream content of that milk will cost 19 cents, or equal to 41 cents per pound for the butter contained in it. If you reduce the cream to butter you can ship the butter for 2 cents a pound, so that my hon. friend will understand that a free market for milk and 'onetam is not of very great advantage to the farmer who lives 200 or 150 miles from the international line.
2644'


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: How much butter was imported into Canada from the United States during the last fiscal year?


James Alexander Robb: I do not know; but I can tell my hon. friend that the men who opposed the reciprocity pact in 1911, and more especially the men in the cities, are paying for it now every time they butter their bread with New Zealand butter, because they are paying a tax of three cents a pound on New Zealand butter and four cents a pound on butter from the United States. They are paying for their- experience to that extent. I think I have established that the tariff question was not settled in 1911. In the campaign of 1911 the policy of the Liberals meant increased trade and greater prosperity, and the policy of the Conservatives was:	Let
well enough alone. To-day that policy satisfies neither the East nor the West. The western men still send delegations to Ottawa, asking for wider and larger markets, and the friends of the Conservative party in the province of Manitoba unanimously passed a resolution demanding free wheat, which the friends of the Conservative party in the East are not willing to concede. The Minister of Finance comes to Parliament and he asks Parliament to slow down. He tells his friends that this must be a year of retrenchment; that all must make some sacrifices, and the member for St. Antoine repeated that admonition in his address. But it was noticeable that the next day after the Minister of Finance had made that appeal to his friends for retrenchment and sacrifice, his colleague, the Minister of Militia, with an entourage of colonels and majors, started out on a trip of inspection over the battlefields of Virginia. With such an example of self-sacrifice on the part of the Minister of Militia before us, we on this side of the House were not astonished at the feeble applause with which hon. gentlemen opposite greeted the Finance Minister's appeal for economy.
It is sometimes disputed that conditions in tire East are as had as the newspaper's say, hut judging by the experience in my home city, the newspapers are mot exaggerating. We have in the city of Valley-field the best cotton mills in Canada. In 1907, when the present Prime Minister, then leader of the Opposition, visited these cotton mills, he found them so busy that the local Conservative committee could not prevail upon the management (who were

always Conservative and whio sometimes threatened their employees if they voted Liberal) to let the boys out to give Mir. Borden a reception on his arrival by train. The management of these cotton mills believed Mr. Borden when in that year and the year following he preached adequate protection, and so they practically compelled their employees to oppose the Liberal Government, although, and let me state it right here, from 1896 to 1911 the mills had doubled and trebled their capacity, until they employed about 2,500 hands. But let the night hon. Mr. Borden visit Valleyfield to-day and what will he find?


William Smith: What was the policy?


James Alexander Robb: 
Mr. J. A. M. AIKENS (Brandon):: Mr. Speaker, those who listened to the Budget speech, or who have carefully read it, must come to the conclusion that-Canada has a Minister of Finance, painstaking, industrious and capable, ambitious to discharge the duties of his office as well as his predecessor or better, and he is in a fair way to do so, but in the accomplishment of that purpose will find in his path serious obstacles to overcome and difficult, problems to -solve. Those problems and obstacles arise to some extent by reason of the newness of our country and of its settlement, by reason of the long distances which separate communities, but more particularly by reason of the reckless toying with the credit of our country by the late Administration, the improvident incurring of liabilities and obligations, the careless way in which they undertook enterprises which are -not going to be profitable to this country. Those difficulties and th-ose problems -are also greatly increased by virtue of this one thing, that the late Administration did not properly appreciate the National Policy, nor apply it to nor work it out in the Prairie province ; so that to-day the conditions of the West aTe to a great extent different from the conditions of the East, and that also accounts
largely for the depression now prevailing in the West. The result, however, of the nonapplication by the late Administration of the national policy to the opening West is that it has created a difference of conditions between the East and the West so that the present tariff does net fall with equal incidence upon the people of the West and the people of the East. They do not share the benefits or bear the burdens equally. If there are any differences existing between the East and the West, if there are any inequalities, if there are any injustices done to the one by the other, or by the Whole of Canada, or any misunderstandings existing, the sooner those misunderstandings are dissipated, the sooner the differences are arranged, the sooner the inequalities are made level, the sooner -any injustice that i-s practised is removed, the better for the progress and strength of Canada. If those inequalities or -injustices 'or differences are allowed to remain, they can -only result in bitterness; bitternesses will degenerate into dislike, dislike into conflict and conflict into a separation in mind and heart, which in the future it will be very difficult for this country'to overcome. The right hon. the late Premier has declared time and time again that he proposed the National Transcontinental railway as one means of holding the West and the East together. The bond which will bind the East and the West together is a bond of sympathy, hearts beating in kindliness for each other, common hopes and purposes; and if such prevail, that very kindliness and sympathy will overleap the rocks which separate the East from the West, blot out the wilderness, and make Canada one, even though the rails of the National Transcontinental rust and the ties supporting it rot and the trains on it forever stand still. The thing that should be aimed at by 4 p.m. all persons in Canada is the creation of a common sentiment as well as common business relations between the East and the West.
There are disadvantages existing in the West. That term implies that others have superior means or opportunities or advantages. Some of those are natural disadvantages; but as far as possible the Government of Canada should attempt to remove them. For instance, it was stated by my hon. friend the member for Fron-tenac (Mr. Edwards) only yesterday that there was a disadvantage in eastern Canada in respect of the United States by reason of our northern climate, which prevented our farmers producing some things as cheaply as they could in the United States.

That was no doubt true; but when you consider the fact that we have a northern climate also in western Canada, you will see a disadvantage in which the farming community in the West is placed. Did the late Administration in any way try to overcome that disadvantage ? It could have been overcome; nature has provided against it great forests, great coal areas and magnificent waterfalls. What did the late Administration do with these ? We know in respect of our great timber limits that they gave many of them away for the enrichment of private individuals and corporations. They did the same with our splendid coal areas in the southwestern part of Manitoba and in southern Saskatchewan and elsewhere. It will forever gall the people of the West that many of our splendid water-powers have been dealt with in the same way. On the Winnipeg river there are great falls which, turned into water-powers, are able to generate 500,000 horse-power of electric energy, easily transmissible to the centres of our population in the province of Manitoba and in southeast Saskatchewan. With the exception of the power given to the city Of Winnipeg, which was properly utilized for public purposes, the late Administration gave away, or rendered ineffective, all of those powers except two, namely, the Slave falls and the McArthur falls, which are two of the minor falls on the Winnipeg river, and requiring for their development a greater expenditure than the other falls. I submit, therefore, that, for the purpose of overcoming the difficulties resulting from our northern climate, the late Administration did not conserve the use of those important natural resources for the benefit of the people. It is no conservation to enrich private persons and corporations and deprive the public of the benefit; but that is what the late Administration did. One of the best things that the present Government can do in respect of the West is to utilize those water-powers and coal areas which remain. Of those water-powers which are not developed now, they should repossess themselves and create and distribute cheap electrical power for the purpose of establishing in Western Canada industries, manufacturing establishments and home markets, so that the farmers of the west of Canada will not require so much markets in the United States, but will find them as the Ontario farmers do in their own country; and I commend to the present Government the consideration of the situation in. the 
West with respect of the inequality of tariff benefits with the hope it will take prompt steps for its removal, and will see that the rights of the farmers of the West are properly guarded.
Another disadvantage to the people of the prairie provinces is the long distance from an available ocean port. To remedy this better nates should be secured; to reduce such rates the late Administration made no effort, nor did they try to secure better ocean freight rates. To the extent to which any inequality in freight rates exists between the East and West inquiry should be made, and this inequality remedied. In order to encourage the export of some products, Germany absorbs .some of the freight rates or gives reduced rates.
Again, that distance between the point of production in the West and the ocean port and final market may be shortened by the immediate construction of the Hudson Bay railway. We know that the late Administration, from 1896 onward, tickled the ears of the people of the West with the suggestion: that they were going to give them the Hudson Bay railway. In every election that followed they whispered the same sweet message to the people and decoyed them to their support. Yet during their fifteen years of poweT the Tailway remained unconstructed. These hon. gentlemen say:	' But we intended to construct
it: did not we make a contract for its construction, and did not we 'almost immediately afterwards turn the first sod at Le Pas with great eclat? We were going on with it.' Going on with it! It took the late Administration fifteen years to get the idea into practical shape, and it would have taken them twice fifteen years to construct the railway. Why? Because they had no faith in dt. Did not the high priest of Opposition finance the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) declare- and he was 'Supported by those behind him: ' The Hudson Bay railway is a doubtful project.'


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, heair.


James Albert Manning Aikins: That was the conception
they had of the project.


Mr. W. H. SHARPE:: They say 'Hear,
hear ' to that now.


James Albert Manning Aikins: development as a tree nation, as an integer in the British Empire; that it would have subjected us to the fiscal control of the United States and made us an adjunct thereto, and so would have been an injury to the whole of Canada in all its sections and classes. They contend that now, without any fiscal entanglements with our neighbours, without any international agreement, they can at the sweet will of our Government have a free market for their wheat in the United States by a small tariff change, and that the Government can, without consulting any nation, alter again that tariff as it likes, and so have opened to them all the markets that their competitors have, thus removing this present disadvantage. They claim that the United States Government, by its policy, has established in its west large milling industries at Minneapolis and that district; that the United States Government has so developed and controlled its transportation systems, which carry the wheat from Duluth to the seaboard and from its ocean ports to the world wheat markets, that there is a better price to the farmers of the Dakotas and Minnesota for ' wheat, at their western mills and at Duluth. And I charge that the disadvantage under which our western farmers now labour in having a lower priced wheat market is due to the neglect of the late Administration in not fostering and establishing milling industries in the West during their long fifteen years of power, and in not providing cheaper transportation for wheat to the ocean and across the ocean to Liverpool. The western farmer is now suffering as a result of that neglect. The wheat of Minnesota, the two Dakotas and Montana is marketed at the same time and with the same expedition as the wheat of the prairie provinces. It cannot be controverted that for the former a better price is received. For instance, during the market period of our western wheat, say from the 15th of September to the end of the calendar year 1913, the average price in the western states was: at Minneapolis for the first grade, 87.4, at Duluth for the first grade, 86.6, at Winnipeg or Fort William for the Canadian first grade, 84.6, a difference in favour of Duluth of two cents, and of Minneapolis of nearly three cents. The Winnipeg and Fort William prices are practically the same. I have made up these averages from a statement which I hold in my hand extending over the period which I [Sir. Aildns.l
have mentioned, which shows the prices for the different grades. I will not trouble the House by reading that statement; I will give, only the results.
When consideration is given to the fact that Canada's first grade is of a higher quality than the American first grade, and that an allowance of two cents is generally considered fair, the average prices to the Americans for the same quality of wheat during the period stated would be: at Minneapolis, 89.4; at Duluth, 88.6; *a	difference in favour of Duluth
of 4 cents and of Minneapolis of about 5 cents. The spread between the non-contract or commercial grades, of the same class, usually sold on sample, was considerably higher at those points in the States. The western farmer claims that he should have the opportunity of getting that higher price. And why should he not? Are there any sufficient grounds against giving him the opportunity? One reason assigned against it is that if the Canadian wheat had free access to the Minneapolis market, prices would be equalized on both sides of the line. There is considerable force in this argument and any one who reads the debates in the Senate of the United States on this subject when the reciprocity agreement was being considered, particularly the speech of Senator Gronna, and of other senators, can see that there is foundation for that contention. The equalization, however, does not mean that the Minneapolis market price would fall to the level of the Winnipeg price. The probability is that the Winnipeg price would rise some and the Minneapolis price lower; thus they would be on the same level. The prairie farmers claim they would, in any event, get a higher price than they at present receive.
They point out in this connection the important circumstance that it is well known that the three states immediately to the south of the prairie provinces are ' hard wheat ' producing states, growing practically the same variety of wheat that is grown in the prairie provinces. A large percentage of the United States spring wheat is marketed in Minneapolis, or in small centres adjacent thereto, but that this milling industry does not consume the entire production is shown from the fact, as it is given to me, that during the crop year 1909, speaking in round figures, 54,000,000 bushels of wheat were shipped from Duluth; for	the	crop	year	1910,	26,000,000	bushels;for	the	crop	year	1911,	25,000,000	bushels;for	the	crop	year	1912,	78,000,000,	bushels,and up	to the present time, for the crop of
1913, 45,000,000 bushels, proving conclusively that more spring wheat is grown an the United States tributary to those mills than is required by the mills.
It can be readily seen therefore, that the Minneapolis mills do not need our wheat for grinding purposes, even for their home consumption. Nor do they need it for grinding flour for the foreign market. Allow me in this connection to call your attention to the following extract from page 0-98 of the tariff of the United States:
That upon the exportation of articles manufactured or produced in the United States by the use of imported merchandise or materials upon which customs duties have been paid, the full amount of such duties paid upon the quantity of materials used in the manufacture or production of the exported product shall be refunded as drawback, less 1 per centum of such duties.
But that is not all. There is this further proviso:
Provided. . . if, however, the principal product is exported, then on the exportation thereof there shall be refunded as drawback the whole of the duty paid on the imported material used in the production of both the principal and the by-product, less one per cent, as hereinbefore provided.
Which means this: that if flour manufactured from the imported wheat is exported, the by-products, bran, etc., remain free of duty. Notwithstanding that tariff provision there is no practical demand in Minneapolis for the wheat of the prairie provinces for the purpose of manufacturing for export.
As the Minneapolis miller can select from an abundant supply and leave a surplus to be sent out via Duluth, our farmers contend that any addition to that surplus would not reduce the American price, and that in no event would it be reduced below the Duluth price. Duluth is the point where the grain leaves the West and becomes subject in respect of price to eastern and export market influences. There seems to be no doubt that the Duluth price is higher than the Winnipeg or Fort William price, as I have pointed out, and our farmers claim that if they are allowed to sell their grain on the American market they will receive the American Duluth price. The rate of freight to Duluth corresponds to the freight rate to Fort William. There is a great difference between selling at Duluth and sending through the States in bond. In the one case the American dealers can sell in the eastern states and choose their own time and vessels and quantities for shipping to any point in the United States, or
from there to ocean ports, whereas the Canadian dealers cannot do so in the one ease at all, or as well in the other.
The cause for the higher price at Duluth may be accounted for at all events partially by the reasons just assigned, the market of the eastern states and somewhat lower ocean rates to final markets. Undoubtedly when the United States ceases to produce more wheat than it cons imes it will become an importer and the prices will rise. It has not yet reached that stage. When it does it will open its doors to world competition. Already Argentina, which is Canada's biggest competitor in the production of wheat, has made its tariff laws conform with the conditions of the United States tariff, and wheat and flour from that country will be admitted free of duty into the United States.
Another argument used against a free United States market for wheat is that it would involve loss to our railway transportation system. Undoubtedly the lines of transportation in Canada are east and west, and if the removal of duty would in a marked degree remove the traffic from those lines it would be an economic loss to Canadian railways and Canadian vessels and to the many people employed on them in Canada, and should be avoided. But would it cause such diminution of traffic over Canadian lines? The western farmers claim that in the three states producing hard wheat adjoining the prairie provinces, the cost to the Dakota, Montana, or Minnesota farmer to move his grain over American routes to the eastern states is substantially the same as the cost to the Prairie farmer over the Canadian routes to the East. If, as pointed out, the Canadian grain is not a necessity to the Minneapolis miller, it can find it way to the eastern states as cheaply over the Canadian as over the American routes and, therefore, the Canadian lines will have no difficulty in retaining the traffic. The average rate on wheat from Central North Dakota to Duluth is 15 cents per 100 lbs. corresponding to a similar distance to Fort William from Canadian grain fields. If shipped by Minneapolis the rate will be 20 cents per 100 lbs. for stopping and transfer, and to unload, 1 cent a bushel more. Thus, the farmers contend, it is clearly impossible for the Minneapolis dealer to bring Canadian wheat to that market unless it is required for milling there. To ship by Duluth does not cheapen transportation to the eastern states market as compared .with shipment by Fort- William. If that be so, the farmers ask what have the

transportation companies to fear? Indeed, the farmers say if our rates were cheapened as suggested by the Finance Minister why should not Canadian railways carry western American wheat from Minnesota, Montana, and Dakota to the eastern states. Let me call the minister's attention to this that the all-water route for grain during the open season is by the Welland canal. For this water route there are not sufficient boats of canal size to carry the grain that would be offered for the all-water route and large vessels are used for its transportation to Port Colborne where it is transferred to the river boats. Port Colborne lies about twenty miles west of Buffalo. The rate for wheat to Buffalo was at the opening of navigation li cents per bushel. The rate demanded to Port Colborne, which port can only be used by Canadian bottoms, was 2 cents per bushel. And I am informed that the some is also demanded for Georgian Bay ports. It is said that Canadian boats demand more for hauling grain to Canadian poTts than do the American boats to American ports, and the same grain can be carried a longer distance in American boats cheaper; but the coastwise laws prevent our using American boats to Port Colborne.
The western farmers also point out that the new market in the eastern states would have a steadying effect upon the price of wheat; and as we produce the best hard wheat the eastern states as well as Europe would compete for it. They also point out that the business in Canadian wheat is largely centralized and controlled by one English firm to the detriment of the Canadian producer, and another market would aid in checking that.
Another argument urged against free wheat is that it would injure Canadian milling interests. I understand from some millers who visited Ottawa that they would not seriously object to free wheat if they could get better ocean freight rates for flour. The farmers say: How will the western millers be'injured? Their western home market is small and easily supplied, their trade is mainly export, they can get all the wheat necessary from the adjoining grain fields, the millers have to compete now with the Minneapolis miller who can get Canadian wheat for export flour by paying I-10th of a cent per bushel advance. They say further that when wheat is free the millers in Toronto or Montreal can get soft wheat as easily as their neighbours across the line; that if mill machinery and structural material are more expensive by reason of duty,

such duty should be removed in so far as is necessary to establish a great industry.
The farmers of the West claim that they are not worried about the bran objection. They say that a good price for wheat is more important than a dollar or two a ton increase on bran; that a ton of alfalfa is as good as a ton of bran for fattening cattle and less expensive. If the majority of the people of the country, represented by the present Government, decide that for the benefit of the eastern railways and eastern routes and eastern millers, or of Canada generally, the interest of the prairie provinces must be subordinated or sacrificed to an extent, to that extent they contend those interests or Canada should, in justice, make up the loss to them or raise the price to what they would get if given the American market.
Let me suggest to the Government, as they admit that the Minneapolis price is higher because of its established mills, why should not the Government take steps then to establish such mills in the West? It can be done by establishing such mills in connection with their interior terminal elevators. It can be done by taking off the duty on materials entering into mill construction. It can be done by the Government constructing on their Dominion water-powers and in their coal areas plants developing electric energy; and they can distribute "that to all the cities and towns and places where there are mills, and without loss to the Government-(the people are willing to pay for that power). It can be done by absorbing or reducing some of the freight rates according to distance to the seaboard and by getting suitable ocean rates on flour. The price of wheat can be improved also by a reduction of freight rates to the ocean and across it and, as I have pointed out, by the completion of the Hudson bay route. I press upon the Government these considerations.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: I understand that the
hon. member's suggestion would be to reduce the duty on materials for the construction of mills, for the exclusive benefit of the West?


