1915-03-16

TRANSFER OF BRITISH SHIPS.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day being called:
Hon. J. D. HAZEN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, I beg to lay on the table of the House a copy of the Order in Council which was passed on the 9th day of March, 1915, restricting the transfer of British ships. I do this in accordance with a request of the right hon. leader of the Opposition, made yesterday.
By an Order in Council, dated 23rd January, 1915, the exportation from Canada of vessels, craft and boats of all kinds to non-British destinations is prohibited. This Order in Council, of course, applies only to British ships actually in Canadian ports.
The Order in Council, dated 9th March, 1915, is based on the Bill which is at present under consideration by the imperial authorities, and is intended to apply the restriction to all ships registered in Canada, without regard to where the ship itself may be at the time of the contemplated transfer.
In practice we require a satisfactory guarantee, and bond if necessary, from the intending purchaser that during the continuance of the war the ship will not be used directly or indirectly for the benefit of the enemies of Great Britain.
The Bill now before the imperial authorities does not apply to the Dominion of Canada, hence the necessity for the Order in Council under the provisions of the War Measures Act 67



BILLS WITHDRAWN.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. LANCASTER presented the eighth report of the select standing Committee on Railways, Canals and Telegraph lines.
Mr. GRAHAM:: I observe that by the report, Bill No. 3, to amend the Railway Act, is withdrawn. Which Bill is that?


Mr. LANCASTER:: It is a Bill standing in the name of the hon. member for East Larnbton (Mr. J. E. Armstrong), which deals with two subjects, the question of discrimination under the Act, and the rates charged for the carriage of goods on inland waters.


Mr. NESBITT:: Bill No. 14 is also withdrawn. What is that Bill?


Edward Arthur Lancaster: It is a Bill to confirm an agreement between the Canadian Northern Railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. The agreement, however, is not completed. The Bill was not discussed in the committee because the promoters said they were not able to proceed with it, and asked leave to withdraw it.



ST. LAWRENCE WATER LEVELS.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. D. HAZEN presented the report of the commission appointed by Order in Council of the 17th of March, 1913, to investigate and report to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries upon the water levels of the St. Lawrence river at and below Montreal, together with a summary prepared by the chief hydrographer of the survey, showing the results of the investigation; and moved that the report and the summary be printed.
Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member proposes to make a motion for the suspension of the rules in connection with the printing of these documents. It seems to me that the rule, which requires that all matters presented to the House should go directly to the Printing Committee for their consideration, is being more honoured in the breach than in the observance, and if that committee is to be of any value, it seems desirable that it should be allowed to exercise its judgment on many matters before these matters are finally dealt with by a suspension of the rules.


John Douglas Hazen: In view of what you say, I would withdraw my motion and allow the report to go through the ordinary course.



QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE.

Mr. D. A. LAFORTUNE (Montcalm):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege.



I see in the Montreal Gazette of this morning the following:
At an early hour this morning in the midst of a lengthy speech on the war budget, Mr. i). A. Lafortune, M.P., of Montreal, startled the House of Commons by propounding the following doctrine: " We in Canada should, instead of voting millions to aid England, take the necessary means to cause the disabilities under which French-Canadians suffer in the province of Ontario to disappear."
Mr. Lafortune repeated his statement twice, though questioned iby Mr. Rochon, M.P., as to what power the Federal Government had to interfere.
I declare, Mr. Speaker, that I never said such a thing. The gentleman representing the Montreal Gazette appears to have deliberately put into my mouth words that 1 never used; but I am sure he will do me the justice of correcting his statement. What I said was that the school question was a very important one, and I say now that it is a very important question, but I never meant to say that it was more important than the war; quite the contrary. I hope the gentleman who represents the Montreal Gazette will do me the justice of acknowledging in the next issue of his paper that he made a mistake.



THE BUDGET.


[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the proposed motion of Hon. W. T. White (Minister of Finance) for the Committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment of Sir Wilfrid Laurier thereto, resumed from March 15.
Right Hon.   S@: case there is a tax upon the wealthier man of ten cents and in the other case a tax upon the poor man of five cents. Let us see how the tax will apply to a ticket for a passage on a steamboat. Up to $10 no tax whatever is paid. A man buying a berth costing from $10 up to $30 pays at the rate of one dollar; from $30 to $60 he pays at the rate of $3 and above $60 at the rate of $5. The man pays the higher rate who is able to pay for the better accommodation on the steamer; the wealthier man pays the higher tax just as my hon. friend the Minister of Finance intended that he should. Under these circumstances, the attempt of my right hon. friend to suggest that the poor man is discriminated against by these tariff proposals is not only unworthy of him and of the position he holds, but is absolutely unsupported by any foundation in fact.
My right hon. friend finds protection in the tariff changes. His attitude in regard to free trade and protection has sometimes inspired the country with astonishment. I remember very well in the session of 1902 that his then Minister of Trade and Commerce, Sir Richard Cartwright, stood up and openly castigated him in the House of Commons because he had fallen away from the doctrine of free trade which he had preached in Opposition; and any one who desires to verify my words need only refer to the speech of Sir Richard Cartwright in the Hansard of that year. My right hon. friend is virtuously indignant about the protected and privileged classes of this country. Does he deny that he maintained the protective principle from 1896 to 1911? Does he deny that in 1907 he and his ministers deliberately increased protection by the tariff then brought down? When I sat where my right hon. friend sits to-day 1 heard them put forward arguments founded on protection in support of the tariff proposals which they had brought down. My right hon. friend in opposition seems to be a most excellent free-trader, at least in theory; but when he comes into power, he seems to be a fairly good protectionist, at least in practice. I remember seeing an anecdote not long ago of an inexperienced drill-sergeant in Great Britain, who was endeavouring to instruct his men in certain physical exercises, and his intention was to	admonish them first to hop
on one	foot and then to hop on
the other, and to keep that up alternately; but, being somewhat inexperienced and getting a little confused in his language, he said: "When I give the word of com-

mand, you must hop first on the right foot and then on the left foot, and keep that up to all eternity." My right hon. friend seems to have a free trade foot and a protectionist foot. When in opposition, he hops on the free trade foot, and when he comes into power, he hops on the protectionist foot. I presume that, so long as my right hon. friend continues in public life, that movement which has been kept up so continuously in. the past may be expected to continue in the future.
What has been the theory of protection upon which the Liberal-Conservative party has proceeded in this country? It is that our raw material plus our labour is equal to the finished product, and that as we have both we ought to use them. We saw no reason why those available resources of Canada which, by the labour of our own people, could be converted into finished products suitable for the use of our people, should not be so converted by the labour of our own people in this country. We stand for that. I have stood for it in the West of Canada as well as in the East, and I have stood for it in power as well as in opposition. With that we have coupled the principle and the belief that we are bound to maintain our customs tariff in Canada on such a standard that labouring men in Canada shall have a fair and reasonable living wage, and that the day shall not dawn that will bring down their standard of living to the scale which prevails in certain other countries which I need not mention.- We want a strong and virile labouring population in Canada to whom a reasonable living wage shall be paid, and we believe it is a good policy for this country that our raw material in Canada, so kept within our own boundaries, shall be converted by the labour of our own people into those articles which are necessary and convenient for the consumption and use of our own people. We say further, so far as that is concerned, that there is no conflict of interest, as my right hon. friend would endeavour to make it appear, between the labouring interests in Canada and the agricultural interests in Canada, because every labouring man, finding employment at a reasonable living wage in industries built up by such a policy as that, establishes the best of all markets, the home market, for the agricultural producer. That is the policy which Canada adopted in 1879, which Canada has kept up ever since and which Canada will keep up in the future, notwithstanding any

assault that my right hon. friend may make upon it.
My right hon. friend, after delivering himself of certain broadsides against that policy of protection, which he maintained for fifteen years, proceeded to declare that we had made an attack upon the British preference. He alleged that British goods, escaping the dangers of the submarines, would find themselves impaled upon our tariff. If I could anticipate an answer, I would ask my right hon. friend again why he increased the British preferential rate in 1907; but my efforts to obtain any answer on that point have been absolutely in vain, so I will not [DOT] detain the House further with them. The hon. Minister of Finance, by the proposal which he has brought down, has given Great Britain a greater preference in our market than she has ever had before. Not only has he done that, but he has established an absolutely new British preference, which in its scope is nearly three times as great as that which my right hon. friend established in 1897. I will prove that to my right hon. friend in a few moments, so that not even he will gainsay it.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Hear, hear.


Sir ROBERT BORDEN:: 
Wilfrid Laurier: The ground I take is that the British exporter has to pay five per cent more that he had to pay before.


Robert Laird Borden: I think everybody knew that. But I had understood my right hon. friend to say that the British preference was decreased. Does he say that now?


Wilfrid Laurier: I repeat what I said-that the British goods have to pay now five per cent more than formerly.


Robert Laird Borden: Then he does not say that the preference has been decreased. He admits in effect that it has been increased; and the point he desires to make, as I understand him now, is that the British

manufacturer is handicapped as between himself and the Canadian manufacturer. Is that it?


Wilfrid Laurier: I am too old
a bird to be caught with this chaff. I repeat- and I am sorry that the right hon. gentleman has not seen it (before-that his policy places a handicap on the British exporter as compared with the former condition of things.


Robert Laird Borden: And I too am too old a bird to believe that I can get a more direct answer out of my right hon. friend.


Wilfrid Laurier: And the right hon. gentleman is not even able to twist it as he wants to do.


Robert Laird Borden: some way this combined expenditure. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance proposes to meet it in part by borrowing and in part by increased taxation, and I say that every additional dollar that we raise by taxation diminishes pro tanto the amount which we must borrow for war purposes. The additional taxation is imposed for that purpose. My hon. friends on the other side of the House may chop logic about that from now until doomsday, but they cannot alter the facts I have just presented.
Another curious feature in the arguments put forward by my hon. friends opposite is this. They say that the increase in the British preferential rate operates in two ways: in the first place, it handicaps the British manufacturer because it is paid by him, and, in the second place, it oppresses the Canadian consumer because it is paid by him. Now, by which one of these oppressed individuals is it really paid, according to my hon. friends? If it handicaps l|he British manufacturer because it was paid by him, it cannot also oppress the Canadian consumer. Up to the present time I have not heard any reasoned argument on the other side of that question, although many assertions have been made. Perhaps some hon. gentleman who follows me will be good enough to take that question up and make it thoroughly clear to us on this side of the House. Is it really paid by both of them?


George Perry Graham: That is the old question: does the consumer or the producer pay the duty?


Robert Laird Borden: The difficulty is that my hon. friends do not put it forward as a question. They put it forward as an assertion, and say that it operates in two absolutely inconsistent ways.
This discussion began on the 11th day of February. It has proceeded continuously from the 23rd of February up to the present time, and I believe it has occupied nearly 1,000 single columns of Hansard. My right hon. friend has appealed to the example of Great Britain. May I be permitted to quote an example of Great Britain to him? The Finance Act of 1914, one of the greatest measures ever put through the British House of Commons was practically completed in five days, and the report of the debate took 268 columns of Hansard, or about one-quarter of what my hon. friends have occupied here. The Defence of the Realm Consolidation Act was put through in three days and the debate occupied 29 columns. The Grvemment War Obligations Act was put through in f <ar days,

and the debate occupied 94 column t of Hansard. The National Insurance Act occupied three days and filled 3 columns of Hansard. The Injuries in War Compensation Act occupied four days and the discussion filled 4 columns of Hansard. The Trading with the Enemy Amendment Act occupied five days and filled 183 columns of Hansard. The Royal Marines Act occupied three days and filled one column of Hansard. The Army Estimates to provide money to maintain 3,000,000 men of all ranks were discussed on four different days and the discussion filled 333 columns of Hansard.	And all of these measures to
which	I	have	alluded, some	of
them of the first importance, were put through the British House of Commons between the 17th day of November and the 26th day of November. Yet we have been continuously engaged since the 23rd of February in discussing the extraordinary proposals put forward by my right hon. friend and his followers. I trust that the example which I have given to the right hon. gentleman may prove of some service to him and his friends, and that we shall have in the future greater expedition in regard to public business than we have been able to enjoy in the past.


Wilfrid Laurier: That is rather hard upon your followers; they have not been silent.


George Perry Graham: They have talked as
much as we have.


Robert Laird Borden: If my hon.
friends invite an expression of opinion in that regard, I really think that we have been too complimentary to hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House. I think it would have been far better not to have paid them the compliment of answering some of the extraordinary speeches which they delivered. With the desire to be as courteous as possible, which always animates hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, we have felt in duty bound to get up and pretend at least that something approaching an argument had been put forward on the other side of the House and to reply to it.


George Perry Graham: Does my right hon. friend mean, pretend to answer?


Robert Laird Borden: No, I do not
mean that at all.


George Perry Graham: I beg your pardon.


Robert Laird Borden: In one aspect, I suppose it is a pretence, because if we had to pretend that there was something to

answer we would also have to pretend that we were answering it.
My right hon. friend has put forward to the House and the country the idea that the proposals of the Minister of Finance were of German conception, and I have endeavoured to show that if Germany were in a position to trade with this country at the present time German statesmen and German manufacturers would have a very different conception of the position. But, since my right hon. friend has invited comparisons of that kind, I may be permitted to tell him that the only proposals put forward in this Parliament which ever received the enthusiastic and whole-hearted support of the German Government and the German people were the propolis that he himself put forward two years ago-and I have the evidence under my hand to show it. Since he has invited consideration of Germany's approbation, I have the evidence under my band, taken from one of the greatest newspapers of Germany, the Hamburger Nach-richten. That great journal on the 5th day of June, 1913, contained the following:
Whatever may be decided upon later, the actual decision of the Canadian Senate means at any rate a heavy moral and material loss for the defence of the Empire, for Mr. Borden's promise has been foolishly enough counted on. His offer made an enormous impression in the whole world. Mr. Churchill pointed out this fact especially in the well-known memorandum of the Admiralty. This impression will now not only be destroyed, but people will everywhere obtain tne conviction that England cannot depend upon such help from her colonies. " By rivals and enemies," says the Morning Post to-day, " the decision will be eagerly welcomed. By friends it will be regarded as ominous. The impression must inevitably be created that the solidarity of the Empire is a myth and that those powers which would like to see the overthrow of British naval supremacy need not be discouraged in their efforts by the thought that their challenge would be met by the united resources of the Mother Country and of everyone of the daughter states."


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, heaT.


Robert Laird Borden: As my right hon. friend has seen fit to pass a challenge as Ho whether our proposals or his own aTe most according to German conception, it is my duty to let him see that his own proposals have elicited a favour and an approbation from German public opinion which these tariff proposals could not possibly secure.
Since this war began I have not up to this time uttered one controversial word except to say that if there was to be a fight it would not be a one-sided fight. My right
hon. friend has chosen this moment to open fire upon us with a vote of want of confidence, and to raise issues of a purely partisan and controversial character. I desire to inform him that we do not shirk from his criticism or from the issues which he raises, conscious as we are that, confronted by the most tremendous responsibilities ever imposed upon the shoulders of Canadian public men, we have striven in the past and will strive in the future to do our duty to this Dominion and to the British Empire.


Wilfrid Laurier: I did not wish to interrupt my right hon. friend, and I now rise for the purpose of an explanation. My right hon. friend has alluded to a certain interview which took place between him and me previous to the session. He stated that he had given me the programme of what he proposed to do during the session. He told me, according to my recollection, that his intention was to make this a war session, and a war session only. He told me that the measures which he intended to bring down were an appropriation of $100,000,000 and an Act authorizing the issue of Dominion notes by the Government. He told me further that there would probably be some tariff changes. I do not believe that the right hon. gentleman told me anything else. In answer to that, I told him that I was quite satisfied to have a war session, and that if we on this side of the House were to bring down any question outside of a war question, we would give him notice of it. So far as I recollect, that is what took place between my right hon. friend and myself, and nothing else. I speak from memory, hut upon this I believe my memory is right. I am sure I am in the right as to what took place between my right hon. friend and myself, and I have simply this to say to him: Everybody has a sense of honour. To me, confidential conversations are confidential, and are never revealed. If the right hon. gentleman chooses to bring this before the public, I have no objection; I have given my version.


