1914-01-20

UNKNOWN TOPIC

Mr. A. K. MACLEAN (Halifax):: In rising to address the House in this debate, there are one or two matters to which I wish in the first place to refer very briefly. The announcement in the Speech from the Throne that the estimates for the next fiscal year will be submitted ;o Parliament at a very early date is gratifying, not only to Parliament, but also to the country. Last year we voted approximately $200,000,000, which included some very large appropriations, and these being submitted to us during the last days of the session they did not receive from this House the consideration which their importance deserved. I do not approach this matter in a censorious or partisan spirit, and indeed I think it might be said that the system I am now disapproving of has been followed by all governments in Canada. It may be fairly saiu that many millions of dollars of the estimates we voted last year were unproductive expenditure, and represented an absolute waste of public money. Many of these expenditures were proposed, not for the welfare of Canada, but rather to meet parochial and partisan demands throughout the country. It is very obvious indeed that expenditures of this character must have a tremendously evil effect upon the political morality of the people, and make for waste, inefficiency, and corruption in the various public services. I am glad, therefore, to learn that these estimates will he submitted to Parliament at a very early date, and I trust that the Government will not expect the House to vote them without ample time being given for their proper consideration. Might I express the further hope that in the consideration of the estimates the Government will see that from time to time during each week of the session we shall have an opportunity of dealing with the estimates, and that Parliament shall not be asked to approve of them en bloc in the dying hours of the session.
Just a word as to the promised redistribution legislation, made necessary after the last decennial census, under the provisions of the British North America Act. I trust that when, that measure is presented to Parliament, it will bear evidence of a desire on the part of the Government to make a fair redistribution of the constituencies, and that a spirit of fair play will be exhibited in the measure. If the Government should make their proposal in that spirit
they will have for it, I am sure, the cordial support of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House.
There is not a great deal in the Speech from the Throne which should occasion very much discussion. The hon. gentleman from York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod), who spoke yesterday, readily saw that the Speech was more remarkable for what it did not contain than for what it contained, and so he dealt with matters which were not included in the Speech. It is very evident from the statement made by the Prime Minister yesterday, that it is the intention of the Government to abandon all their pre-election promises and programmes and to engage in a campaign against the Senate. If an attack on the Senate is to be the political programme of the Government for the future, then I would suggest that the gauntlet should be thrown down at once, and that the conflict alleged to exist between the Government and the Senate should be submitted to the people and settled by them at the very earliest date possible.
The omission of any reference in the Speech from the Throne to the so-called naval issue, cannot but occasion astonishment throughout Canada and the Empire. At the last session it precipitated the greatest parliamentary contest known to the political history of Canada. It was naturally expected that that issue in some form or other would be again before us this session, and surely it is indicative of cowardice or incapacity or both on the part of the Government that it has not again in some form brought this issue forward. It is hard for one to believe that the Government or the advisers of the Crown are so indifferent to their obligations and to their mighty professions as to treat this very important issue with silent contempt, as they evidently propose doing. It was only four years ago that Parliament, after calm deliberation, unanimously concluded to embark upon a naval policy in the direction of the construction of a Canadian navy, whieh it was believed would be a proper discharge of our duty in the burden of the defence of the empire. For purposes which were purely political and in order to obtain the good offices of a political party in the province of Quebec, the present Government abandoned that policy, and they have never yet been bold enough to return to it. After a year or more of sleep upon this policy, doubtlessly disturbed by many nightmares, there was presented to Parliament last session a measure providing for the expenditure of $35,000,000 for the construction of three battleships and

the presentation of the same to the British Admiralty. This policy was urged upon the ground that Britain's supremacy was imperilled and that a great conflict was imminent between two great European powers. Tokens and signs, we were told, were not wanting; there were pealings of thunder and flashes of lightning, premonitions of this terrible naval conflict between two great naval powers. And upon this ground we were urged, cajoled and threatened to support this measure of the Government. We were told it was purely an emergency policy; that the Government had in mind the adoption of a permanent policy which they would shortly present to Parliament. Several months at least have passed since then. The evidence of the emergency conditions and of the European Armageddon has vanished. Time has vindicated the position which hon. gentlemen on this side of the House took upon that occasion. The relations between Great Britain and Germany have improved immensely since then; better still, there is not wanting very impressive evidence that among the peoples of these two great countries there is rising a storm against the ever-increasing expenditures for naval purposes; and to-day in this country, in this House or out of it, is anybody to be found bold enough to say that emergency conditions now prevail? Therefore the reasons given by the Government last session for their naval policy being now non-existent, I ask what explanation can be given by the Administration for their silence upon this subject. Is the Postmaster General the impediment in the way of the adoption of a permanent naval policy? Is Mr. Henri Bourassa as powerful in the counsels of the Government to-day as he was in 1911 and 1912? Is Mr. Armand Lavergne [DOT]as powerful with the Ministry to-day as he was in 1911, wnen he selected the Quebec representation in the cabinet? Is any valid reason to come from the Government? Is any valid reason possible for their silence upon this occasion-a silence which we are told will prevail for a very considerable time. The Prime Minister told us yesterday that he was awaiting the political transformation of the Senate ere he re-introduced the legislation of last session. This is postponing our naval programme with a vengeance. It does violence also to intelligence, because it predicates .collusion between Providence and an organization of political opportunists upon this question. Again, it does honour to the Senate, to even the most vainglorious member of that body, that European hostilities can be convenient-4i
ly postponed so as to synchronize with the death of members of the Canadian Senate and the appointment of other Canadians to that House. If the European emergency condition is so accommodating as to be pleasing indeed, in all these circumstances, I say that the Government is in honour bound to declare its permanent policy upon the naval question. They have virtually repealed, without parliamentary authority, the Canadian Naval Service Act; they have by their acts impliedly repealed it; and I say they are in honour bound to replace it by something else, or to put it again into operation. The country to-day expects a declaration of policy upon this issue from the Government; and, if they cannot ascertain their own views, if they are incapable of framing a policy as promised, then I submit it is their duty to appeal to the people, as indeed they have often threatened and promised to do if the legislation which they submitted to Parliament was not approved. It speaks ill for the political institutions of this country, or for the intelligence of the Canadian electorate, if, in all the circumstances, it is possible for a Government successfully to maintain a policy of silence upon this issue, and at the same time disregard their own professions and the natural inclinations of the Canadian people.
The hon. member for York (Mr. McLeod) yesterday said that this country was to be saved a further humiliation by the reintroduction of the naval policy of last year. It was quite evident to hon. gentlemen sitting upon this side of the House and observing the hon. member for York while making that statement, that he was speaking facetiously and not seriously. Canada has been humiliated in this respect by hon. gentlemen opposite. Canada was humiliated when, without cause, they abandoned the unanimous policy of Parliament declared in 1900 upon this issue. Canada was humiliated when, in the last session, they asked the approval of Parliament, on alleged grounds which were false, namely, the existence of an emergency, of their naval policy. We are to be further humiliated this session by a policy of cowardice and silence on the part of the Ministry, and if so I suppose this humiliation will continue until the Ministry itself has been extinguished, which, doubtless, will occur when first they appeal to the people of the country. I anticipate that we never shall again hear from hon. gentlemen opposite a word concerning an emergency naval policy. I do not believe it is their intention again

to return to that policy. From the statement made by the Eight Hon. Prime Minister last evening, one would gather that he is already preparing the ground upon which he may fall, and preparing the justifications which he may give to this country for not re-introducing the naval measure of last year. Speaking last evening, he said:
It has been avowed and declared by leaders of the Opposition and by their organs that the Bill if introduced again under present conditions would again be rejected in the Senate.
There is no authority whatever for this statement. The emergency not now prevailing, one would anticipate that if they introduced any measure at all it would have reference to a permanent naval policy, and I say that they would not be justified in anticipating the defeat of such a measure by the Senate. He proceeds:
We have no reason to doubt that such is the determination of the hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House. Under these circumstances-
The paragraph which I particularly wished to quote from was another and not that which I was reading. Let me read again. The Prime Minister said:
The Government are naturally mast desirous that the aid which we proposed last year, under conditions of urgency and need, and which we still propose to bring in the due course-[DOT]
Whether urgency now prevails and obtains or not

to the common defence of the empire should be so proffered or given as not to prejudice or retard any international agreement for the cessation of battleship construction. When we are in a position to press the Naval Aid Bill to a final and satisfactory conclusion in the Senate, it will be our duty to consult with the Imperial Government respecting these grave and important considerations. If it should then appear that, by any naval arrangement entered into or about to be entered into by the great powers a restriction or diminution of the present lamentable rivalry in armaments could be brought about, we should always be ready, until our ships have actually been begun, to review the situation so far as these proposals are concerned.
That, Mr. Speaker, I take as an express intimation to this country-at least we on this side of the House may be justified in accepting it as such-that never again will we hear of the naval aid measure of last year, and that the reason which the Government propose giving to the country for this will be that the emergency conditions have passed away, and that there is an expressed desire among the nations of the world to lessen the expenditures of public money for naval purposes. I think
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that the threats made by the Prime Minister and hon. gentlemen opposite yesterday against the Senate are both puerile and absurd. It is simply an attempt to cover their own nakedness by the fig leaves of useless threats against one of the legislative bodies of this Parliament, and I believe that the people of this country will pay little heed to these threats.
There is another matter upon which the Government propose to conduct a policy of silence, or of awaiting a change in the political colouring of the Senate. I refer to the Highways Bill. Again the Government's views smack of absurdity when they prophesy as to the expectation of the life of fellow-legislators and their own tenure of office. Do they not know that they are already considered in Canada as a one-term government? Their own supporters so prophesy; it is predicted openly in the market-place even. Their own record of incapacity makes this almost an accepted fact even to their own supporters, and one may even postulate the fact that this Administration is a one-term Government. If they propose to distinguish themselves by placing upon the statute books any legislation respecting highways, this is their opportunity, for it will not likely come to them again. They say that the Senate has prevented the execution of their policy with respect to highways. I say, Mr. Speaker, that this is but a figment of political fancy or an innocent fabrication on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite. The Senate has never, as far as I can recollect, done anything to negative any principle involved in any government measure in the past, unless it be in connection with the naval measure of last session. We may expect to hear during this session, and during the remainder of this Parliament, as an excuse for the non-fulfilment and implementing of Government policies, that the Senate has prevented the same. That apparently will be the defence of the Administration from now until the time when they receive their deserved rebuke from the Canadian electorate at the next election.
It might be worth while to ascertain if the Senate has been an impediment in the way of the non-fulfilment of several matters of policy promised by this Government since their advent to power and prior to that time. It may be worth while to ascertain what these policies were, and to inquire if they have been delayed by the action of the Canadian Senate, and if so to what degree. I hold in my hand a

publication entitled the Liberal-Conservative Handbook of 1911, which sets forth a declaration of matters of policy of the Government party. I find there a declaration of the tariff policy of the Government, as follows:
A fiscal policy which will promote the production within Canada of all useful articles and commodities that can be advantageously produced or manufactured from or by means of her natural resources, having due regard to the interests of the consumer as well as to the just claims of our wage-earning population.
That was the promise of the Administration in the direction of the adoption of a new tariff policy. In 1911, they promised many of their supporters the adoption of some new tariff or fiscal policy. Many of their friends and supporters paid for the adoption of an amended fiscal policy. Has there been any effort on the part of the Administration to implement that policy ? Has the Senate of Canada in any respect interfered or been an impediment ?
For many years, we heard of the great necessity of adequate protection in this country. Why, Sir, since hon. gentlemen went upon the Treasury benches, we have never yet had even a definition of adequate protection, let alone any legislative effort to put it in concrete form. When did the Government endeavour to enact tariff legislation which was in the interest of the consumer ? When did the Senate interpose any obstacle ? I would say that this is the year; this is the session; this is the time and the place for hon. gentlemen opposite to give us some tariff legislation which is in the interest of the consumer.
They also promised us tariff legislation which would meet the best claims of our wage-earning population. This is the time and the opportunity to implement that particular promise.
We were also promised some preference in tariffs within the empire. Their policy in this respect was set forth in the publication from which I am reading. It is as follows:
The promotion by negotiation, legislation and constitutional means of a system of mutual preferential trade within the empire.
Has any effort ever been made by hon. gentlemen opposite to implement this promise to secure imperial preferential tariff relations between the various portions of the empire ? Has the Senate of Canada interposed any obstacles in this respect P
Again, we were promised the appointment of a tariff commission which would obviate many inconsistencies and difficulties in connection with tariff making and
tariff legislation in this country. Has the Government made any serious effort to fulfil that promise ? It is true that in the first session of this Parliament a Bill providing for the establishment of a tariff commission was introduced and passed through this House, but I say that it was defeated in principle by the Government itself and not by the Senate of Canada. If the Government were sincere with respect to this measure, they certainly would reintroduce that Bill in the following session. It is a well known fact that, although the Tariff Commission Bill received the assent of hon. gentlemen opposite, it did not meet with their personal favour, and that members of the Government were personally told by many hon. gentlemen opposite that it was not a wise measure, and that having once failed of approval in the Senate of Canada, it should not be reintroduced for our consideration. I believe that to be a fact, and still hon. gentlemen opposite will tell us that this part of the ministerial programme was frustrated by the Senate of Canada.
We were promised further by hon. gentlemen opposite a restoration to the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan of their natural resources. Did the Senate of Canada place any obstacle in the way of the fulfilment of this part of the Government programme, or did the Opposition come from friends of the ministry in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan? Will hon. gentlemen opposite tell us what recommendations were made to the Government a few days ago when they were visited by a delegation of friendly politicians from the province of Alberta? Will they tell us what policy was recommended to them to pursue by Mr. Micliener, I think, the leader of the Conservative party in the legislature of Alberta? Has the Senate of Canada prevented the fulfilment of this policy, or is the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) responsible for this particular failure? Surely the Minister of Public Works, the especially assigned guardian of ministerial interests in the prairie provinces, could have secured such necessary legislation as would give to these provinces their natural resources, as was promised them by hon. gentlemen opposite before they came upon the treasury benches. Surely this was not a task too great for the Minister of Public Works. He is said to be very agile and adept in every respect, even afoot. I heard it said of him by a friend that he could walk on a row of eggs from the Red River to the Ottawa river without breaking a shell. If he could successfully perform a feat of that character, surely he was strong