James Albert Manning Aikins: I said in respect of the
construction of mills for the purpose of encouraging milling, the duties on those dutiable articles which enter into the construction might he reduced. Do they not do the same thing in eastern

Canada in respect, of other structures? And when a great industry is to be established -and it should have been established by the late Administration-then I say it is right, under those circumstances, to take the necessary steps to do it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Where would my hon.
friend put the limit; where would this reduction begin?


James Albert Manning Aikins: not apply it to developing western Canada. They never established, or encouraged the establishment there of great industries as they should have done under our National Policy. The purpose of the National Policy is the creation of home markets. No home markets, during the whole of their Administration were established in the West save one, and that is mainly in the city of Winnipeg. That was done by the industrious, energetic and enterprising city itself in acquiring cheap power. Who did that ? The late Administration ? No, the city had to finance to the extent of $6,000,000 in order to provide that cheap power; they did it independently of the Government, which during all the years of its Administration did not have any love for the province of Manitoba. They not only did not establish industries there but to a large extent they sacrificed water powers.
When the late Administration had been in office some time they thought they would tear a hole for the United States in the National Policy garment which they wore, present it to the country and say that it is unfit for the people of Canada. Then they thought they would put a patch on it to cover that tear and the patch which they attempted to put on was the reciprocity agreement. The people saw the garment, they knew that it was not the true policy which was intended for the development of the Dominion and they said: We will have nothing to do with those who would undertake to add to the garment and they thrust them over the crystal battlements of public opinion into the abyss in which they are now seething. When we look .at them in the chasm in which they are we find the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), who has always carried his little ladder of free trade, leaning it up and trying to scale the wall and get 'back into public approbation. We find the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Knowles) trying to support him. We see other hon. members equally puzzled as to how they are going to escape from the pit. We find also that the right hon. leader of the Opposition has a free trade ladder which he has never abandoned and that he is trying to splice onto it some protection and thus get back into power. When he makes a speech to the people of the city of Hamilton on a policy for Canada his policy is to have free food. He does not say that in the West where the farmer knows well that free food means the cheapening of the prices of the things which he produces. He may whisper to the manufacturers: Do not worry we will look after yen out when he

goes West he says: We are going to get a better market for the Wheat of the West; we do not want to keep the market of th9 East for your wheat, we are going to give you the United States market. Let us see what some other hon. members are thinking or saying in respect to that also. The hon. the junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean), their high priest of finance, has also expressed himself on this question. I would like to know why this anxiety on the part of the hon. gentleman that the farmer of the West should have freedom to sell his wheat in the American market. The hon. gentleman has stated it very clearly in his speech, and I desire to call the attention of the farmers of the West to it. At page 2592 of ' Hansard ' he says:
When the western states were heavy exporters they were able to dispose 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 he 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.
How generous the hon. gentleman is. He does not want a market for western products in eastern Canada, although the factories and the home markets are established in eastern Canada. He further said:
I ask, have we not reached a stage when we might, for the benefit of the consumer, place foodstuffs upon the free list.
What is the meaning of that? He says he wants to give good markets to the farmer, and yet he would place foodstuffs on the free list. In other words, the hon. gentleman would give to the Canadian farmers in the markets of Canada the competition of all the world, and so reduce the price of farm products in Canada. He says further:
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 he increased and the imports of the West would he much greater.
It would mean 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.
What he means is, that he wants the western markets for the manufactured products of the East, but he does not want the western farmer and producer to find a market for his products in eastern Can-

ada. Is that fair? And yet that is the policy of the junior member for Halifax. And then, what says the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff)? Thus it stands written:
If you want to help the manufacturer make a market for him at home; put money into the pockets of the farmers so that they can buy and pay for the goods of the manufacturer.
Thus what the hon. member for Assiniboia says to the farmers of the West is: sell your wheat in some other market than Canada but do not go into any other market for the purchase of your manufactured goods; take them from eastern Canada. The hon. member would remove protection from the farmer but keep up protection for the manufacturer. Is that a reasonable policy? The burden of his argument was at that moment that the farmer should be enriched by getting a good price in the States for his products, so as to pay the protected Canadian manufacturer a high price. But on the very same page of ' Hansard ' the hon. member says:
Why not take off the duty and give the people a chance to get cheaper food?
Does he say that in Assiniboia? Does he tell the farmers of Assiniboia that they should compete with all the other nations of the world even in the markets of Canada, and so lower their prices? Let him say it in Assiniboia; and, perhaps he will be a little discouraged over the result.
I do not think I need go farther into the fact that hon. gentlemen opposite have really no policy, but are at odds and ends among themselves, ill at ease as to what policy should be pursued by them. The proper policy for Canada, I submit, is, in the first instance, to protect and promote the agricultural industry and thus bring the greatest possible profit to the farmers and people of Canada. Canada is an agricultural country, it was made so by nature, and the people should accept it that way. Why, then, endeavour to make other things commercially profitable by artificial means, and not first develop our great national industry of agriculture.
How far did the late Liberal Administration aid agriculture in the West or anywhere in Canada? The contribution of the Liberal Government, during the last year it was in office, 1911-12, to agriculture, amounted to $1,489,973, whereas the present Government, in the year 1912-13, raised that amount to $2,436,103, and in 1913-14 this Government voted $2,635,000 for agriculture. And how did the late Liberal Administration attempt to benefit the agri-168 .
cultural industry through a tariff? The Liberals now say the farmer should get free agricultural implements, but did they say that in 1911, and did they intend to do that in 1912, or 1913, or 1914? How saith the book? We find in the reciprocity agreement that ploughs, tooth and disc harrows, harvesters, reapers, agricultural drills, and planters, mowers, horse-rakes, cultivators, threshing machines, including wind-stackers, baggers, weighers, and selffeeders therefor, and finished parts thereof imported for repair of the foregoing, were to have a duty of fifteen per cent ad valorem, and that portable engines, potato diggers, feed-cutters, grain crushers, fan-ning-mills and the like, were to bear a duty of twenty per cent ad valorem, and farmers5 wagons and finished products thereof, were to be dutiable at twenty-two and a half per cent ad valorem. And was that tariff on these articles to be only temporary? How again saith the writer? We find it stated here in the reciprocity agreement assented to by the Liberal Government of that day:
If this agreement is confirmed, it is expected to remain in operation for a considerable period. Only this expectation on the part of both Governments would justify the time and labour that have been' employed in the maturing of the proposed measures.
And so they were going to fasten that duty on agricultural implements on the farmers of Canada, eternally, and subject to the whim of the United States tariff legislation. But now they propose free agricultural implements. The hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Emmerson) knows the maxim in law: it is not what is said, but what is done, that is to be regarded-non quod dictum, sed quod factum est inspicitur. What did the Liberals do when they were in power? That is the test. The member for Westmorland will remember that when they attempted to introduce Greek culture into ancient Rome they sent to Athens to buy some beautiful marble statues. The Greeks were good business men, and if there was a little break or crack or defect in those marble statues they used some of the finest wax, exactly like the marble, and so covered up the cracks or defects. But it was not long until the Romans discovered this, and they put these statues near the fire; the wax melted in the test, and they were discarded; only these statues which were without wax (sine cera), those which had sincerity, were then accepted by the Romans. Now, Sir, the Liberals have attempted to sear with wax



the defects in their policy, their performance, their production, so that the people may not see them, but the people have put those to the test and found them wanting; they have rejected the Liberal works, and the Liberals, for they are not sincere, and the people know it.


Mr. EMMERSON:: Is not that unparliamentary?
Hon. GEO. E. FOSTER:	Not under
the circumstances.


James Albert Manning Aikins: As they are known to be without sincerity in their promises, when they offer free agricultural implements or free wheat, they are not taken seriously. The farmers of the West know pretty well the source from which those offers come and say:	'Weighed in the balance and found
wanting.'
I desire to call the attention of the House to the following figures to show the importance of agriculture:
Agricultural Exports.
1912	1913
Grain	$ 68,427,932 $97,941,341
Grain products-flour,
etc	
16,956,870	20,833,371Seeds, including flax..	4,000,023	17357,056Totals	$107,143,357 $150,145,661
What about manufactures? Our export of manufactured goods in 1912 was only $35,838,284; in 1913, $43,692,708. That shows that Canada must depend for its prosperity largely upon its agriculture and not upon its manufactures. Therefore, as agriculture is the main industry of this country, instead of the National Policy being interpreted, as it was interpreted by the late Administration to mean simply the protection of manufactures, it should signify a system by which the Government through direct legislation undertakes the development of all its commercial, industrial and natural resources in all parts, for the benefit of the people. It seems to me that instead of magnifying manufacture, we should magnify agriculture, and make manufacture only auxiliary and ancillary to agriculture as the chief industry of Canada. It is the chief means by which Canada is to pay its debts and pay for its imports. Therefore it should be the first care of the Government.
What did the late Administration do in respect of benefiting the West by railway construction? We find that they gave subsidies to the Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific railway of $91,200, and to the Canadian Northern Railway Company, Swan River line, of $374,606, making a total of $465,806. They 
built about 90 miles of the National Transcontinental railway. Putting that at about $20,000 per mile, the expenditure would be $1,800,000. They expended for the Trans-cona shops $4,500,000; for the Hudson Bay railway, expenditure towards construction $489,250, making a total of $7,255,056. That was, I believe, all that they did for the Canadian West in direct contribution. They made a loan to the Grand Trunk Pacific of $10,000,000, which will be paid back. They guaranteed bonds for the Canadian Northern railway, the Canadian Northern Alberta railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific to the extent of about $50,000,000; but those guarantees will be redeemed and will never become an obligation on this Government-why? Because the people of the West will provide the money. What did the late Government do in respect to the construction of railways in the three prairie provinces? They left it to those provinces to construct their own railways- with what result? We find that Manitoba gave in subsidies and guarantees $25,076,399.75; Saskatchewan in guarantees, $33,735,000, and Alberta in guarantees, $45,489,000; making a total of $100,300,399.75. They had led the people of eastern 5 p.m. Canada to suppose they were doing great things for western Canada. They were not, but aided the East. I submit that in respect of the development of western Canada, they neglected the West, in which they now pretend to have such great interest, more than any other part of Canada. The people of the West have discovered that the late Administration neglected the West. That Administration gave direct railway aid to those three provinces of about $7,000,000, as I stated, but the whole expenditure on all the Dominion railways was $465,433,458. The right hon. leader of the Opposition says: We built the Transcontinental railway for the benefit of the West of Canada. They built it where? Through the eastern portion of Canada. When one considers the awful debt that will be incurred by the construction of that railway, amounting to over $230,000,000-when one considers the fact that that burden will lie upon the people of the prairie provinces, as well as upon the people of eastern Canada, to work out their share of the debt-one will see that it will be a millstone eternally about the neck of the people of our western provinces. $200,000,000 at 3 per cent means an expenditure of $6,000,000 a year, which will have to be paid for some years, amounting

every working day to almost $20,000. Who is to pay for this? The West, in high freight rates.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Is not the Grand
Trunk Pacific being paid very largely out of the current revenue account, so that it is not an indebtedness?


James Albert Manning Aikins: The Grand. Trunk Pacific in the prairies has not received any aid from the Government except by guarantee debentures. If my hon. friend refers to the National Transcontinental-


Henry Robert Emmerson: The National Transcontinental.


James Albert Manning Aikins: That is a different matter. 'My hon. friend suggests that it is out of revenue. Does it miake any difference how Canada pays it? Just consider also the duty which has been paid on the material that has gone into the road, which is being charged up to Canada, and which remains a debt upon Canada, to be paid somehow. Think of the liabilities of Canada which might have been wiped out by the money which was put into the National Transcontinental; and if that $200,000,000 had been spent in the West, as it might have been, I think the West would have prospered and the East would have prospered- Canada would have prospered. Now Canadians will have to bear the burden of an unnecessary railway.
Fot, let me call the attention of the hon. member for Westmorland to this fact: Canada had a line of transcontinental railway constructed and in operation before the National Transcontinental was thought of. That railway was built along the north shore of lake Superior, and all the work that was required to be done in carrying grain out of western Canada that railway did successfully. Never at any time was there a block in the carrying of the grain save once, and that was in the year 1912, when much of the grain was damp, and it was necessary to send it out by rail in order that it might reach the market before summer heat, as there was danger of it being destroyed by warm weather; and so it had to be carried in the winter, when there was snow and ice on the rails. That line, the Canadian Pacific railway, 2,900 miles in length, was constructed at what cost? Like the hon. member .for Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett) I was once counsel and solicitor for the Canadian Pacific railway. We are entirely separated from it now. I happen 168J	'
to have ascertained some facts, and I do not think it is a breach of confidential communication to state those facts. That railway, constructed partly by a Conservative Administration, including the line north of lake Superior, or the eastern section, and the Onderdonk portion of the Pacific section, was constructed at a cost to this country of $35,000,000. The proceeds of the land grant yielded $13,500,000, and there was a cash subsidy of $25,000,000; some portion of the land grant was subsequently redeemed for about $6,000,000, the total amount being about $31,000,000. They realized, on the sale of their $65,000,000 of stock, about $30,000,000.


Rodolphe Lemieux: And what about the customs duties?


James Albert Manning Aikins: Yes, .and we will take that into consideration too, if it will please the hon. gentleman to wait. They borrowed $44,250,000. This makes a total of about $153,750,000. Add, if you like, the customs duties, and make them high, and let us assume the cost of this 2,900 miles of railway to be $175,000,000. Then contrast that with the 1,804 miles of the National Transcontinental, which will cost about $234,000,000.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Which one does
Canada own?


James Albert Manning Aikins: Which railway does
Canada own? Does it own the National Transcontinental? It should have, if it was really a benefit to .Canada. It has agreed to hand it over to the Grand Trunk corporation. In no event would it be proud of its possession. But there is this further point: Though this one railway, the Canadian Pacific railway, has been sufficient generally for the traffic between the east of Canada .and the west of Canada, yet the late Administration guaranteed the bonds of the Canadian Northern railway, I understand, to the extent of $35,000,000 north of Superior. Then although, I am told, it would have been quite possible to have joined the Canadian Northern railway and the Grand Trunk railway to provide a second transcontinental line, the late Administration did not do so; and, knowing that there would be a second line, the Canadian Northern railway, they undertook to build the National Transcontinental, .at such tremendous cost to the people of Canada as to make it a profitless undertaking. I venture to say that this National Transcon-

tinental will never, in our time, prove profitable in operation to Canada. It .might be better, almost, for the present not to contemplate its operation, rather than continue that which must be a constant obligation on the people.