Robert Laird Borden: I might say to my right hon. friend that he himself first introduced the subject by stating that he had not been consulted, and I esteemed it my right and my duty to state to what extent he had been consulted. He was consulted .to the extent which I have already stated, and my statement in that regard does not, as I understand, differ materially from his own. I told him that we had a

fiscal measure to introduce, and naturally he knew as well as I that I could not give the details of it to him at that time. Besides that, I gave to him not only our programme, but a copy of every Bill which we had ready and proposed to introduce. To that extent I did consult my right hon. friend, and I am not aware that in stating that I gave him this information I am violating any breach of confidence.


Wilfrid Laurier: If my right
hon. friend means that we had an interview upon the tariff similar to the consultation that took place in England between Austin Chamberlain and Lloyd George, he is absolutely mistaken.


Mr. F. B. CARVELL (Carleton, N. B.):: Mr. Speaker, I realize that it is not an easy task to attempt to answer the somewhat impassioned speech made by the right hon. leader of the Government, especially after he had travelled so far afield and imported into this discussion matters which to the ordinary man at least would seem to have been better left out. My right hon. friend the leader of the Government has almost found fault with his own side for answering the charges and arguments which have been put forward from this side of the House. Well, then, some of the arguments and some of the charges put forth from this side of the House must have been very potent. Only yesterday the hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. Carroll) was asked to give way to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in order to give that gentleman an opportunity of answering our arguments; and to-day the right hon. leader of the Government has taken the place of two prominent followers who were supposed to speak this afternoon. He has taken the words out of their mouths and jumped into the debate himself. The arguments from this side of the House must certainly be doing something in the country, for they are doing a lot in the mind of my right hon. friend. My right hon. friend has seen fit rather to try to show that the leader of the Opposition has not been playing this game fairly, that he has not been observing the so-called truce. But the only evidence which he put forward was the statement that he went to the right hon. leader of the Opposition and gave him certain information; it is not necessary that I should refer to it at any great length because we have had the statements of both these gentlemen and the House can judge for itself. But my right 
hon. friend the leader of the Government has not met in the least the criticism of the right hon. leader of the Opposition. The leader of the Opposition referred to the condition of affairs that existed in England, where there was a real party truce, where the Opposition was taken into the confidence of the Government, where the chief censor was one of the leaders of the Opposition, and where the Opposition not only knew what was going on in connection with the war, but were given an insight into the financial measures proposed by the Government. If my right hon. friend would do himself the justice of reading what has been said by the right hon. leader of the Opposition, I think he would see that he has placed the matter in a very, very unfair light. And in case my right hon. friend has not read that statement I am going to trouble the House to listen while I read every word that the leader of the Opposition uttered on that subject. He was contrasting the attitude of this Government with the attitude of the British Government, and was trying to bring himself in line with the attitude assumed by the Opposition in Great Britain. The statement is found on page 885 of the Unrevised Hansard. After quoting extensively from the Saturday Review, the leader of the Opposition on that occasion said:
I commend these words to the attention of the House. You will see that in Great Britain the Opposition were consulted by the Government as to their financial proposals. This is a matter of record and of history. I might go further than this newspaper goes and say that at all stages of the war, from the first to the present day, the Opposition have been kept in constant consultation by the powers that be; they were consulted as to military operations, and at every step were asked to give their advice. We were not so consulted. If we had been honoured in the same way- not that I claim anything in that respect, but representing here a great party comprising almost half of the population, having views of their own on many of the financial problems which now confront us, olalming to be as patriotic as the other side, and claiming to have done their duty as amply as was in their power-I say that, if we had been consulted, we should have been happy to give our views as to the policy to be pursued. I do not say that our views would have been accepted; but certainly there would have been an effort on my part at all events to give way on some of my own views, and I might have felt it right to ask the other side to give way on some of their views also, so that we might have been unanimous in policy as we have been unanimous in the objects which policy is to serve. But we were not consulted. I do not complain of this; I have no right to complain. But my hon. friend the Finance Minister has no right to complain either if to-day we have

to take issue with him, and take issue sharply, upon the propositions which he has laid before the House.
The whole point is in that one paragraph from the speech of my right hon. leader. The right hon. leader of the Government has dragged into this discussion the Navy debates; but I am not going to follow him in that, except to say that if the right hon. leader of the Opposition may have any troubled dreams over the Canadian naval question, I do not know what must be, not only the dreams, but the waking thoughts of the right hon. leader of the Government on that question. If my right hon. friend should have any troubled dreams over the naval question I do not know of any one who should be more afflicted, not only with dreams but with waking thoughts, in regard to the naval question than the right hon. leader of the Government, a gentleman who in 1909 subscribed to the only British, Imperial naval policy which was ever brought forward in Canada, a gentleman who in 1910 departed from that policy in order to obtain the votes of the men sitting behind him from the province of Quebec, a gentleman who adopted a policy in 1912 and 1913, which, if it had been adopted by the people of Canada, would have been absolutely futile for the simple reason that it never could have been accomplished and put in operation in time to be of any assistance during this present war. He turned down the policy which he had adopted in 1909, which was adopted by this Parliament in 1910, which was attempted to be carried into effect by my right hon. leader in 1911 and which, if it had been carried into effect, would have accomplished the object for which we intended it; that is, it would have afforded some means of protection to Canada and the rest of the Empire in this hour of need. No wonder my right hon. friend the leader of the Government leaves the chamber when any one commences to discuss naval affairs, I am surprised that he even stays in the chamber and discusses the question himself.
But this is not a question of the navy; it is a question of the Budget that we are discussing and for the few minutes that I purpose addressing the House I intend to confine myself strictly to the Budget and not to discuss the navy question. Any time hon. gentlemen opposite want to raise a naval discussion in this House, or on the stump, or anywhere else, they will not have
very much trouble in finding some one who will give them a Roland for their Oliver.
My right hon. friend the leader of the Government has taken my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition to task very severely because he says he has tried to create in the minds of the people a class distinction, that he has tried to place class against class, that he has tried to place the rich man against the poor man. If pointing out to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, and to the country at large, that the logical result of the financial proposals which he has brought down means the placing of class against class, the placing of an unfair and unjust burden on the shoulders of the poor man and allowing the rich man to go scot free, we accept the challenge and we are prepared to discuss that in this House or on any platform or hustings and we are prepared to discuss it until the matter is, as it will be, finally settled by the people. After all that is the great issue brought up by the proposals of the Minister of Finance. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) yesterday, I must say, delivered a splendid speech in the House, a speech so different from that of his leader to-day or of the Minister of Finance a few days ago, a speech so different in tone, so different in argument, and on a much higher plane. While I am as sensible of political antagonism as perhaps any other man, yet I would not feel that I was doing my duty if I did not compliment my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce upon the high tone which he gave to the debate yesterday afternoon.


Wilfrid Laurier: The good example.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, on the good example that my hon. friend sets the House, and one which I am sorry to say has not been followed by his chief this afternoon. But even the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce belaboured the matter for fifteen minutes in order to show that in England there was no opposition to the Government's financial proposals. In England the Government did not change their financial policy; they went on and raised their money by the same old method. In Canada the Minister of Finance is almost revolutionizing the fiscal conditions wlhich have prevailed in this country during the last fifteen or eighteen years. When they are revolutionizing the fiscal system, and doing that in war time, our hon. friends opposite say:

You are disloyal, you are unpatriotic, you are unBritish, you are not good Canadians, you are not playing the game fairly when you challenge this proposition and challenge it by a vote of this House. I wondered if the Minister of Finance and other hon. gentlemen who have spoken had in view some of the gentlemen who sit behind him and who have themselves dealt with this proposition, I wondered if the hon. member for Ri-mouski (Mr. Boulay) would not rather have got out of this House without voting upon this question, I wondered if some other hon. gentlemen of the same family as the hon. member for Rimouski would not have been very much pleased if this proposal could have been adopted without putting them under the painful necessity of placing themselves on record either for or against it. These are only internal matters affecting my right hon. friend and his friends, but I only thought it wise to throw out the hint to let him understand that we are taking notes of what is going on and that we are listening to such speeches as that which came from the hon. member for Rimouski a few days ago.	.
As I understand these proposals, my Ihon. friend the Finance Minister says that there is, or will be, a great gap between revenue and expenditure for the coming year, and it is the duty of the Minister of Finance to make up that gap-not the whole of it; he does not profess that he is going to completely fill the gap. The Minister of (Finance made half a dozen references to the fact that he had to find a million dollars a day, a burden which 1 admit would even tax the resources of a rich man like my hon. friend the Finance Minister. We have had this statement in his Budget speech and we had it put forward by the Minister of Trade and Commerce yesterday, that even with all these herculean efforts of the 'hon. Minister of Finance, he is only going to raise half of this amount. He says: I am going to have an enormous amount of trouble even to raise half of it, and I am going to have that trouble because of the unfortunate position in which you left me when you handed over this bankrupt estate in 1911. I was very much interested in listening to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance talking about that bankrupt estate. I have just read over what he said, and I am still more interested. My hon. friend used these words, and I will just read them to him lest he forgets. I think there must be a good many things in the two or three hours' address which he
[Mr. Carvell. 1
delivered that my hon. friend would like to forget, and while it may not be kind it is an absolute necessity to recall some of these things to (his attention as I go along. He said:
In estimating the value of an estate, do we not take into consideration liabilities direct and indirect, debts owing, notes in hand, en-dorsations, guarantees given by the decedent who left the estate? Is it a rich legacy, if the legatee with a certain sum of ready money, is left also the obligation of millions of dollars of liabilities? That is the kind of rich legacy that I have inherited as Minister of Finance-some ready money in the treas iry, but obligations, not of millions, not of tens of millions, but literally of hundreds of millions of dollars of direct and indirect liabilities, that I have had to meet since I have become Minister of Finance of this country.
The hon. member then proceeded to enumerate some of these terrible burdens that had been cast upon his shoulders. The only thing which he mentioned in his remarks was that he had been compelled to pay a large sum of money on account of the Grand Trunk Pacific. The Grand Trunk Pacific seems almost to be something on the brain of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: My hon. friend says
" here, here," and it is something that is on the brains of others. There is not a man in this House who does not, down in his heart, admit that the Bill providing for the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific was the finest piece of Imperial legislation that was ever passed by the Parliament of Canada and I will tell you why. In the newspapers of these hon. gentlemen, and especially in the West, you will find the boast repeated again and again: Since this Government came into power they have got the grain out of the country. To-day it is no trouble to get the grain out of the country because transportation facilities were provided by the predecessors of these hon. gentlemen.


George Perry Graham: Do not go back on the Minister of Railways.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: No, my hon. friends will not go back on that. Then my hon. friends find fault with the Canadian Northern railway. There again they say: We have relieved the grain congestion. Relieved it because of the transportation facilities which had been provided. Then my hon. friend referred to certain other items of expenditure making up this $100,000,000, and yet all he could dig up was somewtiere about $65,000,000.


Mr. W. T. WHITE:: No.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have the hon. gentleman's speech, and I will recall to him what he said. He said: We advanced $15,000,000' to the Grand Trunk Pacific; for implementing the bonds, we had to pay $5,000,000; in 1914, we had to lend that company $6,000,000 by an issue of Dominion notes; and we had to advance $33,000,000 on the bonds which we now have in the vaults of the country. That makes only $60,000,000.


William Thomas White: I interrupt my hon. friend to say that in my speech I called attention to the cost of the National Transcontinental, which during the last four years has cost this country $56,000,000.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am afraid I have not
read my hon. friend's speech with sufficient deliberation.


William Thomas White: I am afraid not. Does my hon. friend deny that I called attention to the fact that the cost of the National Transcontinental was $200,000,000, as against an estimated cost of $60,000,000 as given by the then Minister of Finance, and of $13,000,000 as given by the then Prime Minister?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I remember all that.


William Thomas White: There is a considerable gap between $200,000,000 and $60,000,000.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If my hon. friend will
have patience, I will try to fill up the gap. My hon. friend must not get nervous about it. I have a few figures before me as well as my hon. friend has. I am quite well aware of what I am speaking, although I admit that I am not as important a personage as is my hon. friend.
1 have shown how $60,000,000 is made up, and I will give the facts as to the rest of the cost. I will implement my hon. friend's statement. In 1912 the country expended $21,110,000 on the National Transcontinental. In 1913 it expended $13,767,000; in 1914, $12,670,000. By my hon. friend's estimate for this year, I understand he will expend $5,000,000. That makes a total of $112,547,000. Have I stated the proposition fairly?


William Thomas White: I think my hon.
friend has left out 1914-15.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I have $5,000,000, which I have taken from my hon. friend's Estimates for 1914-15.


Mr. J. D. REID:: Have you added up the amounts correctly?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes. Am I not treating my hon. friend fairly?


George Perry Graham: It looks as if there were going to be supplementaries.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Therefore up to the present my hon. friend has expended $112,-
547,000.	I admit that my hon. friend has spent a few million dollars on the Quebec bridge.


William Thomas White: How much?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Probably $4,000,000.


William Thomas White: $10,000,000 in the last four years.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am taking three years of my hon. friend's time and one year of his predecessor's.
When my hon. friend came into power, he found a treasury full and overflowing, with millions of dollars of credit. He says that in the very year in which he came into office, according to his own figures and his own admissions, he had a surplus of $37,946,777. That surplus was not due to any policy of his, but was in spite of him, his followers and his policy.


William Thomas White: On what account?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: On Consolidated Fund Account.


William Thomas White: What was the surplus for the year on both accounts?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I will come to that a
little later on. I realize that I am not pleasing my hon. friend the Minister of Finance and that, although I am irritating him, I am afraid I must continue the operation.
In 1913, due to no virtue of my hon. friend, because he was only carrying out the trade policy of his predecessors, because he was only continuing the estate as he found it, he had a surplus of $56,630,366. In 1914, when my hon. friends were able to leave their impress to some extent upon the affairs of the country, that surplus dwindled down to $35,786,922. Therefore during those three years, before their work had really begun to tell, they had a surplus of $130,367,065 of ordinary revenue over ordinary expenditure, despite the fact that they bad spent something like $45,000,000 or $46,000,000 in those three years on ordinary expenditure more than their predecessors did in the last year in which they were in office. If they had kept down the expenditure to the amount at which they found it when they


John Dowsley Reid: Does the hon. gentleman, when he says " practically the same work," mean that the revenue was the same?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Certainly not. But does the hon. gentleman mean to say that if the clerks in a certain custom house have to make a few more entries day by day that he must therefore employ three or four more to help them? We all know something about the way the business affairs of this country are carried on. I do not think he would try to justify that, and it would be better for him not to do so. I give him that friendly advice; better let well enough- or bad enough alone.


John Dowsley Reid: The employees in the Customs Department were doubled during the regime of the Liberal party.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: There are many custom houses in this country where there was no opportunity for this Government to make political capital by doubling the employees and where they have not increased the number at all, though the revenue has gone up as much proportionately as in other places. In my own home town, for instance, the revenue, I suppose, has more than doubled' in three years, and they have the same staff as they had before. And if it were double again in three years, it would not be necessary to appoint another man.


John Dowsley Reid: They are better men.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then, the hon. minister must have some mighty poor ones in other places in Canada.
Now, after going through all this orgy of extravagance, after multiplying expenditure in this country, after providing for public works at every crossroads, and after allowing the Minister of Public Works to spend nearly twice as much on revenue account as his predecessor, the Minister of Finance still had a surplus of $130,000,000 out of which to pay these " legacies " that he says were handed over to him. I wonder if he contends that we handed over to him the necessity of paying $16,000,000 to Mackenzie and Mann, or rather to the Canadian Northern Railroad Company, the second year after he came into office. Were we responsible for that?


William Thomas White: Certainly


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Then, why did not the
necessity arise when we were in poweT? The hon. gentleman had to pay his friends,

and the result is the country pays the piper.