subsidies. In essence, the Highways Bill was a measure to supplement limited provincial revenues in respect of a public service which under the Constitution comes absolutely within the jurisdiction and purview of the local legislatures. I say that the view that these supplementary revenues should be distributed according to population was absolutely sound; and I cannot but believe that hon. gentlemen opposite believe this, as do the people of this country generally. That being so, I say that the principle involved in the Senate amendment is one which was absolutely fair. Now, one should naturally ask himself, as I am sure the people of Canada do, whether the Government seriously endeavoured to carry out their Highways policy as announced to the public in 1911. I doubt it; I go further and deny it. I say there is absolutely no evidence of their sincerity in this respect. They have not spent a moment of time nor a dollar of money conferring with the provincial governments in respect to this proposed expenditure, nor in devising a policy upon which to spend the money should the Highways Bill become law. They have taken no preliminary steps whatever, prior to requesting Parliament to pass such legislation and to vote the money, to formulate a policy of expenditure or a policy of maintenance, which policy, after all, was of more importance than the policy of expenditure. If Parliament had voted last year the money for expenditure on our public highways which the Government asked, would a single dollar of it have been expended in 1913? I say it would have been utterly impossible to have expended one single dollar of it. If they had attempted any expenditure it could not have but resulted in a woeful waste of public money. I say this Government have failed, miserably failed, to carry out their policy with respect to highways. They themselves killed their highways measure, and they now seek to attach the blame to the Senate of Canada.
I believe that no fair-minded man in this country will concur in the view taken by the Government. They have exhibited no desire whatever to implement their promises respecting highways. The people of this country ar^fciot worrying with respect to the action of the Senate on this measure. Their interest rather is in the conduct, the cruel conduct, of the parents of the Highways Bill who purposely and deliberately destroyed it. I have had occasion, as, I suppose, have most hon. members of this House, to discuss with many persons the action of the Senate. I have yet to meet ,
a single political friend of hon. gentlemen opposite who,* having heard a fair, honest explanation of the facts and the effect of the Senate amendment, did not readily concede that that amendment was eminently fair and businesslike. Hon. gentlemen opposite cannot conceal or cover their duplicity and insincerity with respect to that highways legislation by making empty, and futile threats against the Senate.
Now, I desire to say a few words respecting one or two other features of the Address. The Address states that there has been and is a restriction of trade owing to financial stringency. But we are told that we are likely to readily recover from that condition, owing to the boundless resources of this country. We upon this side of the House hope that these conditions are not permanent. In common with hon. gentlemen opposite, we have faith in the future of this country. We have no desire to exaggerate the depressed trade and monetary conditions prevailing to-day, nor are we inclined to take a pessimistic view of the future. However, the conditions now prevailing are worthy of a moment's consideration. We find, in the first place, that to-day trade depression and financial stringency exist concurrently; but this is not always the case, for in the past it has happened that we have had a financial stringency with trade conditions normal, or perhaps better than normal. We find that imports and exports are gradually declining, and I imagine that this will be even more marked during 1914 than it was in 1913. We have a contraction, quite noticeable, in industrial operations, and generally there is a most pronounced contraction in Canadian productions of every kind. We have also a very large number of unemployed people in the country, which is very regrettable indeed. We have a diminution-I was going to say an almost absolute cessation-of borrowings of foreign capital. We have a falling revenue. I do not say that some of these conditions may not have a very corrective effect upon the country, and prove of great value. They will prevent, for a time at least, the rampant speculation which has prevailed in Canada for some years, and enforce a return to sound fundamental economic laws. These conditions had a depressing effect upon the Prime Minister himself, because he has ransacked the papers of Great Britain and the United States to show that the conditions in those countries are very much worse than they are in Canada. It is quite

obvious, of course, the trade depression being world-wide, that the number of the unemployed, for instance, should be greater in large and populous countries like the United States or Great Britain than in Canada. These being the conditions, what has the Government done to remedy them, or to minimize their disastrous effects? This, I think, is a fair inquiry; it was a fair assertion on the part of the leader of the Opposition that we should have heard from hon. gentlemen opposite in respect of this matter, but unfortunately they are still further pursuing their policy of silence.
We have not been promised any remission of taxation, which would be quite a natural and desirable thing at this stage of our financial and commercial history. The well-recognized high cost of the necessaries of life is a subject which compels and is compelling the attention of everybody in this country. It presses hard upon the wage-earner, and particularly hard upon those who at the present time are unable to obtain employment. It produces social unrest; it is the hardest test and the severest strain to which democracy can be put. Therefore it is quite natural that we on this side of the House should expect to hear from hon. gentlemen opposite in this matter. Then, as the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) pointed out last night, might we not have expected to have from the Government notice of their intention to afford to Canadian wheat producers the benefit of the additional market for their products which is openly offered to them, and the securing of the benefits of which requires only the definite action of the Government of this country? What possible objection can be urged against giving to the Canadian wheat growers the market which is now offered to them? Surely we might have expected some intimation from the Government of their intention to do something, be it ever so little, towards relieving the effects of the depressed commercial conditions which now prevail in this country. We might have expected an announcement of the temporary remission of tariff duties upon foodstuffs and other articles of ordinary necessity. We have had during the days of the present ministry a temporary remission of duties upon cement and steel rails, and if the policy of remission of duties was justifiable in respect to these two particular articles, surely a remission, even though temporary, of the taxation upon many other articles of necessity, the prices of which are extremely high to-day, would be justifiable in the extreme.
Have hon. gentlemen opposite been recently devoting their efforts towards securing wider markets for the exports of this country, so that there may be no recession in the volume and value of our exports, which are so invaluable and so necessary in a new country-a country which is a great borrower of foreign money? In the campaign of 1911 the people were promised by hon. gentlemen opposite that, if they were placed upon the Treasury benches, they would receive for their products a market fully as good, if not better, than the markets we were to secure under reciprocity. The Minister of Trade and Commerce has returned from Australia without having made any trade arrangements with that country. En route he had a conference with the statesmen of the Celestial Empire and of Japan; and we were told by him that in these countries were to be found great markets for Canadian produce, but evidently nothing can be found in the commonwealth of Australia. We were told by the Minister of Trade and Commerce in Halifax in 1911 that there was a splendid market in South America for Canadian produce. I suppose that when the Minister of Trade and Commerce returns to Ottawa and is permitted to extend his New Year's greetings to his colleagues he will be bidden to depart to South America. Apparently his colleagues have no desire for his company in Ottawa, during the session of Parliament at least, and possibly there might be opportunities in that great country, South America, for him to secure markets for the Canadian people.
We have a trade depression in Canada; our revenues are falling. Has the Minister of Finance appealed to the god of adequate protection for relief? Has he appealed to the idol of preferential tariffs? Where is the tariff commission that was to do so much for Canadian trade? What has become of the doctrine of protection, and its healing powers? We were told that in sunshine and in shower it would impartially bestow its blessings upon the capitalist and the wage-earner, upon the consumer and the producer at the same time. Where has the god of protection of hon. gentlemen opposite gone? Has he gone on a long journey? Is he not accessible? We were told that a high tariff was a good thing for this country, and we assume that a higher tariff would be better still. Well, then, in the present circumstances, would it not be well for hon. gentlemen to give to this country the benefit of an experiment in higher tariffs, and let us see whether the people

will accept it? If hon. gentlemen opposite did this, they would only be fulfilling a promise which they have often made to the country, and which they made to many friends at the last election.
Hon. gentlemen opposite will say that in the appointment of a commission to inquire into the high cost of living in this country they have done something to minimize the seriousness of the conditions now prevailing in Canada. But I doubt whether hon. gentlemen really have any belief in the efficiency of the work which may be done by this commission. I assert, Mr. Speaker, that no good purpose whatever will be served by the appointment of that commission. In the first place, respecting the personnel of it, the gentlemen composing it will not have the opportunity of engaging in such a thorough investigation as will be of any benefit to the country. They are men who are already engaged in the public service and naturally they must devotq some of their time to the discharge of such duties. Further, when that commission was' appointed we were told by the press that they were to be under the direction and control of three ministers, which would seem to indicate that the members of the commission were. never intended to be endowed with the scope of investigation and report, which they should have if their work was to be of any value whatever. I further say that it is not possible for this commission to report any additional reasons for the prevailing high cost of living than have already been furnished to the world by commissions appointed in other countries. There is not a condition stated in the text book of Professor Skelton, as quoted from by the Prime Minister yesterday, that was not known to students of the problems years and years ago, and you can find the same enumeration of the causes in a host of publications dealing with the subject. Of course, the enumeration of the causes will afford no remedy whatever, and what the people want is a remedy, and what they expected to be announced in the Speech from the Throne was that some remedy would be provided. The Minister of Labour himself can have very little faith in this commission. He visited my province last autumn, and he told the people that he desired his department to be known as the Department of Play and he himself as the Minister of Play rather than as the Minister of Labour. There are of course many reasons
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why that department might be called a Department of Play and the Minister a Minister of Play. The Minister of Labour announced in Halifax that the reason for the prevailing high cost of living in this country was, that while we had prosperous times prices were bound to be high. But at the present moment we have not prosperous times as hon. gentlemen opposite admit. Therefore, we find ourselves confronted by the situation that we have times that are not prosperous while at the same time we have high prices prevailing. Therefore, conditions are doubly bad at present. But, if in order to secure a reduction in the high cost of living it is necessary to have even harder times than exist, then heaven help Canada and the Canadian people. We can hope for very little enlightenment or for anything of value from the inquiry proposed.
A word or two as to the effect of commercial conditions upon matters of government finance, and revenue. The conditions of trade have a very pronounced effect of course upon the revenues of the country. I find that for the nine months ending September 30 our revenues from Customs are nearly $3,000,000 less than for the corresponding nine months of the previous year, and strange to say while there has been a reduction in our revenues there has been an increase in our expenditures, because during the first nine months of the present fiscal year consolidated fund expenditure, over the corresponding nine months of the previous year, amounts to nearly $9,000,000. I find that our capital expenditure for the same period is greater by $18,000,000 and I find that the combined capital and Consolidated Fund expenditure for the first nine months of this fiscal year are greater than for the corresponding nine months of last year, by the very large sum of $27,000,000. I find further that the combined capital and consolidated expenditure for this nine months period is only less than our total revenue by $2,000,000. That is a condition of affairs which calls for comment and explanation on the part of the Minister of Finance. The Appropriation Act of last session authorized a huge expenditure, and when one considers the well known capacity of some of the colleagues of the Minister of Finance, to indulge in lavish extravagance, one cannot be surprised at the very great increase in our expenditures in this fiscal year as compared with the last fiscal year. It is not surprising to find that the expenditures have almost absorbed

our entire revenue and that the predictions of the Minister of Finance at the last session of Parliament are not likely to be fulfilled. Delivering his Budget Speech last year, the Minister of Finance in estimating the revenue and expenditure said:
Without attempting to forecast with any degree of accuracy, I feel confident that the revenues of the year will not only prove adequate to meet the current expenditure, hut to meet possibly the whole and certainly the greater portion of capital and special expenditure for the year.
This estimate of the Minister of Finance will hardly be fulfilled; every indication is that the revenues will not meet the expenditures as anticipated by him when he made his Budget Speech last session.
The amount which the Government has required to borrow this year has been a matter of great astonishment to the people of this country and to the money lenders of Great Britain who are asked to supply the same. Without pretending to be strictly accurate as to the amount of borrowings by the Government during the year, I believe that two permanent loans aggregating $35,000,000 in round figures have been made; two temporary loans aggregating $18,500,000 have also been made, making a total borrowing of about $53,000,000. It was but a few months ago that the Minister of Finance told us that he expected to meet all consolidated fund expenditures and all capital and special expenditures out of revenue. If his expectations had been fulfilled, or approximately so, surely it would not have been necessary to have borrowed to the extent of $53,000,000? It is only fair to say that there has been a refunding of debt amounting to nearly $10,000,000. One cannot object to that. The only special expenditures that I know of that could possibly have been made during the year, or are likely to be made during the balance of the fiscal year, would be the purchase of the Grant Trunk implementing bonds, which would amount to $1,000,000 a month since the 1st of April, and the payment of special railway subsidies to the Canadian Northern Railway. But, taking into consideration these special expenditures, and the refunding of loans which matured during the year, I think some explanation is due Parliament and the country as to the necessity for these very extensive borrowings. It was unfortunate, indeed, that Canada had, during the past calendar year, to engage in such borrowings. The
market was unfavourable during the whole year. The interest rate and other charges in connection with these loans were unusually heavy.	These borrowings met
with a protest from the lending public in Great Britain.	Further, they affected
adversely the borrowing powers of other interests all over the country, and it is almost as important to conserve the borrowing powers of individuals and corporations in this country, as it is those of the Government. These borrowings have more or less disastrously affected Canadian credit in the British money market.
Just a word or two in reference to the expenditures during the year, which were,
I assume, the cause and the necessity of a very considerable portion of the moneys borrowed during the year. As I said before, the Government asked authority at the last session of Parliament for the expenditure of an unusually large amount of money, aggregating nearly two hundred million dollars. Last year the signals of distress were out. The Minister of Finance himself intimated that he could hardly expect to see the revenues maintain their strength throughout the year. The expenditures authorized were in many respects absolutely unnecessary, particularly for this year, and could have been very well postponed until a more convenient period. The facts of hon. gentlemen opposite were very censorious against previous Administrations for their heavy expenditures during a year of falling revenue, and nobody was ever more censorious than the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Foster). Unfortunately I have never been able so far to have the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce in Parliament when referring to such matters. I think it would be very pleasing and instructive to the House to have (the statements of the Minister of Trade and Commerce harmonized with or distinguished from the practices of the present Minister of Finance. Similar conditions respecting revenue prevailed in this, country in 1909. I want to read for the edification and instruction of the Minister of Finance the statements made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce in the year 1909, and I trust they will give him at least a very correct idea of what his colleague the Minister of Trade and Commerce thinks of his administration of finance during the past few months. The Minister of Trade and Commerce, on April 20, 1909, was