Rodolphe Lemieux: With the permission of the hon. member, I desire to ask a question. The hon. gentleman has given the figures for the construction of the Canadian Pacific railway in the 'eighties.' Has he had the benefit of consultation with my hon. friend from iCailgary as to the amount spent by the Canadian Pacific railway since that time in rebuilding that line? That should be added.


James Albert Manning Aikins: Let us look at that. Why should we consult about a thing in whieh we have no concern? The Canadian peopie were not under obligation to pay for those improvements; and did not, and that line has been so economically administered that, though what hon. gentlemen opposite would call a ' degraded ' line in comparison with their National Transcontinental I assume-I do not know-it has earned enough to pay for improvements which have not cost the country one dollar.


Rodolphe Lemieux: But what have they cost the corporation?


James Albert Manning Aikins: That is a matter for the corporation to say. I am not in their secrets; I am not now connected with that company, and have not been since my election to this House, nor is my hon. friend from Calgary. But I may say, and you know, that whatever improvements have been made on that road have not been paid for out of the public treasury.
What has the present Administration done for railways in the West? They are building the Hudson Bay railway, and on the 24th of March, 1914, there had been paid out on account of construction $5,192,625. Further, they have given a guarantee of the Canadian Northern railway Alberta bonds to the amount of $3,570,000. So, you coo see the improved treatment that has been given to the Prairie provinces by the present Administration as contrasted with the neglect and indifference of the late Administration.
What has the late Administration done in respect of the natural resources of the West? I will not speak again of the water-powers of Canada, nor shall I refer to the wasteful administration of public lands,-

a matter to which I may refer on some other occasion. What do we in the West hope this Government will do in respect to the trade of the West? We hope they will place a duty upon corn. 6,207,698 bushels of corn were imported into Canada during the fiscal year ending March 31 1913, and 12,684,965 bushels during the fiscal year ending March 31, 1912. If the Government wishes to benefit the people of the West they can put a duty on corn. The barley and other grains of the West are just as good for fattening cattle as the corn we get from the United States; why should not eastern Canada help western Canada to the extent of taking their barley and oats instead of American corn?
Another matter.which I desire to bring to the attention of the present Administration is that they should encourage the growing of flax and the development of industries for the production of flax fibre. This matter is, I believe, under the consideration of the Government. If the flax fibre industry is supported and encouraged, as I hope it will be by the present Administration, the people of the West will be greatly benefited by their getting a market for their flax, and flax straw and will be able to buy cheap binder twine, which will then be manufactured in the West for the purposes of the farmers of the prairies.
A sentiment which is sometimes expressed in the newspapers as well as upon the floor of this House is set forth in the following newspaper clipping, which has reference to the recent speech of the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff):
What he means is that they-
The farmers and grain growers of the West-
-are not given an opportunity to add to their already well-filled purses at the expense of the other citizens of the Dominion.
A mischievous suggestion. I attribute very largely the sentiment said to prevail in the East to the fact that the late Administration was telling the people of die East what they had done for the development of the West and for the benefit of western people. Let me mention in this connection a few facts. The following statement shows the revenues received by the Dominion Government in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the amount of expenditures, not including capital expenditures, which the Dominion made in and on account of these provinces during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1913:

Revenues.
Customs revenue, less drawbacks
and refunds	$20,689,883	82Excise revenue	
2,351,497	25Post Office revenue	
3,578,997	53Dominion Lands revenue, deducting expenditures	
939,402	71

Expenditures.
Customs-Salaries, etc	$
Inland Revenue-Salaries, etc ..
Post Office	
Mounted Police	
Administration of Justice .. ..
Penitentiaries	
Public buildings	
Harbours and rivers	
Dredging	
Telegraph lines	
Immigration-Expenses in western Canada, in United States, Great Britain and Europe ..
Indians	
Agriculture	 [DOT] [DOT] [DOT] [DOT]
Subsidies	
Proportion of general expenditures, including legislation, civil government, militia, interest on public debt, Naval Service, sinking funds, etc., estimated on basis of population	
420,369 79 52,559 09 3,156,123 51 665,725 98 220,579 39 203,066 80 735,257 93 146,041 53 50,139 70 53,613 53
721,735 00 856,797 00 467,378 80 6,458,851 65
6,920,867 43
Total
Total
receipts	
expenditures	
27,559,581 31 21,119,087 04
Balance to the credit of the West

Most of the imports at Fort William and Port Arthur are for consumption in the prairie provinces, and if, to make a liberal allowance, one-third of the goods imported through these ports, mainly coal (the proportion may be less than that), is consumed in these towns and by the population of Ontario west of Fort William and on the railway, we have this result:
Total duties paid.
Port William Port Arthur.

One-third allowed as above..

Paid by prairie provinces. .	. . $1,967,815 02
The total duties paid on imports of sugar through British Columbia ports for the year amounted to 11,015,775.86. Deducting the proportion for British Columbia, estimated on the basis of population, $233,628.25, leaves $782,147.61.
I have spoken to business men, both east and west, and they think that of goods used and consumed in the West, say on manufactured articles imported into the East and then shipped west, on railway material used in the West and on articles
entering into manufactures in the East and shipped west, there would he at least one-half as much more duty paid in ports east of Fort William as at ports in the prairie provinces by the people of those provinces, amounting to $10,344,841.41.
Let me summarize:
Receipts.
Receipts collected directly in prairie provinces, as per statement	$27,559,581	31
Approximate proportion of duty paid on sugar entering British
Columbia	 782,147	61
Approximate proportion of duties paid on imports, Fort William
and Port Arthur	 1,967,815	02
Approximate proportion of duties
paid at eastern ports	 10,344,841	41

Expenditures.
Expended directly from income in prairie provinces as per statement (including proportion for civil government, etc.)	 $21,119,087 04 Terminal elevator at Port
Arthur	 473,578 80
Capital account-
Hudson Bay railway	$1,099,063 15
St. Andrew's rapids	 36,904 62

 1,135,967 77

Receipts	$40,654,3S5 35
Expenditures	 22,728,633 61
Surplus to the credit of the
prairie provinces	$17,925,751 74
The per capita share according to population of payments into revenue by those three prairie provinces would, according to the census of 1911, be approximately $33,500,000 for 1913. When one considers the rapid increase of the population during the years which have elapsed since 1911, and when one considers that the people of the West consume more dutiable articles, products, than the people of many of the other provinces, the estimate of $40,000,000 is practically correct.
Let me now come to the years of administration of the late Government. The following is a statement of the receipts and expenditures in the prairie provinces for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1912:
Receipts.
Receipts collected in prairie provinces directly	$19,551,769 58
Approximate proportion of duties paid on imports, Port Arthur and Fort William, two-thirds. 1,643,314 19

Approximate proportion of duties paid at eastern ports, onehalf	 $7,044,343 71
Approximate proportion of duties paid on sugars entering British Columbia	 591,415 80
Mr. MARCH.: Has the hon. gentleman the figures of 1896 to compare with those of 1911 ? The figures of the progress of Canada during fifteen years would be very interesting.

Expenditure.
Ordinary account (including proportion of civil government,
etc.)	$16,040,495 51
Capital account-*
St. Andrew's rapids.$ 50,939.49 Hudson Bay Ry... 159,032.00

	210,571 49

Receipts	$28,830,843 28
Expenditure	 16,251,067 00
Approximate aurjpOus to the credit of the prairie provinces	$12,579,776 28
I will give a similar statement for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1911:
Receipts.
Receipts collected directly in
prairie provinces... $15,781,467.36
Approximate proportion of duties on imports through Fort William and Port Arthur	..	803,803.60
Approximate proportion of duties
paid at eastern ports. 5,188,997.02
Approximate proportion of duties paid on sugars imported through British Columbia	.	.	505,846.11

Expenditures.
Expended directly from income in Prairie provinces (including proportion for civil government, etc.)	 $13,999,251.21
Capital account:
Hudson's Bay railway .. . . $184,149.81 St. Andrew's
rapids	 55,174.36

 239,324.17

Revenue, approximated	 $22,280,114.09
Expenditure	 14,238,575.38
Approximate surplus to the credit of the prairie provinces	 $8,041,538.71
The amount, it will be observed, expended directly from income in the three prairie provinces was $13,979,000, which, after adding capital expenditure, consisting of Hudson Bay railway, $184,148, and St. Andrews Rapids, $55,174, leaves a surplus of $8,041,538, not used in the Prairie provinces. And yet the hon. members of the Opposition are saying: Oh, how badly the West is treated by the present Government. Let them look at their records!


James Albert Manning Aikins: I have here the expenditures of the late Government made in the West on capital account in these earlier years, not including expenditures on Dominion lands. The Government of Canada have received from the sale and leasing of Dominion lands over $42,583,162. They have expended something in respect of surveys and necessary expenses of sale and the like of that, which would be paid out of the ordinary receipts from Dominion lands. But I venture to say that the $42,583,162 received from the public domain in those three prairie provinces will not only pay back what was paid to the Hudson Bay Company, $1,460,000, but will also pay for the whole administration of that domain, with interest.
In the year 1897, under the late Government, there were no expenditures in the West on capital account, save for Dominion lands. In 1898 and 1899 the same thing was true. In 1900, there was the magnificent capital expenditure on the St. Andrews rapids of $6,501. In 1901, $15,000 was spent on capital account; in 1902, $9,584.76; in 1903, $62,000; in 1904, $17,000; in 1905, $4,014. In 1906 there was expenditure on Dominion lands and no other expenditure. In 1907 there was an expenditure on the St. Andrews rapids of $97,213, and in 1908 an expenditure on the St. Andrews rapids of $261,000. In 1909, there was an expenditure of $300,000, and in 1910, of $53,000. I have already given the expenditures for 1911 and 1912. What magnificent expenditures made by the recent Government for the benefit of the people of western Canada! In 1911, out of a surplus of over $8,000,000 from the prairie provinces, they spend in them $239,324. In 1912, out of a surplus of $12,700,000, only $201,571 was spent there. In 1913, out of a surplus of $17,925,000, only $1,135,967 was spent there. Are they not proud of their record? How grateful the farmers of western Canada should be for the marvellous consideration given to them by the late Administration.


Mr. MARCIL:: Does the hon. member not take into account the large sums expended by Canada to open up western Canada and to bring the tide of population that has flowed into the West ?


James Albert Manning Aikins: What expenditures were made to open up the west of Canada ?


Charles Marcil: Were not a million people brought into Canada in the last fifteen years ?


James Albert Manning Aikins: But how brought ? Over the railway and steamships routes.


Charles Marcil: Through the action of the Canadian Government and people in voting the money.


James Albert Manning Aikins: They voted the money out of revenues no doubt received from western resources. Moreover, Canada received millions of dollars out of the western trade. I am glad the hon. gentleman has spoken, it shows that he has the same conception that other people have in respect of what the East is said to have done for western Canada. It has been stated in this House and out of the House that the people living to the east of lake Superior have made great sacrifices for the benefit of the West. How? Well, it is stated, did we not build the Canadian Pacific railway? Think of that, hon. member for Calgary! Did the people of the East not build the Canadian Pacific railway? I have pointed out what was expended on the Canadian Pacific railway and how it was provided for. I say more, the people of western Canada are bearing the burden of the cost of the Canadian Pacific railway just as much as the people of eastern Canada. Look what western Canada is doing for eastern Canada. We know it cost Canada about $8,790,000 to build the railway on Prince Edward Island, and about $97,138,379 to build the Intercolonial. As well might the people to the west of lake Superior say: Look what we are doing for the people of the East; we have put our shoulder under the burden of the people of the East and we pay our proportion of the cost of those railways without the slightest complaint. Look at the enormous debt we have in Canada. We have been paying our way in the West and have been contributing also to all the old debt of Canada. Yet they say: We built for you the National Transcontinental railway. Did they? Where is that National Transcontinental railway built? It is 1,804 miles in length, and for 1,700 of those miles it is in eastern Canada. For what? So that the people of the east of Canada might send their manufactured articles to the west of Canada. Wonderful generosity! I have already pointed out that the National Transcontinental railway was not built alone for the eastern and western traffic. The right hon. gentleman who is leader of the Opposition has told us that one
of the great purposes of the National Transcontinental railway was to develop that splendid valley of 700 miles in length and 200 or 300 miles in width that lies in the northern part of the great province of Ontario. Is that for the benefit of the people of western Canada? Let the people of the East bear their own burdens and perform their own duties in respect of them, but do not debit to the people of western Canada a liability which is of no benefit to them but will be a continuous burden there, that National Transcontinental railway. They say we in the East built for you-hon. gentlemen in this House have said this the Canadian Northern railway, and what have we done in return for that? Let me say that the subsidies given by the Dominion to that system were given to the Canadian Northern Ontario railway and not to the Canadian Northern Western railway. I have given you the details of that. Moreover, some of these gentlemen have the complacency to say: Look, we are building for you an elevator in Calgary-think of that, hon. member for Calgary! We are building an elevator in Moosejaw, and all of this is being done at the expense of the Dominion for the people of the West. All of this has been paid, as I have pointed out, out of the revenue contributed by the West, leaving the immense surplus which I have mentioned used elsewhere in Canada. They say, too:	We are building for
the people of the West a terminal elevator at Fort William, and, more, a terminal elevator at Montreal. Think of these great sacrifices the people of the East say they are making for the benefit of the poor farmer of the West! God help the poor farmer if that be the conception that some people of the East have in respect of justice to him! The farmers of the West are manly men and free, not bondmen. They come not as suppliants to the East. They say that the late Administration never did pen-form properly its duty towards the West, that it did not understand the system which was provided for the purpose of establishing industries and developing those western provinces and that they are suffering in consequence of that neglect.
I shall not continue my remarks concerning this matter except to say that the farmers of the West are kindly disposed towards the East and that all the people of those prairie provinces are as Teal Canadians as those who are living in the East. They possess the Canadian spirit,

the spirit of freemen, the spirit of independence, the .spirit that takes alms from nobody but they demand that they shall be freed from all inequality with the people of the East. They know tlheir rights and knowing, dare maintain them. They say: Let no'injustice be done, give us a fair chance for a living; place us in conditions where our industry and intelligence can create prosperity and we shall then show to the people of the whole of Canada that we can raise produce enough to pay our way a,nd to help the East to pay off the debt of old Canada, we will quit ourselves as men.
Mr. WILLIAM A. BUCHANAN (Medicine Hat): Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Aikins), who has just taken his seat, is a distinguished lawyer, a man who has had a wide experience at the bar in pleading cases with a good foundation and with a bad foundation, .and I think today that ;he has shown himself to possess very much the character of the lawyer who, when he did not have a good case, started in to criticise and attack the other ride.


James Albert Manning Aikins: Does not the hon. gentleman, to some extent, agree with the views that I have expressed concerning wheat and .agriculture?


Mr. BUCHANAN:: What I want to deal with in regard to the hon. member's remarks concerns his statements with reference to the Government's attitude on wheat and the reduotion of the duty on agricultural implements. But before coming to that I would like to point out a few things for the consideration of the hon. member. He has lived in western Canada a good deal longer than I have and he knows something about the history of that country prior to 1896. And he knows something about the history of western Canada from 1896 to the present time. He knows that western Canada was stagnant prior to 1896 and that it di d not commence to develop until the Liberal party, came into power in 1896 and introduced a progressive immigration policy. The people who have come into western Canada in recent years have come as the result of the immigration policy of the Liberal Government and the development of western Canada is due to the policy of that Government. When that Government saw. the hundreds of thousands of farmers whom they had brought into that country were producing more grain than was needed in

Canada cun*d tho moth.'Brland they were wise enough to introduce a trade measure which would have been greatly to the benefit of these people, which would have increased the prosperity of Canada and would have been an inducement in bringing more .settlers to the country. When my hon. friend speaks of the Tecord of the late Government and says that they did little or nothing for western Canada, I want to .say to him that there was practically no western Canada until the time when the Liberal Government party came into power i.n 1896.
The hon. gentleman also asserted that the Liberal Government had done nothing to encourage industries to go to western Canada and establish themselves there. Let me tell him that a great many industries have gone into western Canada -in recent years, but they have been the in-iustries that were warranted by the conditions existing in that country. They have been the industries which could utilize the raw materials which are at hand in western Canada. The Conservative Government have been in power since 1911, and I would ask the hon. gentleman what this Government have done to encourage industries to go into western Canada. They have done nothing more than the late Government did from 1896 to 1911. Industries will go into western Canada when the people are prosperous, when the land is settled, and when there is a market for their products. This Government, in order to induce people and industries to go into western Canada, must adopt a policy that will bring about contentment and prosperity.
Another- thing that I thought was somewhat unfair towards the late Government was the hon. gentleman's statement that they had done nothing to reduce freight rates in western Canada. In the second session after the Liberal party came into power in 1896 they provided for the construction of the Crowsnest railway, and there was some provision in the statute under which freight rates were regulated and under which the rates were reduced as compared with what they had been in the past. That Government also established the Railway Commission, and what other achievement is it necessary for me to refer to on the part of the late Government than the establishment of the Railway Commission, which has done more to regulate the railway rates and to remove the grievances of the people with

respect to the transportation question than anything that was ever done during the entire regime of the Conservative party from 1878 to 1896?