Mr. MACDONALD:: Who was responsible for the $45,000,000 last year?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am coming to that. Does the hon. gentleman hold us responsible for his paying over $2,000,000 to his friend, Sir Rodmond Roblin of Manitoba?


William Thomas White: No.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: I am glad he accepts that responsibility. He hands over this subsidy of $2,000,000 to Manitoba; and when the maritime provinces beg for justice and equal rights, he denies them. Does he hold us responsible for his paying over $2,000,000 as a subsidy to his friends in Ontario? -a subsidy to a Government-owned railway which was under lease to the Grand Trunk railway and had a secure earning capacity of $400,000 a year, more than enough to pay the interest on the investment? So a uian could go over the whole category and if he took two hours he would not exhaust the illustrations of this squandering of money. But, after making all these enormous unnecessary expenditures, he had out of this " bankrupt estate " more than enough to pay all the " legacies " we had handed over to him, and still have fifteen or twenty millions to the good. I am not surprised that the Prime Minister made no reference to that branch of the case. It is unnecessary for me to labour further this branch of the argument. But I point out that the hon. Minister of Finance is not treating this country fairly, he is not stating the facts of the case, when he tells the people that he found a " bankrupt estate " and that he found it necessary to impoverish himself by paying out these enormous sums.
But there can be no doubt that the hon. gentleman finds himself in an unhappy predicament. He has told us-^and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) laboured the point for a long time yesterday afternoon-that this war created the emergent financial condition that faces us in Canada to-day. These hon. gentlemen tell us that on account of the war they are compelled to do those things that they would not otherwise do.
I am not going to repeat the figures given by the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) at an earlier stage of this debate, but I will refer to them briefly. The imports are a pretty fair indication of the financial condition of a country because they exemplify the purchasing power of the people. Compare our imports in January before the
war with the January of the previous year. Those imports dropped from $34,000,000 to $26,000,000. In February they were $25,000,000 as against $35,000,000 for the year before. In March the drop was from $45,000,000 to $34,000,000 and in April from $32,000,000 to $23,000,000. In May the imports fell off from $40,000,000 to $28,000,000; in June from $37,000,000 to $27,000,000, and in July from $39,000,000 to $26,000,000. The war conditions had nothing to do with that. Nor was it on account of non-production, because the country was producing as much as ever. Our exports were not decreasing to any great extent, though our imports were decreasing. I will not go into a history of the causes of that condition of affairs because it would take too long. All I say to the Minister of Finance is that he does not treat the country fairly when he tries to convince the people that the unfortunate condition in which he finds himself at the beginning of the war is due to the war. It is due to his own mismanagement and bungling; it is due to the fact that he did not conserve the revenue of the country as he should have done, he did not save his surpluses, he did not provide for a rainy day. As the hon. member for Kings (Mr. J. J. Hughes) said, he squandered his money like a drunken sailor; and when the banks began to shut down on western lands, investment and something like a panic came on, he found himself without means to meet the situation. Then came the war, and he had nothing on which to draw in his time of trouble.
Now, we have to face the condition of affairs as it is. There is no doubt there is a serious condition of affairs confronting the minister. The minister says he must devise ways and means to meet it. That is what we say. But, with all the omniscience which he takes to himself, he has not had very much trouble about it. He himself says, and therefore it must be true, that this thing did not bother him at all, because he saw his way through. As I wish to be sure to quote him correctly, I give his words as they are to be found at page 891 of Hansard:
I have always been able to see my way through. I saw my way through in the year 1913, when, in the midst of that great financial stringency brought about by the Balkan war and by the shadow of this great war cast before, 1 was struggling with the consequences of that ruinous railway policy launched by hon. gentlemen opposite. In the midst of this war which is not only the greatest war in the history of the world, but greater, as I said the

other day, than the aggregate of all wars up-to-date, I see my way through, just as 1 saw it through in August last, when the outbreak of this tremendous trouble threatened to overwhelm the finances and the commerce of the world. I saw my way through then. T see my-way through now, and at no time since the outbreak of this war have the prospects been so good, so far as this country is concerned, as they are to-day.
My hon. friend saw a great many visions when this war unfortunately burst upon us on the 4th day of August, 1914. For three years he had been trying to do something for the special interests to which he owed his position in public life. He saw that the people of Canada would never allow him to do what his friends would like him to do, and that the only way in which he could accomplish his end would be to act under some emergent condition. My hon. friend saw that he was not keeping his pledges; he saw that he was not able to do what he had promised to do. When the war came he saw that the way was open to him, and in the August session of Parliament he commenced to increase the duties upon manufactured articles and to place duties upon some goods formerly free. At that time I pointed out that while we were not opposing his proposals, the consequences of his method of taxation would be objectionable. My hon. friend at that time himself foreshadowed tariff changes at the next session of Parliament. He knew exactly what he was going to do; he knew that he was going to impose upon the people of this country a protective tariff worse than has ever been known in Canada, and as bad as any which has ever been imposed in the United States. My hon. friend, therefore, is secure in saying that he "saw through" these things; in the proposals which he has brought down, he is merely carrying out the things which he foresaw last year. He reasoned with himself thus: If I reduce the expenditure of this country to what it ought to be, or to anything like what it was when I assumed office three years ago, I shall not have to impose any more taxes, and I shall not be able to carry out the policies which will please my friends. As a result of this reasoning, therefore, my hon. friend boosted the expenditure. It k true that he brought it 'down a little lower than it was during the previous year, but he asked for an expenditure of $180,000,000 or $190,000,000 to carry on the affairs of the country, entirely aside from the amount required for war expenditure. Any reasonable businessman, any reasonable financier, or even a reasonable politician, would take the other course and proceed to 
reduce expenditure instead of increasing it. In all the arguments which my hon. friend has put forward on this subject, he has never said that he cannot reduce expenditure ; he argues that he cannot stop spending money. He said the other day that if a private individual wanted to close down his business, he could do so. Every one knows that the- business of this country cannot be closed down; the Minister of
5 p.m. Finance cannot do it, and nobody wants him to do it. All we want the minister to do is to be reasonable; to reduce expenditure. If he wants any better evidence than I can give him of the desirability of taking this course, I direct his attention to what was practically an admission on the part of a former Minister of Finance (Sir George Foster) a man who knows something about finances that the ordinary expenditure of this country could be cut down to the extent of $30,000,000 a year. Nothing in the whole speech of the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce yesterday afternoon, able as it was, so impressed me as that almost straight admission on his part that the Minister of Finance could have reduced the expenditure by $30 000,000. But the minister exp-cts to raise only about $30,000,000. He admits that he is going to have a deficit of $30,000,000 or $40,000,000 at the end of the financial year. If he had done what his colleague almost said he could have done, he would have closed up the gap between revenue and expenditure and would have obviated the necessity for special taxation. But if he bad done that he would not have given any protection to the manufacturers. My hon. friend became indignant a few days ago when my honoured leader intimated to him that the net result of this tariff would be increased protection. It is true that my hon. friend said that his indignation was due to the intimation of the right hon. gentleman that that was the object of the tariff increases, but I am going to deal not with what my hon. friend's object was, but with what the results of the proposed legislation will be.
It has been argued by the Finance Minister, by the Minister of Trade and Commerce and by the Prime Minister that in order to get revenue you must tax free goods or raw materials. I admit that there may be times of national stringency when a tax should be imposed on raw materials, but I do not believe that the time has come for taking that course; on the contrary, I believe we are a long way from any such necessity. But hon. gentlemen say that they have to

tax raw materials. The lion. Minister of Trade and Commerce told us yesterday afternoon that last year we imported $208,000,000 worth of free goods. If the same amount be imported this year and taxes of 5 and 7* per cent be paid thereon, the treasury will get between $10,000,000 and $13,000,000. But here is where the fallacy of this argument comes in. Hon. gentlemen say that if you increase the taxes upon the raw materials, you must increase the duty upon the manufactured article. That may be true to some extent, but when you increase the duty upon the manufactured article to the same extent that you increase the duty upon the raw product, the only person you treat fairly is the manufacturer. I do not know exactly what proportion the cost of the raw material would bear to the cost of the manufactured product, but I think I am safe in saying that cost of the raw material would amount to not more than one-third of one-fourth the cost of the finished product. My hon. friend says:	we compel the manufacturer to pay 5 or 7i per cent upon the raw material which he brings into this country; therefore we should allow him a charge from 5 to 7i per cent more for the finished product. Let us take a few examples. Automobiles are now being purchased by people of moderate means as well as by the richer people; the automobile is an article which every man wants who is able to have one. I suppose that the duty upon the raw material entering into the manufacture of an automobile would be about half the duty upon the finished article. The extra duty upon wool would not amount to one-fourth, one-fifth or one-sixth of what it would be on the finished product. The cost of raw cotton would be probably one-half the cost of the finished product. In the case of furniture, the cost of the raw material would be probably one-tenth of the cost of the finished product. And so on; in every case there is a pronounced discrepancy between the cost of the raw material and the cost of the finished product. The illustration which is afforded by boots and shoes probably emphasizes more clearly the point which I am trying to make than that afforded by any other article of commerce produced in Canada.


Wilfrid Laurier: A tender spot.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, it is. I notice that one witness said yesterday you bad to have tender boots because you had tender feet. I am going to discuss this matter from the cold standpoint of dollars and cents. There 68
is probably no article of consumption in Canada that is so wholly manufactured within our own borders as boots and shoes. The duty, I am sorry to stay, was high enough before; in my judgment it was much higher than it should have been.
I know my friend will say: Your Government are responsible for that. They have some sins to answer for and I am willing they should answer. Now during last year we imported altogether of boots and shoes, as nearly as I can find from the trade returns, $4,349,000 worth of boots and shoes, upon which we paid $1,135,000 in duty and, of course, if on the same quantity of hoots and shoes you added an extra 7i per cent import duty-because the imported shoes all come from the United States-you will find that there would be in the vicinity of $300,000 extra duty. I do not know exactly what would be the factual cost per person for boots, but I have assumed that it would be $5 per person for boots in Canada. I know that' estimate is low enough, and I am of the opinion that the average would be very much more than that, it might go up to $7 or $8 a person; but certainly $5 would be the minimum per capita cost of boots in Canada. If you have 8,000,000 people in Canada, that would mean a total cost for boots and shoes in one year of $40,000,000, 'and if we have imported $4,000,000 or $4,500,000, then that gets you down to $35,000,000 worth of hoots and shoes manufactured in Canada. I do not think my hon. friend can get away from that. As the imported boots and shoes all come from the United States, you have a right to add on the 7 ot 11 per cent -a>s extra cost to the people of Canada because the shoe manufacturers-and I am not finding any fault with the boot and shoe manufacturer, he is just an ordinary human being like the rest of us-being given a Tight to add on just enough additional price to keep out the foreign product, will iadd it on, and as there is enough duty now to keep out the foreign product if you add an additional 7i per cent that will be added to the price, the foreign product will still be kept out.


Mr. BURNHAM:: Is that fair ? Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that the price of boots and shoes in this country has gone up in accordance with the tariff ?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Certainly it has.


John Hampden Burnham: Certainly it has not.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Certainly it has. There is not a commodity in Canada that has not gone up or will not go up. The hon.



lember talks about things going up. I was in Montreal the other day, and w>anted to buy some new spark plugs for my automobile. I went into a store and they gave me a bill and added on the 7\ per cent on the bill.


John Hampden Burnham: That may be.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: 
Mr. SCOTT:: 
Frank Broadstreet Carvell: 
Frank Stewart Scott: I want to say from my knowledge of the business-


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: 
Mr. MEIGHEN:: Did the hon. gentleman not support the late Government which raised the duty on shoes by 5 per cent?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: One gets nauseated and tired of this tu quoque argument. I was honest enough, more honest than my hon. friend ever was in discussing a matter in this House, to say that, in my judgment, the duty on boots and shoes was greater than it should be. I said that to-day. I said that last year, I always have said it, and I do not think the Solicitor General is going to cover himself with any great glory by asking foolish questions of that kind. I condemned the former duty on boots-


Arthur Meighen: Only since you got over
there have you condemned it.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: If I was unkind enough to return the tu quoque, I should say that the best speech the hon. gentleman ever made in this House was made in pleading for a reduction of duty on agricultural implements; and now the hon. gentleman will stand up and not only vote for this increase of duty, but defend it. I am not employing the tu quoque argument. I do not care what he did when on this side of the House;. I am trying to argue on things as they are to-day. Let me show my hon. friends the real position of things to-day, when this country is at war, when every person ought to be straining every effort to bring this war to a successful conclusion, when the Government of this country have no right to tax the people white in order to satisfy and placate their political friends over the country, but when it ought to be the duty of the Government to try to treat the people fairly, to make the cost of living as low as possible consistent with raising a revenue. Those are the things I am trying to point out, and not what I or my hon. friend may have voted for three or four years ago. The Tory party never seems to realize that this world moves, and that what may have been true 100 years ago may not necessarily be true to-day, that what was true ten years ago may not be true to-day. The mere fact that my hon. friend interrupted my argument shows that

it is absolutely unassailable; and as the Solicitor General is to follow me, I invite him to answer this proposition and to show that the people in this country will not pay five times as mueh to the boot and shoe manufacturing concerns as the Government will get out of the increased duty on boots and shoes and leather and raw products by adding the 5 per cent and 7J per cent duty on boots and shoes and raw materials that enter into them.
And since my hon. friend has interrupted me, I hope he will do me the courtesy and the justice of at least trying to explain away this one point: Have I not pretty effectually answered the arguments of hon. gentlemen opposite? I say that if the duty on the finished product is increased by 5 per cent, the duty upon the raw material ought to be increased by 15 per cent; and then the manufacturers would be compelled to pay something into the revenues of this country, and they would not be able to turn around and charge their customers more than they are paying to-day; for if they raised their prices beyond that point the foreign article would come in. For instance, the home manufacturer has his boots and shoes priced just low enough to prevent foreign-made boots and shoes from coming in. If what I have suggested were done, some sort of equilibrium would be created between the raw material and the finished article; and the manufacturer would be compelled to pay something to the Government in the way of revenue, and would not be able to make any extra profit out of the common people in the sale of his articles. And what is true of boots and shoes is true of almost every other article in the whole commerce of Canada. You can take article after article ad infinitum, and you will find exactly the same thing. Therefore I think I am perfectly right when I say that the cost of the manufactured article is at least three times as much as the cost of the raw material, and that, to be logical, you should increase the duty on the raw material by three times the duty on the finished product. My hon. friend might ask: Would you advocate that? No, never. I hope I shall never be guilty of advocating such a policy as that. I would never advocate a policy that would increase the ordinary burdens of the people of this country at a time when they were bending their energies and spending every possible dollar in order to carry this country and this Empire through such terrible conditions as are confronting us to-day.
I would reduce the expenditures of this country and get down to something like 68i
decent, honest Government. I would get rid of the horde of unnecessary officials and of all the little armouries that are being built at country cross roads in Ontario. I would get rid of all these things, and do business on business principles, and then it would not be necessary to increase the duty on the raw material or on the manufactured article. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister threw back at us this afternoon that nobody on this side of the House had made any proposal to get around the difficulty, and the Minister of Finance the other evening said that only one hon. gentleman on this side of the House, the hon. member for Saltcoats (Mr. MacNutt), had made even a suggestion how to meet this great gap between revenue and expenditure. I have tried to point out to the Minister of Finance what I would do were I in his place, but the ordinary dictates of business management should have suggested these proposals, without them having to be called to his attention by members on this side of the House. But he does not seem to understand.
1 am going to tell him a few more things that I would do if I were in his place, and it is no use his coming hack with the tu quoque argument: why did you not do it when you were in power? Well, in the first place, when we were in power it was not necessary to do these things. When we were in power there was no great Imperial war on, as there is to-day. There was a war from 1899 to 1902 in which Canada took a part; but the cost was not very great, and there was no increase in the duties, no increase in the burdens of the people. From the day the Liberal party came into power in 1896 down to when they went out of potver in 1911, there was nothing but one long succession of surplus after surplus, and it was not necessary to resort to direct taxation or to those means of raising the revenue which are adopted in countries that find that problem difficult. Not that the tariff under the Liberal party was not high enough, even higher than it ought to have been. I will say that, if it is of any comfort or assistance to my hon. friend the Solicitor General. I say that when the Liberals were in power the tariff on goods coming into this country was as high as it ought to have been, and in many cases much higher; and if my hon. friends wants to point out cases I do not think that he and I will get very far apart. Take wool for instance. I say the tax on wool was exorbitant. Or if he takes boots

and shoes I agree with him. I agree that the duty was higher than it should have been on dozens and dozens of articles which enter into the home of the ordinary working ' man. But, because this party erred, it should not be flung back in my teeth that I am not sincere in the arguments I put fofward. I am not responsible for the tariff as it existed then. What I say is that the tariff as it existed in 1911 was such an improvement on the tariff as it exists to-day, that a man does not have to be an out-and-out free trader in order to show the inconsistencies and unfairness of the present proposals.
I would try my utmost to increase production in this country. I would not try to discourage those who are trying to raise products to the best of their power. I would not put a duty on fertilizers. My hon. friends may say, now you are talking shop, or something narrow. But let me tell my hon. friends that the duty on fertilizers is no small thing to the district I represent. Let me just give some figures. The total importation of fertilizers into the whole of Canada for the last fiscal year was valued at $602,148, and I have here a return from the Commissioner of Customs showing that of that amount, $118,000 was imported into my own town of Woodstock in New Brunswick; that is, about one-fifth of the total importation into Canada went into my home town. I also find that $10,000 went to the town of Debec, only 12 miles away; and I see that St. John and St. Stephen took $50,000 more; so that almost $200,000, or nearly one-third Of the total importation of fertilizers, went to the province of New Brunswick.