criticising the expenditure of the then Minister of Finance for the preceding year, and he spoke as follows:
But I, and I think others on either side of the House, could not fail to ask ourselves why he as Finance Minister, in 1907, when every third-rate man in a bank, not to speak of the managers and directors of banks, knew that the stress of weather was coming on, felt the forebodings and set themselves by every possible means to strengthen themselves financially for the blast, took no precaution at all. He crowded on all sail, and in that, the worst year in our experience for fifteen years, authorized and carried out his largest, most lavish and most wasteful expenditures.
How applicable that is to the past few months of the present fiscal year respecting financial affairs?
It would have seemed befitting in a Finance Minister who was careful and prudent to have made his provision when the danger was-coming, to have drawn in his sail when the storm was about to burst. My hon. friend did not do that-why? Because sound principles of finance were against such a course? By no means. All sound principles of finance and every consideration of good business were in favour of that course.
I thought it might not he objected to by the House nor by my friend the Minister of Finance if I gave him what was the opinion of the Minister of Trade and Commerce in 1909, respecting conditions which then prevailed, and which in some respects are very similar to those prevailing this year, only perhaps conditions this year are far worse. And I do hope that if the Minister of Trade and Commerce is ever seen in Parliament again during the lifetime of the Government, my hon. friend the Minister of Finance will urge upon his esteemed colleague the necessity and propriety of telling us whether the opinions he entertained in years gone by respecting the administration of finance are or are not applicable * to present day affairs.
I have seen it stated in the press that the Government considered it was pursuing a wise financial policy in making extensive borrowings by reason of the depressed commercial conditions in this country; that is, they consider it sound finance to manufacture prosperity by increasing public expenses for the balance of the fiscal year and for the next fiscal year. I trust, Mr. Speaker, that this is not the intention of the Government. I am told that the late Minister of Public Works, the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk), in a letter which appeared in some newspapers in the pro-,
vince of Quebec, recommended increasing the public expenses from a quarter of a billion dollars to half a billion dollars and more for the next fiscal year. If that is true, it is a good thing for Canada that that hon. gentleman left the Government. It is bad enough to make such a wicked suggestion made to the present Minister of Public Works, but it would have been far worse to have a minister presiding over that department who believed it sound policy to endeavour to manufacture prosperity by increasing public expenditure without regard to whether those expenditures were productive or not. There can he no distinction between public and private expenditure. You can attach no more special significance to national expenditure than you can to what is termed international trade. There is really no such thing as international trade because that which we call international trade is after all but the trade of individuals within the nation and there is no distinction between borrowing money for the construction of a railway by a Canadian railway corporation and borrowing money for the construction of a railway by the Government. The wisdom of borrowing money and the expenditure of the same for public purposes are altogether dependable upon whether such expenditures are necessary and whether they will be productive and in the interests of the country.
I have seen it frequently stated in newspapers friendly to the Administration that it was a wise and sound economic policy to borrow lavishly this year because business conditions were not in as prosperous a state as we would wish them to be. I can hardly believe that this country will regard that as sound finance and sound policy. If great national public undertakings were desirable and necessary, and, if we were compelled in any event at some time to borrow for the same, and if these moneys could in the present year have been borrowed at favourable rates, then possibly it would have been sound business for the Government to engage in such borrowings, but such a condition respecting the borrowing of money did not prevail this year. Interest rates were high, money was dear and it would be only under the most favourable and pressing conditions that the Government would have been justified this year in borrowing money even for national undertakings, when money was not cheap but was very dear indeed.
On the whole, I think that hon. gentlemen in this House, on both sides of you, Sir,

and people outside in the country, will be disposed to think with us that the Speech from the Throne has been exceedingly disappointing in every respect. The deliberate abandonment of the Naval Aid Bill and the Highways Bill by the Government must astonish this country. Their declaration that they propose pursuing a policy of absolute silence respecting these two great public measures must be a matter of great astonishment to the entire country. It must be a matter of surprise and regret that we have had no promise of tariff reform or reduction of taxation,.no promise of the accomplishment of a preferential trade arrangement such as was promised, no promise of Civil Service reform, no promise of Senate reform, no promise of the fulfilment of the many promises of public policy which hon. gentlemen made frequently in this country, no promise of any action on their part to minimize if possible the effects of our trade depression, no promise of any substantial effort to meet the difficulties of the high cost of living, no promise on their part to give to the producers and exporters of wheat the additional market which they might have had, no promise of anything substantial or expected, but of empty and vain threats against the Senate of this country and their ghoulish suggestion that the implementing of their promises must be deferred until by death or Act of Parliament the personnel of one of the legislative bodies of this Parliament has been changed. Well might the hon. member for York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod) say yesterday that these conditions .are humiliating in this country. Humiliating indeed they are, I say, but the only ray of hope is that within the very near future, or at least within a limited time there will come to the country an opportunity to remove from the Treasury Benches a Government that has frequently proved its incapacity to administer public affairs.


Hon. W. T. WHITE (Minister of Finance) :: I have listened with close attention to my hon. friend the junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean). I am sorry that I am not able to compliment him upon that moderation which sometimes, but not always, characterizes his utterances. Nor has he fulfilled the promise which he made at the outset of his remarks that he would deal with the matters that he proposed to bring before the House in a non-partisan manner. However, I may say to my hon. friend that I am not disappointed because, frankly, I did not expect too much. My hon. friend has gone over a great deal of ground and with
respect to most of the matters with which he has dealt I do not propose to follow him. He expressed as his conclusion the pious wish that an opportunity might be given at an early day for the people to put themselves on record against the incompetents who now occupy the Treasury benches. Well, let me say this, Mr. Speaker, that since this House prorogued there have been seven by-elections and that six members from various sections of Canada out of the seven elected have taken their places upon this side of the House. If there is any comfort for hon. gentlemen opposite in that statement they are welcome to it. In my opinion it represents the view of Canada upon their performances and ours since October, 1911.
My hon, friend has spoken of the naval issue and has stated that the abandonment-that was the word he used-abandonment of our naval policy has been a matter of astonishment in Canada and throughout the Empire. Let me say, Sir, that that astonishment was of a much earlier date. The astonishment has been that a branch of this legislature could be so partisan and perverse, not to say unpatriotic, as to reject the Naval Aid Bill brought forward by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Mr. Borden). My hon. friend has spoken of cowardice on the part of the Government. I do not intend here and now to go over the ground so fully covered by the discussion of last session nor to renew that bitter and, in my view, deplorable controversy which raged throughout its length. What I have to say on the matter of the navy can be said within very small compass indeed. I do not propose here and now to discuss what my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) did or did not do during the period of his administration. I simply desire to say this, and it seems to me to be the great, central and outstanding fact in this matter, that if the Naval Aid Bill introduced by the Prime Minister last year had been enacted into law by the Senate of Canada, there would have been now under construction, at the expense of Canada, three powerful ships of war ready to take their places in 1916 in the British line of defence for the purpose of the maintenance of Great Britain's supremacy at sea and representing the loyal contribution of this country to the worldwide defence of the British Empire. The aid that would have been given would have been practical and effectual, and would have been so recognized in Canada,

in the empire, and throughout the world. I believe it would have clinched the question of Great Britain's invincibility at sea, and I believe it would have been a decisive factor in bringing about a cessation of armaments, which seems to be the world's desire to-day. The Naval Aid Bill, so fruitful of peaceful results, was defeated in the Senate, I believe at the instigation of my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), and upon him and upon hon. gentlemen opposite must rest the blame and the responsibility for its rejection. My right hon. friend says that it is cowardly upon the part of the Government not to re-introduce the measure. What would be the use of doing so ? It would meet with precisely the same fate as it met with last year. We do not propose to plough the sands. We do not propose to winnow chaff. We shall simply have to wait the slow processes of time and of mortality, until the Senate of Canada is brought into accord with the popular will.
My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) referred to the estimates. He desired to know if they were ready for presentation to Parliament. They are ready; they are in print and they will be presented immediately after this debate is concluded. My hon. friend referred to the amount of this year's Estimates, $200,000,000. He said that many of the items were dubious in their character. Let me ask my hon. friend, here and now, what member of the Opposition during last session of Parliament raised any question as to the amount of the Estimates ? What attack was made upon this Government in respect to the Estimates brought down to Parliament last year ? What item was challenged ? The attitude of my hon. friend reminds me of the story of Oliver Twist, who wanted more. That was the attitude of hon. gentlemen opposite with regard to the Estimates. My hon. friend from Halifax, instead of attacking the Estimates, repeatedly put forward his request that branch lines should be acquired for the Intercolonial railway, and it was the same with all hon. gentlemen opposite. Some wanted drill halls; others, armouries; others, post offices. As I say, it was like Oliver Twist; they all wanted more. There was no criticism of the amount of the Estimates.
My hon. friend has raised the question of Estimates and Expenditures; and I am very glad he has done so, because it gives me an opportunity of replying to criticisms that have been made by the Liberal press of this country of the expenditures and of
.
the 'borrowings of this Government, since we have come into power and especially during the past year. It has been charged that we have increased expenditures. It has been charged that we have been extravagant and improvident. My right hon. friend has likened me to the spendthrift heir who has come into the possession of a splendid estate; and I think, in the tour conducted by my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), who I am sorry to say is not in the House, my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark), referring to that large expenditure, represented me as the prodigal son. No doubt he spoke more in sorrow than in anger.
I propose to compare, or rather to contrast-for "contrast" is the better word- the record of this Government with the record of hon. gentlemen opposite, in the matter of expenditures and in the matter of borrowings referred to by my hon. friend from Halifax. In 1908, the Liberal expenditure was $112,000,000, and in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1912, the year in which we adopted the Estimates of hon. gentlemen opposite, which Estimates by the way exceeded $155,000,000, the expenditure was $137,000,000. That is to say, the expenditure of Canada had increased, during a period of four years, from $112,000,000 to $137,000,000, or an increase of $25,000,000.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: What was it in 1910?


William Thomas White: 
William Thomas White: 
Mr. MACDONALD:: If you do not have the prospect again of a good harvest, what are you going to do?


William Thomas White: Well, I think that in Canada we will have the prospect of a good harvest. I am sorry to see that even such a big, outstanding man as the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) is, particularly in a military uniform, has become a pessimist on Canada. He has become a bear on Canada. We drove the bears out of Ontario years ago, I do not believe there are any in Nova Scotia and I do not believe that in his heart of hearts the hon. gentleman is a bear. I do not see how he can be pessimistic. Optimism is the only thing for Canada at the present time. When I listened to mv right hon. friend the other day, and when I listened to the hon. junior member for Halifax to-day, I could not help but think -it is probably a misfortune that I have a fairly good memory for verse-even blank verse-of lines in King Bichard the Second. My right hon. friend was describing the conditions in Canada. He said that there were a hundred thousand men out of work. I think that he greatly overstated it and that it was just my right hon. friend's estimate. I do not say that he wilfully or deliberately mis-stated it, but I think that mv right hon. friend's estimate was too great.


William John Macdonald: How many are
there ?


William Thomas White: I have not the information before me from which to make an estimate, and consequently I decline to make one. I like information; I like the facts before me before I commit myself to an estimate, especially one which may damage the country. When I listened to my right hon. friend dealing with the question of the unemployed, and when I heard him moving this resolution with regard to the cessation of trade, and when to-day I listened to my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) painting a gloomy picture of conditions in Canada, I thought of those lines in Bichard II:
Of comfort no man speak;
Let's talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
That seems to be the attitude of hon. gentlemen opposite to-day. In sharp contra-

distinction to that, let me read an extract from the address of a bank president, taken just at haphazard from the reports presented to the shareholders of the chartered banks of Canada. It is a report of the speech of Mr. Pease, who is a very levelheaded financier, one of the out-standing bankers of Canada, an exceedingly well-informed gentleman, and one who would have no motive for misrepresenting the situation. I desire to place it on ' Hansard 5:


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: What date ?


William Thomas White: Within the last two weeks it was presented at the meeting of the shareholders of the Royal Bank of Canada:
Regarding the general situation in Canada, the dominating influence at the beginning of the past year was the money market crisis in Europe, resulting from the Balkan war and the fear of a general conflict. Although the banks were alive to the necessity for extreme caution and retrenchment in Canada, it was impossible to call an immediate halt. The momentum of trade following several years of prosperity required that commitments be taken care of. During the first eight months there was no diminution of the volume of mercantile business or curtailment of railway and other general construction work, for which foreign capital continued to be freely supplied. In that period the commercial loans of the chartered banks increased $30,000,000, while deposits decreased $20,000,000. Fortunately, however, our excellent crops rapidly marketed, liquidated debts and brought about a reversal of the financial situation. Commercial loans on the 30th of November last compared with August last showed a decrease of $24,000,000, while deposits in the same time increased $38,000,000. We could offer no better evidence of the vitality and wealth of the country.
I cannot help but contrast that with the doleful utterances of my right hon. friend and my hon. friend who spoke this afternoon. I am sincerely sorry that my right hon. friend is becoming a pessimist on Canada. The Prime Minister read in his speech last evening the messages sent from the prime ministers of all the provinces of Canada, and I thought how unfortunate it was that when in all that chorus the most eloquent voice of all might have been that of my right hon. friend, he is now using it for the purpose of discord a^nd disharmony, proclaiming that conditions in Canada are precarious, and pursuing a course which I cannot help but think will reflect upon the credit and standing of the Dominion. I think I need not point out to my right hon. friend that he owes a good deal to patriotism, and that he should not, unless on the strongest grounds, disparage Canadian conditions and take a course which may have the effect of depreciating the credit of the country.
I come now to the new fiscal policy that has been put forward by my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition. I was amazed last night to hear my right hon. friend (Mr. Borden) mention the variety of fiscal policies to which my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition has given adherence in the past.


Wilfrid Laurier: So was I.


William Thomas White: In 1893-1 think my own memory will serve me correctly-my right hon. friend proclaimed himself in favour, ultimately at all events, of free trade as it existed in England. My hon. friend has been a free trader. He has been in favour of reciprocity, restricted and unrestricted. He has been, I think, a commercial unionist.


Wilfrid Laurier: You think so?


William Thomas White: Well, if my right hon.
friend denies it, I will withdraw it at once. Then, my hon. friend-and the Prime Minister omitted to mention this-is reputed to be the possessor of a Cobden medal.


Wilfrid Laurier: That goes with free trade.


William Thomas White: Precisely, as in England.
Then, in. 1897, he came into power and adopted the National Policy. I confess to a degree of admiration for a statesman who can wear such a variety of fiscal clothes, and come through so long a public life as my right hon. friend.


William John Macdonald: Did you not follow
him down to two years ago on that?