James Albert Manning Aikins: I would ask the hon. gentleman if the Railway Commission is for the benefit of the whole of Canada and not particularly for that of western Canada.


William Ashbury Buchanan: It certainly is for the benefit of the whole of Canada-I admit that-but at the same time it has done a great deal for western Canada. The hon. gentleman speaks as though the Railway Commission had done nothing whatever for the relief of western Canada. What about the recent decision in the freight rates case before the Railway Commission? That was a victory for the two Liberal Governments of western Canada-the Governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta- who engaged counsel to appear before the Railway Commission and present the case for these provinces. As a result of that there has been a very substantial reduction in rates. The Liberal Governments of these two provinces are entitled to every credit for making the case so strongly before the Railway Commission.
The hon. gentleman has no use for the National Transcontinental railway. But it seems to me that the existence of the National Transcontinental railway has had something to do, and will have something to do in the future, with bringing about a reduction in railway rates and that competition which we so much need in western Canada. The Liberal party looked many years ahead when they decided upon the policy of creating the National Transcontinental railway. They were far-seeing enough to believe that western Canada would have a population of millions of people in a very few years if their immigration policy and their proposed tariff changes were carried out. They saw that this railway was a necessity and they brought it into existence. History will prove that the Liberal party did a wise thing in inaugurating that great railway policy, and history will also prove that the road will be of inestimable benefit to both western and eastern Canada.
Now, I want to deal with some points in reference to matters of vital interest to western Canada. The tariff changes which have been brought down bring no cheer to the people of the West. I do not want to speak in this House from a sectional
standpoint. I am a Canadian, I live in western Canada, but I was born in eastern Canada, and I am just as anxious for the development of the East as I am for the development of the West, because I believe that the development of the whole country is the best thing for Canada, for the West and for the East. That is the attitude I want to take in discussing these matters this evening. We in the West have complaints, and complaints which are justified by existing conditions, and I am surprised to find some hon. gentlemen opposite belittling them. From 1896 to the present day, the development of western Canada has been the cause of the prosperity and development of the rest of Canada. If there had been no settlement going into western Canada from 1896, or if there had been only the same amount of settlement that there was between 1878 and 1896, what would that have meant to eastern Canada? It would have meant that in eastern Canada there would have prevailed the same conditions which prevailed between 1878 and 1896, conditions of stagnation. I maintain that the bringing into western Canada of thousands and thousands of people from all over the world to cultivate the fertile lands of that part of the Dominion, has done more to bring about industrial prosperity in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces than has any protective tariff that ever existed in this country. I believe that the policy of bringing people in to settle on the land was the cause of our prosperity. If we are to have continued prosperity, such a policy must be continued, and more people must be put on the vacant lands of the West. It will be said by people in the East that the West has depopulated eastern Canada, and especially the rural parts, to a very considerable extent. But how much better is it for Canada that the people of the East should inhabit the West, than that Canadians should migrate to the United States, as was the unfortunate condition prior to 1896. I maintain, that the policy of settling the West with people frorii eastern Canada, and with former Canadians who had gone to the United States, and with people from the old land and from central Europe, has been a great benefit to eastern Canada, as well as to western Canada.
The attitude taken by many of our friends on the other side of the House relative to the tariff changes is, in effect, that we should not interfere with the pro*

lection which is given to the Canadian animals in Canada went up at once and manufacturers, and also that we should not theie was a demand for them in the United pay any heed to the demands of the farmers States markets. The Minister of Trade and for tariff relief. I think that is the line of Commerce is a strong advocate of mixed cleavage between the Liberal party and the farming, and he often tells us we should Conservative party in this country to-day. adopt that system of farming in the West. It would seem that the manufacturers can I agree with the bon. gentleman that it go to this Government, present their case, it is a good idea that mixed fan-m-and convince the Government, without any ing should be adopted wherever it is difficulty, that what they say is right, and practicable, and mixed farming has of late what they ask for will be done by the Gov- years been largely adopted in western Can-ernment. But when the representatives of ada. And, with what result? Last year was many thousands of farmers come to Ottawa the first year in the history of the province and present their case, asking for tariff of Alberta that enough hogs were raised to relief, their requests are not granted be- supply the local demand in that province, cause the presentation of the case on behalf and indeed there were hogs raised in excess of the manufacturers has more influence of the local demand. In one week, from
with the Government than the presentation of the farmers' case. We find that in connection with the demand for free wheat. We are told that free wheat will ruin the milling industry of this country, which is proof that the millers have the ear of the Government to a far greater extent, and have far greater influence with the Government, than have the farmers who ask for free wheat. We are told that the farmers in eastern Canada are not asking for free wheat, but I have met a great many farmers in Ontario since I came down to the session of Parliament-I happen to have met a good many more Liberals than Conservatives-and I find they are all in favour of free wheat. I think that probably the sentiment of the farmers of Ontario is just as strongly in favour of free wheat as is the sentiment of the western farmers. The only trouble with the eastern farmer is, that he is tied up pretty tight with his party, and he follows his party wherever it goes, even if he thinks it is wrong, on reciprocity or on free wheat. But the western farmer is not bound up with any political party, and he is going to stand by the party which stands by the farmers, and stands by the things which he considers are to his benefit. The farmers in western Canada want free wheat, because they believe it would be to their advantage to have free wheat. We were told by the Conservatives during the reciprocity campaign of 1911, that if cattle and hogs were admitted free into the United States it would not mean any improvement for the Canadian farmer. That was the argument of Conservative speakers in western Canada, and I presume they used the sarnie argument in ithe east. But what do we find? The tariff was removed by the United States, and there was free entrance into the United States markets for cattle and other live stock, and the price of these TMr. Buchanan.]
October 6 to October 13, 1913, just subsequent to the Wilson tariff coming into effect, 50,000 hogs were shipped out of that province to the city of Seattle. Prior to the Wilson tariff, the price of hogs in my district had dropped to about five cents per pound, the lowest price ever reached, simply because the province had produced more, under mixed farming methods, than it could consume within its own bounds, and there was no organization by which the surplus could be shipped out to meet the demand in other parts of the country. But just as soon as the Wilson tariff went into effect, the price of hogs went up to over seven cents per pound. You can readily understand why the western farmer believes in the United States market, and believes that it is to his advantage to sell his products in tnat market, or at 'least to have the opportunity of selling in that market, and that is all he askis in connection with free wheat. When the Conservatives tell him that the farmer of the west will not benefit from free wheat, he believes that the Conservatives know just as little about it as they did in 1911, when they said the United States market would he of no advantage to the Canadian farmer for his cattle and hogs and the other live stock he raises. I believe that the Canadian manufacturer, in opposing the demands of the western farmer for free wheat and free agricultural implements, is making a vital mistake. I believe he is injuring himself and that he is jeopardizing the continuance of protection in this country, because when the farmers of western Canada find that every attempt they make to get some advantage which they consider will be of great benefit to them, is opposed by the eastern Canadian manufacturer, who is listened to by the Government which obeys him, they are not going to be content under such a system of Government.

In 1911, if the manufacturers of this country had had the right kind of spectacles on, they would have realized that it was to then advantage to support reciprocity, because it would have met the demands of the western farmer and would have appeased him, and the manufacturers would not have been very [DOT]much injured, if at all. But they opposed the farmer; they were behind the campaign which caused the defeat of reciprocity, and now they are behind the demand that free wheat shall not be given to the farmers, and that free agricultural implements shall not d*e provided for the relief of the farmers. By taking that attitude they are antagonizing the farmers and are creating a strong sentiment that will continue to grow in favour of a reduction in the tariff.


John Hampden Burnham: Does the western farmer want free trade?


William Ashbury Buchanan: The western farmer
would like to have free trade just as much as the eastern Canadian people want protection, because the latter consider that protection is to their interest. In western Canada the farmer feels that free trade is to his interest and they believe free trade will not be injurious to the rest of Canada. I am candid enough to admit that, as long as there is a sentiment in this country that our industries cannot exist without a certain amount of protection, we should have a certain amount of protection. But you have to study and endeavour to meet the demands of the people who do not want any protection, who ask that all tariff barriers shall be removed. from their industries. Why should one class in this country receive practically all it asks for in connection with the tariff and another class be refused what it feels is necessary for the development of its industries?
At six o'clock the House took recess..
The House resumed at eight o'clock. PRIVATE BILLS.



CONSIDERED IN COMMITTEE-THIRD READING.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 123, to incorporate the Atlin Railway Company.-Mr. Michael Clark.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 151, for the relief of Charles Low Hutcheon.-Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 152, for the relief of Eleanor Grassett Parkhurst.-Mr. W. H. Bennett.
Bill No. 153, for the relief of William Godfrey Thorp.-Mr. Carvell.
Bill No. 150, to incorporate the Prudential Life of Canada.-Mr. Nickle.
Bill No. 154, respecting the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada and The Canada Atlantic Railway Company.-Mr. Fripp.

William Ashbury Buchanan: When the House rose at six o'clock I was discussing the question of free wheat and I intend to proceed by pointing out some contradictions in the remarks of the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Aikins) this afternoon-contradictions which have appeared quite prominently in a number of speeches made by members on the Government side. They argue that the free entrance of wheat into the United States markets would not enhance the price in Canada, and they then proceed, as the hon. member for Brandon did, to argue that if we got free access into that market our transportation companies would be injured, and our transcontinental lines practically ruined. The two arguments do not fit in very well, because if the United States market is not worth while, the Canadian farmer can send his grain not to that market but, as usual, eastward to the Atlantic ports. I maintain, however, that the United States is of value to the Canadian farmer; there is no question that the Canadian farmer, especially the western farmer, believes that that market is the most advantageous that is offered for the products of his land. I believe that the transportation companies, if our wheat had free access to the American markets, would thrive just as much, if not more so, than they have in the past, because the more our people get for their grain and for their products the more money they will have to buy the products of the eastern manufacturer and wholesaler. Consequently, if we had free wheat, the trade	between the East	and
the West would increase and the railroads would not suffer. No one is going to argue that all the wheat of western Canada would be sold in the United States markets; a great quantity of it would go eastward as usual. As I have said, I do not .see anything in the argument that free wheat would in any way injure the transcontinental railroads, or that the United .States market is not of any value to the people of this country.
One thing about the United States market which hon. gentlemen forget is that with the advantage of a market close at hand in which the farmer could sell his wheat if he wanted to, the agricul-

tural and grain-growing industries of western Canada would be stimulated. More markets and wider markets are what the farmer needs, and these would be of great benefit particularly to the farmers of the West. One of the chief points in connection with the free entry of wheat into the United States is that the grades in the United States are unquestionably better than they are in Canada. In that respect there is an advantage to the Canadian western farmer. I have before me a letter addressed to a Canadian newspaper by an American who is largely interested in farm lands in Alberta, and who relates his experience during the past season. In this letter he offers an illustration of the value of the grading in the United States compared with the value of the grading in Canada, and what that grading means so far as increased prices are concerned. Even if there were no difference between the prices in Minneapolis and the prices in Winnipeg, this letter proves-and this has often been proved in the House and throughout the country-that in respect of grading alone the Canadian farmer has the advantage. In his letter this gentleman says:
The writer was fortunate enough last year to get a bumper crop of wheat on his land in Alberta. He had samples carefully taken from the grain after it was threshed and ready for market and sent to him here in Rochester-
This gentleman, who owns a farm in Alberta, lives in the city of Rochester, N.Y.
[DOT]-and submitted it to some of the local millers. They were enthusiastic about the sample and compared it with samples of No. 1 wheat, for which they were paying the highest market price in Duluth and Minneapolis, much to the disadvantage of the United States grain. I asked two or three of them how they would grade the wheat, and they said unquestionably No. 1, with a premium for extra quality; and if there had been no tariff barrier I could have sold several carloads of my wheat direct to Rochester millers, not only getting the premium which they would pay me, but also advertising Alberta wheat in this community as nothing else could do it.
The actual result of my attempt to market this wheat in Alberta, however, was to get No.
2 grade on a large part of it, and a price not exceeding sixty cents for most of it on the track at the nearest shipping station. No wonder American farmers who bought Canadian lands on the basis of productive capacity are discouraged when they are confronted with the handicaps placed on their efforts by the present Canadian Government.
In this letter he makes a reference to oats, and I would like to read this because it is important, as showing the handicap 
under which the western Canadian farmer labours under our present tariff:
The wheat story, however, is no less aggravating to the farmer in Alberta than the oat situation. I think I cannot be contradicted when I state that Alberta oats are unsurpassed on this continent, both in quality and weight; and I do not know of any part of the world where oats can be produced in greater quantities at less expense than in Alberta. My own oats this year averaged over eighty-five bushels per acre with a weight of over forty pounds, and should command the highest market both for seed, milling and feed purposes. The natural market for Alberta oats is south of the American border, in the States of Montana, Oregon and Washington, where the farmers cannot begin to compete with Alberta farmers in raising oats.
The tariff on oats, however, as compared with the market price, is so high that the advantage of the Alberta farmer is practically offset, with the result that I am still waiting for a price net to me of twenty-five cents a bushel on the track at the nearest market point for oats that should command at least thirty-five cents.
Tbat is one of the experiences related by a man interested in Alberta land and farming there. It is merely an illustration of many cases that could be quoted, and is one of the outstanding grievances of western Canada farmers. It is amply established there that the better grade in wheat is a sufficient warrant for the farmer wanting to dispose of his grain in the American markets. Speaking of wheat, we are advised time and again that the salvation of the farmer in western Canada is to abandan grain growing -and to go into mixed farming. As I said this afternoon, I am in accord with that idea if it can be practised. Those of us who live in western Canada know that in many parts of that country conditions do not warrant the farmer in going into mixed farming. In other parts of the country he is warranted in doing it but those conditions mean that for practically all time, in certain parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan at any rate, grain growing is bound to be the chief side of agriculture. Naturally the farmers will be looking for markets year in and year out; and there is no possibility of an entire change in farming methods coming into effect throughout all of western Canada that would reduce the amount of wheat and other grain raised in that country and turn the farmers' attention entirely to mixed farming. Even if the farmer did go into mixed farming, and feed his grain to live stock, as I said this afternoon, there would be a marked increase in the production of live stock, the market under normal conditions, would be swamped with western live stock. Just now, owing to the exist-

enee of the Wilson-Underwood /tariff, our farmers have entrance to the American market for their cattle; but if that market was not open to them this country would certainly be swamped with the production df live stock from western Canada if the ideal mixed farming conditions were established to offset grain growing.


Mr. ROGERS:: Is it not a fact that 75 per cent of the cattle from Alberta find their market in British Columbia to-day?