John Douglas Hazen: Is that manufactured fertilizers?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Practically all, yes.
Pretty nearly one-third of the total importation went into the province of New Brunswick, and three-fourths of that into my own constituency. In addition to that, enormous quantities are manufactured at home. I know that $400,000 of fertilizer is used in my own constituency, and yet my hon. friend the Minister of Finance is putting a duty on that. He is asking the New Brunswick farmer to produce more than he did last year, and at the same time he is putting a tax upon the very thing which the farmer must have in order to carry on his agricultural operations. Is that logical? But my hon. friend never attempted to be logical id the imposition of this tariff. Logic is the last thing which he had in his mind. He

simply said, I will import from the Manufacturers' Association their tariff expert, and! hand these things over to him. The tariff expert simply puts 7i per cent on everything, whether it goes to the farmer or the rich man, and regardless of whether it is logical or not. Perhaps my hon. friend does not realize that one of the important ingredients in fertilizers is potash, which comes altogether from Germany. The ordinary commercial mixture is what is called a four, six -and ten, that is, four of ammonia, six of phospherus and ten of potash. The very best you can purchase to-day is four, eight, four; that is four of potash instead of ten.
You can only get 4 per cent of potash where you usually get 10 per cent. We are compelled to pay a higher price this year than we were last year. Without this article we cannot successfully carry on our farming operations. While we paid $4 a ton last year, this year we are going to pay nearly $6.50 or $7.50 a ton. The result will be that men will not buy it and they will not be able to carry on their operations as they have done before. I am pointing out to the Minister of Finance the result of this illogical tariff, the result of putting on a tax to get around a little difficulty in order to help his manufacturing friends.


Mr. WILCOX:: Does my hon. friend know how much of this fertilizer is usually applied
per acre?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Yes, I do, and I will tell you all about it, because it may surprise you to know it, but I am a farmer myself. If you are going to use fertilizer on grain land you will require to use 300, 400 or 500 pounds to the acre; for potatoes you will require to use from 1,500 to 2,000 pounds per acre and if you want a particularly heavy crop you will have to use a little more. For different crops you will have to grade it according to the necessities of the case. The first thing I would do would be to delete that part of the tariff and reduce the cost of fertilizer. I want to do everything I can to induce people to produce two blades of grass where one was produced before, to produce two bushels of oats where one was produced before or to produce two bushels of wheat where one was produced before. I want to see the agricultural people of this country encouraged to produce more than they ever produced before. What this Empire needs is agricultural produce more than anything else I know of. This Empire needs all the food products that it can

possibly raise. My hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. 'Burrell) is going all over Canada preaching the propaganda of patriotism and production and the notices of the meetings I receive are surmounted by the flag. That is all right, I have no fault to find with that at all. I wish God to speed him and I hope that he may succeed in his campaign to bring about a greater production than we have ever known before. But the Minister of Finance comes along and at one swoop puts one part of the country at least in such a position that it is absolutely impossible to go on and produce anything like the crops that have been produced during the last three or four years.
The next thing I would do is this; I would see that as far as possible these taxes were so adjusted that the rich man would pay his share and not put them on the shoulders of the poor man. These hon. gentlemen will tell you that this is not an ordinary fiscal policy, they will tell you that this is an emergent condition of affairs, that the Empire is at war, and as the Prime Minister said to-day, it is the duty of this Government to keep at war until the war is finished. We agree with that. We tell the Finance Minister that if he wants to have more money than the ordinary revenues of the country will produce it is his duty to place his request before the House and take a vote upon it. We say to him: bring down your vote for $100,000,000 and give us an opportunity of voting for it; we want to help you to carry on this just war and we are anxious to know why you have not brought forward your vote of $100,000,000 because when you do we will vote for it; if $100,000,000 is not enough then make it $150,000,000 and we will vote for it just the same; we are not going to ask you questions as to how you are going to expend it; we will have to trust you to spend it and when we come back later on, or next year, it may be our painful duty to criticise how you spent it as we have now to criticise how the money voted last session has been expended. In the meantime you can go on and spend it. But if the Minister of Finance says that he has to put additional burdens upon the shoulders of the people of this country let him not place those burdens on the backs of those least fit to bear them.
The principal method by which, he proposes to raise these taxes is by tariff taxation. I have discussed that. I have pointed out that while he is going to get some additional revenue-not very much-he will get some additional revenue on raw materials and on manufactured articles-he will find that the revenue will not be as much as he has figured it.
He has resorted to a principle which I commend very heartily and.that is the principle of direct taxation. But here again my hon. friend has entirely exempted his financial and monopolistic friends from the operation of this tax and has put the burden upon the shoulders of poor people. My hon. friend smiles. . This matter was considered so important that his leader this afternoon had to take up an hour in order to answer the -case made by my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition two days ago. Let us see what he is doing. He says: I am taxing the banks. I give him credit for that and I have no fault to find with the banks either. He says the Bank of Montreal is going to pay $135,000 a year. The Bank of Montreal is paying to its shareholders $1,500,000 a year in the way of dividends and he is taking $135,000 out of them. The stock of the Bank of Montreal is as high as it ever was before the war. I do not think that it has dropped more than three or four points since the outbreak of the war. The stock of the Royal Bank has only dropped two or three or four points. The stock of all these banking institutions is as valuable as it was before the war. Why? Because the banks are making just as much money as they did before. I am finding no fault with the banks, but when the banks are able to pay 10 per cent, 12 per cent, and in some eases higher dividends, they can afford to make some sacrifices. While I give my hon. friend credit for imposing taxation upon the banks my criticism 13 that the taxation is only half what it ought to have been.
Then he has imposed a tax on the average man, the man who travels on the railway, and we know that such a tax affects the ordinary man much more than it does the rich man. That has all been argued by my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition. We have heard the attempted answer of the right hon. the Prime Minister. He cannot get away from the fact that he is imposing taxes upon the poor man to a greater extent than on the rich man. Then, coming to the question of express receipts, we all know that the rich man does not get express receipts. Express receipts are only for small amounts of money transmitted by the ordinary, poor man. The express company does not pay the tax. The tax is paid by the people themselves. Then you come to the postal revenue. If the Govern-

ment feel that it is necessary to impose this tax I do not know that I am finding so much fault with it. Probably the wealthy classes will pay their fair share of the burden resulting from the taxation upon letters and post cards. While I am not blaming that feature of the proposal of the Minister of Finance I very much doulbt whether he will receive from this source of taxation anything like the revenue which he ordinarily would receive or which he hopes to receive. We have had experience in regard to this matter in the past. We know what happened in 1896 and we know what happened in 1897 when the postal rate was reduced. We know that the postal revenue immediately jumped, that it kept [DOT]on 'bounding, and to-day it is away beyond what my hon. friend could have imagined it *would have been fifteen or sixteen years ago. I am afraid that the imposition of this additional fifty per cent in the case of letters and 100 per cent in the ease of post cards is going to defeat the object which the minister has in view. But if he feels that this is a proper method to adopt I dare say the rich man will pay his proportionate share of it. But there is a class of manufacturers and wealthy men which my hon. friend has not reached at all. Why has not my hon. friend levied a tax on the railways? There is not a railway in Canada that practically has not been built for the stockholders by the people of Canada.


An hon. MEMBER:: Take the Grand
Trunk Pacific.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: Certainlyl take the Grand Trunk Pacific, and if there is a railway in Canada that ought to pay a tax it is the Grand Trunk Pacific. The trouble is that when my hon. friends have something put up to them which they cannot answer they commence to jibe at it.


An hon. MEMBER:: They cannot pay.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: The Grand Trunk Pacific can pay, the Grand Trunk can pay, the Canadian Pacific Railway can pay and the Canadian Northern can pay. Every one of these railway systems has received practically every dollar put into it from the people of Canada, and they should be compelled to pay. But it would not suit my hon. friend the Minister of Finance to impose a tax upon those railway magnates. Why should not the street railway companies make some sacrifice to meet this horrible burden which my hon. friend is carrying upon his shoulders? Why should not the telegraph companies contribute something towards meeting the deficiency? 
Why should not the telephone companies pay something? There are few more flourishing corporations in Canada than the telephone companies, and they will flourish to a greater extent in the future, because there is no public utility which is being increased to a greater extent than is the telephone. Why has not my hon. friend imposed a tax upon express* companies? According to the investigation made by the Railway Commission a few years ago, it was demonstrated that the capital invested in an express company was practically nil, and that its profits were enormous. Why does not my hon. friend tax life insurance companies? For the life of me, I could not understand why he imposed a tax upon fire insurance companies and not upon life insurance companies. Why does he not impose a tax upon the large industrial corporations of Canada? He is giving his friends the manufacturers the right to charge the people of this country prices such as they never dreamt of before, and they are charging them and they will make enormous profits. Why does he not make them pay back some of the extra gains they will make as a result of this tariff? I suppose the answer is that it would not please his friends the manufacturers if he compelled them to pay something back into the treasury of the country.


John Hampden Burnham: How are the people
going to pay this 7J per cent tax to the treasury and also to the manufacturers?


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: That is exactly what 1 would like to know. How are they going to pay this 7i per cent tax when the other fellow pays nothing? My hon. friend does not appreciate my argument. I am finding fault with the Minister of Finance because he is making the people pay 7J per cent tax and letting the manufacturers go free. He should levy a direct tax on the magnates in such a, way that they cannot get hack at the people. Except in the case of the banks-and I am afraid that we shall pay the piper there-my hon. friend has imposed the tax in such a way that the magnates will get back at the people. Let the magnates stand some of the sacrifice which the ordinary people of this country are so willingly standing in order to work out this great war scheme.


John Hampden Burnham: That was not the question I asked. If the people pay the tax to the manufacturers, how are they going to pay it to any one else? You say that the

magnates get the benefit of the tax. If so, then the war tax is not paid by the people to any one else. That is clear.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: is of no use to him. I fear that by these proposals the Minister of Finance is making the wall so high-and I think he had a shrewd suspicion of it himself-as to prevent the inflow of British goods into Canada, and so he will not only make the consumer in Canada pay more, but will injure the British manufacturer as well. And if there is a man to whom all Canadians, and all true British subjects, should look and whose interests should be guarded, it is the British manufacturer, the man who, as I have said, is the backbone of this war, the man who must pay the money, the man from whom the minister himself is borrowing every dollar that he is using in carrying on the war. There is no doubt that if you argue it as a matter of percentage only, there is a greater spread between the cost of seifding in American goods and the cost of sending in British goods than there was. But if you have made the wall so high that you are going to stop the import of both, then, though I would not find so much fault about stopping the American imports, we on this side do find fault-and that is the real object of the amendment-with anything that is done to hinder the British manufacturer from carrying on business and earning the money which he is so cheerfully paying for the purpose of this war.
I cannot make this thing plainer than by quoting a paragraph from the Ottawa Citizen. It refers first to a statement from the Toronto News, which newspaper, I think, was the originftor of this fallacious argument that the British preference is increased by these proposed duties, and then comments upon that .statement:
" The Daily News doss not argue, as the Ottawa Citizen contends, that the new tariff reduces the taxes on goods from Great Britain. It has said that the British preference is increased. As a matter of fact the taxation on foreign goods is increased by 7J per cent and on British goods by 5 per cent. This means 2j per cent increase in the preference."- Toronto News.
What the News then should say is that, relatively, the British preference is increased but, actually, it costs 5 per cent more to bring British goods into Canada than it did before Mr. White's war budget. Isn't that the case? And are we dealing in such matters with theories or with facts?
I need not elaborate further; the whole case is boiled down in that little paragraph. Is it not a fact that we are making somebody pay five cents on the dollar more to get British goods into Canada than before this tariff came into effect? I do not argue whether that is to be paid by the British manufacturer or by the Canadian consumer -somebody must pay it. And not only that
[Mr. Carvell.J
but somebody must pay on every article of a similar character that is manufactured in Canada.
There is another point which has already been dealt with and to Which I shall only refer, and that is the extra handicap upon British trade through increased freight and insurance. Surely these discouragements to trade between Britain and Canada should be enough without the Government taking the unpatriotic stand of raising higher the tariff wall against that trade. An hon. friend behind me reminds me of the freights on lumber. Of course, lumber does not come from Britain to Canada, but the increase in freights in lumber is an illustration of freights generally. When this war opened the freight on lumber was 2s. 6d. per standard. To-day it is 7s. 6d., or three times as great as it was eight months ago. And what is true of lumber going to Great Britain is true of cottons, woollens and other goods coming from Great Britain to Canada. It does seem that this should have been a sufficient burden upon British trade with Canada without this Government putting on an . additional 5 per cent which somebody must pay and which will discourage trade to that extent.
There was another matter to which I wished to refer, but I have already spoken longer than I had intended, and it is almost six o'clock. Let me summarize in a few words what I have already said. I tried to point out to the Minister of Finance the questions at issue between us. In the first place, if the Minister of Finance had carried on the affairs of the country with due regard to economy he would not have been compelled to raise additional revenues, because with the revenue which he would have raised in tlhe natural order of things he would have had a surplus and not a deficit. I pointed out that if there be an unfortunate condition of financial affairs the fault is not ours, but the burden of responsibility rests upon the shoulders of the Minister of Finance. I have pointed out as best I could, that the result of his tariff proposals is not to encourage but to discourage trade, and not to increase revenue! but rather to decrease revenue; yet, though he is decreasing revenue he is increasing the cost of nearly every article that the ordinary man must use. I pointed out that another result will be to place an additional obstacle in the way of British trade with Canada. And if the Prime Minister thinks it necessary to read a lecture