William Thomas White: Well, I did not know. My right hon. friend's personality is the strongest and most outstanding feature about him. No man could give adherence to all these policies without being regarded as a sort of fiscal chameleon. My right hon. friend, from the tariff standpoint, has been everything by turns and nothing long. In fact, he was longest a protectionist, because he was fifteen years in power, and during that time he followed the National Policy. My hon. friend has now embarked upon a new policy and characteristically of him, he has not attempted to define it. At Hamilton, he came o"Ut in the most unequivocal fashion-because I took a clipping from the Toronto Globe-and we all know what an accurate publication that is. My right hon. friend spoke as follows-and this was featured on the first page of that great journal:
The policy I give you at this moment-[DOT]

Notice the qualification:
At this moment-
The policy I give you at this moment, the policy I believe every patriot of Canada ought to support, and the policy I believe to be the duty of the Government to immediately inaugurate is a policy of absolutely free food, food free from customs duty.
That is the new policy of my right hon. friend, and the amazing thing to me is that he did not refer to it more strongly than he did in his speech yesterday. It almost seems to me as if the announcement of that policy at Hamilton had thrown consternation into the ranks of some of his followers, because, as I shall show, free food means a great deal. Free food, in the first place, means that butter, eggs, livestock, all the products of the farm are to be put on the free list, and my right hon. friend might possibly hear from some of his followers in the mixed farming provinces with regard to that. In addition to that, free food means that the policy of my right hon. friend affects in Canada, according to the statistics of the Year Book, 6,985 establishments with a capital of $133,000,000, employing 52,000 men on wages, paying $14,000,000 in wages every year, using material to the amount of $175,000,000, and with an output of $245 -000,000.
Now, I am not quite sure that my right hon. friend realized, when he said, 'free from customs duty,' that this would affect such a large body of our citizens-all our farmers and also the manufacturers of food products to the number I have mentioned. Let us see what our products in these manufactures of food are. In the first place, we have bread, biscuits and confectionery. I wonder what my right hon. friend's friend, the former Minister of Customs, Hon. William Paterson, wmuld have said to him had he proposed to take the customs duties off bread, biscuits and confectionery. Then, there is cheese, one of the most important industries of Canada. The output of cheese in Canada for the last fiscal year amounted to $37,232,969. There were 3,625 establishments, and they employed men to the number of 6,147. Yet, the right hon. gentleman proposes to take the duty off cheese. Probably some of the representatives of rural constituencies whose people are engaged in that industry may have something to say about that. I omit those industries in which only a moderate capital is invested. We have in the fish-preserving business an output of $12,309,237; in flour and gristmill products, $82,494,826; in fruit and the vegetable canning, 5,971,082; in slaughtering and meat packing $41,000,000, and in .
sugar refining $21,260,011. These establishments afford employment to thousands and tens of thousands of men, but my right hon. friend lightly said to his audience in Hamilton, ' a new policy I give you for the moment.' I am glad he said ' for the moment,' because if by chance he should come into power and be tempted to carry out such a policy I should be afraid for the consequences to this country. But as he said it was only 'for the moment,' that leaves him free to say-that it was only for the moment.
Now we come to this question of the high cost of living. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister has dealt with that question generally, and I shall not traverse the ground covered by him. But I recognize to the full the importance of the high cost of living and what it means to the average family. I take second place to no man in my sympathy for those who have to provide for their families and are confronted with the high cost of living-the increasing cost of living. Having said that, I do not necessarily jump to the conclusion that the tariff has brought this about. I examine the situation, I investigate the conditions, and try to come to a rational conclusion as to what is the cause of the high cost of living-the higher cost of living.
This phenomenon of the increasing cost of living is a world-wide phenomenon. It is not confined to protectionist countries or to free trade countries; it affects all countries at the present time, and has done so for fifteen or twenty years. It has been made the subject of many reports; it has been reported on by commissions; by special committees of legislature, by officials, by consuls and others. I have read an immense number of publications on this question, and so feel that I can emphasize what I have said-that this phenomenon is not confined to any one country. We find, for example that in Belgium, in 1912 as compared with 1900, the cost of living increased 32 per cent; in France 28 per cent; in Germany, 28 per cent; in Japan, 28 per cent, and in the United States, 43 per cent. I will deal with Canada's increase Sn a moment. This report goes into the details of the various causes put forward academically by both theoretical and practical men.
I desire to call attention also to the report of the Massachusetts Commission in 1910; for, although I do not wish in any way to influence the deliberations of our commission at present sitting upon this question, yet the Massachusetts Commission of 1910 seems to me to epitomize two or three of the

principal causes at any rate that enter into this problem of the high cost of living. They mention these causes:
Increase in gold supply.
For myself, I do not take that factor as seriously as economists generally seem to do. Gold has been increasing, but the trade of the world also has been increasing, and the gold is used increasingly in the arts and is hoarded increasingly in India and other parts of the world. The Commission says further that:
The main factors in restricting supply and enhancing the cost of commodities are the drain of population from the land, exhaustion of natural resources and uneconomic methods of production and distribution, especially the latter. The chief influence on the side of demand, the growing concentration of population in great cities, increasing the proportion of nonproducing food consumers, the general advance in standard of living, the national habit of extravagance which has further extended and diversified the demands for comforts and luxuries.
And they find this also:
With regard to the tariff, the trusts and the unions the commission finds that none of these factors can be regarded as a direct and active cause of the increase in prices.
Now, we have had in Canada this situation. The most outstanding and striking fact in the census returns of 1911 was that the rural population of Canada increased only 17 per cent, while the urban population increased 62 per cent. In Ontario and the Maritime provinces,' there was an actual falling off in rural population. There has been also, as pointed out by the Prime Minister last night, an increased consumption per capita. I think it is a fair statement to make that production has not kept pace with consumption, or to put it the other way, consumption has increased more rapidly than has production. There has been a higher standard of living in Canada, and there has been much greater waste. My hon. friend from North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) spoke the other day at a place called Atwood, I presume in his own constituency. He is reported-misreported I have no doubt-as saying in reference to our commission of investigation, that the establishment of this commission is a ' rotten farce.' For my own part, I say, I do not believe the hon. gentleman used that expression. I think the newspaper correspondent was aiming at a sensational or lurid effect. What the hon. gentleman probably said was, that, in his opinion, the commission would be ineffectual, or
that its appointment would hardly be an adequate solution of a very difficult question. But he did say this-and I attach a great deal of weight to what the hon. gentleman says, because he has a sound, strong, practical mind-that the trouble was that we are not producing enough in Canada.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


William Thomas White: When the House
rose at six o'clock I was referring to the speech of the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) at Atwood, in which he was reported to have given it as his view that the chief factor in the high cost of living was under-production, and in that view I was disposed largely to agree. The matter has been one of very considerable interest to me, and in the course of some investigations I recently made I looked into the matter of the raising of live stock in Canada, in Australia and in New Zealand. I found that in Canada the number of cattle per head was a fraction |of one, and that the same may be said with regard to sheep and swine. In other words, the number of cattle, or of sheep or of swine in this country is only a fraction of the population. Turning to Australia and New Zealand, I found that in respect of cattle the number was two per head of population; of sheep, over twenty per head of population. It is apparent, therefore, that both Canada and the United States-because I have ascertained that the United States is in a similar position to Canada-we are not raising a sufficient number of cattle, swine, or sheep.


Mr. NESBITT:: Where did my hon. friend get the statistics with regard to Canada?


William Thomas White: I am unable just at the
moment to answer my hon. friend, but I will supply him with the information later. Coming to the question of the increased cost of living, which has been dealt with by my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition both in this House, and in speeches at Hamilton and Montreal, I desire to call attention to what my right hon. friend said at Montreal. The Daily Telegraph which, I assume, would give a fairly accurate report of what my right hon. friend said, reports him as saying that:
During the fifteen years of our administration you never heard a word against the cost of living.
If 1 take the opportunity of reading a number of quotations which I have here it

will be only for the purpose of refreshing the memory of my right hon. friend in connection with this matter, as I did this afternoon in regard to the question of employment and trade slackening following the money stringency. I quote from the Labour Gazette of January, 1909, published during the regime of my right hon. friend and under the immediate direction of Hon. Mr. Lemieux, then Minister of Labour, and Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King. I assume, therefore, that what I shall read is authentic:
The advance in retail prices which has been so pronounced during the past five years was continued during 1907. Milk, butter, eggs, potatoes, canned fish and vegetables, cereals and other staple articles of consumption were higher in price than in the experience of present householders. A special and detailed investigation conducted by the Civil Service Association at Ottawa, Ontario, into local price tendencies during the past ten years showed that expenditures on necessaries by a family of five living on an income of $750 per year had increased thirty-four per cent during the decade. The investiga-gation was conducted in June prior to a pronounced advance in fuel, breadstuffs and dairy produce which was maintained to the close of the year.
So much for the summary of the Labour Gazette for the year 1907. Now we come to the Labour Gazette of January, 1909, and I shall read just one extract:
On the whole the rapid advance in general cost of living which has been so pronounced since the beginning of the century received a check, and the general situation was one of stationary or easier conditions.
That is precisely what I should expect. After a period of trade slackening, such as we have at the present time, and such as we had in 1908; after the stringency through which we have been passing in 1913, and through which the people of Canada passed in 1907, I should expect a fall, if only a slight one, in the cost of living. I do not desire to pose as a prophet, but I would hazard the prediction that the upward trend of prices will show a decline before the end of tne year 1914. I may be entirely wrong, but I venture that prediction.
Let me now call attention to the facts referred to by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister last evening as to the upward trend of prices during the whole course of the administration of the right hon. gentleman opposite. I shall quote from the reports of the Labour Department. The House understands that the prices are measured by index numbers based upon the average prices of from 230 to 272 commodities selected during the period from 1890 to 1899. That is to say, a period of ten years is taken as 100 and the index number of the
.
succeeding years has relation to that number, so that if the average cost increased by ten or fifteen per cent, the index number of the year in question would be 110 or 115. In 1890 the index number was 110; it fell steadily until 1896, when it reached 92. In other words, the cost of living was lowest in Canada in 1896. From that date forward -and I do not charge this to my right hon. friend-the cost of living has steadily advanced. In 1900 it, the index number, had grown from 92 to 108; in 1907 it had reached 126, and it then receded to 121. In 1911 it had reached 127, in 1912 it was 134, and in 1913 about 135. I may say with regard to the index number of 151, which appears in the report of the Board of Trade (of Great Britain, it is perfectly clear that the comparison was not made upon precisely the same basis with regard to the several countries referred to.
In the case of Canada the prices were wholesale; in the case of the other countries the prices were retail, and the relation of a particular year, 1913 let us say, of the ten-year period between 1890 and 1899 would therefore be unfair as a comparison to Canada. These figures as given show a general increase with respect to these two or three hundred commodities, but so far as the cost of living is concerned the increase has principally taken place in animals and their products. The figures are very striking with regard to the rise in the prices of these products between the year 1906 and the year 1912. For example, in animal and meats-that is, taking them by groups-we find that while the index number in 1896 was 82, in 1900 it had reached 103, and in 1912 it had reached 160. The same statement will apply to dairy products; the index figure with respect to them has risen from 90 in 1896 to 131 in 1907 and to 159 in 1912. And with respect to ' other foods,' in 1896 at the beginning of the administration of my right hon. friend (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) the index number was 102 and by 1912 it had risen to 126. In other words, from 1890 to 1897 the movement was consistently downward, while from 1'896 to 1912 the movement was consistently upward, with the exception of the year 1908 in which there was a slackening or recession of trade following the financial stringency of 1907.
I think the reason the index number lowers in a year like that is that there is a curb set upon extravagance, and consumption is not so great as in years of so-called abounding prosperity.
I have shown that this is not a new question, but that on the contrary it has

been very much discussed privately and publicly for many years past. I doubt if there is any question before the public today that has been more widely discussed throughout the world than this very question of the high cost of living. I desire to point out to my right lion, friend that not only is the question not new, but that it has been actually brought before Parliament and dealt with by his Government. Let me again recall the words used by my right lion, friend in Montreal. He said:
During the fifteen years of our administration you never heard a word against the cost of living.
I will refresh the memory of my right hon. friend by calling his attention to the fact that the Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King when introducing the Combines Investigation Bill in the year 1910, as reported in ' Hansard,' referred to this very matter. I desire to point out to my right hon. friend that this question of the high cost of living was before the public at that time and was deemed of sufficient importance to warrant legislation on the part of his Govern-, ment. The Hon. Mackenzie King, in introducing the Combines Investigation Bill, said:
Perhaps there Is no question to-day which has attracted so much attention in this country, and particularly In the United States, as the question of the cost of living for the mass of the people of the country. We have during the last few years experienced a very serious and considerable rise in prices. This increase in the cost of living has not been confined to any one class, rich and poor alike have had some experience of it, but it has a very serious effect upon men of limited incomes, upon the wage-earning classes, upon those whose salaries are fixed and those who do not receive very much in the way of remuneration. It is this question of the cost of living which has helped to make the question of combines, monopolies, trusts and mergers and the possible effect they may have on prices, so important. In the popular mind there has come to be a gradual association between these two phenomena.
That is almost the same statement as my right hon. friend made in his speech tin Hamilton. Mr. Mackenzie King continues:
Just taking a casual glance at them one observes that in the past 20 years prices have, broadly speaking, increased something like from 30 per cent to 40 per cent in most of the commodities which are in the nature of the produce of the farm and the field. Manufactured articles have not increased to quite the same extent, but there has been a very perceptible upward lift during the last ten years over what was the average rate between 1890 and 1900. As a matter of fact prices were at their lowest ebb in 1896 and 1897. Since that time they have gone up very steadily, and if we look at the movement from 1896 to the present time,
we will see that in some commodities prices have increased as much as nearly 70 per cent or 80 per cent over what was the average in the years 1890-1900.
And yet my right hon. friend in his Montreal speech said that no one ever heard of this issue of the high cost of living dulling all the years of his administration. The Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King went on to read a table showing the increase in wholesale prices by groups of commodities, and the figures given there are very startling. It shows that animals and meats, fourteen commodities, as compared with the decade from 1890 to 1899 increased tin price by forty-eight per cent and as compared with 1898, which was the last year of the Conservative Administration, by eighty per cent. In fish, the increase compared with the decade from 1890 to 1899 was thirty-four per cent, and as compared with 1896, thirty-one per cent. In other foods-thirty-seven commodities were taken-the increase was seven per cent compared with the decade from 1890 to 1899 and twenty-two per cent as compared wiith 1896. It seems perfectly clear then that, upon the figures given by the Labour Gazette, confirmed as they are by this statement filed by the Minister of Labour in Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Government, during the years of the Liberal Administration this was a live question, discussed publiicly and privately, and considered to be a worthy subject of legislation in this House. The Hon. Mr. King continued :
Throughout the Dominion the steady increase in the cost of living, especially since the beginning of the present century, haa been the subject of repeated comment, and, In almost every city or centre of employment, of more or less careful examination. In 1906 the Ontario Educational Association went carefully into the whole matter, in connection with the arrangement of teachers' salaries, with the result that an increase amounting to thirty per cent in ten years was shown. In 1907 an estimate made by the Synod of the Church of England in the city of Quebec placed the increase within the decade at a much higher rate.
The House will observe that all these bodies were considering this question.
In the city of Toronto, an investigation conducted with care and minuteness during 1907, by the Department of Political Economy of the University of Toronto, also showed a higher rate of increase. These examples could be multiplied.
All show upward movement since 1896; 30 to 35 per cent higher average, 1890-99; 40 to 45 per cent higher average, 1896-97.
The cost of living has increased from 30 to 40 per cent, in the case of incomes ranging from $2,000 down to $500. That is a fact