William Ashbury Buchanan: No, I would not say
that, not since the Underwood tariff came into effect, because I know that a large number of cattle from my district have recently been sold in the United States. I know that the Alberta hogs have found their market in Seattle and other Pacific coast points in the United States. I believe the same to be the case with oattle in that country. There is one thing to be said: even if the cattle of western Canada are sold in British Columbia, the fact that we have free entrance to the United States market has improved the price, to a very marked extent. I would point out that free wheat affects not only the farmer of western Canada but every man in business in that country. I do not know whether some of the western members who sit on the Government benches will deny this, but if I urn to go by the opinion which has been expressed to me by Conservative friends of mine since this matter has been discussed I would say that if the members in this House of both political parties from western Canada were to vote according to what they absolutely thought to be in the best interest of the farmers of western Canada, they would vote for free wheat and we would all stand together on that particular question. If any hon. members opposite deny that statement all well and good; I would like to have them do so, because it would be a valuable thing for us in their particular constituencies if they would go on record against free wheat. Free wheat is of importance not only to the farmers but to the men in the towns and cities of western Canada. During the crop season we in the West are all concerned about how the crop is coming along, what its prospects are. If we are having a dry season we are very much worried. The same thing is true about the price of wheat. Last year we had an exceptionally good crop but the price was exceptionally low, a discouraging feature to every man in business in that country, because he was looking to a profitable business from the farmers and hoped that with
a good crop there would be good prices and the farmer would be able to meet his obligations to the merchants and his purchasing power would be increased. But that was not the case. The price was low and the farmer was not able even to meet the debts he had contracted. In the face of that, the great agricultural implement industry of this country made demands upon the farmer that were never made in previous years, compelling him to pay up, and if he would not pay in the ordinary way putting him into court, seizing his property, taking everything from him in order to collect his indebtedness. That is one of the reasons why the agricultural implement industry is not gaining in popularity in western Canada.
The hon. member for Brandon to-day said, if I understood him rightly, that he believed that the Minister of Finance had an open mind on the question of free wheat, that he had not absolutely decided that free wheat would not be a good thing for this country. Then the member for Brandon proceeded to present some reasons to establish that free wheat would possibly not be a good thing for the farmer and he tried to so fix the mind of the Minister of Finance that there would be no possibility of free wheat. The [DOT]hon. member was frying to close the open miind of the Minister of Finance so that there would be no possibility of free wheat.
I want to deal for a few moments with the very important question of agricultural implements. As I had occasion to say in this House this session, during the campaign of 1911 gentlemen who appeared on the platform in opposition to myself in the constituency of Medicine Hat made the declaration that the chief fault with reciprocity was that it did not go far enough, especially on this item of agricultural implements; and they told the farmers that if the Conservative party were returned to power agricultural implements would be put on the free 'list. They made this statement throughout my riding. Now we find that they are not able to implement this promise, if I may be pardoned for the use of the word in that sense. They come down here and all they were able to get was a five per cent reduction on a certain agricultural implement. The Liberal provision in the reciprocity agreement covered nearly every implement which the farmer in western Canada uses. I say I believe that the men who spoke at that time were honest and believed that they would be able to convince the Conservative Government, if one came into existence, to provide free imple-

ments, but they have not been able to do so nor have the farmers of western Canada. But, on the other hand, the agricultural implement manufacturers of this country have been able to convince the Government that only a five per cent reduction is warranted.
I would like to read an extract from a western newspaper. It happens to be from my own paper published in the city of Lethbridge. It is not an editorial expression of opinion, but it is simply an interview given to one of the reporters by an agricultural implement man who does not use his own name-I presume he would be afraid of losing his position if he did- but he makes a very important statement. This article says that the agricultural implement men of the place were interviewed in order to get their views on the five per cent reduction in the duty on agricultural implements. The article continues:
The opinions were all very emphatic. One man said that the reduction could not help the farmer in the slightest degree. His reason was that all the binders sold in the west are manufactured in Canada anyway, with the exception of the John Deere, which sold for the same price as the others after the duty had been paid, namely $175.
The manufacturers in the East will pocket the advantage, said one man. Even if the price was lowered, it would not amount to more than five dollars on a binder. A farmer uses a hinder for an average of about five years-
I think that is a very small period of time in western Canada, but that is the length of time that this gentleman mentions as the life of a binder. Then the article continues:
-and if he saved $5 on his future purchases, that would mean a dollar a year, nothing that any farmer would write home about. What the farmers want, he continued, is free wheat, free food and free implements. If he had implements, the smaller manufactures in the United States would be permitted to invade this country, and they would make the larger concerns come down down to a point that would mean an advantage worth while to the farmer. With this, and free wheat, which would give the agriculturist a wider and better market, he might have financial benefits that would amount to something. The reduction on implements does not amount to the price of a good square meal to the farmer.
That is an expression of opinion from western Canada, and it comes from one of the agricultural implement men. In this connection I would like to draw the attention of the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. White) to a statement which has been made to me. I cannot guarantee that it is correct because I have been away from the West for some time, but the statement is that within the last three or four months
[Mr. Buchanan, j
the price of binders and mowers in western Canada has been increased sufficiently to cover any reduction which might be made in the duty on agricultural implements. That statement was made to me by a gentleman in my own city, and if it is correct it is worthy of investigation. I cannot guarantee that it is correct, but I simply make the statement as it was made to me.


Robert Rogers: Will the hon. gentleman repeat that statement?


William Ashbury Buchanan: The statement that was made to me was that the price of binders and mowers had been increased about $5 within the last three or four months. This gentleman who wrote to me, since the announcement of the reduction in the duty, intimated that the agricultural implement manufacturers must have been figuring on a reduction in the duty, and so they put up the price. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of that statement, but the statement was made by a responsible business man.


Mr. W. T. WHITE:: It would be quite impossible that that could be done, for the reason that-I make the statement, without any equivocation or reserve-nobody could be aware of the action of the Government in the matter, and I do not believe the statement is correct.


William Ashbury Buchanan: I would not want to say that the manufacturers were advised that there was any possibility of a reduction, but I think that from the discussion which had been taking place in this country during the last few months they might have imagined that something was going to happen, and they certainly could have imagined that something was going to happen if the party on this side of the House had anything to do with the changes in the tariff. I do not say that they knew actually that a five per cent reduction, or any reduction, was to be made, but if the statement that they have increased the price over that for which they had been selling these binders in western Canada is correct, it is worthy of investigation at any rate. I had the opportunity of making a speech on this question before in the House, and I do not intend to make any further remarks on this particular subject.
I want, however, to offer some observations on the question of immigration. This is an important question to the people of western Canada. We are all anxious that our country should develop as rapidly as

possible. My own conclusion is that, outside of the people who have been coming in and taking up homesteads, there has been practically no movement to the West of the class of farmers who might be expected to invest in farm lands. A great many people who went into western Canada as homesteaders simply went in to prove up, get the land and then move away. We have in many cases vacant homesteads, and naturally there has been a decrease of population in that regard. I do not know whether that is the case in all districts or not, but I know that is the case in many parts of Alberta. We have not been bringing into western Canada as we should have done men to go on the land and till the soil. Western Canada is out of the stage of sensational development by means of real estate speculation, which has aroused the people to a realization of the possibilities of their respective cities. They have spent a great deal of money in development. I say that population practically will be stationary until there is a very rapid increase in our rural population. I would like to see more people going into that country and settling on the land. They are not coming in to purchase farm lands as they were a few years ago. I do not know whether there is any slackening of the efforts to bring settlers from the United States or not, but there certainly has not been the movement of United States settlers to southern Alberta that there was a few years ago: In that particular part of the country the United States settler is an ideal settler. He comes from states which are very similar in climate and agricultural conditions to Southern Alberta, and he generally makes a success of agriculture. I hope that the efforts to bring farmers in from the United States will continue, and that the class of immigrants that we are bringing from across the sea will be a class of people who will go on the farms. We should now make every effort to get people on the land. That should be the main object of this Government if it wants development to continue in western Canada, population to increase and the resources of the country to yield what it is possible for them to yield.


William Henry Sharpe: What is the cause of men leaving the land in Alberta ?


William Ashbury Buchanan: Land has been vacated by what are known as professional homesteaders.


William Henry Sharpe: Brought in by the former Government ?


William Ashbury Buchanan: There has also been a movement of actual farmers of western Canada according to the conditions there. I would not say how great that movement is, but I have in my desk a clipping from a newspaper published in my district showing that from that particular district there has been a very large movement of farmers.


William Roche: Where did they go ?


William Ashbury Buchanan: The statement was made that some went back to the United States and some to Ontario.


William Roche: I think I explained that a couple of weeks ago when I stated that the land laws of the state of Montana had been made very much more generous recently, that the United States Government now are giving homesteads of 320 acres where they used to give them of 160 acres, and that they are allowing people to qualify for patents in three years, while heretofore they demanded five years. Of course, their lands are inferior to ours, but at the same time this has a very great influence in attracting settlement in that direction.


William Ashbury Buchanan: My argument is that we should bend all our efforts to get people into the West who will become permanent settlers on the land. One of the reasons for the movement of population out of certain parts of my constituency is to be found in the fact that railroads have promised that they will build lines within a few years into those districts, but notwithstanding that many settlers have been living on their homesteads for five years there is no sign of a railroad in their neighbourhood yet, and they have become discouraged and have left the country. The Government, in my opinion, should insist upon the more speedy construction of branch lines into districts which are well settled. I cannot understand why railroads will build branch lines into unsettled parts of the country, when there are well settled districts in which railroads are absolutely needed. The Government should get behind these railroad companies with a big stick and make them build these branch lines, according to their promises, so as to keep the people in the country, and thus remove a great deal of discontent. In my own district, the Canadian Northern Railway Company has followed this practice of promising to build branch lines into certain districts, and when the settlers go in they do not build them.
jitjiia

I represent a district where railroads are absolutely needed, and where the farmers, in many cases, are settled from fifty to seventy miles from railroad facilities. I am prepared to stake my political future on the declaration that I would not tender any assistance whatever to the Canadian Northern Railway Company until Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann shall get rid of their other interests, their street railways, and their electric power companies, and their coal mines on the Pacific coast, and their other interests throughout Canada and in foreign countries, and save the Canadian Northern railway with their own resources. I may be radical in this respect, hut I believe I have my constituents back of me when I say, that if the Canadian Northern railway cannot be saved by Messrs. Mackenzie and Mann themselves then the people of Canada, who up to the present have really built that road, should take it over and operate it themselves. And, while we probably have not made a success of operating the only Government-owned road we have in this country, still I think we might do much worse than to take over the Canadian Northern railway, rather than to hand over a guarantee of bonds or any other assistance to the men who are now at the head of that undertaking. These gentlemen have been assisted by every province in this Confederation; they have been assisted by the Dominion Government, and they would not be so far advanced as they are to-day with their lines were it not that the people of Canada have rendered them liberal assistance. If these gentlemen cannot finish that railroad system and put it in such a position as to operate it successfully, I say the people of Canada should safeguard themselves and take the road into their own possession.
I have devoted my remarks chiefly to questions affecting western Canada, and I conclude by saying that I dislike very much to hear members in this House give expression to the idea that western Canada is always complaining, and always has a grievance. That is not the kind of talk that will make western Canada more friendly to eastern Canada. We in the West have grievances which must be remedied before we are a contented people, and I want to say for the people of western Canada that they are just .as anxious for a united Canada, and just as anxious for a prosperous and progressive eastern Canada, as they are for a prosperous and progressive western Canada. . But they will continue to insist that

their grievances, more especially with respect to tariff matters, shall be remedied, and once these grievances are remedied you would have happy and contended farmers on the prairies of the West.
I appeal to members on both sides of this House to unite in a statesman-like effort to meet the needs of western Canada. If western Canada is to grow and to make progress, it must be looked to with a sympathetic eye by whatever Government may be in power. I repeat what I have often said, that Canada will not be prosperous and progressive unless we place on the lands of western Canada settlers who will till the soil and produce that wealth which will enable them to purchase the output of the industries of eastern Canada.


John Webster: Mr. Speaker, I come from one of the principal dairying centres in the province of Ontario, in which is held the largest weekly market for dairying product that there is to be found in Canada, and I therefore feel it incumbent on me, when we are discussing tariff matters, to speak on behalf of the dairying industry. I shall address the House from the viewpoint of a dairy man and a business man of the province of Ontario. The hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Buchanan) spoke of the policy of the Liberal Government. Having been a close student of the different policies introduced by the late Government, I cannot for the life of me understand which of the Liberal policies the hon. gentleman alluded to, because the Liberal party has had so many policies that I must admit I have not been sufficiently alert to have kept track of them. Perhaps the hon. gentleman referred to the Liberal policy of giving away the resources of this country to their friends, in the shape of water-powers, town-sites, timber limits and other things. The right hon. leader of the Opposition has stated on more than one occasion in this House that he is not a business man, and therefore, I presume, he will not be able to appreciate the remarks which I make from a business man's standpoint.
I congratulate the Minister of Finance upon his Budget Speech. He deserves the congratulations of the people of Canada for his business-like attitude on tariff questions, and for the executive ability he displayed in that financial statement. I think I can safely say that during the regime of the Laurier Administration no Minister of

Finance ever delivered such a masterly Budget Speech, or one so calculated to contribute to the development and prosperity of our country.
The hon. Minister of Finance referred to the money stringency of 1907-08, which is not so long ago but we can all distincly remember it. Yet in the face of that stringency, Sir Wilfrid Laurier appealed to the people to return him at the head of the Government so. that he could finish his work. The people did so, and now they are paying the penalty. The money stringency has been world wide. It has affected not only Canada, but the great nation to the south of us, and all European countries. I am proud to say, however, that the people of Canada have felt it as little as any other nation in the world. I live right on the international boundary line; and from my house, I can see what is happening across the line. How de we find conditions there at the present time? How are railway men affected there? The New York Central railway, which is not a transcontinental line by any means, has discharged no less than 25,000 employees since February, 1914. Have we had a similar experience in Canada? No; our railway men say they have no particular complaint to make. Take the situation as it exists in New York today. How many hundred thousand men are there out of employment in that city? Why does that bread-line exist in New York at the corner of 35th street and Fifth avenue, where the hungry people are fed from midnight until two o'clock every night by that great organization known as the Christian Herald Newspaper Company? That is surely sufficient to cause alarm. What would our hon. friends opposite say if the cities of Ottawa and Montreal were running a bread-line at that hour of the night? In New York you can get men furnished by that Christian organization for practically their food and clothes; but when you want a man in Canada to go on a farm, he asks from $45 to $$50 a month. That is sufficient to show the difference between conditions in Canada and conditions in the United States at the present time.
I have listened, most earnestly to the arguments brought forward in favour of free food. I would like to ask the right hon. the leader of the Opposition: Where is this free food to be found? Where is it to come from? Is Canada not one of the greatest producing nations in the world? Are we not proud of the position which the agriculturists of this country occupy today? We are, and the farmers of this coun-169
try, by obtaining high prices, are only coming into their own, and I hope they will continue to get those high prices for the next twenty-five years. They are only now beginning to realize what it is to have a home market at their own door. That is the best market for the products of the farm. The field crops of Canada last year reached the enormous sum of $553,000,000. Where was this great crop consumed? Eighty per cent of the total crop of Canada was consumed in her own markets. The farmer deserves the same amount of protee-9 p.m. tion as the manufacturer, the artisan, the mechanic and the labourer. Ontario, with its 2,500,000 people, produced no -less than 40 per cent of the total agricultural products of Canada during 1913. Ontario had over 9,500,000 acres of field crops in 1911. Ontario has nearly 300,000 acres in orchards, vineyards and small fruits. I would ask the right hon. leader of the Opposition: what did it mean to the producer of those fruits to have free fruit coming into Canada? The people in the United States -are about thirty days ahead of us in the production of the berry crop. Would my right hon. friend rob the farmers.of the profit of producing those berries for the tables of the artisans and mechanics in the cities? The farmers deserve the greatest consideration that can possibly be afforded them. We are all proud of our farmers, because they are the bone and sinew of the country 'and they have made Canada what dt is to-day.
The farmers of Ontario alone have a working capital invested of $1,216,864,990; but they have received in the legislature the least consideration of any class of people that has any such investment in this country. I am prepared to give to the .farmers of Ontario and Quebec their full share of the credit due them for what they have done to make Canada known in the markets of the world. The pioneer farmers who came into this country, possibly a hundred years ago, did as much to roll back the curtain of civilization to the rest of the world and to advertise Canada as any class of people that we have in Canada to-day.
I have listened with great interest to the stories of hardship of the prairie farmers, told .by hon. members from the West. If you compare the condition of the prairie farmer with that of the pioneer who came into this country .a hundred years ago, as my grandfather did, who went fifty miles to a mill with a bushel of wheat across his horse's back, along a blazed road, and if you think of the advantages possessed by the western farmer, those hardships pale



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into a shadow. The pioneers of Canada have done something to which we can all point with the finger of pride. The farmers of Ontario and Quebec have been what we might term the pioneers or the pathfinders of the great West. Going through my constituency, I often hear people regretting that the young men and the young women, the pride of our country, are now going out to the great western provinces to make their homes; but I am pleased to think that there are so many of the best young men and women of Ontario and Quebec in the West, and I am sure they will see that the interests of that country are properly conserved. During a trip I made through the western provinces last autumn, I was told on many occasions that the farmers who came from the older provinces of the Dominion of Canada were the best settlers there. We have heard a great deal about the boys leaving the farm. Well, up to the present time of high prices, the boys on the farm had very little to encourage them to stay there, and the fault in that case, I think, can be laid at the door of the previous Government. The provincial Government in Ontario to-day by the development of its HydTo-Eleetric scheme, is doing more to keep the young men on the farm than has *been done by any other government in this country within the past fifty years. If young men leave the farm because they cannot make ends meet what is the reason of that condition? The shortage of help. Why has Ontario received so little consideration in the past in her immigration policy? Simply because the late Government of this Dominion wanted the settlers to go to the West. But to-day the province of Ontario is getting her full share of farm labour, and I expect to see the results of that immigration showing in the increased products of our farms. There is only one way that I know of to reduce the high cost of living in this country, and that is to populate the rural districts. We have too many consumers and not enough producers. That is the secret of the situation. But if this policy of free food introduced by the leader of the Opposition is to sweep away the protection afforded our farmers, what encouragement, I ask you, Sir, would there be for young men to take up farming in the province of Ontario?
The hon. member for Huntingdon (Mr. Robb) spoke of the dairy industry. I have been engaged in that calling for the past thirty-five years, so when I speak of the dairy industry, I take the liberty of believing that I speak of something which I understand. Our dairying industry has been

developed during the past thirty-five years. Our beginnings, as is usual with beginnings, were small, but the product of the dairy industry of Canada for the year 1913 was estimated at the large sum of $121,000,000. Canada's dairy exports last year amounted to $21,714,153, those exports consisting almost entirely of cheese. The hon. member for Huntingdon spoke of the [advantages of shipping milk and cream. But let me say to the members of the House-'and I know whereof I speak-that the man who ships milk and cream off Ms farm, and has nothing coming back to feed his hogs and calves, is minting his land. He is like the man who is selling hay-how long can he continue to raise a hay crop? Go into the northern part of the state of New York and find there the farmers who have been supplying New York city with milk, and you will find that these are the people who are coming over to Ontario and buying our young cattle to build up their dairies. Their old cows 'are milked out, and they must do something to increase their herds. I have farmers in my constituency who last year raised a calf for every cow they milked and sold those calves for $25 apiece. But that was another mistake. Instead of selling that young stock, they should have sold the finished 'article, the food product, for in that way they would have doubled their income in a short time.
We have heard a good deal about the cattle exported to the United States during October and November after the new Wilson tariff came into effect. What do these cattle consist of? To a large extent of young stock, one-year olds and two-year olds. That is a mistake that our farmers made. They shipped as high as thirty-five or forty in one ear,, and we saw carload after carload going out of our country. To-day many farmers regret that they sold that stock, for they could sell it in the home market to-day, in Saskatchewan or British Columbia, for more money.
The hon. membeir for Huntingdon referred to the ' Jingoes of Ontario.' Well, I have lived ini Ontario all my life, and 1 do not know the meaning of his word. But I do know wbat caused- the wonderful upset in the calculations of hon. gentlemen opposite on the 21st of September, 1911. It was not because of jingoes, but because the people of Ontario were too independent ever to become 'an adjunct.' That speech which Hon. Champ Clark made about the Stars and