to us, to throw out a challenge to the effect that if we persist in putting forward our views on these great financial problems in opposition to his, he will fight us and fight us at once-why, that is his business; it is a matter of entire indifference to us. We realize that the right hon. gentleman has the power to go to the country and have an election if he wishes to do so;-that is, if His Royal Highness has not the same mind on this subject as he is reported to have had in the month of August last. Let that be as it may, there is no use in a Prime Minister wielding the big stick and saying to us:	If you persist in putting forward
your views to the people and do it to the extent of compelling our people to vote, you will get a thrashing. We are prepared to take the thrashing or whatever else may come. If, on the other hand, the right hon. gentleman would take some of the ideas I have advanced-he says that nobody had given him an idea-let him remove the shackles from the producers of this country and put every man in a position to produce what he can. Let him remove from the ordinary consumers, the men who pay nine-tenths of the taxes, some of the burdens which now rest upon them, and put these new taxes, which we realize to be a sacrifice, upon the railways, the street railways, the telephones and telegraph companies, the express companies, the electric light and power companies, the great manufacturing concerns thus getting his revenue contributed by the men who have the money and the bank accounts and who are in a position to pay. Let him not wring it out of the poor people, many of whom are out of employment; many of whom are finding it an almost impossible task to make both ends meet. If the hon. gentleman will take some of these ideas to heart and bring them into play by resolving them into legislation, he will make a greater name for himself than he will ever make by playing the game with the manufacturers of this country. He will put the people of Canada in a position to contribute to the funds of the Red Cross Society and to other patriotic funds instead of paying this increased taxation. He will enable them to make easier and more pleasant the life of the men who are fighting in the trenches and he will put Canada in a position to do her share to bring to a successful termination the greatest war which this Empire or the world has ever seen.
At six o'clock, the House took recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. ALPHONSE VERVILLE (Maison-neuve):: Mr. Speaker, at every session of Parliament there is presented more or less legislation of the highest importance, but the most important of all is the Budget, for it establishes the policy under which the people of the country will have to live during the coming year and perhaps during many succeeding years. It is therefore no wonder that so many members on both sides of the House wish to place themselves on record as being in favour of or against the policy of the Government.
From wtoat I have gathered from the speeches already made on this important subject, I have concluded that two factors seem to have priority in the discussion, first, to all attacks made by the Opposition tne answer has been,- you have done worse or as badly. This to me, Sir, is small politics. Secondly, we have had lectures on social economy, plenty of theory, but so far very little practice, and the conclusion arrived at by hon. gentlemen opposite has been that the consumers of the country are satisfied, but this remains to be seen.
The hon. Minister of Finance in his Budget speech has exposed his new policy of taxation. I must say he did so in a dignified manner, in the only way that could be expected from a Minister of Finance, for the two most serious members of this House must always be the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. I am sorry to say, however, that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, instead of rising in the estimation of many, has perhaps descended some degrees after his last speech the other day. xi a speech of this nature had been delivered by the hon. Minister of Public Works for example, I for one would have thought him in his sphere; but for reasons that the hon. Minister of Puolic Works knows best it has not fallen Gris lot to do it. We are, Sir, in a' free country, and it is far from me to criticise the minister for the speech he has made.
Now, Sir, a new policy must be very effective in order to win the approval of the people of Canada, and to go to the root of the evil which forces the present policy on the country one would have to treat this question from three different points, that is from the domestic, social, and economic aspects, thus embracing all the arguments and reasons for or against this policy. It is not my intention to endeavour to give a

lecture^ on political economy for my hon. friend from Peterborough (Mr. Burnham) has been kind enough to favour us with an elaborate one. During his remarks I was very interested in his theory and and I must say that for many of the theories he enunciated in the House I have great respect. In many instances I was absolutely in accord with him. But we must bear in mind that it is with practice that we must deal at the present time, we must take the conditions as they are, we must deal with the mentality of people developed under the present conditions; we must bear in mind that the citizens composing our population must be looked after, all our institutions must be educated into a more democratic spirit, and a certain amount of the productive power of the people must be returned to them until such time as they can get all they are entitled to. I say to the hon. member for Peterborough that there are others beside himself who believe in that policy. But, Sir, I say that we have an immediate duty to fulfil, that is to prevent oppression. Every one in the House or out of it, would favour any measure which would have for its object the relief from oppression of the masses and the consumers of the country. That is the great question at issue and I am sorry to say that, as far as I am concerned, the effect of this new policy will be to pauperize the masses. Much has been said about taxes. It is not my intention to go over the ground that has already been covered. My hon. friend from Car-leton (Mr. Carvell) this afternoon spoke of taxes and so did the right hon. Prime Minister; but when he spoke d the tax on railway tickets it came to my mind that poor people are bound to be more affected by the tax on railway tickets than anybody else. Of course I will admit that if there was 100 per cent difference in the cost of a first-class and second-class ticket, if a first-class ticket were worth exactly double the price of a second-class ticket, then the poor man would not be so badly affected. If one pays $2 for a ticket and another pays $4.95, there is no difference whatever in the amount of taxes that will be imposed on the two tickets. Of course, it may be said that is a very small item, but still the Minister of Finance expects to derive a certain amount of revenue from it. If I understand correctly, the railway companies are to be permitted to collect this particular tax, and I assume that, for their trouble in collecting the tax, they will not have to pay anything to the 
Government. If that be true, the railway companies have no reason to complain. Of course a pullman is a luxury that the poor man rarely enjoys, so that will not affect him much. I shall not deal with this tax at any greater length, because it has already been discussed by many members in this House. The Finance Minister also expects to raise quite a bit on stamps. I take issue with him on that point. I know that a certain large corporation in my own city of Montreal which sends out a lot of mail has engaged young boys to distribute their mail from door to door, and I suppose the same thing will be done by other large corporations. In fact, they will really save by the imposition of this stamp tax. If the practice I have spoken of is followed in the large cities of Canada, the Finance Minister will get very much less than he expects from this particular tax.
I should also like to say a few words about the tax on patent medicines, a tax which will surely affect the poor people more than anybody else. When a rich man has anybody sick in his house he generally calls in a doctor; but the poor man cannot afford that, and if any one in his house falls sick the first thing he resorts to is patent medicine. It is the poor people, and they are the largest class in this country, whom this tax will most affect. It may be said that the druggists will not charge any more for these patent medicines, but commercial men are all alike; they are in business to make money, and I do not blame them for it. The legislation of this country permits them to do it. Directly this tax comes into force, or very soon after, the customer will be charged that much extra for his patent medicine, and as the customers are mostly from the poor classes this tax will bear most heavily on them.
A tax has also been imposed on spirits. Speaking for myself, I would favour the passing of legislation by this House to prevent the manufacture of at altogether. That is how I feel about it. As foT the tax on banks, the Minister of Finance has stated -I speak under correction-that the Bank of Montreal, which will be the largest contributor, will pay $150,000 a year. But that is but a drop in the bucket to the Bank of Montreal, and other large financial institutions. It seems to me that, if a revenue tax has to be imposed, these large institutions should be made to contribute more than that. I do not complain very much of these particular taxes, because it is my intention to submit to the

minister before I get through, that a revenue tax or a direct tax, if necessary, should be imposed, and the tariff left entirely alone.
We must remember that during a depression, the policy should be, not to increase, but to diminish all budgets, whether domestic, (social or political. In this House and out of it, on the public platform, and through all the newspapers, we have been preaching economy. Many citizens who were paying taxes in some form or other have had to save to the very limit, but it seems that the Government does not realize the present (Situation. To administer the public affairs by increasing the tariff, is not keeping pace with present economic conditions.
All hon. members who have spoken on -the other side of the House have condemned the -attitude of members on this side, and have said that large public works in time of stress are demanded by the working men of the country. That is so, but the amount of money asked for on account of public works will not all be spent this year. The workingmen of this country know that it is -a physical impossibility to (spend that -amount. I want to tell my hon. friend, and the Government generally, that the amount asked for for public works cannot be spent during this coming year. According to the information I have gathered, and -after looking up the re-votes, I feel sure that we could save at least $6,000,000 in the Public Works Department. Up to the time I came into this House I had spent all my life in the building tr-adie, -and I can -speak with knowledge of building. Suppose -a $50,000 building is to be erected somewhere. First of all the plans have to be prepared. There is a lot of red tape about that, and it generally takes about two months. Then tenders have to be called for and announcements made in newspapers in different parts of Canada. Plans have to be deposited in some city where the contractors may submit their tenders. After a certain time the tenders are sent to Ottawa, and after quite a long time they are opened. Then there is another lapse of time before the contracts are awarded. I believe I am well within the limit when I say that it takes four or five and probably six months before work can be started on that building. Therefore, on a $50,000 building-and I am taking a pretty large one-the amount spent in one year could not be more than $10,000; and if that is so, why should we vote $50,000 when only $10,000
is needed for the year? The same thing applies to all the public buildings, and I am sure that if we voted just what would be spent in one year we could save quite a few million dollars on public works. In some cases, no doubt, all the money voted will be spent during the year, but where it will not be spent the labour men of this country will derive little benefit from the money - voted. In most cases it will be a physical impossibility to spend the whole amount voted.
I thought that I would put this question clearly before the House. My hon. friend the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) knows probably better than I do that it is impossible for him to spend all the money on public buildings and other works in connection with the present Budget.
I want to speak of the policy of made-in-C'anada. Having reference to the present conditions and to the proposed increase in the tariff I say that this is the biggest farce that the human brain ever invented. It is the best possible weapon that could be handed to the manufacturer to enable him' to deceive the people. It is the best system by which an unscrupulous wholesaler or retailer can dishonestly put certain goods on the market. It is the best device possible to enable unscrupulous employers to oppress their employees. I will give an example. I hope that I shall not be asked to mention the store to which I refer as I do not want to hurt any one. There is a certain store in a large city in which a considerable number of young men and girls have been employed to remove the words, " made in Germany " from a lot of goods and to mark them, "made in Canada". I have proof and I know whereof I speak. You are putting it in the power of any manufacturer, storekeeper, wholesaler or retailer, at any time to do likewise. That is why I say it furnishes these people with an opportunity to put certain goods on the market that are not what they purport to be. It is a farce and it is not in keeping with our present commercial system.
It enables the manufacturer to charge whatever price he sees fit. It will hamper and destroy our present system of transportation and reduce to a minimum the earning power of the workers in the different branches of industry. The unscrupulous employer and dealer will, if he sees fit, buy elsewhere and sell his goods as being goods made in Canada. It will afford an opportunity to place upon the market inferior

goods and sell them at exorbitant prices notwithstanding the fact that our manufacturers enjoy a high measure of protection. I will admit that it may open a few industries but it will help to merge our industries into new combinations and put prices out of reach. The Government cannot be in favour of such a policy because if they were we would have to go back to the policy of 1911, and it would mean that they would have to favour free markets and reciprocity.
I would like for a moment to touch on the tax on coal. I do not refer to anthracite coal because anthracite coal comes in free. Anthracite coal has become to a large extent a luxury in the large cities. The prices asked for anthracite coal at certain times of the year are such that the poor man cannot buy it. If he has to buy by the hundred pounds, as many have to do in the cities, he pays as high as $15 or $16, or probably more, a ton. You may say that the question of the duty on bituminous coal will not affect the people in the cities. I have heard it stated that bituminous coal is not burned in the large cities. Since anthracite coal has become a luxury, coke is being more largely used by the consumers. They are buying coke instead of anthracite coal.
I do not believe that the companies selling that coke to the consumer will not add to the price of the coke the increase in the tariff rate on bituminous coal. It has been stated that the consumer will be affected by the tariff on bituminous coal by reason of the gas that he will burn, but there are a great number of families in the citis who do not know anything about gas. Therefore, my conclusion is that the increase in the tariff rates will affect them by reason of the coke which they burn.
I want to say a few words on the tax on raw materials. I will give an example to illustrate my view. I claim raw materials which we cannot get in this country should not be taxed. The other day my hon. friend from Peterborough (Mr. Burnham), during the course of his speech, read a letter. I do not know whether he read all of the letter to the House; but, whether what I refer to was in the letter or not, I know exactly what has happened. My hon. friend read a letter written by some of the potters at St. John and he said that they were satisfied with the 5 per cent increase in the preferential tariff. It is true that they have a protection of 5 per cent against goods coming from Great Britain and with this the men were satisfied-, When the 5 per cent

in the preferential rate was announced in the House by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, these very men of whom my hon. friend from Peterborough spoke, went to their employers at St. John and said: You have lowered our wages and you have told us that if you had only 6 per cent protection you could give us the same wages that you gave us formerly. What was the answer? The answer was: We are very sorry, but we cannot give you an increase because they are charging us 5 per cent on the raw material. I am giving an instance that was brought before this House, but it was not quite complete. There was only one side of it presented to the House. If that is what has happened in this particular case I do not see why it will not happen in other cases. If the manufacturers of this country could be trusted-I do not think they can be because I have not found any yet that I could trust in this matter-to charge only 5 per cent ad valorem increase on the raw material that went into the finished goods it would be a very small fraction that would be added to the cost of the goods. The claim has been made that it was impossible for the Canadian manufacturer of cotton to manufacture it as cheaply as it can be manufactured ^in the United States. If a bale of cotton is transported from the southern states to the New England states, and if another bale is transported from the southern states to the city of Montreal, I am sure, although I have not the figures, that there will be no- difference whatever in the cost of transportation as between the two bales. That raw material used to come in free. The machinery that is used in the manufacture of cotton in Montreal and in the United States is exactly alike. Power is as cheap in Canada as in the United States and labour is cheaper. How is it then that the manufacturers of cotton claim that it is not possible to manufacture cotton as cheaply in Canada as they do on the other side of the line? A royal commission some few years ago made an investigation, and they sat at Valleyfield.
I have not beside me a copy of the report of the commission but I read it at the time and these manufacturers were so ashamed of their profits that they had to charge a large amount of money to repairs to buildings which never was expended on any work of that kind.
The manufacturers are going to take advantage of the 5 per cent on the raw material and also of the 7) per cent on the finished article. During the last year or two the price of labour has diminished.

Labour is not, paying as well as it was a couple of years ago, and, of course, not as well as last year. Therefore the manufacturers are going to be protected, first, by the 5 per cent duty on raw material; secondly, by the 7J per cent duty on the finished article, and then by how much per cent on the diminished wages? I claim that they are going to be protected by 20 to 22J per cent. That is too high a protection. The burden of the protectionist system is supposed to be borne by outsiders; hut that is a fallacy, because protectionists are getting rich while the poorer classes are getting poorer. The Government derives only a small benefit, and the public pays ten times as much as the Government receives. A great professor of political economy has exposed that fallacy very clearly.
My hon. friend the member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) has discussed the question of the preferential tariff, and it is not my intention to go over that ground again.
Several hon. members spoke of the home market. We are subsidizing the railway companies and also the ocean transportation lines. We are doing it for a certain purpose, namely, for the purpose of transportation. We are not doing it for the purpose of transportation from Nova Scotia to Montreal; we are doing it for the purpose of transportation across the ocean. If we are going to take such an active interest in the home market, we should stop subsidizing those ocean transportation lines. Not only for the present, but for some years to come, there is going to be great difficulty In transportation across the Atlantic, because so many vessels are tied up. Therefore I would not be surprised if, at the next session of Parliament, we were to offer further subsidies to transportation companies. If we should have to do that, then the policy of an increase in the preferential tariff is absolutely wrong.
It has been said that the manufacturers will not increase prices. I believe that the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Blain) stated that an industrial establishment of which he knew, although he.did not mention the name, had recalled its prices and that in future it was going to have lower prices. It just happens that I know something about that industry, because 1 put in twenty-eight years at it. That is nothing new for that industry. There is a combine of the manufacturers of hot water boilers and radiators. The prices are set every year, and no manufacturer is able to sell below those
prices to the wholesalers or to the retailers. It has been the custom for the combine, when trade is bad, to change the prices. The manufacturers can well afford to do so. It may be said that this company or another company is willing to give an extra 5 per cent. The manufacturers will say: Our price is $100; the discount is 40 per cent, with an extra 10 per cent and an extra 5 per cent and so on. The public at large will say: 40 and 10 and 5 make 55, and they believe that the discount is 55 per cent. I do not want to give the figures, but I wiU let my hon. friend work them out. The extra 5 per cent discount is not a very great amount on the price of a commodity.
I have under my hand something showing the effect of the proposed change in the tariff. I have here a letter from Ames-Holden, McOready, Limited, under date of March 1, 1915, giving prices on shoes. I will put it on Hansard:
We beg to advise that the recent increase oi 75 per cent in the Canadian customs tariff on imported raw and other materials which enter into' the cost of manufacturing shoes, compels us to advance our selling prices. This is without taking into consideration the higher and increasing cost of leather due to the enormous demand for war purposes.
We have, however, decided that on account of having a stock of materials on hand, not to change our quotations until we are obliged to do so, at which time a new price list will be issued. Orders now in our hands to be shipped, will be filled at prices at which the goods were sold.
We consider it due to our customers to advise them of the above, instead of advancing prices without notice, and will be pleased to execute all orders for your immediate'requirements at present prices, and any business you can favour us with will receive our very best attention and service. Our service means prompt deliveries and fair treatment. Thanking you for past favours,
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd) Ames Holden McCready, Limited.
My hon. friend the member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell) discussed the question of shoes this afternoon and it is not my intention to go over the same ground again.
It would probably be interesting to learn the opinions of some men outside of the Old Country in regard to the effect of a high tariff on the mass of the consumers. I will read a few lines of the evidence given by American ship-owners before the United States Commission on the Mercantile Marine. This is the effect on trade as given by Mr. Austin Taylor, M.P.:
Protection has been destructive to shipping. The percentage of American trade carried in American bottoms fell from 72.5 in 1860 to 9-2 in 1900. The ocean-going tonnage of America