which has impressed itself upon all classes of the community. We find the increase in the cost of living going on simultaneously with the organization of capital on a large scale, the formation of trusts, mergers and combines of one kind or another.
Let me point out, therefore, to my right hon. friend that this question, far from never having been raised during the fifteen years of his administration, was a live issue and was made the subject of legislation by his own Government. It was on account of the high cost of living that his minister was introducing the Combines Investigation Bill as a sovereign remedy. That was the remedy of my right hon. friend, not the abolition of customs duties. That was never suggested by my right hon. friend when the debate took place in the House. Many members on that occasion participated in the debate, among others the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald). He was not sure about this Combines Investigation legislation. He raised doubts about it, as appears from the report of his speech in ' Hansard.' So far as I know, there was only one man in the House who was true to the traditions of free trade and who raised his voice and stated that the high cost of living was due to the tariff. That was the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark). He was true to his free trade principles. It is true,-he has not always been consistent. He apostatized last session on the Naval Bill when he wanted the ships built here instead of at Glasgow. He denied the free trade policy on that occasion; but it is not on record that, like Peter, he went out and wept bitterly. On the' contrary, he rather gloried in it.
I have pointed out that my right hon. friend never suggested at that time'that the tariff was the cause of the increased cost of living. Of course he could not do so. His Finance Minister would not have let him. Let me illustrate what I mean for the benefit of my right hon. friend, who is going to abolish all duties on all foods-not only on farm products but manufactured articles as well. How can my right hon. friend argue that the tariff is the cause of the increased cost of living when the tariff upon the natural products of Canada has remained stationary for about twenty years?
I have taken the trouble to look up the rates of duty on foodstuffs since 1890. I am not going to weary the House by reading this table, but it shows clearly that on butter the tariff has remained stationary or been slightly reduced under the British preferential, at four cents a pound until the revision of the tariff by the Finance Minister of my right hon. friend at the time the
.
Labour Gazette was pointing out the high cost of living. The same remark applies to cheese, the duty on which was three cents a pound in 1890 and lower in 1907 under the customs tariff of to-day. The duty on eggs in 1894 was five cents a dozen and in 1907 three cents a dozen, and so on down the line. I make the statement that upon all these items that enter largely into the question of the high cost of living the tariff has remained constant for twenty years. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the tariff is not the cause of the increased cost of living.
We come now to a rather perplexing problem. As my right hon. friend has offered no explanation, we must do a little guessing. What is the explanation of the new fiscal policy put forth by my right hon. friend, not in the House of Commons, although he referred to it yesterday, but put forward at Hamilton as the policy which he gave the people for the present? Why this sudden interest on his part in the consumer? I think the explanation lies in the attitude that my right hon. friend took on the question of reciprocity. I had hoped that I should not have again to discuss this question in the House, but it appears from what my hon. friend from Red Deer said last night that there is a grave difference of opinion between himself and his leader as to the condition of reciprocity at the present time. My right hon. friend in his Hamilton speech said, speaking of reciprocity: Let the dead past bury its dead. My hon. friend from Red Deer dropped a rather cryptic utterance last night. He said: Reciprocity in its old form will not be with us again, but it is not dead. My hon. friend from Red Deer must be a political Buddhist, believing in reincarnation. He evidently believes in the transmigration, not of souls, but of reciprocity pacts. Now, I regard my hon. friend as not only a very able debater but as a physician of some distinction.
I am beginning to entertain some doubts of his capacity as a physician, because it has taken him two years to find out what is the undoubted fact-and he has not even found it out yet-that reciprocity is dead. My hon. friend said last night that reciprocity was now 50 per cent, in operation. I think we shall find in that statement the explanation of the free food policy of my right hon. friend. He desires that the other 50 per cent, shall come into operation. My right hon. friend will remember that when the reciprocity treaty

was under consideration in this House, there was no suggestion, so far as I have been able to learn from his speeches, that any benefit would inure to the consumer. Let me read to my right hon. friend what he said in the House of Commons on that [DOT]occasion. He said:
One object to-day is to open the door of a nation of 90,000,000 which has been closed to us	I stated a moment ago that the agreement we made, is simply to get better prices for the product of the Canadian farmers. This is a proposition so obvious that I am surprised it should have received the treatment it has received on the part of our friends opposite.
The point I wish to make is that my right hon. friend had not the consumer in mind at all at that time. To clinch that argument, let us see what my right hon. friend did. It was pointed out that the farmer would not get as much benefit as appeared upon the surface, and that by reason of the operation of the most favoured nation treaties the markets of Canada would be opened to the farm products of the thirteen most favoured nations. That argument was put forward, it had some weight, and my right hon. friend thought it worth While to meet it. At the Imperial Conference in June, 1911, my right hon' 'friend presented jthe following resolution, which was adopted:
That His Majesty's Government be requested to open negotiations with the several Foreign Governments having treaties which apply to the Overseas Dominions with a view to securing libetry for any of those Dominions which may so desire to withdraw from the operation of the treaty without impairing the treaty in respect of the rest of the empire.
What	objection	had	my	right hon.friend	at that	time,	in	view of thehigh	cost of	living	that prevailedthen-and if he had any objection, is it	consistent	with	his	course now?-to	these thirteen most favoured
nations having access to the markets of Canada in the interest of the consumer? His position at the present time, in view of this agitation as to the high cost of living, and in view of the Combines Investigation Bill, introduced as a sovereign remedy by his minister, is not consistent with his position then. It is not consistent that at the present time he should advocate the abolition of duties when at that time he was bending all his energies not only against the abolition of duties but to prevent the most favoured nations from having free entry to the markets of Canada in the interests of the consumer. I just leave my right hon. friend to think it over as to why he did that.
During the process of that campaign an argument was developed that, as far as I know, had never been heard before, in order to catch the city and town vote. It was put forward that under reciprocity the farmer would get more for his products and the city dweller would pay less; that is to say, that a farmer living ten or twelve miles out of Ottawa would receive more for his butter and eggs and that a citizen of Ottawa, buying his butter and eggs, would pay less. That puzzled a great number of people in Canada, but it was put forward as an argument, and I do not see how the Liberal party can refuse to continue to argue that. As the tariff can have absolutely no bearing whatever upon the increased cost of living, one possible explanation of the fiscal policy of my right hon. friend is that he desires to bring the other half of reciprocity into operation. He hopes that by his persistency he may ultimately bring it about that we shall have reciprocity between Canada and the United States. We pointed out in that campaign that the farmer in Canada would retain his home markets, which are his steady and stable markets, and his best markets, and that he would, in the process of time, get access to the markets of the United States. To a large extent that position has been confirmed. The Underwood Tariff Bill does open the market of the United States to a very great number of the products of Canada, and the farmers of Canada at the same time have their home market, which they showed by their votes in 1911 they so much appreciated and valued.
Let us see what a free food policy means. My own view is that free food means free trade. I believe that, carried out to its logical conclusion, it is a reversal of the policy under which, during the time of my right hon. friend and of preceding governments, this country has prospered for the last forty years. I believe that it involves a reversal of that policy. A quotation given by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister last night showed that my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition had referred to the protection policy as bondage. Well, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, if it is bondage, I do not believe that the people will consent to be half bond and half free. This Government believes in that reasonable protection where required-believes in a reasonable protection for the industries of Canada in order that her industries may be developed and her home market built up. We believe in protection, and a reasonable pro-

tective policy is one that we feel should include not only the industries of Canada, so called-that is to say, the manufacturing industries-but that it should, in so far as may be necessary, include also the farmers. That has been the policy ever since 1878 and that was the policy in the United States until this year. We are fond of making comparisons between Canada and the United States, but we forget that the United States has has almost a century's start of us, that she has a hundred million of population, that specialized industries have been built up for generations and that it is not fair to compare these two countries as if they were on all fours. Because a certain policy is satisfactory to the United States and suits the people of the United States, it does not necessarily follow that that policy would suit the people of Canada with our population and at our stage of development. I think that very often men with the best of intentions make a mistake in jumping to the conclusion that whatever policy is adopted in the United States is necessarily good for Canada.
Now I come to the end of this discussion as far as I am concerned, as to the increased cost of living. What is the remedy for it ? It is perfectly clear that the abolition of customs duties is not the remedy. That is not going to change the trend upward of the cost of living, because, as I pointed out at the beginning of my remarks, this phenomenon is not confined to Canada. We find it in protectionist countries, we find it in free trade countries, we find it on the continent of America, on the continent of Europe, in Great Britain- it is a universal phenomenon. The solution is not in the abolition of customs duties. What is the solution ? I pointed out to the House that, according to comparative statistics between this country and New Zealand and Australia, we were not raising sufficient cattle, sheep and. swine in Canada. The most practical way to meet this question of the high cost of living-because it is involved with the consideration mentioned by the hon. member for North Oxford more than any other and with the trend cityward-the two are involved together-is to increase the production in Canada. That is the solution of the high cost of living problem-increased production. In Canada for many years we have been in this position that the trend cityward has been such that in the last decade between 1901 and 1911 the urban population increased sixty per cent and rural Canada increased only seventeen per cent, with a decline in Ontario, or a very slight increase-I forget which-I
,
think a decline-and in the Maritime provinces only seventeen per cent of an increase in the rural population and a sixty per cent increase in the urban population at a time when we were getting immigration at the rate of a thousand or twelve hundred a day and at a time when we have large undertakings under construction employing an army of men, all consumers. Yet, we have a declining rural population. What is the remedy ? The remedy is unquestionably increased production. . That is my view-I am speaking only for myself.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: How are you going to increase it ?


William Thomas White: We will come to that. The way not to increase it is to disregard the interests of agriculture, as my right hon. friend did from 1896 to 1911. I am going to show precisely what was done. If a fraction of the money that has been spent upon the National Transcontinental between Moncton and Cochrane had been spent for agriculture, I do not believe this question of the high cost of living would have been to the front to-day. There is an overlapping jurisdiction in agriculture between the Dominion and the provinces.
I asked my department to prepare a statement as to the expenditure upon agriculture for the past four or five years, just in order to get a comparison between the two Administrations in the matter of agriculture. What do I find? I have the items here, and I intend to place them upon ' Hansard.' The total expenditure upon agriculture in 1910-11 was $1,192,417.13. In 1911-12 it had risen to $1,489,973.46. In 1912-13, the first year that we were in power, the expenditure had been increased to $2,436,103, and in 1913-14 we spent more than double the amount that was spent in 1910, namely, $2,630,500. That is not by any means all that this Government has done to promote agriculture.


Hon. RODOLPHE LEMIEUX:: What
has been the result?


William Thomas White: Did my hon. friend hear
the eloquent address of my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) last night? If not, he missed a treat. My hon. friend from Red Deer said: Give it time for operation. The impatience of my hon. friend surprises me sometimes. A Bill was introduced last session by my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Burrell), one of the most important measures, one of the most statesmanlike measures ever introduced into this House, setting aside the sum of $10,000,000, at the rate of $1,000,000

a year for the promotion of agricultural education throughout Canada. I shall be much surprised if that Bill does not produce very substantial results, just as soon as it is possible for it to get into operation, taking agricultural instruction to the farmer, teaching him as to his soils, as to his grains, as to his breeds of cattle. At all events that is a statesmanlike measure. A government that does that is doing something to promote agriculture. Therefore we have expenditures in the Estimates of 191314 of $2,630,500; and, notwithstanding the financial stringency, the Estimates of the coming year for agriculture aTe going to be greater than that. Notwithstanding that increased expenditure, there is $1,000,000 a year set aside for ten years. Whatever money is required by the Minister of Agriculture for the purposes of promoting husbandry throughout Canada, the raising of cattle, the raising of grain, is going to be supplied, so far at all events, as I can supply it. Therefore, in our humble way we have done something to deal with this question of the high cost of living by increasing production in Canada, because I think that is the very gist of the question, to increase production in Canada, to make farm life more agreeable, to make it brighter, to make it more attractive, to counteract the lure of the city and to make it more profitable. Let me ask my right hon. friend this question: how are you going to increase the attractiveness of farming, how are you going to appeal to the farmer's boy to stay on the farm, if you cut down the price of his product? The object of my right hon. friend, as I understand it, by abolishing customs duties upon food, is to cheapen farm products, eggs, butter, cattle, swine, sheep. Is that going to be a sovereign remedy? Will that appeal to the farmer if he gets less for his products? Will it? I ask that question.
I think that concludes that branch of the subject as to the high cost of living, brought into the discussion of my right hon. friend, and the fiscal policy which he announces as the policy of the Opposition -free food-that is to say, the abolition of all custom duties upon natural products and manufactured products constituting food.
The tariff has been somewhat under discussion in this debate upon the Address, although I entirely agree with my hon. friend from Red Deer, who fairly observes the rules of thtis House-in fact, who is somewhat of a stickler for the observance
of its rules-that this is not a Budget occasion, and consequently it is not the time, properly speaking, to discuss questions of the tariff. I am not suggesting for a moment that it is not in order, because any question can be dtiscussed in connection with the - debate upon the Address, either on the ground that it is not in the Speech from the Throne, or that it ought to be in the Speech from the Throne. While that is acknowledged, it is a fact that the proper hime for a debate upon the tariff is when the Bud et is brought down. My hon. friend from Red Deer is a consistent free trader, wit.i one notable exception of backsliding, to which I shall not refer again; because I can imagine that he might be sensitive about it. After all, one fall after a long consistent course of adherence to conviction should not be imputed too harshly to a man.
Hon. GEO. P. GRAHAM:	Speaking personally?


William Thomas White: Well, I am always willing to apply a rule to myself, but when I supported my right hon. friend he was a good protechionist. My hon. friend from Red Deer eulogizes and I join in the eulogy, Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States as a great man. I join sincerely in that tribute to President Wilson. It gives me great pleasure to associate myself in the admiration of my hon. friend from Red De:r for the great head of our neighbouring republic. I have so expressed myself upon previious occasions. My hon. friend from Red Deer is nothing if not vigorous, and he told us last night in the most picturesque and forceful language how President Wilson has taken the American protective system and torn it up by the roots and scattered it to the four winds of heaveh. Those were his words.


Michael Clark: I am sure my hon. frtiend will allow me. My recollection is that I said he had taken protectionist heresies, not the system. It would take time to take the system.


William Thomas White: I do not quite see how it is possible to separate the heresies from the system. I do not believe my hon. friend quite, realizes what is involved in that statement. President Woodrow Wilson is the President who has brought about the revision of the American tariff under the terms of the Underwood Bill. And, in order that

my hon. friend may see just how far he has ' torn up ' either the protectionist system or the protectionist heresies, I want to point out to him that the rate of duties upon dutiable articles in Canada at the present time is under 26 per cent, and I will read to the House what Mr. Underwood, who introduced this Bill, said with regard to its effect upon the tariff of the United States. That will enable the House to see how far he has ' torn up ' the whole fabric of protection-although my hon. friend from Bed Deer did not use that term. This is from the Congressional Record of September last:
With few exceptions the House agreed to the Senate reductions.'^ The Senate receded on about one-half of the raises that it made in the Bill, with the result that the Bill as it is now presented to the House, as ascertained by the calculations made by the experts, will reach an average of about 26 per cent-almost as low as the famous Walker Bill, which carried a low tax on liquor and tobacco-and the tax on liquor and tobacco raises the average of this Bill very much.
I see an estimate in the London Times as to the average rate upon dutiable goods entering the United States under the new tariff, ana that estimate was that it was 29 per cent-three points higher than the figure named by the parent of the Underwood Bill. The point I desire to make is that my hon. friend from Red Deer is filled with admiration for the President of the United States for tearing up these protectionist heresies because he has brought about a situation in the United States unde-which their tariff is higher than that of Canada to-day, and yet the hon. gentleman is opposed to the tariff of Canada because it is a protectionist tariff. That
9 p.m. seems to me to be a reductio ad absurdum.


Michael Clark: What are the respective tariffs of the two countries on agricultural implements?