Stripes floating from ocean to ocean and from the pole to the gnlf is what made the ' jingoes,' and when the same question comes up again, you will find the people of Canada just as independent and just as loyal as they were on that 21st day of September.
Speaking further of the cattle export, I have taken some figures from the Monetary Times, which will be regarded as an authority anywhere in Canada. There were sold from Alberta last year, $10,000,000 worth of cattle. Of this $5,000,000 went to British Columbia, $4,500,000 worth to Winnipeg and Calgary for local consumption, and $500,000 worth to the United States. I visited that abattoir in Calgary last summer and observed with great interest the way in which they handled that stock. I saw them load carload after carload for British Columbia and Winnipeg, but while I was there they did not load one carload of cattle, sheep or hogs for the United States. What is the trouble to-day with the United States markets for cattle, when we see the western cattle from Saskatchewan and Alberta being offered on the Toronto and Montreal markets? Western cattle to-day control the Montreal market. It must be that the home market offers the producers and drovers of western Canada more than does the United States market.
Now, I desire to refer briefly to the bacon and hog products of Canada. I would like some hon. gentleman opposite to tell me what it will mean to the dairymen of this country to have free wheat. Our dairymen are depending, on the offal, that is, the bran, shorts and low-grade flour to feed hogs for the production of pork and bacon. During the past 25 years this country has built up a reputation second to none in the world for the quality of the bacon and cured meats that it manufactures and exports. When I was in British Columbia last year, I went with a drover from Grand Forks into the state of Washington, and I saw him purchase dressed hogs in that state for $10 a hundredweight, paying upon them 3 cents per lb. duty, and taking them to his customers, the miners and smelt workers of Grand Forks. Yet the right hon. leader of the Opposition wishes to wipe out, with one stroke of the pen, this great industry which has been built up by our farmers. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that without protection the hog-producers and bacon-curers of this country would be put out of business.
What would free wheat mean to the 169J
milling industry ? It would simply drive it out of business. It has been our proud boast in the past that the people of Canada control more natural resources than tbe people of any other country on the continent. We have to-day lumber for the manufacture of barrels, we have our cotton mills for the manufacture of flour bags, and we are employing a large amount of capital in the milling industry. In the face	of	these	considerations, free
food and free wheat would simply drive the milling industry out of Canada. The mills in a short time would be built to the south of the line, where the-millers could get low-grade wheat to mix with the high	standard wheat weproduce in Canada. Do you think, Mr. Speaker, for one moment that the people of the United States require our wheat for domestic use? No; they simply need a certain percentage of the No. 1 hard wheat which we produce in Canada to grade up their low standard wheat in order to make a better class of flour to compete with the Canadian millers in the markets across the seas. The great milling concerns of Minneapolis and Buffalo came into the Canadian market last autumn and bought 10,000,000 bushels of wheat, upon which they paid duty. Do you think that if they could have obtained the same high-grade wheat in the south they would have come over here and taken Canadian wheat? No, not for one moment. I do not think any sane man would believe such a thing.
What would it mean to the dwellers in the city, for whom our friends across the floor of this House have so much sympathy, if we were to take any step which would increase the price of bran and shorts say $3 a ton? It would mean that we would have to pay 12i instead of 8 or 9 cents a quart for milk with which to feed the children of this country. That is another consideration which our friends opposite have apparently overlooked. One thing is certain: the producers of milk must receive some reward for their labour, and if you increase the cost of feed you must expect the producer of milk to increase the price of the product.
I have tried to explain in a fair and reasonable manner just how this great industry would be effected by free wheat. The United States is the third largest exporter of wheat to the British market, and for every bushel of wheat they would take from Canada it is quite natural to suppose that they would have one bushel of American
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wheat to export to Great Britain. We are all proud of the position which we occupy as exporters; why should we try to injure the position which we now hold and are so proud of? With free wheat, and with our wheat going to the south instead of to the east and west, we would be advertising the United States as the greatest producer of wheat in the world. If the American miller wishes to secure Canadian wheat in bond for grinding purposes, it costs him only one-tenth of a cent per bushel, and he has the bran, shorts and offal in his own country. With that small increase in cost they claim that they can compete with the Canadian miller in the foreign markets. But I do think the millers of the United States are quite capable of guarding their own interests. It is not in the interests of either the millers or the producers of Canada that the people of the United States are so anxious to have our No. 1 northern hard wheat entered into the United States free of duty. This is not a party question; it is a great national question and I think it is time that our friends across the floor of this House began to realize that fact. If we were to listen to the offers that our friends have been in the habit of making., occasionally to catch voters throughout the country, we would be pursuing the same policy that they have been pursuing for a great length of time. The right hon. leader of the Opposition is beginning to realize that the farmers of this country have some cause to doubt the value of these apparently favourable proposals that he is continually making to them. By appealing to the artisan, the mechanic and the labourer and telling them that the high cost of living is depressing them, he may possibly catch their votes and the votes of the western farmers. But I would like hon. gentlemen opposite to explain where they are going to get this cheap food which is to be brought into Canada. What is wanted in Canada is more wheat to be ground in this country, thereby increasing the production of the farmers along dairying lines, along meat lines and in many other ways. By doing this we will be doing our share towards lowering the high cost of living.
The hon. member for Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) said last night that he for one would, if it were necessary for this Government to do so, approve the establishing of a line of ocean vessels that would govern the export rates on flour and wheat. I would do all in my power to further a policy of that kind if it were necessary in
	.
the interests of the western farmer. By so doing I think we would be doing more for the western farmer than we would be doing if we were to take the duty off wheat and let it come into this country free.
Another matter in respect of which I wish to congratulate the hon. Minister of Finance is that in his Budget he did better in regard to agricultural implements than hon. gentlemen opposite did in their reciprocity pact. Under the reciprocity proposal the duty on these implements was to be fifteen per cent, but the hon. Minister of Finance has cut the duty on binders, mowers, harvesters and reapers to twelve and one-half per cent. For this he should receive the congratulations of the farming community.
A word about this pact known as reciprocity and larger markets. We were told by the hon. member for South Wellington (Mil. Guthrie) that reciprocity is, dead, but judging by the remarks of the hon. member for Huntingdon (Mr. Robb) this afternoon I should have thought that he was repeating in the House one of the reciprocity speeches which were made when that matter was before the country.
I think possibly it may be dead with the hon. member for South Cape Breton, who wants to see the iron industry protected, .and the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie), who wants to see the farm implement manufacturers protected. It may not be dead with the hon. member for Huntingdon (Mr. Robb), but he did not say that he stood for free flour. Possibly he has some financial interest in a flour mill, and therefore wants to see flour on the protected list. But that is one of thte variations that occur in the different policies fox different localities in the camp of our hon. friends opposite.
The hon. member for 'Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) referred the other night to the expenditure on militia and the cost of armaments. Has the hon. member forgotten that there is on the statute book of Canada such an act as the Lauxier Naval Act? If he has not, he knows that if that policy were pursued it would cost this country possibly more than the National Transcontinental railway has cost. We do not know how much it would cost, because the people who introduced the National Transcontinental railway had not the slightest idea of what its cost would be. The hon. member foT Rouville referred to this militia expenditure. Why, the greatest advertisement Canada ever got was got by those young men who were

sent to South Africa in that famous contingent when they caused Mr. Kronje to do homage to the old flag. I wonder if the hon. member for Rouville himself did not feel very proud on that memorable morning when that Canadian contingent did their duty to the flag and the empire.
I can quite understand why the hon. member far Rouville feels a .little bit sore owing to the defeat of the late Government in 1911. If my memory serves me right he had previously come into the position of Minister of Marine and Fisheries for this country, and, who knows, had that regime still continued in power, that he might not have had hopes that some day he might be made an admiral. Can you fancy anything more funny than the hon. member for Rouville pacing up and down the deck of one of those naval battleships, decked in his navy blue suit heavily embroidered with gold lace, with his cocked hat and feathers waving in the breeze ? I do not wonder that the hon. member for Rouville is sore. Why, were you to see him in that uniform, I would excuse a member of Parliament, in the early hours of the morning, taking him far Admiral Togo, the man who defeated the Russian fleet.
We are looking forward to a visit from our King in the near future, and when he comes to this country I hope we will be able to show him a nation of people, the most prosperous, progressive, happy and contented that inhabit any colony within the British Empire. And, Sir, I tell you that it is my most earnest belief 'that when His Majesty has visited this country, he will be quite free to admit that Canada today stands head and shoulders over all the other colonies and is still the star and gem of the Empire.
Henry Robert Emmerson: . 'Mr. Speaker, I cannot recall an occasion upon which I did myself the honour to take part in a Budget speech in this House, and I think I can therefore say that this will be my maiden speech on that shbject. I would not participate in this discussion were it not for the fact that I think the time has arrived in Canada for those who have convictions to give expression to their vie,ws. The time has come, and I think I am" not extravagant in stating that the struggle has begun. History tells us that there have been cycles of stress and struggle between the classes in every age and every land. Two thousand years ago there was such a struggle and it was a struggle of the
classes against the masses. Down through the history of every age these struggles have been recorded; and while the contestants have had different names the struggle has been the same. We have had it in Canada. They are having a struggle to-day in Great Britain. There it' has been a contest between the aristocracy and the democracy. In Canada, in the early days, there was a struggle of the people against the family compact. It was the fight for responsible government, and in every one of the four original provinces of this Dominion that struggle went on. It is upon us to-day in a different farm. It is a struggle between the interests and the great mass of the people. It is all very well for ns to laugh and say that there is no power that controls in Canada to-day. We know that it is true that even in the matter of legislation, as every hon. member has realized in his experience, there are interests that control and influence in a mighty degree, almost in a paramount degree in Canada, even in this Parliament. We see occasionally immense delegations travelling to Ottawa, interviewing the Government. They are heard with consideration, with courtesy and with respect. But, Sir, these delegations are powerless to influence the currents of legislation and governmental action. We saw here the other day, on the floors of this Parliament, an immense delegation with respect to a great transportation scheme. Were they misled? Did they return to their homes with the thought that they had made an impression upon the Government or even upon Parliament? If they did they deceived themselves because we know that the question is subject to the control and influence-perhaps I should not use the word dictation-of certain interests that are considered rival interests. If it comes, to a struggle then I wish in no uncertain way to assert my views, to pronounce myself and to co-operate, as I believe, with the great masses against the classes in Canada.
It is very easy to be placed on the wrong trail and follow it until it leads away from the right one. I think that has happened in Canada. The trouble is that we have not cared to call things by their proper names. Ambition is what we choose to term that insensate lust for material prosperity which is the maggot at the heart of such success. Protection is the soil on which corruption grows. Our whole body politic is menaced, mentally, socially and morally -politically speaking-by corruption. It is the gathered force, the concentrated intensity of all the accumulated greed for power


Mr. MORPHY:: Under a protective
tariff all the time.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It is very strange
that that same protective tariff, as my hon. friend calls it, could not be made to work when controlled by his party and that, when it came under the control of the Liberal party, it was a successful tariff. If it was a protective tariff, let me ask my hon friend why it was that in 1908 the present right hon. leader of the Government, from his place on this side of the House, moved a resolution in favour of adequate protection? If we had under the Liberal regime in 1908 a protective tariff that was adequate, why was it necessary for my right hon. friend to ask this Parliament to pass a motion m favour of adequate protection?


Mr MORPHY:: Simply a phrase.


Henry Robert Emmerson: I find that my hon.
friend indulges in too many phrases, meaningless though they may be.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Simply a pretext.


Henry Robert Emmerson: Yes, there have been too many pretexts by my hon. friend s party when in opposition, and there are more pretexts to-day.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: There were more labour disturbances during the regime of my hon. friends opposite in 1906 and 1907 than there have been since. Nobody but the

Opposition is complaining in the country to-day.


Henry Robert Emmerson: My hon. friend can console himself with that thought. He will have great difficulty in convincing the people on that point.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: It will be quite easy.


Henry Robert Emmerson: My hon. friend in stating to the House that the word ' adequate ' was merely a pretext is certainly giving an illustration of the meaning of politics as it baa been defined by one very eminent authority. That definition of protection is as follows:
Politics in practice too often means all for party, nothing- for the people; all for policy, nothing for principle; all for office, nothing for honour; all for power, nothing for progress.
Politics 'is the 'science of exigencies with this Government. My hon. friend admits on behalf of his party that that was the kind of politics in which he and his
10 p.m. friends were indulging on that occasion. I do not wish, however, to travel from the point. If we have had the National Policy during all these years, why is it that my hon. friends opposite took this action to have it changed? Why was it that Sir Charles Tupper, at the very inception of the policy characterized it as a tariff that would do incalculable injury to Canada? It burst in a measure the shackles which bound the trade of Canada. By reason of placing on the free list so many articles which entered into the industrial life of Canada, it enabled manufacturing interests to advance and to prosper. It gave employment to the many thousands who were obliged to be the wage earners of the country, and it gave an impetus to our agricultural interests, to our immigration that has certainly never been paralleled in the history of Canada. My hon. friend knows that taxing is an easy business; but, as Edmund Burke once said: Taxing is an easy business :
Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?
The idea put forward in the motion relating to adequate protection was one which meant placing additional burdens upon the people of the country. The reason it was not accepted by this House and that it was not favoured by the people of the country at the time was because 
there was an abounding prosperity. Trade was advancing by leaps and bounds. In every branch of industry in every department of commercial activity, there was action, success and reward. The people did not approve of any suggestion that meant what is 130 easy of accomplishment unden- certain circumstances, the imposition of additional taxation. It is not wise to have your imposts up to the limit df the patience of those who bear the burdens. I call attention to the fact that the tariff of 1879 admitted certain articles free upon action to be taken by the Congress of the United States. That clause of the tariff of 1879 is already upon ' Hansard ' and I will not repeat it. I merely say that the Finance Minister, while he has been very attentive to the interests of the manufacturers and to certain other interests, had not a word . to say in all bis splendid address about the burdens of the masses or the increased cost of living. He was silent on that subject-there was not a word with respect to the burdens which the people to-day are bearing. It is all very well far us to try to ignore as of very little importance the fact that the cost of living is increasing month by month, as official figures prove. It is true, this increase in the cost of living has taken place in all countries, but that increase is not so great in Great Britain as in protectionist countries, and nowhere has that increase been so great as in Canada.
Hon. gentlemen opposite say: You were content under the tariff which existed .when you were in power, but now because you are .in -Opposition you want it changed. We all realize that time brings changes, that new conditions arise year by year and month by month. When the tariff was *amended in 1907, trusts amd combines were not in evidence to the extent they are today. I am one of those who at times have felt that the Liberal party has not advanced as it should have advanced with respect to that question. I am free to admit that. But I believe that the Liberal party stands to-day ready to advance, and it is because of that that I am ready to pat them on the back. The trusts land combines have grown in a remarkable degree even since the introduction of the Fielding taa-ifi in 1897. Changes 'and modifications were made in that tariff, the greatest in 1907, and had the Government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier succeeded at the polls in 1911, still greater

changes would, have been made. But these trusts -and combines have grown to such enormous proportions that the people realize their existence and power.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Can the hon. gentleman name some of them?