diminished from 2,600,000 tons in 1861 to less than 900,000 in 1903.
So far as transportation is concerned, it -[DOT] is plain that if there is a diminution, less labour must be employed.
Let us see what Mr. Ashley says in his " Tariff History." He gives remarkable figures proving beyond a doubt that the present policy is not one to better existing conditions. He points out that in the United States protection has been from the beginning a settled policy. It has been associated with sound principle on many subjects. It has stood for the honest payment of national debts, for free labour as against slave labour, for high wages for the American labourer. But in that country protection has not given to the workers all the advantages which might have been expected. More than twenty-nine millions of persons are occupied for gain and less than one million benefit by protection.
Australia is often set forth as an example and, in case some hon. members have forgotten the effect of tariffs in that country, let me give an example of free trade and protection. Lord Goschen gives us some startling figures on this subject. Until the Commonwealth was established Australia offered to students of economics an ooject lesson of singular interest. \ ictoria and New South Wales were neighbouring states, not urssimilar in climate and resources. Both countries made their beginning under a free trade system, Victoria being far ahead of New South Wales in manufacturing industries. In 1866 Victoria became protectionist; New South v>
ales adhered to free trade. Now, compare the conditions m 1902. Number of employed in Victoria, males 47,059, females 19,470- total 66,529; New South Wales, males 54,451, females, 11,674-total 66,135. New South Wales, the free trade state, employed more than eight thousand fewer women than did Victoria. Now, look at the value of output. In Victoria it was $98,000,000, and in New South Wales $121,500,000. These figures do not prove that 'protection is a blessing.
The policy proposed by the Finance Minister to-day means increase of taxes on nearly all articles, including food. Now, whether a man is rich or poor, he must feed his family, or at least he must make the attempt. During the last two years many have not been able to find work at which they could earn wages with which to buy food, and conditions of late have been such that you could not buy a job for any money. Many to-day are going to the front

to procure food for their families through separation allowance and the patriotic fund, and on those who are left behind we impose the extra burden. Sir John Gorst tells us that if we tax food a number of those who are now above the poverty line will sink below it, and those already below it will sink yet lower. And he goes on to say- and here I would ask our imperialist friends to think it over-that free importation of food is vital to the physical and moral wellkeeping of the nation, and is therefore at the root of true imperialism. A great imperial power cannot be founded on a starved and degraded population. These ideas should appeal to the Minister of Finance, but whether they do or not, I am sure they will appeal strongly to the wage earners of the country.
Now, I ask myself whether hon. gentlemen opposite are well satisfied with the present condition. I do not think they are. I do not think in their heart and soul they are satisfied. They may say: Our present policy will better conditions. That remains to be seen. My right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition foresaw the condition of this country and endeavoured to meet that condition by his policy of 1911. If every other member of this House were against that famous policy, there would be one at least in favour of it-myself. I have never seen yet an economic reason that could be given against that famous policy; and I have no hesitation in saying that, while probably depression would have come upon us in any case, it would not have been so severe a9 it is at present had that policy been adopted. We are told present conditions are caused by the war. The more I study the present economic condition, the less I can see that the war is responsible for it. There are many reasons, as many of my hon. friends know; and one reason, as I have stated, I strongly believe was the nonacceptance of the policy of 1911. Any one, whether in this House or out of it, who lured the people wrongly away from that policy is well punished to-day.
The unemployed problem is the object of the thoughts of every one in every walk of life. We were promised a commission on the high cost of living. When that commission was appointed by the Government, I stated that I was in favour of it, but that I did not expect that it would ever report. Had we had the report of that commission, it might have helped us to a better understanding of present conditions. But if that

commission operated in other cities as it operated in my own, I confess that I have no great hopes from its report. The members of that commission came to the city of Montreal, and, I may almost say, locked themselves up in a room in the Windsor hotel and had a few men come and give evidence before them. But not a single labour man of any kind was asked to go before that commission. These who were most directly affected, those who could give the most valuable information to the commission, were ignored altogether. It was a commission in favour of the manufacturer, and not in favour of the labourer.
Another thing of which my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition saw the necessity some years ago-and I do not think that under the circumstances my hon. friends can say anything to the contrary-was the establishment of shipbuilding industries in the western, central and eastern portions of Canada. If these industries were now established, what would it mean for the unemployed ? When the war is over there will be a gTeat demand for shipbuilding; the only place in which shipbuilding is carried on to any extent at the present time is Montreal. Other ships than warships are needed. When the great demand for ships for commercial purposes .arises, I fear that Canada will be far behind all the other nations in the matter of shipbuilding, and if shipbuilding industries are not established in Canada we shall have to go to the United States for our ships.'
I can tell the House exactly how the workingmen feel in regard to this matter. The workingmen all over Canada voice their opinion in regard to my hon. friend's proposals in this manner:	so far as the
war is concerned, we have done more than our share; we have furnished our flesh and blood to the extent of at least 80 per cent of all contingents which have gone or will go. We have made more sacrifices than other classes of the community; it cannot be said that we are disloyal. Many of us who go to the front will leave behind widows and orphans. We do not mind the suffering; those who .come .after us will know that we fought and died for their liberties and for the true principle of democracy. We know that those who are in the trenches desire that these taxes be imposed not upon -those whom they have left behind, but upon the great financial institutions and corporations, which are able to pay.
The hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Macdonell) stated the other day that the workingmen were satisfied with these proposals. I do not believe that the hon. gentleman had a mandate from them to say that they were satisfied. Surely he could not	say	they are	satisfiedin the city of Toronto and in the other	large	cities of	Canada.
Far from it. It is absolutely unfair to say that the workingmen and the farmers are satisfied. I do not know enough about farming conditions to say whether or not the farmers are satisfied, but I am sure that if the hon. member for South Toronto had given due thought to the matter, he would not have said that the workingmen of Canada approve the proposals.
We all understand that the present deficit has to be met in some way. I am afraid I cannot say that the deficit is d^e to the economy that has been practised by the Government. To meet this deficit, according to the Minister of Finance, a direct and indirect tax is to be imposed. This is where I take issue with my hon. friend and with the Government, because,
9 p.m as I have said, the imposition of these taxes will bear too heavily upon the masses of the consumers. When one criticises a mode of taxation, he should, in all fairness, suggest a remedy. The remedy that I suggest is the imposition of income taxes, and, if need be, direct taxes. There is no reason why the man who earns say $1,000 should not make a definite contribution out of that amount towards defraying the expenses of war. If that were done, each man would know how much he contributes; under the proposed system no one will know how much money he pays into the treasury. A poor man who has a family of five or six children will pay a larger amount in taxes than the rich man who has a small family, or none at all. The great proportion of these new taxes will be paid by the farmers and the workingmen of the country. I do not say that the rich man will not pay a share, but it is well known that a great proportion of the population of Canada consists of farmers and workingmen, so that they will have to bear the greatest share of the burden.
Mr. R. Hunter, a well-known sociologist, in a volume recently published, has the following to say with respect to the effect of high tariffs in the United States:
In Boston, in 1903, twenty per cent of the people were in distress. Fourteen per cent of the families in the city of Manhattan were evicted in the same year. Ten per cent of those who died in Manhattan had pauper burials. There seems to be reason to believe that the number of those in poverty in New

York and in other large cities and industrial centres rarely falls below '15 per cent of the population.
It is not our intention, I hope, to take any steps which will cause the conditions which prevail in those large American cities-conditions which have been caused by the imposition of high tariffs. Conditions of a similar character have existed in other countries. In Great Britain some few years ago, when it became necessary to raise additional revenue, a great man spoke from the ranks of Government saying': We are going to tax those who can best afford to pay. The land tax scheme, which was then proposed, was severely criticised by the moneyed men of Britain. The Government went to the people on that issue; all the moneyed interests of Britain opposed the scheme, #>ut the majority of the people approved it and the Government was returned. Let me come down to more recent years, the time of the last presidential election in the United States. Mr. Wilson was a Unversity man, a student of political economy; and he knew that the high tariff in the United States was the cause of the existing depression. What did he do? He reduced the tariff of his country and imposed an income tax. Again, Sir, the big financial elements were against him, but they are now commencing to understand that his policy was the only sound policy to adopt. It may be said in the House that he has not reduced his tariff very much; but if I remember rightly the reduction in tariff that he made amounted to $80,000,000 and the income tax that he imposed on the people of the United States amounted to $83,000,000. So then there was just as much money to administer public affairs, and to-day the people are fairly well satisfied. I was in the United States last year and heard very few complaints. This is what we call democracy, and if President Wilson's action has been for the benefit of democracy, I claim that what Lloyd George did in England was for tlhe benefit of democracy.
We might come right down to the inception of the war to show what great men will sometimes do for democracy. When war was declared between the Allies and Germany there was one member of the ruling order in Europe, one of the crowned heads of Europe, of whom we had (heard very little. It just happens that I have read the history of that great man, and it is no wonder that when the war broke out the spirit of democracy of King A'bert of Bel-

gium showed itself and that Ihe rose fully to the great needs of the occasion, as has been said in this House before, and has saved the situation for the Allies. Democracy is bound to get the best of autocracy, and what is the underlying principle of the present war? It is democracy against the Prussian autocracy. I might go farther and demonstrate that great men are bound to spring up at critical moments to the height of any situation. When the Allies had to find one or two men to guide the destinies of those great armies, we all knew of General French, a great man, able to face the situation; but very few of us had ever heard the name Joffre. But that great general has shown himself to be equal to the situation, and I take the word of General French that Joffre is not only a great warrior but a great man.


Mr.   SPEAKEB@: It does not appear to
me, after listening to the hon. gentleman for some time, that he is keeping very close to the motion before the House.


Alphonse Verville: Do I understand that
when I speak of the tariff, etc., I am within the limit?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes.
Mr. VERVILnE:	Do I understand also
that if I can say that great men will arise to the height of the situation as far as Canada is concerned I am also in order? That is what I want to get at! I do not want to go beyond that. I wish to show that great men are likely to arise at certain moments to safeguard the interests of the country, as far as tariffs are concerned-and I have almost finished. The Minister of Finance has thought himself big enough to meet the situation today and he has exposed to us a certain policy, I must congratulate my hon. friend on believing that he was equal to the situation; but at the same time I for one am not prepared to say that tne policy which my hon. friend has presented will meet the present situation. I am happy to say that at least one hon. member in this House has risen to tne situation and has seen and felt this current of democracy that covers the country. I have been in this House for nine years. I have listened to a great many speeches, and very good and sensible ones, from both sides of the House; but never in my short period of parliamentary life have I listened to a speech more democratic in spirit and feeling, more in accordance with present conditions than that of the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid

Laurier). He has risen to the height of the situation, hut like the great Englishman I have mentioned, he has announced his intention, as far as it is in the power of the leader of the Opposition to do so; and 1 am confident that the labour men of the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, when they read his speech and study its meaning will not hesitate to ask him to put in operation what he has so well announced and from tnat day we may expect to have enacted legislation for the benefit of the masses.


Mr. R. B. BENNETT (Calgary):: Mr
Speaker, it is obvious that at this late hour one cannot hope to add very much to the subject matter of the debate that has engaged the attention of the House during the last few days, in fact, during the past few weeks. I venture to state that a stranger coming to this House and looking down from the gallery would have a very great deal of difficulty to discover just what this House was discussing. The stranger listening to hon. gentlemen on the other side would be impressed with the fact that we were very much concerned about a domestic issue, questions of extravagance, questions of tariff. It is the same old story, the same old cant, the same old hypocrisy, the same old cry of extravagance, the same old appeal to the passions and the prejudices of the people, the same old attempt to arouse class against class, the same old effort to arouse the agrarian population against the manufacturers of Canada, the same old appeal to arouse the West against the East that I have listened to for the last fifteen years; the same old tale of the privileged classes and of the alleged wealthy classes; the same old solicitude or affected solicitude for the masses; the same long dismal wail and tale that was listened to in this country up until 18%; and that we have listened to since 1911; and the same old appeal in another Chamber of this Parliament to the racial and language passions and prejudicies of a portion of the people of this country. I must confess that, when this great conflict broke out, I expected and hoped that much would happen to bring unity between the East and West, between the eastern manufacturer and the western farmer; and there were signs, strong signs too, that such a result was about to be attained. For the grain growers and the manufacturers met together and discussed their common questions, and in the light of this great conflict forgot many of their differences. It remained for hon. gentlemen opposite once 69
more to precipitate into the politics of this country, at this time, after we had had a very considerable truce and the promise of a long-continued one, the controversy, conflict, passions and prejudices that have long been incident to their discussion of public questions and of fiscal measures.
How can one characterize the long and dismal wail that we have listened to for the last few weeks? There has been nothing constructive, nothing offered by which to accelerate the raising of the revenue, or by which to deal with the great problems that confront this country at this time. It has been one long criticism, one long tirade of abuse against the powers that be, one long attempt at destruction. There has been no offer of a constructive measure, and no offer or attempt to support the Administration in this great crisis of this country's affairs. I venture to think, Mr. Speaker, that the language of Lord Tennyson more accurately describes the situation than any words of mine could:
An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
Ani with no language hut a cry.
It is true that trade has been dislocated, that the great centres of the world's commerce have been disturbed. It is true exchanges have been closed in the great markets and centres of the world. It is true, and I regret to say it is true, but it is one of the incidents of a great war, that great accumulations of funds by the banks have taken place; for if the panic-stricken depositor demands his money the bank must be in a position to hand back what belongs to him. That confronts every country in circumstances such as these. It is true that there has been restriction of credits, and a lessening of trade. All these things have taken place, but they are not blamable to this Government. We know that it has long been the habit and custom of men in normal times, to blame-or praise governments for good and bad times. Sometimes the Government in power has assumed all the vir-. tues that attach to good times and when there has been a long continued series of lean years the Opposition has often blamed the Government for it. I remember reading in the biography of an English statesman that when Disraeli had been defeated and succeeded by Mr. Gladstone, the rural labourers said:	"When old Beaconsfield
was gaffer there was none of them hard times." And when Gladstone came into power and there was a succession of lean



years the opposite was said by those who opposed that Government. That is bound to be so. That is so in the United States. It is so in Canada. Oppositions blame governments for lean years and bad times. But governments have nothing more to do with good times or bad times, considered from the standpoint of world movements, than had Pharaoh's chief butler or baker to do with the emaciated condition of the shadowy kine.	_ -
But there is good and just cause for the condition which prevails in Canada at this time. Canada, as part of the British Empire, is at war. It does seem to me, and has seemed so ever since this war began, that we Canadians are slow, to realize that we are at war. For a century we have lived at peace; for a century we have lived side by side at peace with the greatest neighbour that a country can live beside. There have been no forts and no fortresses, and that very fact has accustomed us to think of peace, and not to realize what war with all its sadness and sorrow means. But the slackening of tyade, the lessening of credits, the destruction of many things, have brought home to us the fact that we are at war; and there are other and more cogent reasons that are bringing to our mind every day the fact that Canada is at war. Who, reading the daily press and studying the casualty lists that are coming home to us in these dark and grim days, can fail to realize that this Canada of ours is as much at war as any part of the British Empire? There are no words that I can use that would so adequately express the meaning I have in mind as the beautiful imagery of John Bright when he said:
An Angel of Death has heen abroad throughout the land. You can almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two side posts of our doors that he may spare and pass on. He takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor and lowly.
Aye, Mr. Speaker, that brings home to us ns nothing else could the fact that this country is at war. But the measure of our ability to participate in this great conflict must be the limit of our resources in men and treasure. The human element has been willing. Speaking as a western man, there is nothing that fills one with greater pride and pleasure than to see the splendid way in which the men have responded to the call of the Empire. In the province in