William Thomas White: At present agricultural implement in Canada-that is, the principal agricultural implements such as binders, reapers, mowers and harvesters-pay 174 per cent. Under the reciprocity agreement negotiated by my predecessor this duty would have been reduced to 15 per cent to remain there practically for all time.


Michael Clark: What is the
tariff in the United States?


William Thomas White: I think these articles are
free.


Michael Clark: Absolutely free.
,


William Thomas White: My hon. friend will correct me if I am wrong. I try to carry as many of these matters in my head as I can, but I cannot carry them all.


Michael Clark: That abolition of duty means something 'torn up.'


William Thomas White: The point I am making is that while my hon. friend from Red Deer is continually attacking our tariff, the tariff of the United States to-day, with the changes made to which he has referred, has a higher average of duty on dutiable commodities than has the tariff of Canada. I deal with the tariff as a whole because the hon. gentleman was dealing with it in that way and not with any particular duty. Mr. Underwood goes on:
To all intents and purposes, the Bill that is now presented to the House for its consideration provides an average of lower taxation than any Bill that has been presented in three-quarters of a century.
It follows, then, that the tariff of Canada which my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) is advising us to. revise-and in a year like this of all years-is lower than any tariff in the United States for three-quarters of a century. Yet my hon. friend from Red Deer tells us to look to the United States. Mr. Underwood proceeds:
The Wilson Bill carried an average rate of duty of 39.95 per cent. The Payne Bill carries an average rate of duty of 40.12 per cent, as compared with about 26 per cent that this Bill will carry.
My hon. friend has asked the Government to make an announcement as to certain matters brought to their attention by a delegation of farmers. There has been in Canada, I believe, ever since Conderera-tion and earlier, what I regard as a sound practice, namely, that announcements respecting the tariff are made only to Parliament, on the floor of Parliament and in the Budget speech. Personally, I have jealously guarded that rule. I consider it an eminently sound practice. I do not propose, and the Government does not propose, to depart from that rule, that custom, that sound practice. Whatever announcements the Government has to make respecting the tariff will not be made on ill-timed, unexpected occasions, but will be made in due course, at the proper time and in the Budget speech, and in the proper place, upon the floor of Parliament.
My right hon. leader (Mr. Borden) has called my attention to the language of

my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) in connection with this matter. He said:
I see the hon. member for York (Mr. McLeod) still gets lessons from that great coun-rty, because he quoted it in one particular in his speech to-night. Well, I looked to the great country to the south and I kept on looking, and now I turn to my hon. friends opposite and I say: Look at the great country to the south and what do you see? We see a great, simple and sincere man coming into office and cutting up protection and tearing its economic fallacies and false arguments into shreds and casting them to the four winds of heaven.
Notice the vigor and enthusiasm of that utterance.


Michael Clark: That is'what I said-'fallacies and false arguments.'


William Thomas White: Scripta manet. Having
read the words of my hon. friend from Red Deer, I do not see any reason to change the view I expressed as to his utterance, unless he meant what he said about 'cutting up' protection to be taken in a merely figurative sense. I supposed that by 'cutting up' he meant making mincemeat of protection.
I fear that I have engaged the attention of the House for too long a time on this occasion; and I am very grateful to hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House for the close attention they have given me. I desire briefly to go over the heads of the subjects upon which I have touched. I referred to the naval question, and in this connection I want to ask my hon. friends opposite one question. In the speech of my right hon. friend I did not hear very much with regard to these two splendid battle units, one on the Atlantic and one on the Pacific, which were to be the immediate programme of hon. gentlemen opposite. I have not heard anything about the expenditure of $50,000,000 that would be required, $25,000,000 for each fleet, or the annual upkeep of $6,000,000, representing four per cent interest on $150,000,000. Perhaps the hon. member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) when dealing with this matter will tell us whether that is his programme at the present time. Will hon. gentlemen opposite engage in this expenditure, to say nothing of the enormous expense that would be involved in establishing armament manufactories in Canada in order that the ships composing those units may be constructed wholly in Canada, afterwards to be manned and operated by Canadians?
In so far as the attack upon our expenditure is concerned. I contend that, as compared wdth the record of hon. gentlemen opposite, this Government has been a prudent and economic government; that we have conserved the revenues of the Dominion, and that our surplus revenues have really been used to repair the mistakes made by our predecessors in office. In the fiscal years 1911-1912 our revenues were $168,000,000 and our expenses were kept within the moderate bounds of $143,000,000, giving a surplus over current, capital and special expenditure of $25,000,000. We used that $25,000,000, as I have said, for the purpose of repairing the blunder made by hon. gentlemen opposite in connection with the giving of the guarantee to the Grand Trunk Pacific. And yet hon. gentlemen opposite have the temerity to attack this Government for retrieving the errors which they themselves made, and for avoiding the loss of money and national credit which might have resulted from those mistakes. Considering the fact that we have devoted the greater portion of our expenditure to. the completion of enterprises promoted and inaugurated by hon. gentlemen opposite, I must say that their attitude is something like the unnatural parent denouncing the benefactor of his children. Any unusual financing we have done this year is not due to any programme initiated by this Government; it is but the aftermath of my right hon. friend's financial methods during his term of office, resulting in the expenditure of $22,000,000 with $10,000,000 more to come, to pay for the three per cent bonds guaranteed by the Government of Canada to the Grand Trunk Pacific. I hope therefore, that we shall hear no more about this question of lavish expenditure since we have taken office.
With regard to the cost of living, as I have said, the best remedy is to increase production, and we intend to do what we can, by the promotion of agriculture, to accomplish that most desirable end. The mew fiscal policy of my right hon. friend is simply a re-incarnation of reciprocity, which was pronounced against by the people of this country in 1911. As to the tariff, I have this to say to the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean). Prom time to time there are, of course, changing conditions which have to be met, but to consider as he suggests, a revision of the tariff downward in a year such as this-a year of slackening trade-and after such a period of financial stringency as that through which we have passed, would be to dislocate the industries of this country. So far as I know, there is no public opinion in

favour of a revision of tariff at this particular time. As I said in the beginning of my speech, we have gone through a very trying period; a long continued and severe depression. -But the light is now beginning to break; money is easier in the international centres, and that is the most hopeful sign to-day. Last fall was a good season for ploughing in Canada, and, with the promise of a favourable crop in the spring and the easing off of the money situation, this country should soon resume its wonted prosperity. No doubt we should go ahead cautiously for a time; it is very proper that we should, but the people of Canada should proceed also with confidence, and hon. gentlemen opposite should not, I think, discourage that confidence.
With regard to government expenditure, this Government has vast enterprises in hand, most of them inaugurated by our predecessors. We propose to carry out these public works; we propose to complete the great works to which we have committed ourselves. Extravagance is always to be deprecated, and I will never stand up in this House and defend the spending of money simply for the sake of spending it. That is unsound; on the other hand a policy of parsimony or timidity is more unsound. The middle course is the sound and . sensible policy from the standpoint of private or national finance, and that is the course we propose to pursue.
Hon. FRANK OLIVER (Edmonton); In attempting to offer some remarks to the House in this debate, I hope that my hon. friend the Finance Minister will not understand me as accepting on behalf of hon. gentlemen on this side the somewhat lengthy apology he has given for the position of the Government and its inaction in regard to the crisis which exists throughout the country. I was particularly interested in the remarks which my hon. friend had to offer on what at one moment he was pleased to call the new policy, and what at other moments he was pleased to designate as the old policy of the leader of the Opposition. I will not spend- further time in criticising that' part of my hon. friend's remarks, except to say that, carefully following them, it seemed to me that the latter half completely answered the first. Whereas he declared specifically in the beginning of his remarks that certain industries to the extent of hundreds of millions of capital and thousands of people would be in danger if the policy enunciated by the leader of the Opposition were adopted, in the latter half of his remarks he was at great trouble to prove
.
that by no possible change in the tariff could the cost of living be reduced.
The remarks of my hon. friend followed very closely the lines laid down in the Speech from the Throne, as well as in the addresses delivered in support of the position of the Government as there set out. This, I believe, is the first occasion in the history of the Canadian Parliament on which the Government has met Parliament with what can only be described as a purely ostrich policy. They have dropped, or forgotten, or ignored their policy regarding highways which at last session was one way of saving the country; they have ignored and dropped their policy regarding extensions of the Intercolonial railway ; have they ignored and dropped that great policy that was not only to save the country but also the empire, the naval question? And, Mr. Speaker, although they have relieved their minds of these important questions, in all the broad expanse of this Dominion of Canada, in its three thousand miles from ocean to ocean, with its seven millions of people and its rapidly growing interests, they have not found anything that requires the attention of Parliament at this session of sufficient importance to be mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, with the one exception alluded to by my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark), legislation that is automatically required by the British North America Act.


Rodolphe Lemieux: And even with regard to that they are late.


Mr. OLIVER:: May I say, Mr. Speaker, that the attitude of the Government in the two previous sessions was that of the ostrich that runs around in a circle, but this session it is that of the ostrich which, having found no result from the circling process, sticks its head in the sand and thereby hopes to protect itself and to deceive its enemies. May I be pardoned if I suggest that the position is not graceful; it is not creditable, and it is decidedly vulnerable?
I think, Mr. Speaker, that our friends are under a misapprehension as to their responsibilities and as to the conditions in this case. I observe that so far from giving any intimation to the country that they have any views or intentions with regard to legislation, they have so far confined their allusions to expressions as to the policy of the party of the Opposition and of their honored leader. Far be it from me to in any way minimize the importance of these views and expressions by the leader of the Opposition and his followers in the House, but let me sug-

gest that the questions at issue before this country are to be decided by the Government on its responsibility and not on the views or opinions of the members of the Opposition, or even of the great leader of the Opposition. And may I suggest further that these gentlemen cannot escape from their responsibility, nor can this House afford the time to discuss or consider opinions that may have been expressed years ago; actions that were taken years ago; opinions that were proper and well supported at that time; actions that were taken for good reason and with sufficient results at that time. The fact of these actions and these reasons having been taken has no necessary bearing on present conditions. My hon. ftiends opposite in their attitude as expressed this session, bring to my mind the criticism of that great royal Bourbon family, of whom it was said: they never forgot anything and never learned anything. But our Mends of the Government have gone the Bourbons one better, for judging by their policy as expressed in the Speech from the Throne, they have forgotten everything, and judging of it as expressed in the speeches of their supporters delivered in this House, they do not seem to have learned anything.
I may be permitted to deal at some length with the situation of the country as it tis and with the duties and responsibilities of the Government in connection with that situation. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have an easy way of dealing with it. They say: True, the times are hard; the times have been hard before and possibly will be hard again; wliat is that to us; why in 1907 times were hard and the then Government met Parliament with a paragraph in the Speech from the Throne parallel to the announcement which is inserted in the present speech. That is their idea of the fulfillment of their whole duty in a great national crisis. But let me remind them that the paragraph they have been good enough to quote from the speech of 1907 did not state that action had been taken Dy the Government of that day to meet wnat was on their showing a crisis parallel to that with which we are face to face to-day. My hon. friend knows well that on .the occasion of the depression of 1907 this Government did take such action to meet the conditions then existing; that when Parliament afterwards met they were criticised by the Minister of Trade and Commerce in words 6
to the effect that they might as well have taken crowbars and gone down to the treasury vaults as take the action they did. While gentlemen opposite say: Yes, times are hard, they were hard before and will be hard again, and we have nothing to do with it, the late Government took drastic action, action which was I believe outside the law, in order to meet the conditions, and they did meet them. And that was one reason why the country recovered as rapidly as it did on that occasion. I ask my hon. friends, charged with the direction of the public affairs of this country as they are, what warrant have they for presuming that matters will improve if they will only leave them alone? I am not prepared to say but that their judgment may be right in this particular instance, but I do say that they have no right to assume that that is the case. Nor have they any right to assume that they are doing their full duty that being the ease. I would ask my hon. friends, to what end does Parliament meet, for what purpose is the Government in office, if it is not to meet from day to day conditions as they arise, so that the people of this country will be benefited. If the Government has not that authority, if Parliament has not that responsibility, I ask, to what end are we here? Is the Government and Parliament a body whose sole duty is to levy taxes and to spend money? If that is my hon. friend's idea of the sole duty of Parliament, I take issue with him here and now, and so I think the country will.
I was struck by the stress that my hon. friend laid on the amount of money that was being spent in aid of agriculture, and particularly in agricultural education, by this Government as compared with expenditures by the previous Government. He brought out strongly the difference in the amounts spent, but I think it was when he made his claims as to the result of the expenditures by his Government that he excelled himself. We are to have a reduction in the cost of living without a reduction in the tariff. We are going to have a result that will mean many many millions of dollars to the people of this country by means of this expenditure. My hon. friends are spending about a million dollars a year more than their predecessors did in aid of agriculture. It is peculiar that our hon. friends who are so generous to agriculture, who expect such magnificent results from that generosity, should have up to date specifically refused, so far as the records show, every request that has been made by the author-



ized voice of agriculture in this country. I have here a report of a delegation which visited Ottawa recently. It comprised representatives from the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association, the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association, the United Farmers of Alberta, and the Ontario Grange. They met members of the Government, including the Premier, the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Public Works, the Postmaster General, the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of the Interior and the hon. member for East Toronto (Mr. Kemp), to whom they stated their views and desires. May I point out that one of their specific requests read as follows:
We aslc that all foodstuffs be placed on the free list, as we believe that the taxing of food is a crime against humanity.
Hon. .T. D. REID:	What did the other
deputation of farmers say on the same day?


Frank Oliver: I was speaking of the
organized farmers of the four great agricultural provinces. I say their demands expressed in formal manner lead me to believe what the farmers believe rather than the Finance Minister or the other gentlemen who heard the farmers. I am one of those who believe that the' farmers speaking by and large generally know their own business and know what they want.


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: Did the organized farmers ever come to the late Government?


Frank Oliver: Yes.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Did they get what
they asked for? I will endeavour to show before this debate is over that they did not.


Frank Oliver: We will be glad to hear
from my hon. friend, but I do not know how he can fail to remember that something like one thousand came here. They made certain demands and the Government of that day acceded to those demands, but my hon. friend and his friends were able ultimately to defeat the Government because of those demands. Notwithstanding that fact, we still believe that the farmers knew what they-wanted and, speaking for myself, I believe they wanted what was their right, and am prepared to stand behind that principle, win or lose.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: When you are in
opposition.