Henry Robert Emmerson: I could name many. I have a list of them somewhere here, but it is hardly worth while to read it. These trusts are growing year by year; there is the coal trust, the steel trust, the millers' trust, the canners' trust-there is a trust in almost every direction. I believe that protective tariffs stimulate the growth of trusts in Canada. The very object of protective tariffs is to protect the industries of the country. And for a time it may succeed, while competition can be maintained. But the time comes when these men are not content merely with an adequate profit; their greed-for they are but human-urges them forward to seek more and more at the expense of the consumer. The time has come in Canada, in my judgment, when some change should be made to prevent the coming together of these interests. If the tariff of to-day helps these trusts and combines to wring undue profits out of the people, then, though as a Liberal I for years supported thek tariff, I say, for one, let us eliminate from the tariff every vestige of protection.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: The hon. gentleman is an out-and-out free trader.


Henry Robert Emmerson: I am an out-and-out free trader, and I wish circumstances permitted the adoption of free trade. I am to-day where I have always been. This Canadian Confederation was launched on the basis of indirect taxation; I quite understand that, and we have continued that policy. But if you could change the policy of indirect taxation and adopt a direct tax, then indeed you could have free trade. Speaking for myself, if .a plan were proposed which would actually bring that about, I would hold up both hands for it.
The Minister of Finance dealt with the steel industry, and took some action with respect to agricultural implements. There is one subject to which I invited his attention a short time ago which he has apparently ignored. The agriculturists of eastern Canada are not interested so much in the question of agricultural implements as presented to this Parliament as they are interested in another phase of the queetion
of free raw materials for their production. I asked the Minister of Finance some few weeks ago to consider the question of fertilizers and basic slag. At that time I brought to his notice and to the notice of the House the conditions in eastern Canada with respect to basic slag and its use as a fertilizer. I believe in the principle of free agricultural implements for the agriculturist because they are the agriculturist's raw material, and fertilizers should be made free because they are the raw material which assists him in producing his products. I do not wish to repeat the argument that I attempted to bring before the House on that occasion, but I want to bring to your notice, Sir, and to the notice of the minister that in contrast with the treatment accorded by the Government to the big interests, the organized farmers have not been treated with that respect which is their due. A single manufacturer can have the duty on a certain article increased; as instance the case of this gentleman from Cape Breton who, in secret, secured by a stroke of the pen an order of the Customs Board imposing a duty upon basic slag, a fertilizer in very general use by the agriculturists and horticulturists of the eastern provinces. I have here a letter from a gentleman whom I do not personally know, but who is, I think, the secretary of the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers' Association. In a letter addressed to me in March of this year, he said, among other things:
I thought I would write you direct to place before you some facts as to how -this ruling of the customs board will effect the fruit growers of the Annapolis valley.
Within recent years basic slag has become one of the most important fertilizers in the growing of apples. The only plant food it contains is phosphoric acid, of which it has from twelve to fourteen per cent available, but in addition to this it contains from forty to sixty per cent of lime, and lime while not a direct fertilizer has a great effect on the dormant plant food in the soil, rendering it more available. On account of this lime slag as a source of phosphoric acid is much superior to and is rapidly taking the place of acid phosphate in orchards, and in growing grain and hay crops. When apple growing on a commercial scale was first started in this valley, the fruit-growers depended chiefly on their stables for fertilizer, and a man was discouraged from raising more orchard than he could manure in that way. Within the last fifteen years, however, mixed farming has declined, and the farmer who found himself with too many irons in the fire, has stood by the orchard and dropped the less profitable and less laborious stock farming, but in doing this he finds he has to look elsewhere for plant food to feed his trees, and thousands of tons of commercial fertilizer

are imported every spring at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
With the great increase in apple orchards all over America we must expect in a few years a vastly increased production, and optimistic as I would like to feel, it forced upon me, however, in the light of this fact that the country that will survive in this apple-growing competition, is the country that can produce them the cheapest. Now Nova Scotia with her cheap lands, her nearness to the markets of the world, her water transportation, is wonderfully situated in this respect, but anything like unfair prices on fertilizers and spraying materials, places a serious handicap on these advantages.
In the Annapolis valley we virtually manufacture apples and use commercial fertilizers as a raw material. Why siiould we not be placed on the same basis as other manufacturers and have our raw material free? It is vastly more important to build up the business of fruit-growing in Nova Scotia than it is the business of manufacturing fertilizers. The Cross Fertilizer Company in Sydney have a complete monopoly, as slag for fertilizer is not made anywhere else in Canada. Slag, as every one knows, is a by-product in the manufacture of steel, and until two years ago was thrown into the harbour at Sydney as utterly worthless. The process of grinding is inexpensive, and everything above the cost of grinding is clear profit.
I will leave to any one's common sense the fairness of taxing the fruit growers of this valley to put an extra profit in the pocket of the stockholders of the Cross Fertilizer Company. On account of our wet, cold springs, our orchards are especially susceptible to the disease of apple scab or black spot. To protect them all orchards must be sprayed three or four times every summer with some fungicide. This spraying is now done by large power machines costing from $250 to $300, and if I am not mistaken the duty on them is thirty per cent. Hundreds of these machines are now in use in the valley, one firm last spring selling forty at a cost of $265 a piece.
But I could go on and write pages on what I consider the unfairness of the tariff laws as regards farmers and fruit-growers.


Mr. LALOR:: What is it worth a ton?


Henry Robert Emmerson: It ranges from $25 to $40 a ton; a good deal depends upon its quality. By reason of the change brought a/bout by the order of the Customs Board, an increased price per ton is now demanded of the farmers, and they are compelled to pay it.


Mr. BLAIN:: Does my 'hon. friend give
the writer's name?


Henry Robert Emmerson: His name is Mt. Manning Ells, secretary of the Fruit Growers' Association of Nova Scotia, a gentleman who voluntarily wrote to me simply because I brought the matter to the notice of the House.
There are different ways of reducing the cost of living and helping the farmer, and I want to note the difference between the
methods adopted by Germany on the one hand and those adopted by Canada on the other. In Germany the government grants a rebate on freight paid on basic slag. In Canada freights are increased to the highest amount the goods can stand; that was done by the Intercolonial only a few months ago. In Germany Professor Wagner, Privy Councillor and Director of the Research Station said:
It would be exceedingly valuable if we could
secure a soluble basic phosphate, which we have seen almost equals superphosphate in its action, for the German market, but I do not believe that we can succeed in obtaining this, for, as far as I am informed, the high value of this slag has been recognized some time in England and the demand for it there must be already greater than the production.
We can, nevertheless, note as interesting to us, that Englishmen produce such an exceptionally quick and sure acting slag, and we must set our chemists and technical men to investigate, as far as possible, if the solubility of the Thomas slag obtained in the German works cannot, by some modification of the process be raised so as to equal that of the soluble basic phosphate.
In Canada, 10 per cent duty is imposed.
In England, the farmers agitate for a regulation to prohibit the exportation of basic slag, and their journal, the Mark Lane Express states:
It is a pity such good fertilizing material should leave the country.
In Canada, the cost is increased by imposing a duty and raising the freight rates.
Which, I ask you, is the more effective? This basic slag is of extreme importance to the people of eastern Canada, particularly to the horticulurists. I know that in Westmorland the farmers are very much agitated by reason of the (action of the Government in imposing this duty. They are placed at the mercy of one concern, a concern, taking their own representation, that has only $140,000 invested, and which does not give employment to very many men. That one concern, through its manager, can quietly and slyly approach the Government of Canada and secure, simply by an order of the Customs Board, a change in the tariff which imposes on eastern farmers and horticulturists an additional burden of at least $1.25 or $1.50 a ton.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Does the hon. gentleman say that the price has advanced that much this season?


Henry Robert Emmerson: I am so informed.
Mr. MORPHY. You vouch for that?


Henry Robert Emmerson: Yes, it is vouched for to me by very responsible people and by men who would have no object to serve in attempting to mislead me in the information. This -manager of one firm can come to

the Government and bring about such results; and yet the farmers, even although they come here by thousands, cannot have their wishes acceded to in the matter of free wheat. It shows a condition of things which should not prevail. That is one feature of the tariff that should have been remedied and I am surprised that the Finance 'Minister did not take it into consideration. He might have had 'brought to his notice the conditions which prevail. He was disposed to do something for the western farmers in the matter of a certain class of agricultural implements; but here is the secretary of this horticultural society stating that they have to pay thirty per cent on all the machinery necessary to be used in connection with their orchards. They are obliged, under the tariff as it stands, to pay a high duty imposed upon all the different classes of fertilizers that are brought into this country. These are a necessity for the farmer. Of what use is it for my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture to send his agents and officials from his Department all over the country to educate the farmer or to give grants to educational institutions and educational purposes in connection with agriculture, if he afterwards places burdens upon those who would wish to pat into execution the education which they secured by reason of his assistance? With the one hand he is giving some little assistance in the way of education, and with the other he is imposing barriers and obstacles in the way of those men utilizing successfully and profitably the education they have secured by reason of the grants made by the Government. I think it is a matter which my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture should bring home to the attention of the Minister of Finance and his colleagues in the Government in order that this injustice may be remedied. I am not bringing this to the attention of the House merely as a political question. It is a business proposition which should have had the consideration of the Government and their supporters from the Maritime provinces at least. I am surprised that the members from the Annapolis valley, the hon. member from Annapolis county, the hon. member from the county of Kings and the hon. members from Digby and Hants, the citizens of all these counties are very largely interested in horticultural and other agricultural interests, have not urged this matter which is of deep import to their constituents. * There is another question which I would like to call particularly to the notice of the
Minister of Finance. A change was made in connection with this tariff schedule relating to building stone and it is a change that is very detrimental, in my judgment, to the quarrying interests of eastern, central and indeed of western Canada. It is a change that was made solely in the interests of the contractors on large public buildings throughout Canada, particularly those who are constructing large governmental buildings in this city and other cities


Mr. BDRRELL:: Is it no advantage to
the stone cutters?


Henry Robert Emmerson: -and not particularly, in my judgment, beneficial to the stone cutters, certainly not beneficial to any large percentage of them. My hon. friend must remember that there are thousands of stone cutters engaged in quarrying in Canada. The stone cutters who are employed in certain cities are not of the same number, and while it may benefit some particular men in that business it will not be of such great advantage to them as it will be to the contractors. This Government is condemned as a previous Government was condemned, because it has permitted, by the action of its architect, the use of Ohio and Indiana stone in the construction of public buildings built under the authority of Parliament.
That has been done everywhere. It is being done to a remarkable degree under this Government. It was being done by the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific railway, and there were complaints made to Parliament with respect to it a few years ago. The new station at Ottawa, built by the Grand Trunk, the Chateau Laurier and other buildings of a like character are examples. They were all built of Ohio and Ihdiana stone to the injury of the stone quarry interests of Canada. Here is a statement that was made on behalf of the Canadian building stone quarries. I will read it so that it may go on ' Hansard ':
The budget speech at Ottawa proposed to protect the stone cutting industry of Canada by increasing the duty on imported manufactured stone, making it fifteen cents per hundred pounds on stone sawn on four sides, and forty-five cents per hundred pounds on further manufactured stone. That will allow stone sawn on two sides (the only way in which it is imported as ' sawn stone ') to be brought in at the same rate as ' rough quarry blocks or practically free, and Is evidently worded in the interests of the contractors only, and it will be a great injury to Canadian quarries, as ' stone sawn on two sides' pays a higher duty under the old tariff. Most Canadian quarries are now provided with sawing machinery and can provide stones sawn oh

two sides or four sides, but contractors order it either in quarry blocks or sawn on two sides only. To ask for this change shows a very ungenerous disposition on the part of the contractors, as, they want high protection for the stone dressing industry but they want to import stone practically free of duty.
If allowed, this change will place the Canadian quarries completely at the mercy of the contractors. The country generally will be fully as favourable toward a moderate measure of protection to the quarrying industry, and the development of our great natural resources in this line, as to so heavily protecting the stone cutting business, working almost wholly on imported stone.
Canadian quarries should also share in this protection as suggested hereunder.
Rough rubble stone for rip-rap, breakwaters, etc., 5 cents per hundred pounds.
Rough blocks, not sawn or manufactured, 10 cents per hundred pounds.
Sawn on one or two sides, 20 cents per hundred pounds.
Further manufactured, 40 cents per hundred pounds.
Surely all members of Parliament, regardless of party, will favour the development of Canada's great natural wealth in stone. At present nearly all the building stone used in Canada is imported from the United States.
One reason for this preference is low freight rates from the quarries of Ohio and Indiana to the centres of population in Canada; another is that the imported stones are softer and cost less to cut and dress than the Canadian stone, but they are not nearly as strong and durable and give nothing like the warmth and wealth of colouring and texture the native stone offers. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick offer a great variety of sand stones and granites. Quebec has limestone, marble and granite. Ontario has sand stone, limestone and granite. Manitoba offers a particularly beautiful and durable limestone, and the great western provinces have rich sand stones, marbles and granites in great variety. One of our New Brunswick sandstones, tested at the McGill laboratories, was subjected to heat over 1,500 degrees F. for thirty minutes, plunged into cold water and then showed a crushing strength, of over 4,000 pounds per square inch, which is stronger than concrete. This stone, is similar in colour and texture to that used in the only building that went through the worst of the San Fransisco fire and is standing and occupied to-day, which shows that sand stones are as nearly fire proof as any material used. Canadian sand stones generally weigh more per cubic foot than the United States stones. The Ohio stones weigh 140 pounds per cubic foot and the Canadian sand stones average about 155 pounds, which, of course, makes them more durable but a little harder to cut. Heavy and expensive machinery is necessary to equip a quarry and usually a heavy outlay is necessary for rail connection, and some encouragement is necessary to warrant this expenditure in developing our natural building stone industry in the face of the great developments across the line. The fact "that the weekly or monthly outlay at quarries is nearly all for wages should be considered, as it shows that the percentage for wages is larger than usual.
That is one of the difficulties of protective tariffs. Here is a change made in the tariff with respect to building stone. By simply changing a few words und say-

ing that stone sawn on two sides shall come in practically on a free basis you give an advantage to the stone quarrymen of Ohio and to the contractors who are interested in patronizing the Ohio quarries.


Martin Burrell: My hon. friend is advocating protection.


Henry Robert Emmerson: I am not advocating it, but I say this is one of the difficulties of protection. You had a tariff which protected stone sawn on two sides, and which stone was subject to a certain duty. Now you change that and you place these other parties interested in the business at a very great disadvantage, and you simply favour the Government contractors and the few men whom they may employ in connection with the construction of buildings to the disadvantage of the money invested in the quarries of eastern, central and western Canada and to the detriment of the men engaged as quarrymen and stonecutters at these quarries. I have brought this to the notice of the House because the parties wrote to me in connection with it. I think that by tinkering in this way to suit certain particular interests you are not working to the advantage of the general interests of Canada.
I believe that every tariff should be framed in the open. Let there be light with respect to these matters. In the case of basic slag, the order which resulted in the imposition of taxation on the farmers of eastern Canada was passed in secret and by one man. Every business question comes back sooner or later to the question of the tariff. It cannot be avoided. Under our system we must have a tariff, but it should be framed in the open. I took occasion formerly to call attention to the dangers of Orders in Council and to the dangers incident to the passage of customs orders because it is all done in secret. The action taken by the former Government in consulting the people before framing the tariff of 1897 was commended at the time, and was worthy of commendation. It was an example that ought to have been followed by this Government. But that has not been done. In the case of the building stone question, had the matter been submitted to the quarry interests instead of to the contractors, a different result might have perhaps been secured. They had in the United States in the year 1828 a tariff which was known as a tariff of abomination. It was so called because it had no beginning, no end and no plan. It certainly had no traceable plan.