which I live I venture to think that not less than 12,000 men, out of a population of less than 450,000, have offered their services to the King and Empire. The human element has responded. It is for us in Parliament assembled to provide the necessary money with which that human element may be made effective on the field of battle. To participate in this great war involves the expenditure of vast sums of money, for war nowadays cannot be conducted without, money, and it is for the people's representatives in Parliament assembled to raise the money wherewith that conflict may be carried on, that the men who have so willingly offered their services may be able to give their best in the cause of this Empire and for the cause of humanity. It is of course an enormous burden to cast upon tihe Government. I venture to think that never in the history of eight millions of people occupying so vast an area have any men 'been charged with so large a responsibility as that which has devolved upon this Government. We are prone sometimes to be critical, sometimes to be censorious; but I have learned tlhe lesson that, while it is easy to criticise and easy to be censorious, it is not always easy to accomplish the vast undertakings that this country has begun and carried forward so successfully since this war began. In all the history of this world I venture to challenge any hon. gentleman opposite to point to a single instance where a Government, suddenly confronted with so vast a responsibility, with obligations so great, has been able to discharge those obligations so successfully as to win to some extent the gratitude and admiration of mankind. But, Sir, it is the duty of an Opposition to criticise. I listened to the right hon. the leader of the Opposition in August last, say to this House that while he claimed the right, and properly so, to criticise all that might be done by this Government, he proposed to give to them the best assistance he could, in order that they might carry forward to a successful conclusion the obligations and responsibilities which then rested upon them. I rejoiced to think that it was so, and I still think it is the duty of the Opposition fearlessly to criticise wherever occasion invites or demands. But, Sir, sometimes there are larger duties and obligations cast upon an Opposition. There comes a time when men must forget that they are party men, and must remember only that they are the chosen representatives of the people charged with the duty to assist in devising ways and

means by which this conflict may be carried to a successful conclusion.
We have been reminded of what has taken place in the Motherland. We have been reminded that leaders of the Opposition there have been consulted by Mr. Asquith in reference to the conduct of the war. I have failed in any study I have been able to give to the subject to find that Mr. Asquith at any time consulted the leaders of the Opposition in reference to or concerning any Budget proposals that were about to be submitted to the people of Great Britain. It has never been done in so far as I have been able to find, but it is true that Mr. Asquith had occasion to consult and consider with his opponents the different measures affecting the well-being, not only of the British Isles, but the adjustment of financial difficulties and trade arrangements of world wide importance. It is true he did, but surely this House has not forgotten that Mr. Asquith was in a position to discuss these questions with a Balfour, a Chamberlain, a Lansdowne or a Bonar Law. There is a difference. It is true that in the final analysis the Government must be held responsible for the proposals it submits to Parliament. I have not yet heard of any Government that cared to consider with the Opposition the character of the fiscal proposals which should be submitted to Parliament, and I venture to think that my right hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, in his address, had not reference to the Budget or to fiscal matters, but rather to those matters of larger and more general application to which I have just referred.
Now, the Government has accepted the responsibility of submitting to Parliament fiscal measures. It is absolutely certain that if we are going to carry forward this work, if this country is going to take its part in maintaining free democracy, if we are going to carry fprward this struggle on behalf of humanity, if we propose to do these things, then we must have the sinews of war, and it is equally true and cannot be denied that fresh taxes must be resorted to in order that the money may be raised. A great English Chancellor of the Exchequer once, speaking under circumstances somewhat similar to those confronting this Government, said that the prime duty of the Government is to look for revenue, and the ideal tax is that which will yield most revenue with the least injury and inconvenience to the community and without any injurious or oppressive burden on any industry or any class. He further said that taxation should be so framed that when
peace returned it would provide also for ordinary expenditure, and have no injurious effects in placing the fiscal system on a basis which would be equitable to every class in the community.
That is the principle which -a great English Chancellor of the Exchequer thought worthy of consideration in dealing with problems such as those which now confront the Minister of Finance. In the United Kingdom the Chancellor of the Exchequer can usually provide for a tax upon some object or article of almost universal consumption which will ensure a very large and buoyant revenue. For instance, in the Crimean war Tesort was had to raising taxes by an increased duty on tea and on sugar, and iso during all these years duties have been imposed upon articles of universal consumption, and they have been sufficient to yield a large and buoyant revenue. But in Canada the population is too limited. We have not the same large population, and there is no article of almost universal consumption, that enables the Government with certainty to select that article, impose a tax upon it and raise the large revenue that will be necessary for the purpose of carrying on the war. It is true, however, that in this instance the Minister of Finance, wittingly or unwittingly,-and I choose to believe that he did it wittingly-had regard to the words of the leader of the Opposition last year in framing his fiscal measure, and also had regard to the party truce that was supposed to exist. What did he do ? Instead of looking about to see what one single article, or two articles, or three articles, he might increase the duty upon, he said: I will not do that because it will involve a discussion of the tariff as a whole; I will content myself with adding something to the rate on all articles or nearly all articles that are imported. In order to prevent criticism and in order to prevent it being said that he had embarked upon a new policy for war purposes, be imposed a uniform increase by this tariff of 5 and 7i per cent. Surely nothing better could be calculated to disarm criticism or promote unity and peace. The tariff we have before us to-day is the tariff of 1907. It is the tariff placed upon the statute books by the (right hon. gentleman and the party opposite. It is the tariff which was represented to us as being the acme of excellence, the tariff that had been made upon scientific principles, an almost perfect tariff. Then, if that be so, if we have already made and placed upon the statute

statescraft! Great intelligent patriotism! Pure loyalty and regard for the country! When they see a party advantage, because they hope these taxes will prove unpopular, they oppose them.
They say to us that we could curtail our expenditure. It is not a theory that confronts this country, it is a condition. Are partially-roofed buildings to be left uncovered?-partly completed public buildings to be left open for the elements to destroy?- bridges that partially span streams to be left unfinished? Is every part of the public service to be neglected, or is the Government to be carried on? Are post offices, armouries, and great public undertakings not to be provided for? Are railways and bridges not to be completed?-aye, and more, are the great terminal facilities now in process of construction not to be finished, primarily that the traffic that we now have and expect in western Canada may be taken care of? No other part of the Dominion is more deeply interested than western Canada in the completion of the great terminal facilities at Halifax and Vancouver; in the completion of the canals; in the spanning of the. St. Lawrence that the Transcontinental may be of some value to the state. If that highway stops at Quebec, obviously it can be used for but a few months in the year. If it is to become a great public highway, and if it is to meet the public needs, it must be carried across the St. Lawrence to reach the great seaports of St. John and Halifax. The Government realizes that you cannot stop these works. Half-completed undertakings must be carried through. Can they find a man in the West, or a man in all Canada who will say: if you exercise a little more economy, if you left works half finished, left them hung up in the air, you would not have to resort to increased taxation? Do they underestimate the intelligence of the country or not? I do not believe that there is a man in Canada who would be misled by such prattle as that; that there is a single elector who would be deluded by such nonsensical sophistry.
These are the questions we have to consider. They say to us: if you could not limit your expenditure on capital account, while you might have gone forward and completed these great undertakings, you are paying too many clerks; there is no necessity for war taxes; you have one man too many at ?75 a month; take him off and there is no need for war taxes. That is the little

five-eent picayune politics that we hear of from these hon. gentlemen.


Mr. PROULX:: There are ten thousand
too many.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That has already been
disposed of in this House, and when the full returns are submitted to this Parliament it will be found that no more offensive falsehood was ever endeavoured to be palmed off on the public than that. And, as an hon. friend beside me suggests, the man who was the author of that has apologised. It ill becomes the hon. member for Prescott (Mr. Proulx) to circulate an admitted falsehood.
The very course of human events, the actual development of a great country such as this, makes necessary an increase in ordinary expenditure.- When Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, was making a Budget speech during the Boer war, he directed attention to the fact that there must be ever-increasing demands made upon the exchequer owing to our modern civilization. And so with us-increased expenditure must be expected as the years go on.
I take this opportunity to challenge the statement that the Civil Service of this country has been overloaded with employees. I can only speak of that which comes under my personal observation. There was recently*in western Canada a so-called oil boom. Some of you, I dare say, participated in it to your sorrow. But let me point out that in one of the departments of the public service here in Ottawa, there were three thousands leases in arrears, and they could not get the additional help to complete them because it was alleged a niggardly Government would not give the extra hands. I went down to that office last August after the House had prorogued and found that state of affairs. I found that the poor controller of the branch, with the help he had, could not deal with the work, and he said that certain objections were raised which made it impossible, to add to his staff. I can give other instances in my own community. True, we have had an increase in the number of men working in the post office. But there is a limit to what men can do. I should like to bear this testimony to the men in the public service, the men in the West-and I suppose it applies to the men in the East- that when their comrades volunteered and went to the war, these men gladly under-

took extra duties and asked that no successors to their comrades should be appointed because they were willing to bear the burden of the additional work thrown upon them. And I know that men in western Canada are being illy paid and overworked in the public service. I do not wonder that in the light of observation and knowledge, Dr. Adam Shortt apologized. And I shall wait with interest to hear the apology of my hon. friend from Prescott.


Edmond Proulx: I am speaking from returns brought down.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The return that was
brought down has now gone up. But, Sir, I should like to ask any hon. gentleman who represents a constituency in Alberta what public work that the Government has undertaken he would suggest should not have been undertaken.


Mr. W. M. MARTIN:: They are all in
Calgary.


Richard Bedford Bennett: 1 will admit that Calgary is a large city, but I did not know that its hounds extended as far as Edmonton. The largest expenditures in Alberta, in actual work of construction, are being made in the city of Edmonton, 200 miles north of Calgary. My hon. friend's geography is a little out. I know he is an authority in subdivisions; but he ought not to speak as though the subdivisions of Calgary extended to Edmonton, although they are very numerous. And I may further remark that they are not Grand Trunk subdivisions-perhaps he will understand the force of that remark.
I should like to ask, what public works now under construction in the province of Alberta should be dropped. Every Liberal newspaper in the province of Alberta has been howling for appropriations. They have not been asking for them in measured, calm and careful tones; they have been howling for them. They have been directing attention to the fact that this Government had not seen fit to do this, that or the other thing; forgetful, as my hon, friends opposite are, that a war is in progress. As long as a little more money can be spent, they say, that is all we care. But the appropriations that have been made in the present Supply Bill contemplate only the carrying forward of public works of the most urgent character in the province of Alberta. In the city of Edmonton the new armouries are approaching completion; in Calgary the contract has not yet been let. Both these cities have supplied soldiers not
by hundreds but by thousands for the service of their King and country, and if at this time we ask and expect that some public works be carried on in order that employment -may be given to our own people and that they shall not become subjects for relief, are we asking for more than we should?
Is it not the duty of the Government, so far as is compatible with the great demands being made upon the national purse to carry on this war, to proceed with such public works as are to be devoted to the purposes which I have mentioned? There can be no doubt upon that point; everybody is agreed upon it. Those who cannot do service at the front are anxious to find such employment at home as will enable them to contribute something towards the well-being of those who are fighting. Figures may be quoted, but they merely show that in 1914 Canada had the largest trade in her history, and that we endeavoured with our buoyant revenues and largely expanding trade to take care, so far as possible, of the absolutely necessary public works west 6f the lakes. I repeat again:	your
canal systems, your port terminals, your bridges, your railways, must be completed or the loss of millions of dollars in interest on uncompleted undertakings will be involved. Which shall it be: that works shall lie idle and uncompleted, to be destroyed by the elements, or that we shall go forward to the fulfilment of the high purposes for which they were designed? That is the problem that confronts this House, and I am pleased and happy to think that the Government has dealt with it in the way in which it has. This question has been discussed at length; I will not attempt to elaborate it.
I wish to discuss the second criticism urged against these proposals, namely, that they are unfair and unjust. Of course, this involves the old, old story of free trade and protection. Whatever may be said for and against protection, it cannot but be asserted that tariffs are now recognized as the necessities of commercial legislation by all countries in the world except Great Britain, and that nearly 50 per cent of the electors of the British Isles, the last time they had an opportunity to do so, expressed by their votes the opinion that tariff reform was necessary. The Canadian people have time and time again expressed their belief that revenue should be raised through indirect taxation, customs and excise, and any attack rnfyle by the Liberals against these means of raising revenue is nothing

more or less than rank hypocrisy. These are the only words that will describe it; why not call a spade a spade? It is well known that hypocrisy means the profession of one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, when, as a matter of fact, you believed, that which you first professed. Hon. gentlemen opposite are now professing their disbelief in protection, which they practised for fifteen years; therefore any allegations which they make against it may be regarded as rank hypocrisy.
With regard to the assertion of the right hon. leader of the Opposition that some of our proposals are of German conception, I prefer to treat his words literally. Whatever differences there may be in the minds of men as to the German nation and the German Empire, no student of history can fail to recognize the great achievements of the German people. Since 1870 their population has increased almost as rapidly as that of any country in the world. The value of their trade and commerce, which was at that time but a few hundred millions of dollars, had risen to the enormous sum of $8,000,000 a day when the war broke out. How did they accomplish it? By that German conception, you will say, of protection. It is true that they have practised protection to the hilt. It is true that they have taught that doctrine to their people and it is true that by virtue of that doctrine, as exemplified in their national life, they have given to the world an example of patriotism and of 'ability to meet the combined attacks of empires on sea and land that has challenged' the admiration of mankind. What were the fiscal precepts, the principles and the doctrines upon which they built their empire? Let me read them to the House. They are a.s follows:
1.	In spending money, however small the amount, never lose sight of the interests of your compatriots and country.
2.	Do not forget that when you buy an article from a foreign country, even though it may cost a copper coin, you diminish to mat extent the wealth of your country.
3.	Your money ought only to benefit German merchants and workmen.
4.	Do not profane the German nation, the German Arm or the German workshop by using foreign machines or implements.
5.	Do not allow foreign meat to be served at your table. Using foreign meat is harmful to the German breeder. Besides, it may compromise your health, since foreign meats are not inspected by the German sanitary police.
6.	Write on German paper with a German pen, and use a German blotting pad.
7.	Wear only German clothes and German
hats.	'
8.	German flour, German fruits and German beer alone give German strengtlr

9.	Drink coffee which comes from German colonies. If you prefer cocoa or chocolate, see that they are exclusively of German manufacture.
10.	Do not let th<v boasting of foreigners turn you from these wise precepts, and remember that the best products, and the only ones worthy of great Germany, are German products.
Such is the decalogue of the German people. I leave it to history as to whether or not their accomplishment may well be emulated by the Canadian people. In saying this I refer, of course, to their commercial greatness, and not otherwise; I am not desirous that we should emulate the German concepts of civilization.


An hon. MEMBER:: German "kultur."