Frank Oliver: I think perhaps I could
not do better than to place before the ,
House and on the record some statements made by this delegation to the members of the Government, as they bear very strongly on this question of the high cost of living. They say in their memorial:
In four years previous to January, 1913, fifty-six industrial mergers were negotiated, with an aggregate authorized capitalization of $456,938,266. The fifty-six amalgamations absorbed 248 individual companies. The aggregate capitalization of 206 of these individual companies was approximately $167,289,182, indicating that, whereas the people of "Canada had to provide dividends on $167,000,000, they have now to provide dividends on three times that amount. This enormous increase in capitalization is almost wholly made up of common stock, which admittedly represents very little real investment, being simply protection capitalized. A few outstanding illustrations are: The Canada Cement Company, Montreal, capitalized at $38,000,000, absorbed eleven companies with a total capital of $17,750,000 ; Ames-Holden & Mc-Cready, boots and shoes, capitalized at $11,- 500,000, absorbed two campanies, capital $3,500,000 ; Canada Cereal and Malting Company, capitalized at $3,250,000, absorbed eight companies with $809,000. capital; Dominion Can-ners, Hamilton, capitalized at $12,500,000, absorbed forty-five individual companies whose capital was given as $1,324,000. The total capitalization of manufacturers for the Dominion of Canada, according to the census returns, increased from $446,916,487 in 1901 to $1,247,58 9,609 in 1911; the ascertained surplus after deducting cost of raw material, wages, power, &c., from the gross revenues, showed an increase of net earnings on capitalization from 19.82 per cent in 1901 to 25 per cent in 1911.
I noted in the remarks, I think, of both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, that they could not understand how the farmer could receive a higher price and the consumer pay a lower price; but the farmers in this memorial throw some light on this subject. They say:
The average price paid farmers for tomatoes last year at Ontario factories was 30 cents per bushel. In some cases the price ran as low as 27J cents. It is stated that a bushel of these tomatoes will, under ordinary conditions, fill ten cans, the price of which to the consumer in western Canada is 20 cents per can.
I will place it before you if there is not ample room for an increase in the price for the producer and a decrease in the cost to the consumer. It is a puzzle for the Government to work out to show that the spread between the price received by the producer and the price paid by the consumer is not an inordinate one and does rot represent extortion upon either the producer or she consumer. That is their business, Mr. Speaker. To follow on:
That is to say, what the Ontario farmer gets 3 cents for (the Manitoba farmer pays 20 cents for. The manufacturers' census of 1911 shows the surplus earnings of canning factories of'

fruit and vegetables to be equal to 50 per cent, of the capital employed in the business. At the annual meeting of the Dominion Canners, Limited, in December last, it was given out that the net earnings of the company, after paying all fixed charges were 12 per cent on the common stock, which is supposed to represent nothing but water, and was selling on the stock exchange at S6.
Protection is intended to increase the cost of goods in the interest of the home manufacturer. It may be safely assumed that he will add the full amount of his protection to the selling price of his goods. Now the census and trade returns show in 1911 that for every dollar's worth of dutiable goods we imported, we manufactured $4 worth, consequently for every dollar we paid to the Government for revenue we paid four to the manufacturer.
I do not intend to traverse at any great length the question as to tne condition of the country as it is; but I think it is no harm to bring in the evidence of authorities that no one in the House or the country can dispute, for the purpose of showing that the Government of Canada have a responsibility and that the country calls upon them to discharge that responsibility. In the Ottawa Citizen, which is generally supposed to be a supporter of the Government of the day, and is published near enough to these halls to have a knowledge of the facts, I read as follows:
Unemployed in Canada.
Reports come from practically every center of population in Canada of large numbers of unemployed who are feeling the pinch of poverty. In the cities of the West there has been industrial distress for several months. The number of unemployed has been greatly in excess of the number to be expected by reason of the end of the demand for seasonal labour in the prairie provinces, and the consequent unemployment of the men so engaged. In British Columbia the same conditions have existed. In Regina, Sask., the situation is such that the police find it difficult to maintain order, it being feared for a time that martial law might have to be declared. That ominous institution, the soup kitchen, has made its appearance in this young and prosperous country. In Montreal hundreds of men stood in line at midnight to receive coffee and bread. In Toronto it is estimated that there are at present 15,000 men out of work, with the number on the increase.
In to-day's Ottawa Free Press, published here in the Capital city, I read the following:
Toronto Wants Work Started-Thirty Million Dollars Worth There to Help the City's Unemployed.
Toronto has adopted the plan resorted to in India in times of famine and has asked the Government for relief works. There are plans and appropriations for ten million dollars harbour improvements, for a new customs house, a new post office and the railways have plans for a new union station.
6*
Altogether there is about thirty million dollars' worth of work in sight. Some has not been started and what has been commenced is being proceeded with in a leisurely fashion.
To-day-
To-day, when the Minister of Finance took his place in this House and tried to make Canada believe that he did not know what the conditions were, or that the conditions are as they are-
To-day Mayor Hocken, Controller Church and Controller Simpson waited upon Hon. Robert Rogers, Hon. J. D. Reid and Hon. L. P. Pelle

 tier, and asked that operations be started full blast upon all of these works to provide relief for the army of unemployed in Toronto.


Hon. J. D. REID:: The Free Press is not stating the truth; I was not there at all and never heard of it until I saw the Free Press.


Frank Oliver: They also waited upon Chairman Drayton of the Railway Commission and asked him to make a peremptory order directing the railways immediately to begin work upon the union depot.
A sympathetic hearing was given the requests and it is understood that strong efforts will be made to meet the situation disclosed by the Toronto representatives.
The Minister of Finance read from the Labour Gazette of 1907 as to the conditions then. Wotild it be any harm to read from the Labour Gazette of December, 1913, as to conditions now?
Victoria.-Labour conditions were dull, not so good as during October, and much worse than the same month a year ago.
Nanaimo.-The labour situation shows very little change from last month, the city and district being full of idle men owing to the strike in the coal mines causing a general slackness in all branches of business.
Vancouver.-Industrial activity was less than it was at this time last year. Large numbers of unemployed men were walking the streets, and so serious is the situation that at a special meeting of the city council, held on November 21, a sum of money was voted for the purpose of opening up relief work for married men at $2.00 a day.
Lethbridge.-There was no improvement in labour conditions over last month. Farm help was not in demand. The city has been extending sewer and water connections, giving work to a number of men who otherwise would be idle. The building trades were dull. Work in the railroad yard is still being pushed ahead. Coal mining was very active, giving work to increasing number of men. All other branches of employment were dull.
And so on, practically all along the line.
I think, in view of all these quotations, it will not be argued that there is not a condition that requires the attention of the Government, if the Government has any purpose or business as such. If they are

to take the position, as they have so far taken it, that they have no responsibility; that it is only their business to levy the taxes and spend the money as they please, and wait for things to right themselves, it is desirable that that point should be nailed in the public mind, and that they should stand before the country of Canada as a Government in office and in power, not only unable, not only unwilling, but absolutely unknowing as to the conditions that require their attention.	.
Admitting that there are conditions that require attention, may I be permitted, Mr. Speaker, to bring before the House some information and views of my own as to how and why that condition exists, with a view of directing attention to the means necessary to secure its removal. My hon. friend has said, and has repeated and repeated that conditions in Canada are only as they are elsewhere throughout the world; that conditions are only as they were in 1907. What were the conditions in 1907? Everybody knows that the conditions in Canada were immediately, directly and unquestionably due to a condition of financial panic in the United States, such as that country had seldom seen, such as seldom occurred before and such as never has occurred since, and certainly such as does not exist now. At that time Canada Ijad suffered from serious failure in production. We had had a terribly severe winter in the West that wiped out possibly half of the range cattle, thus cutting off several million dollars in the winter of 1907-8. The summer was unfavourable. The harvest was late. The crop was damaged. Conditions were unfavourable in Canada; but still it was the panic in the United States that caused the financial stringency and made the difficulty that had to be coped with upon that occasion. To-day, as has been said and as has been repeated, Canada has harvested the largest crop that she has ever harvested. She has harvested it under the most favourable conditions; she has marketed it under the most favourable conditions, except as to price. There is no panic in the United States. Conditions of finance and labour in the United States to-day are better than they are in Canada. In Great Britain conditions not only are good but are magnificently good, both in regard to labour and finance. Canada is the country to-day that stands by herself as the country of depression, in the face of the most magnificent crop it ever harvested. In 1907, in the face of a bad winter, in the face of a bad summer, Canada still stood as the best of the countries within our immediate range, as far as finances were concerned. There is
,
no comparison between the conditions in 1907 and the conditions of to-day.
Just as the conditions of 1907 had a cause, which was the panic in the United States, so the conditions of to-day have a cause, and the conditions of to-day call for a remedy. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. White) repeated and repeated that the cure for the present condition, for the high cost of living, for the financial stringency, was increased production, more people on the land, and more production from the land. There is no doubt that is the cure; but my hon. friend did not give us any indication as to how he was going to apply the cure, and he did not even hold out the idea that he was in any way responsible for its application. Let me point out how the disease has come about, as I understand it. Enough has been said to demonstrate beyond question that, when all the great financiers, all the great industrial institutions and all the great transportation organizations are set on one side, the source of the wealth of Canada is the land; and the progress of its wealth is absolutely dependent upon the progress of the cultivation of the land, which again is contained in the agricultural development of the prairie provinces. If we have had increasing prosperity in Canada, we have had it because there has been increasing production in our prairie west.
My hon. friend the Minister of Finance almost shed tears over the fact that the late Government had practically ignored the agricultural industry. Does my hon. friend know that under the late Government, if I may quote from the material which was presented to himself, amongst others, by the delegates from the western provinces and Ontario, the acreage under crop in the three western provinces in the year 1901 was about 2,500,000 acres, and in 1911 it was over 17,000,000 acres? This agriculture that the late Government did not encourage increased seven-fold during ten years under the administration of the late Government. I ask my hon. friend, has he any hope or prospect that it will increase seven-fold under his administration, with the aid even of his $1,000,000 a year for agricultural education? It was that increase in cultivation in the West that made Canada; that built the railroads, that started the factories, that gave dividends to the banks; that created the great commercial houses; that did whatever has been done that amounted to any-

thing in those years. It was the foundation of it all. The homesteader on the prairie with his yoke of oxen or his team of horses and his plough, who has been held up to obloquy as the miner of wheat, who has been advised by my hon. friend to go into mixed farming in order to save the country, this was the man who made Canada. What treatment has he had at the hands of my hon. friend and his friends since they came into office? They will educate him. Yes. But he needs something more than education. I would like to say to my hon. friend that the western farmer is fairly well educated in what constitutes his own business. The fact that he has done what he has done is all the evidence that is necessary upon that point.
Let me call the attention of the House back to the year 1911, the year when my hon. friend took office. There were unfortunate weather conditions at that time. There was a damaged crop. There was a grain blockade. I had the honour to bring to the attention of the House facts . and figures, which were not denied in any degree, showing that the direct loss to the wheat farmers of the prairie west that year, because of the grain blockade then existing, which did not need to exist, which should not have existed, and which would not have existed if this Government had taken proper action, was not less than $10,000,000 in cold cash.
In the year 1912 there was an-
10 p.m. other occasion of unfavourable harvesting conditions, another year of late forwarding of the crop, another year of partial grain blockade. I shall not trouble the House with figures; but, if my memory serves me right, while in the year 1911 the condition became so bad and the facts were impressed so strongly upon the attention of the Government, that they did finally take certain action, in the year 1912, as far as I recall, the grain blockade existed without any relief at the hands of the Government of the day.
The farmer of the West does not raise wheat for fun or for the sake of its appearance. He raises it to sell, and upon the price that he gets for that wheat depends the possibility of his continuing in business. If he makes a profit, he stays in business, let the profit be never so small. If he does not make a profit, what happens to the banker or the manufacturer or the merchant, happens to the farmer; the
sheriff gets him; he goes out of business. One of the factors affecting the price of wheat to the farmer is the cost of transportation. The distance from the wheat field to the ultimate market is stupendous. Toll is taken at every point, by the receiving elevator, the railroad, the terminal elevator, the steam-boat over the lakes, the receiving elevator again, the railroad, the ocean elevator, the ocean vessel, and again the ocean elevator.
We have been told at great length in this House about the steamship combine on the Atlantic ocean and how that has undulv increased the rates of freight upon the western farmers' wheat, causing the depression in prices. There is no doubt that combine has taken place. There is no doubt that fact has materially affected and limited the profit of the farmer in the West. Ocean transportation is not within the jurisdiction of this House. It is a magnificent subject for declamation, and speeches made on that subject look well on ' Hansard,' but they do not mean anything. They do not get anywhere; they do not take anything off the rates of transportation, and they do not add anything to the price of the farmers' wheat. But there is a link in that line of transportation which is within the jurisdiction of this Government and Parliament of Canada, that link which extends from Fort William at the head of Lake Superior to such port at the foot of Georgian bay or other lake ports as may occur. This is a link of transportation that is within the jurisdiction of this Parliament, and what has taken place on the ocean has taken place on the lakes. A lake merger has been formed and the rate of freight across the lakes has cost the farmer from one to two or even three cents a bushel during this and the previous year. What have our friends on the other side done in that regard? Everybody will remember that last session a Bill was before the House to make provision for an increased capitalization for the express purpose of giving that merger firmer control of the situation, and facts advertised in the newspapers, stated the reason for the forming of the merger as being for the purpose of levying toll upon the transportation of wheat. When the question was brought to the attention of the Government, they were asked to take action. Votes were taken upon it in this House and what was the answer? They have money to spend for the education of the farmer, but they have no attention to give to secure for him a fair price for his product, or to protect

him against the rapacity and extortion of mergers and combines. We have this year 150,000,000 bushels of wheat marketed up to this time. The price of every bushel that is actually marketed is based upon the export price. That is to say, the price of every bushel of that 150,000,000 bushels has been subjected to a reduction by the amount of the extortion of the lake merger, an average of two cents a bushel, as I am credibly informed. That means that there has been taken out of the farmers' pockets this year, out of the pockets of the raisers of wheat, in a winter when the price is abnormally low, $3,000,000 with the knowledge and consent and assistance of thiis Government and their majority in Parliament. And they are going to save the country by the amount of education they propose to give the farmers. They are teaching the farmer a good many things he did not know a few years ago, but I think that the farmer will teach them something when the next opportunity occurs.
I have told the House that the farmers of the West lost $10,000,000 on the crop of 1911, I have not given the figures for the crop of 1912, but I have given $3,000,000 with regard to the crop of 1913. What lis the result? The result is that while the farmer some years ago was farming at a profit; while farming was increasing from year to year, it having increased from two and a half to seventeen million acres in ten years, it has practically been at a standstill during these three years. The lincrease of production which was the gold mine of Canada has not occurred in those years, and for that reason. Immigration into Canada has increased, but homestead entries have decreased; there were 10,000 less entries in the year ended March 31, 1913, than there were in the year ended March 31, 1911. This is how my hon. friends opposite have been pushing people on to the land; this is how they have been encouraging (increased cultivation and helping to bring down the cost of living.
I have read from the memorial of the farmers' delegation a quotation showing the burden that has been placed upon the whole of the consumers of this country, and upon the farmer more than any other, by the capitalization of protection and the formation of mergers. I have mentioned the canners' combine, which (increased to the consumers of the West the cost of the product of that combine, a necessary of life in that country, by seventy per cent.
,
Again we are told that the farmers need education; what I say is that the farmer needs a living chance; he needs a fair opportunity, and it is for this Government to meet conditions as they arise and to give the farmer the opportunity to which he is entitled, and of which if he gets it, he will take full advantage for the good of himself and the good of the country.
But what has that to do with the conditions of finance and labour in Canada as a whole? I said in the beginning, and I say again, that as the increase of cultivation in the West was the gold mine upon which the increase of Canada's prosperity was built in the last ten yeirs, so when that gold mine ceases to increase in production, will the prosperity built upon it cease to increase in corresponding degree. If the farmers in the West do not make a profit, they cannot buy the products of the factories of the East. If there are factories closed up in the province of Ontario to-day-and there are; if there are others running on half time and on reduced wages-and there are; if collections are difficult and	money	is
tight, it is in a large measure because the farmers of the western prairie have not been dealt with fairly or justly by this Government since it came into office. Hon. gentlemen opposite may say ' this does not concern us.' I say it does concern them. When there is a lack of employment, when there is a lack of business, it is for the Government to search out the cause and apply the remedy. I give them in a large measure the cause; I give them the remedy. Give us favourable conditions in the West in regard to transportation, in regard to the tariff and in regard to land conditions generally, and we will give you increased cultivation; we will give you increased production; we will give you increased prosperity. But we cannot make bricks without straw. If you tie our hands; if you burden our backs; if we must pay excessive tolls to the railway companies, the steamship companies, the canners' combine, and every kind, shape and form of business interest that can claim the protection of this Government, then you cannot get favourable results. The resultwill be that you must face the same condition that faced this country during the unfortunate period when the predecessors of the late Government were in office, when the same policy as the one which my hon. friend has vaunted here to-night was the policy of the Government, and when the country wound up in the same condition as that