There was a general scramble, and everyone who had scrambled hard enough had to be taken care of in the schedule. Hence, it was not an equitable system, but it fully exemplified that definition of protection which characterized it as
at best an endless screw, and you never know when you have done with It. By protecting one industry you directly or indirectly hurt all others and have therefor to protect them too. By so doing you again damage the industry that you first protected and have to compensate it, but this compensation reacts as before on all other trades, and entitles them to redress, and so on ad infinitum.
The effect of protection in every country and upon every class is to weaken its will and narrow its enterprise; it teaches the classes to look outside of themselves. We have as a result the constant applications to the Government and to Parliament for endowments, and bonuses, and subsidies. We need not go outside of Canada for an illustration of this. It is equally evident in other countries, and particularly in high protectionist countries like Germany, where they have all kinds of bonuses, and where the German Government is kept constantly subsidizing and bonusing industries to the great detriment of the general interests of the country, and particularly the labouring classes. The so-called tariff of abominations in the United States had the merit of being a free-for-all, go-as-you-please kind of thing. But not so the course pursued by the Canadian Government, where special interests get their innings, and the great masses of the people are not consulted through their representatives even. The secret arangement system is injurious. It is devised in the interest of what we term the big interests; and I say nothing offensive of these big interests as long as they are made big by reason of their own competition and without stimulus in the nature of protection, or through combinations and trusts. These secret arrangements are generally the result of the influence exercised by the big interests. How many members of this House understand the changes made in the schedules of the tariff? We heard the Minister of Finance speaking of the changes in the steel schedule, and he told us the number of pounds to the yard, and that up to a certain number there would be a certain duty, and beyond a certain limit there would be a certain other duty; but who advised the Minister of Finance as to all this. No doubt the Minister of Finance has had the benefit
of the advice of those interested in that business, but the great consuming classes of Canada are not possessed of the technical knowledge which enables them to understand the effect of these changes. It would be against etiquette, I suppose, for the Minister of Finance to state who suggested these changes. Nowadays every expedient and device of secrecy is brought into use to keep the public unaware of the argument of high protectionists, ignorant of the facts which refute them, and uninformed of the intention of the promoters of protection. There is a will-o'-the-wisp known as the cost of production, which is accepted as a basis for tariffs, but it is elusive, changeable, and nowhere exists as a scientific demonstrable fact.
This country and the United States are familiar with the expert lobbyist whose business it is to deal with subjects of this kind, and they have been seen here for many years, but particularly are they in evidence during the present session, in anticipation of securing something in favour of this or that special interest. The Minister of Finance told us he had the benefit of information from the agricultural implement manufacturers, and he cited the cost of production, but he could not explain to the member for Assiniboia as to the watered stock. There has been a very marked change in the old order of things. There has been destruction of domestic competition by a combination of home rivals. The infant industry cry once prevailed, but the demands of to-day have far transcended that, and I shall not take up the time of the House to comment upon how far that idea has been transcended. It is argued by the interests that a young country wants protection in order to establish industries, and that an old country wants protection continued, because to lessen the protection would affect vested interests, and so: Protection once established, always established. Sometimes after the establishment of a protective tariff, there are symptoms of a desire for a change, by even those who created that tariff. That was well illustrated by the Conservative Government in 1894 when Sir John Thompson wanted to lop off the mouldering branches. Those who are the strongest in favour of a protective system realize that in the practical working of it an injustice is done here and there. Protection to be effective, to be what it is designed to be, namely, to shut out competition from other countries, should be widespread, and practically prohibitive. It is not; and the very fact that our tariff

to-day works inequalities and does injury here and there is recognized by everyone, even by those who favour the principle of protection. The hon. Minister of Finance openly avows his adherence to a policy of restriction and monopoly. Whiat is the present tariff policy of the hon. Minister of Finance as anmouinced by himself? It is a doctrine entirely new and different from that propounded toy Sir (Leonard Tilley in 1879. The new doctrine of the protectionist is that the tariff should represent the difference between the cost of production in Canada 'and the cost of production in other countries, plus a reasonable profit to those who axe engaged in the industry. The new part is ' plus a reasonable profit.' Who is to judge as to what that reasonable profit shall be? That policy openly guarantees profits to the men who come and ask favours of the Government. As a result of this, men, secure from foreign competition, have joined together in great combinations. They have felt the taste of blood and they want more. By reason of these combinations the cost of living has increased and complaints are heard from the mass of the people. Who has not heard of the cement trust? Even this Government heard of it and took action at a certain time to alleviate the damage that resulted. I have mentioned the other combinations. The industries of a certain Glass form a combination and, of course, each combination must have a compensation which will satisfy it and remove its competitors. The result is that the combination becomes enormous with a very large capitalization upon which dividends must be paid. Somebody must pay for these dividends, and that somebody is the consumer. While I am not in favour of protection., I say frankly and fairly that if you could have a moderate protection without the possibility of combines, many of the evils incident to protection would be eMminated. The great harm that has resulted is by reason of the combinations that have thus -been formed. When prices are falling, what do these combinations do? They reduce, hours of labour; they reduce production; they reduce wages; they throw men out of employment to do what? To keep the prices up in spite of their lack	of efficiency, that	has	beenthe	operation of trusts	and	combines in the United States and it is the operation and result of trusts and combines in Canada to-day. The great, evi1 of pro-
teotion is that it permits; it stimulates this result. We hear much of depression, of men out of employment, of slack-
11 p.m. of trade, of mills 'being closed down, and they are being closed down. In eastern Canada in the section of the country from which I come, in Nova Scotia during the past winter, the wages have been reduced, the number of employees lessened, and action taken, all in order that production may be lessened and prices kept up.


Richard Blain: Is my hon. friend in favour of taking protection off cement now?


Henry Robert Emmerson: My hon. friend asks me if I am in favour of taking the protection off this thing or that thing. I say, you can not favour the one and discriminate against the other. If my hon. friend is in favour of withdrawing protection from everything, in the sense that it must he governed by a revenue tariff, I will heartily join with him in that true sense. There may have been a time when the tariff did not raise prices, but that time is past. That time has been taken advantage of by the great combines, to give them control of prices and wages. As has already .been stated toy my hon. friend from Rouville (Mr. Lernieux), to those who demand free food, free wheat, and free agricultural implements, the answer is made that that means free trade. I *would like to ask the process of reasoning that would bring that about.


Rodolphe Lemieux: For election purposes.


Richard Blain: How does it happen that agricultural implements are sold the cheapest to the farmers in countries that have-the highest protection?


Henry Robert Emmerson: I am not aware that that is the case.


Richard Blain: It is the case.


Henry Robert Emmerson: If that be true, there may be many causes. What is the object of protection? It is to bring the level of prices up so that the manufacturers may toe able to manufacture at a profit as against the foreign manufacturers and the importation, of foreign goods? It must follow, as the night the day, that if you impose taxation for that purpose or for any other purpose, there must be an increase of the cost of that particular article.
Mr. BLAIN; I say not.


Henry Robert Emmerson: When you buy an imported article you pay part of the price into the revenue of the Dominion in the form of customs duty; hut as a rule what you buy-

is not the imported ibut the domestic article, the price of which the manufacturer has been able to raise to a point equal to or higher than the price of the foreign article plus the duty. I think that is an axiomatic statement. Who gets the tax then? Not the Government surely, but the manufacturer.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The wage earner gets the advantage.


Henry Robert Emmerson: My hon. friend had better confine himself to the Hindu. The idea to which he gives expression that protection increases wages has become absurd beyond the, point of absurdity.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It can be demonstrated.


Henry Robert Emmerson: It can be demonstrated that the hon. gentleman is entirely wrong. However, I will listen to him, when he speaks, with close attention and all patience. It is a confession of the inability of the Canadian, manufacturer to compete for him to ask for these privileges. We are asked to pay him a price from 15 per cent to 35 per cent or more higher than we pay the foreign manufacturer. That is how this colossal infant, this bearded infant, treats the people to-day. He started out with the idea that he should be protected in his infancy, but now after many years he is apparently the same infant, feeding from the same nursing-bottle. Such a policy has become the means of fostering the growth of a number of groups of industries at the expense of the economic vitality of the country. This idea was very splendidly expressed by Mr. Woodrow Wilson in his appeals to the American people before the last presidential election.
The Liberal party constitutes practically half the population of Canada, and yet these people are being denounced as disloyal because they advocate a reduction of taxation, because they favour a policy which means free food to the people and free raw material to the agriculturists. I think it might well be said that, being half the population and engaged in all classes of enterprises, they must have the same interest in the prosperity of the country as have those who favour a different policy. One writer, speaking of these people, says that they cannot commit economic murder without committing economic suicide. As a party, we do not propose to destroy the foundation of our own economic structure. One very foolish writer actually
said that the policy of free food and the reduction of taxation ' will blast the bedrock of our national prosperity Was a more absurd statement than that ever written?
We used to hear a good deal about the slaughter market. When it was proposed to have a heavy duty on boots and shoes, it was said we must have such a duty because unless the Canadian manufacturer has the protection, the country will be invaded by the American manufacturer who will slaughter this market while he enjoys the benefit of protection in his own market by reason of the high tariff of the United States. That cry does not apply to-day. The United States admits free the boots and shoes manufactured in Canada. As a matter of fact, Canadian shoe manufacturers are to-day exploiting the markets of the United States, and doing it successfully, in competition with their American rivals. Upon what principle, I ask, should they claim a monopoly of the Canadian market when the American market is open to them?
How many have allowed themselves for so long to be imposed upon by the claim that the protective tariff is for the benefit of the workingman in the presence of so many facts to the contrary? The audacity, the impudence of the claim is what amazes one in the face of the fact that the workingmen of this country who are in unprotected industries are better paid than those who are in protected industries. I am free to admit that there cannot be free trade-(I wish in all interests there could be)-so long as the indirect instead of the direct method of taxation prevails as arranged at the dawn of Confederation. But we can ameliorate wrongs, remove burdens, restrict special privileges, curb big interests, nourish freedom and liberty and sever the bonds of the masses. We can crush out the processes of favouritism granted at the expense of the masses. We can destroy the weeds to give room and air and light to nourish the plant so essential to the lives of our great consuming population, the toiling masses, that they may grow and thrive to the status of a prosperous, contented and happy people.- Lop the mouldering branches? Aye, and cut and dig up the dead root of privilege which bars nutriment from the other the life-giving roots. In the words of a great tariff reformer:
The policy of freeing the country from a restricted tariff will so variegate and multiply the undertakings in the country that there will be a wider market and a greater competition for labour; it will let the sun shine through the clouds again as once it shone on the free,

independent, unpatronized intelligence of a great people.
Industries have become cowardly and. dependent upon Government aid. Apparently a curse is upon them as witness the constant applications to the Government for additional privileges.
' We should make our tariffs not like those who dole out favours, but like those who serve a nation,' were the words of a great man, and I commend them to the consideration of this House and of the people of Canada, whose interests we are called upon to safeguard.


Mr. JAMES MORRIS (Chateauguay):: Mr. Speaker, in rising for the first time to ask the attention of this House, it is but natural that I should feel that hesitation and, perhaps, nervousness, that is common to most persons who occupy a position similar to- the one which I occupy to-night. However, I do not intend to go into the matters under debate at any great length, as I do not wish to inflict upon the House everything that I would have to say with regard to them. The question that is before the House has been discussed by some of the best minds that our country produces, and I do not think that any remarks which I may add to theirs will educate the members of this House or the people of the country. I will simply content myself with giving a few humble opinions as to the facts and principles laid down by the Minister of Finance in his Budget speech.
In the first place, I wish to convey to the Minister of Finance not only my own congratulations, but also the congratulations of a number of my most intelligent electors who have read his speech and are convinced that we have to-day at the head of affairs men who are willing and anxious to legislate according to the requirements of our country. There are in my county electors as intelligent, perhaps, as there are in the majority of rural districts and I have it direct from them that they have absolute confidence in the future of Canada when its affairs are conducted by such men as we have in the persons of our Prime Minister and the members of his Cabinet.
Mr. Speaker, I represent a rural constituency, and I have heard so much about the farmers since I came here that I have reason to be proud that I represent a rural constituency. The conditions in my county are very different from what they are in the rural constituencies about which we have heard so much in the course of this debate.	As you all know,

I have the honour to represent the county of Chateauguay, and I do not think I am saying too much when I say that that county ranks among the foremost in the province of Quebec, perhaps in the whole Dominion. There was a time when the people of that county were not in the prosperous condition that they are in to-day. It is within my own recollection, Sir, when the people of that county were selling their produce for less than it cost them to produce it. I have seen the time when the people in the county of Chateauguay were selling their hay for less than it really cost them to harvest it.


Mr. PROULX:: That was before 1896.


James Morris: Not fifteen years ago,
when the late Government was in power, those conditions prevailed in the county which I represent. I am proud to say that the electors of Chateauguay did not go begging to this or to any other Government. They got down to work; they plodded, and to-day they occupy a position that to me and to them is an honourable one. How have they done it? What has brought that about? They simply waited quietly until the policy laid down by the Conservative party would have its due and proper effect. They realized that great bodies move slowly, and that it would take time for that policy to have the effects which we are feeling to-day, and which, as our friends opposite know, do exist at the present time.	These effects can be .
attributed to the beneficial operation of a protective policy. To-day those men realize that they owe their present condition to the policy of the Conservative party, under the exercise of which we have built up a home market. We have near us today the great market of Montreal, which is equal if not in advance of any in this great Dominion. We realize that had we not followed the policy that was laid down in 1879 by the Conservative party, that city would not be the city that it is today, and the farmers of my county would not have the market at their door which they have at the present time. The farmers of my locality understand that many products cannot be shipped abroad, and they have the market for those products at their very door. I feel satisfied in saying that they give credit to the Conservative party for having brought about those conditions.
From the arguments to which we have listened for the last couple of days, one

would almost be led to think that there was but one class of people in this country worthy of the consideration of this House, that is the farmers of the West. I have a fellow feeling with the farmers, I am a farmer myself; but I am of the impression that there is a number of so-called farmers in our western country, perhaps a large percentage of the wheat growers of the West, who do not merit the title of farmer. It is my impression, although I have never been there and speak only from what I have been fold by men of experience, that a large percentage of the wheat growers of the West are not farmers at all but simply men who are exploiting our feitile western land. In due course of time the actual farmer will have to go in and build up, by a proper system of farming, the lands that are today being depleted or exhausted by a continuation of the one crop. For that reason I say that we are perhaps giving too much attention to what are called the farmers of the West. As I have said there are people in this country engaged in the business of farming. They have my sympathy, they should have the support and I am satisfied will have the support of this Government; but I maintain that the agitation that has been made before this House is not on behalf of the actual farmers but is in the interests of men who are exploiting our fertile fields of the Northwest. For that reason I think that it behooves this Government to be careful as to how they deal with this question of free wheat. In the early part of this session an hon. member read a paper on the floor of this House stating that the Canadian producers, or in other words the Canadian flour, was successfully competing in the markets of China with the products of our American neighbours. To my mind that gives a clue to the very great desire that our neighbours to the south have to get pur wheat. What will be the result to the farmers of our western country? Our American neighbours are a far-sighted people. We know tnat from the fact that two years ago they offered us reciprocity. Fortunately the people of Canada were wise enough to see through that offer and were not ready to become an adjunct of the United States.
It appears to me that we would be doing an injury to the farmers of the West if we should allow our No. 1 hard wheat to go into the mills of the United States. The object is plain to me, they wish simply to raise the standard of their flour and eventually drive the Canadian competitor out of the foreign market. For that reason I would 170
strongly urge this Government to be careful in regard to the question of free wheat. We have heard so much about that question and men have entertained such extreme views on it that I shall not pursue it further.
Anothecc question that has not been dealt with to the same extent as I expected it would have been, is the rapid increase in the price of beef on the American side of the line. When I speak along this line I speak from actual knowledge and experience. As you know, the Montreal and Dundee railway Turns through my county almost from one end to the other and runs pretty nearly parallel with the provincial boundary. I know for a fact that three years ago the bulk of the beef cattle that were taken to the market of Montreal were smuggled into this country from the state of New York and sent to Montreal by the railroad that I have spoken of. In one year's time what has brought about the changed condition of affairs? That question is more than I can solve, but it certainly was not a natural growth. The rapid increase in the price of beef was due to some cause that does not appear on the surface, certainly not a natural growth. I believe it has its sequel in the movement of troops and warships that has been taking place in the last few days into Mexican waters. It is my conviction that the almost unreasonable demand for beef cattle in this country arose from the demand for naval and military supplies. They were taken up regardless of quality, regardless of condition, regardless of disease. I know for a fact that we had diseased cattle in our community that were taken and we were told they were for canning purposes. I am firmly of the conviction that the movement of troops down into Mexican waters is the cause of the great demand for our beef for export to the United States; it was required to prepare our American neighbours for what will possibly take place within the next few mouths.
With regard to the high cost of living, I have only to say that I marvel at some of the arguments that have been adduced. I do not think that we have yet had any arguments advanced that prove to us that this or any other Government could solve that problem. In my opinion they will simply have to do as the farmers do in my county; that is they will have to wait until the conditions change, for then only can a satisfactory solution be arrived at.



It cannot be done by this Government. We are told that the tariff is the cause of the high cost of living. Who are the people who are suffering the most? We hear a great many complaints on behalf of the farmers, but in my opinion it is the labouring classes who are suffering the most from the high cost of living. How could we relieve that situation by abolishing the tariff? These labouring men are dependent upon the factories in our land for their living. Reduce or take off the duties imposed by the tariff now in existence and what will be the result ? What would the men who are suffering do ? We would have those charitable institutions and bread lines which have been spoken of in Montreal, before next spring. I trust that with the wisdom of the men who are to day at the head of affairs, these questions will regulate themselves and will, in due course of time, be solved.
On motion of Mr. Turgeon, the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. W. T. White, the House adjourned at 11.40 p.m.
Monday, April 20, 1914.