towards which it is rapidly going to-day.
My hon. friend says we cannot change the tariff in an era of hard times. I ask him when should we change the tariff, if not during a period of hard times ? Why are times hard ? Because-I am speaking now to the Minister of Finance-because people spend more than they have; because they need to get more money and to spend less. Then surely it is obvious, even to a minister of finance, that to give the benefit of wider markets to the great productive interests of the country and to lessen the taxation paid by the whole people would surely be a me'asurable remedy for the shortage of money. But my hon. friend says no. He says that at this time we cannot do anything; we must wait until, I suppose, times get better. I take my hon. friend at his word; he has declared the policy of his Government, and I desire to register my strongest opposition to him.
I have a clipping here which I wish to place before the House, following up the idea that the burdens which are carried by the western farmer and by the whole of the consumers of this country are unreasonable, that they have tended to bring about the present condition, and that they call for remedy at the hands of the Government. It will be said that the late Government did not apply any remedy. That is true. There were many things that the late Government did not do. If that Government had done everything that ought to have been done, there would be no need for this Parliament. I quote from the Canadian Grocer of Nov. 29, 1912:
There are many staple lines of groceries that no one except a legitimate retailer can purchase,-
This was in 1912, it will be noted. That was not under the late Government; this is an announcement made while hon. gentlemen opposite were in office.
*-and they must also he bought from legitimate wholesale groceries at prices set by the manufacturer. These include well-known brands of sugar, cereals, syrups, canned goods, soups, etc.
That is to say, the ordinary necessaries of life, articles of food and of the greatest utility, we are buying in an absolutely restricted market and at prices fixed, not by the law of supply and demand, but by the avarice of those who control that market.	.
My hon. friend says that the tariff would not make any difference. Well, as I have said, he answered that theory himself so well that it would be out of place for me to
spend any time upon it. I do not know that the tariff would make all the difference, but I do submit-and it is a well-known fact-that it is the foundation upon which the combines build their arrangements, and the taking awajr of the tariff would be the first step, and the most necessary step, towards breaking the combines. My hon. friend from South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) reminds me that I am beating the air in making this argument to the House.
I call upon my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, who has already proved absolutely, not by words but by acts, the truth of my argument. He did this when he took off half the duty on cement. Why did he do that? Because there was a combine. He then 'believed that the reduction of the duty would have a beneficial effect in favour of the consumers of cement. And he was right; the place where he was wrong was when he put the duty back.
On the question of the high cost of living and the advice of my hon. friend that we all go out and raise steers*, let me give the House some information from a point of view that I have not gathered from the newspaper criticisms of the situation that I have seen. There seems to be a general idea running through the newspaper comments that beef is scarce because prices are high. Now beef is scarce because the price a few years ago was so low. The arrangements as to marketing beef in Canada were such that the price was forced down to the lowest possible margin, and hundreds of people went out of keeping cattle because the keeping of cattle did not pay. The increase in the price, of beef will mean an increase in * the quantity of beef in due course; and my hon. friend the Minister of Finance if he will only not shut our beef out of the American market, can depend upon it that the price that we have received because of our access to that market will insure an adequate supply of beef in due course. In 1908 the average price of beef cattle in Winnipeg was $3.53 per 100 pounds. In 1913, the average price was $6.07 per 100 pounds. The price nearly doubled in that time. And to-day the price in Chicago is $7.50 per 100 pounds. Now I need not labour the argument:-that in the case of the farmer as in the case of every other business man it is the profit on the business that enables him to carry it on; that if he does not make a profit he cannot remain in business; and that when the price of his wheat or his cattle is forced down so that he does not make a profit, he cannot pay his debts, he is forced out of business, and production is

reduced to a corresponding degree. Give the farmer a profit and the farmer will give you the production. If you are not going to let the farmer have a profit; if you are going to ba k the railroad companies against him, if you are going to back the canners' combine -against him, if you are going to back the bank against him, if you are going to back every interest that comes along against him, you are going to put him out of business and you are going to get the results you have got.
That reminds me:	At the last
session of Parliament we had a revision of the Bank Act. An amendment was inserted to make provision tlqit banks might lend money on wheat. When the Bill was before the House the proposal that banks should be allowed to lend money on cattle was brought to the attention of the Minister of Finance. It was considered advisable that there should be the same privilege in regard to cattle that was given in regard to wheat. Did my hon. friend make this Chamber ring with his assertions as to the desirability of the farmer going into mixed farming, and everybody going out to raise cattle and hogs, and that every assistance that legislation could give would be given? Not at all. He stood in his place and absolutely refused the request made. He kept out of the Bill the provision that would permit the banks to advance money on cattle on a parallel with the advance upon wheat-another instance of the encouragement that my hon. friend gives to the farmer in the prosecution of his business. He is willing to educate the farmer; he is not willing to lef him do business in a business way.
I take issue with my hon. friend on his view with regard to the inadvisability of action being taken by the Government at the present time to remedy existing conditions. I say that if ever action was necessary it is now; I say it is demanded at this session of Parliament and without further delay. If we must wait for the Budget, then the Budget should come down; if there is to be any remedy provided by the Budget that remedy should be applied at once. So far as the crop of the past year is concerned, it is out of the farmers' hands now and the price of wheat, as will be seen, is gradually going up. The Finance Minister and his Government could have put into the pockets of the farmers in the West as a part of the price of that crop-and could have put it in the pockets of the farmers of the West by the stroke of a pen-anywhere from $4,000,000 to $8,000,000. That would have been encouragement. All he had to do was
.
to repeal the duty on wheat; what he half did in regard to cement he could have all done in regard to wheat. The difference in prices between Winnipeg and Minneapolis on the same quality of wheat has run anywhere from three cents to six cents a bushel this year; to-day it stands at about six cents. Had the Finance Minister been minded to give the Western farmer the benefit of free access to the Minneapolis market, he could, I am advised, have done it without waiting for Parliament. He did not have to wait for Parliament in the case of the reduction of the cement duties; he did not need to await Parliament to reduce the duty on wheat. And, if he had done so he knew there would be no doubt about his receiving the sanction of Parliament. Today the farmers of the western country have from 85,000,000 to 88,000,000 less money than they would have had if the Minister of Finance and his colleagues in the Ministry had simply put pen to paper. I ask you, would not that have made some difference in the present financial condition of this country? Would the distribution of that $5,000,000 throughout the prairie West not have saved many a farmer from bankruptcy; would it not have kept many a man in this poor year out of the hands of the sheriff? I say it would. I say it wpuld have helped to keep open the factories of Ontario; it would have helped collections by the banks and commercial houses, and it would have helped every interest in this whole Dominion. But the Minister of Finance has a policy; it is the National Policy, he says, of 1878. He is for high tariff and he won't admit that a change of tariff will make any difference in the cost of living, and I suppose he will not admit that any change in the tariff can Inake any difference in the price of wheat. His Government will have to stand on that and they will be judged by it. My hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) told him what had happened in the case of oats, and that because the United States reduced the duty on oats to six cents a bushel we have been able to send many millions of bushels of oats to that country. That saved the situation in regard to oats. We were selling oats at from 16 to 18 cents a bushel. That did not pay the cost of production. The Minister of Finance was raised on a farm and he knows it did not. It was the reduction in tne United States duty which enabled us to ship some of our surplus oats to the United States that saved the situation so far as oats is concerned, and even on what we did ship we had to pay the six cents a bushel, because it was not the United States consumer who paid it,

it was the Canadian producer who paid. And yet the Minister of Finance says this_ is not the time for us to make changes
in	the	tariff,	when	the prairiefarmer	will be	able	to buy hisfruit	at a price	less	the amountof	the	duty;	this	is not the
time to make changes in the tariff or ac-<ept the provisions of the reciprocity arrangement and enable the Canadian apple grower to sell in cities ot hundreds of thousands, where he is now restricted to cities of tens of thousands? Surely, if ever there was a time to call for energetic action on the part of any government; if ever there was a time that called for action that would reduce the burden upon the people of this country, that time is now. The occasion calls for the Government; it is for them to respond or not. They have had their opportunity; they have declared their policy; there is nothing in [DOT]sight for this country; the Government is in the hands of the men who put them there to do their bidding and the country may save itself so far as they care.
I do not know that I would be justified in closing without making a reference to a subject that has been mentioned by all of the speakers on the Address up to the present time, namely, the naval question. I do not speak of the naval policy of the Government, because, however they may have a tariff policy, aparently they have no naval policy. I will not delay the House at any great length on this point, but I will say this; the right lion, the Prime Minister, and his colleagues who have spoken, and his supporters, and his press in the country, have been vociferously claiming that their naval policy was actuated by and founded on the principle of Imperial loyalty; the idea of strengthening this great empire which stands for liberty throughout the world. It is strange, it is pasing strange, that conditions have so changed in such a short time that that which only a year ago called for a definite policy and for a vast expenditure, and called so loudly and insistently that it was necessary to deprive this House of its traditional and necessary privileges; it is strange that the same Government comes to this House now and has not a word to say in regard to the policy of naval defence. May I say that, in my humble judgment, if they are to claim credit for a sound imperialism, if they are to claim credit for a patriotic Canadianism, they will have to make some declaration before this session closes in regard to a permanent naval policy; a permanent policy of Canadian naval defence, having regard to Canada's position and Canada's imperial obligations.
These gentlemen have made high claims for themselves. They have gone out of their way to heap discredit upon the position and views of their opponents. They have raked the dictionary for words to express the depth of their loyalty and the urgency with which they were prepared to rush to the rescue of the empire. To-day their desire to rush to the empire's rescue has degenerated into a quarrel with the Upper House of this Parliament; and while a year ago they were declaiming about the sacrifices they were prepared to make in the interests of the empire, to-day they are satisfied with making threats against the Upper Chamber. I need not say that such action on their part is not only improper, it is unparliamentary, and may I suggest that it is even unconstitutional. I submit that it is unheard of, that the motives of the Upper Chamber of this Parliament should be called in question in this House. By what right does the Premier of Canada say that the Upper Chamber, a body co-ordinate with this House, does not act on its own motion and for its own good reasons. I say that such a statement as the Premier made here is improper and to my mind unparliamentary and should not have been made under those conditions. The Senate of Canada has a certain responsibility given it by the Imperial Parliament. Because it has seen fit to discharge this responsibility according to the judgment of a majority of its members it is to be called in question in this House, to be threatened as it was threatened by the Prime Minister. That is not parliamentary	government	in	its propersense. Everybody knows that a threat made against the Senate is an absurdity. There are no means whereby that threat can be carried out, even with the high authority of the leader of this Government. Our constitution comes from the Imperial Parliament and it is only there that	our	constitution
can be revised. If there is to be a question before the Canadian people as to the right or wrong of the Senate, then I say it is for the Government, if they have a policy that they believe in, and that the Senate does not believe in, to get their views before the country by bringing forward that policy just as often as they have an opportunity. If they had believed that they were right and that the Senate was wrong they would have done it and they would have had their Highways Bill, their Branch Lines
no

Bill and the Naval Bill before the House at this session. But they knew they were wrong and that the Senate was right, and they did not dare to come before the court of public opinion again with that legislation. They preferred to keep in the background, to send out threats and insinuations, depending upon taking the country by surprise, upon misrepresentation and lack of understanding on the part of the people at the next general election. If these measures are right let them be brought forward and threshed out before the people of the country. We on this side of the House are prepared to stand behind the position that we took and I am satisfied that the Senate will again take what action its judgment may commend to it, when the occasion arises. But aside from the quarrel between the Senate and the Government, I say the Government cannot evade the responsibility that properly rests upon them to provide for the naval defence of Canada as a part of the British Empire. The combination between Nationalists and Imperialists which was to be carried through under cover of an emergency policy has now no excuse, and if those who claim Imperial loyalty are loyal, now is the time to show it by bringing before Parliament proposals for a permanent naval policy. The fact that the Government have not done so is evidence that they dare not and shows that the claims they made of loyalty to the empire are empty and were made under false pretenses. They have the opportunity and they are not able to make good. They have been in power for two years. They have tried to pass the question over by an emergency policy. They were not able to do it. They are not now bringing forward a permanent policy. Let their present position be contrasted with the position they held at the last session when they came to Parliament with great declarations of imperial loyalty and with great propositions for the salvation of the empire. To-day they dare not even say they have a policy that.will have any effect either for the safety of Canada or for the empire. I can only repeat what I said in the beginning that never was a Parliament of Canada met by a Government with such a lack of policy and such a lack of proposals as upon this occasion. As at the last session they hoped to defend themselves by a policy of silence, so now they hope to protect themselves by having no policy at all. But I say that in this country of 7,000,000 people, of 3,000 miles in distance, a country with problems that are growing from day to day and demanding solution, I say that in this ,
country they cannot satisfy public opinion by a policy of seeing nothing, knowing nothing or doing nothing.


Mr. MARSHALL:: I was not in when the iron, member for Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) was referring to canned goods, but I understand that he stated that canned goods have increased in price 70 per cent in the last five years.


Frank Oliver: That is what I understood.


David Marshall: You are entirely wrong. Canned goods are cheaper to-day than they have been for five years. Tomatoes are 30 per cent, cheaper than they were a year ago, peas about 25 per cent cheaper, and corn about 10 per cent cheaper.
On motion of Mr. Edwards the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Rogers, the House adjourned at 10.50 p.m.
Wednesday, January 21, 1914.