Richard Bedford Bennett: German " kultur "-.
no. Jf we on this side of the House have been charged with having given effect to a German conception, I am sure that if that conception implies the utilization of our own products for the development of our own country, the employment of our own workingmen and the building up of our own markets, then indeed we are proud to think that that part of their culture we have assimilated.
The principles of protection were taught by Bismarck and exemplified in the commercial and fiscal policy of Germany. They are exemplified also in the teachings of the greatest of the great men whose names are prominent in the history of the republic to the south. I refer ,to Abraham Lincoln. As a plain, commonplace man, these were his words:
I do not know much about the tariff but I do know this much: when buying goods abroad, we get the goods and the foreigner gets the money ; when we buy goods made at home, we get both the goods and the money.
These were the principles upon which he proceeded. Many people will still believe that the views of a Bismarck are really worthy of more consideration than the opinions of a Turriff; and there are not wanting those in Canada who prefer to rely upon the judgment of Abraham Lincoln rather than upon that of Michael Clark. We believe, at least I believe, and I think the party to which I belong believes in the ordered and regulated development of the resources of this country. The made-in-Cajnada campaign has been pronounced by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) as stupid. It may be stupid, but it is at least patriotic. It may be stupid, but in the city	in which I live it at least
has the support of the Liberal newspaper,

and in Toronto it at least has the support of the Toronto Globe. There are not wanting those who believe that the Toronto Globe is stupid; I Leave that to be fought out between the hon. member for Red Deer and the editor of that great Liberal organ of public opinion; but it may be said that at least it is patriotic-the policy of made-in-Ganada. What would happen, let me ask , the hon. gentleman who has just sat down, n we had no tariff to protect us and no factories? The manufactured products of the city in which I live amount to $8,000,000 per year and those of the city of Winnipeg to over $43,000,000 per year, and that great western city now ranks fourth among the manufacturing cities of Canada, while in 1905, only ten years ago, its manufactured . products were less than $8,500,000. They have risen over 500 per cent in nine years. The wages paid out in 400 factories and shops amount to $10,000,000 per annum and they give employment to 18,000 workmen. And, Sir, the very fiscal policy upon which we stand has brought into this country not less than $600,000,000 of American money for investment while 175 United States companies in Canada have a total investment of $279,000,000. Let me ask the hon. gentleman, following the reasoning of Abraham Lincoln, is it better to have the International Harvester Company factory at Hamilton giving employment to 1,000 workmen or that the country should take the advice of my hon. friends and that those goods should be imported? That is the real question that is behind all of this; is it better to have one thousand workmen who walk home with their dinner pails at night, going to their homes, paying taxes, developing the resources of our country, that the farmer, the great supplier of the home market, may supply meat and wheat and food, or that these men should go to the United States and that we should import these goods, thus giving employment to the foreigner. I am willing, as I always have been, north, east, west or south, to stand or fall upon that issue. It is the highest, the truest patriotism, commercial patriotism. The made-in-Canada campaign is the translation into concrete action of the patriotism of words. It means that we translate into mills and factories, into smokestacks, into the homes of artisans, into the further development of our raw materials and resources, that which we preach. We are developing our wealth, giving a home market to the farmer and the labourer and in the end what have we done? We have added to the wealth of
Canada and to the wealth of the British Empire. When I think of the fact that we have a woollen industry, that has been singled out for attack that represents 220 factories employing 14,000 people, with an output of $20,000,000, that we manufacture, over 300 kinds of products and besides supplying the wants of our people, export $60,000,000 to the markets of the world, I feel that this made-in-Canada campaign means something.
When I heard the hon. gentleman who pretends to represent organized labour in this country and who has just sat' down, I felt bound to say he is false to the men he represents and false to their true interests. I say that however much this made-in-Canada propaganda may be regarded as stupid by hon. gentlemen opposite, it at . least will meet with the approval of the average man, the man to whom we now appeal. Which is better, that we should ship our cattle into the United States or that we should establish a packing plant at home and keep the hide to make leather, to make boots and harness, to keep the by-products and develop a second Armour, or a second Burns, or a second Gordon, Ironsides in Canada. Which is the better? Hon. gentlemen opposite say it is better to ship animals on the hoof to the United States and swell the revenues of the Armours there. We say it is better to keep the animals at home and kill them here, to convert the hides into leather and the leather into manufactured goods, giving employment to our workmen, causing great factories to be built and smokestacks to dot the horizon. If there is one cause I am proud to espouse it is the cause of made-in-Ganada. I believe it is better for western Canada that great flour mills should arise and that second Minneapolises should be founded, that we should keep the bran at home and export the flour and thus develop our great cattle and dairy industry. I believe that as firmly as anything in the world, and I am proud to think that the party with which I am identified has become associated with the made-in-Canada propaganda, and that hon, gentlemen opposite are so strongly opposed to it because their opposition is the best reason for supporting it. But, Sir, I wonder if I appeal in vain to my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Macdonald). He has seen the tall smokestacks of New Glasgow and Sydney. They have gladdened his heart; let him come with me to one of the made-in-Canada trains and see what we produce-and if a sense of

land, Australia, the Fiji Islands or in any land under the British flag. If such a man is anxious for the prosperity and development of the land in which he lives, he is doing the best and noblest work he can to create a valuable asset for the British Empire. Every man who settles on the plains of western Canada, every man who builds his lone shack in the wilderness, every man who ploughs an acre of soil, every man who buys a team of horses, every man who raises a field of rice in the Fijis, every man who runs his stock upon the plains of Australia is contributing to the upbuilding of the British Empire and that policy cannot be antiBritish if it makes for the upbuilding and development of Canada as a whole. There can be nothing anti-British that makes for the development of the component units of the British Empire. I hold that the development of the autonomous, self-governing dominions comprising this Empire is the paramount duty and first work of those who live within the borders of these dominions. That is what helps to build up the British Empire, and that is the only method by which the British Empire will continue to be the great force in the future that it has been in the past. I ask the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) if the settlers who came to Canada on the Hector and landed upon the shores of Nova Scotia are doing a less important work in the development of the British Empire than those who remained at home upon the shores of Scotland. I ask is the settler who came from England or Wales taking a less important part in the great work of [DOT] building up the British Empire than those who stayed in Wales and England. Every man who, in the land in which he lives under the flag of the British Empire, does his best to build up that land is contributing to the greatness of the Empire as much as if he lived in Great Britain or any other portion of the Empire. That fact must be certainly borne in mind. This policy anti-British? A policy that develops Canada cannot be antiBritish.
Hon. gentlemen say that this proposal takes away the British preference. I shall not deal with that argument because it was dealt with very fully by my right hon. friends the Prime Minister and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) and therefore any ' observations I might make would be mere surplusage. But not only has the British preference been increased by the placing of a duty upon raw material, not only has that
been done by the difference between 5 per cent and 7) per cent, namely, a difference of 2) per cent, not only has the old British preference been maintained in its integrity in relation to Great Britain, but the fact is that in some instances we have made the British preference as much as 50 per cent by the addition of an ad valorem duty to a specific duty. Take the case of cement, if you will assume that in Great Britain a barrel of cement costs 60 cents; in the United States, 80 cents. The duty is 7 cents per 100 pounds or 24) cents per barrel if it comes from England, and 10 cents per 100 pounds or 35 cents per berrel if it comes from the United States. What will happen? There is an ad valorem duty of 5 per cent, if the barrel comes from England. That makes 3 cents. 24) and 3 make 27). If the barrel comes from the United States, the ad valorum duty is 7) per cent. 7) per cent on 80 cents makes 6 cents. 6 and 35 make 41. Therefore, the British preference is 41 minus 27) or 13) cents a barrel. Before this tariff was put on, the British preference was 10) cents per barrel. There it is in black and white. So it runs through all that long list of goods that are now upon the free list. You cannot get away from it. You have in one instance your specific duty fixed at so much per article. Then you have your ad valorem duty based on the value. Just as the cost of the goods in England may be less than the cost of the same goods made in any other country, so the British preference is enhanced not by the difference between 5 per cent and 7) per cent, but by the difference between 5 per cent on the cost in England and 7) per cent on the cost in any other country. So the British preference is not only maintained in its integrity, but increased.
I will give a concrete example, in my own experience. When I was in England, a few years ago, the great chief of the tin-plate industry spoke to me of the question of duty upon his product. He said: "I am now a confirmed and convinced protectionist. I am the head of the tin-plate industry. I saw the time when all the tin-plate that went to the United States came from Wales, and my people sent it to the United States; but the United States put a high duty upon tin-plate and developed that industry to such an extent that they supplied every one of their own requirements and also the expanding necessities of the great Dominion of Canada, and we are now shut out of that country. Cannot you impress upon your Minister of Finance and

your Minister of Trade and Commerce the necessity of giving some preferential treatment to tin-plate." I communicated with the Minister of Trade and Commerce and also,with the Minister of Finance. I was advised that they were unable to do anything; but to-night the tin-plate industry of Great Britain is protected at least by a preference of 2J per cent against the tinplate industry of the United States. That must be so, for, while tin-plate coming in from the United States will pay 7$ per cent duty tin-plate coming from Wales will pay but 5 per cent. Therefore, at least one great industry has been helped as it has never been helped by hon. gentlemen opposite.


Frank Broadstreet Carvell: And the people pay the 5 per cent.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is a favourite allegation of hon. gentlemen opposite, but it has not been borne out by the facts in the cement industry.
One word more. These have been troublesome times. No public man can fail to be impressed by the seriousness of the problems surrounding him. I have not made a political speech since the war began, but I have talked so much along other lines that sometimes I have been worn out. Tnose who have talked politics in my province have been hon. gentlemen opposite. The only hon. member I know who went out of his way to make a political speech in a local election was the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark); I am sorry he is not in his seat. In the Wetaskiwin local' election, the kind of promise that was made by the party he supported to the German settlers of that district was: " Vote for the Liberals; they are your friends." It is a very serious matter; it may seem but a small matter in some respects; but it has a larger aspect. We must do better than that in this country. We must rise to a higher plane of patriotism; we must have a higher and larger conception of our responsibilities and our duties if this country is ever to assimilate the population it brings within its borders, and if it is to continue to play a large part in the destinies of the Empire. But this is the exception, for I am bound to say that I think the hon. member for Red Deer was sorry after he went up to Wetaskiwin, because, although he went up there to an election, he talked patriotism. He thought that was the better thing to do, and I agree with him. But what have we

in this country at this moment? We have carping criticism; we have more than that; we have a vote of want of confidence moved by hon. gentlemen opposite against the Government of the day. I do not mind the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff) challenging this Government to go to the people and saying that they dare not go to the people; that they do not have the people behind them. But when the exMinister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) challenged this Government to go to the people, it was a more serious matter; and when the right hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition saw fit by a motion of want of confidence to challenge the conduct of this Government as to the war, to challenge its administration of the country's affairs, to challenge the measures this Government has introduced by w'ay of enabling the people of this country to make their just and proper provision to pay those who are fighting in the trenches, it became a more serious matter. Never in the history of the world have men in a new country been charged with a more serious responsability than that which this Government is now carrying. When I think of the responsibility resting on the shoulders of the first minister and of the Minister of Finance and of their colleagues, I can readily understand how at times they become weary. If in addition to all that they are to be menaced and threatened by hon. gentlemen opposite, who allege that they represent fifty per cent of the people of this country and that they have behind them the confidence of the people of this country, it is indeed a matter of the first moment. Any one, weary and tired with the struggle of the day's work can at least expect that work well done will meet the approval of his fellow citizens; but the members of this Government are threatened by the members of the other side with: "You dare not take the voice of the people." I am not in the secrets of the Administration; all I can say is this: to a challenge such as that I would not let twenty-four hours go by until I had accepted it and let the people of Canada pronounce upon it.
What has happened? When the people of this country sent from these shores upwards of thirty thousand men in thirty ships, convoyed by the long, swift greyhounds of the British navy, they did it in almost unexampled time. It challenged the admiration of the world. And hon. gentlemen opposite norv say that for that act they

have not the confidence of the people of Canada.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They disclaim that. But this resolution, if it carries, means that this Government goes out; it means a want of confidence in every act in this war on the part of the Government of the day. That is what it means-that and nothing less. If, indeed, Sir, I must analyse the causes of this great world's struggle, I would say that at least some small part of the responsibility lies at the doors of hon. gentlemen opposite. I can bear personal witness to that fact. I crossed the ocean in the Imperator on the first trip she made back to Germany. It was after this Opposition had opposed, and, speaking through an irresponsible body, had killed, the naval propositions of this Government. And 1 heard the Germans, officers and men in high positions, who knew not that I was a Briton, rejoicing and becoming exceeding glad. They said that Canada's act meant that in the critical day this country would not respond to the call to arms. They were wrong. They based part of their action when they went to war upon mistaken premises and wrong hypotheses. But these hon. gentlemen opposite are responsible for these mistaken premises and wrong hypotheses so far as Canada is concerned. Had our proposals carried, a grand and glorious sight might have been seen of three ships of the Queen Elizabeth type thundering shot and shell in the Dardanelles, or in Heligoland Bight, or possibly in the Falkland Islands. What a proud thing it would have been to Canadians did we at least take some part in driving the infidel from Europe and raising the cross instead of the crescent on Saint Sophia. But we are denied that. Being denied it, we have sent thirty	thousand men, and as
many more are now in training. With infinite toil, with willing sacrifice, with great expenditure of treasure, we have sent from our land the bravest and best of our sons,-sent them forward to do battle in this conflict, not for the cause of Britain only, but for the cause of humanity, that liberty and freedom may continue among the sons of men.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a good deal of interest to this address of my hon. friend from Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett)-one of those characteristic addresses which he gives us each session. There was the same old panegyric, there were the same old
glittering generalities, that have been brought forward by the hon. gentleman whenever he has spoken in this House ever since he has had the honour of a seat here. I do not propose to follow my hon. friend through all his remarks-
Some hon. MEMBERS Oh, oh.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: But I promise hon. gentlemen that I will deal with his remarks as I go along. Just now I merely wish to say that I would suggest to the Minister of Militia that he should keep his eye on his friend from Calgary. When I heard that gentleman go back on his long career of admiration for British institutions and actually propound to this House and to the people of Canada the doctrines of German philosophy and German '' kultur," as he did; and when I heard that he was consorting-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Yes; when I heard him admit that he was consorting with the enemies of Britain and of Canada, those German officers on the Imperator, I feel it my duty to suggest to the Minister of Militia that he had better keep his eye upon the hon. gentleman.
The hon. member actually took the position that those of us who represent the Liberal party in this House have no right to criticise the views of the men	who happen to	fill	the
Treasury benches. That is good old Tory doctrine. But it is very perilous doctrine for the man who happens to sit on the Treasury benches. We used to hear that doctrine preached before 1896-the heaven-given right of the Tory party to rule this country, and that anybody who ventured to disagree with them might thank God that he w;as permitted to live in Canada. The Canadian people did not wish tyranny of that kind to exist in Canada and dismissed from office the men who aserted that theory. We hear it asserted again to-night; and I venture to say that when the Canadian democracy understand the spirit which is behind such assertions they will call upon those responsible for them to give place to better men. Sir, are we not to have in this House, as representatives of a free people, the right to criticise in the interests of Canada the doings of this Government? It is a new doctrine to propound in a free Parliament under British institutions that, because by the accident of fate, a certain political party happens for the time being to occupy the Treasury benches, other repre-

sentatives are to be told:	If you dare to
speak and to question in the slightest degree the utterances of the men in power, you will be disloyal.
My hon. friend talked about sending our men across to take part in this war. I want to tell him that, so far as my province is concerned, there were as many men aboard those ships who were followers of the right hon. gentleman who leads the Liberal party as there were of followers of the Prime Minister of this country. Day by day, as this war goes on, the blood of the Liberal boys dyes the plains of Flanders with that of their Tory comrades. And that my hon. friend should arrogate to himself and to his party, as he did to-night, the sole right to glory in the fact that these men have gone forth to this war is something that I do not propose, as a representative of a free people, to stand here and submit to. I want to assert my undoubted and unquestioned right to criticise the administration of hon. gentlemen opposite at any time when I think I should do so in the national interest.
We have heard a great deal about the political truce in England and about what the members of the British Parliament have done in that regard. Let us see what they have done. My right hon. friend told us what occurred in the November session of the British Parliament which, in a very great degree, was similar to the session which we held last August. Let us see what Mr. Bonar Law, leader of the Opposition, said when the Imperial Parliament met on February 2. After intimating that he had been honoured by the Prime Minister with a consultation upon certain subjects-I quote from the English Hansard- he said:
I should make it clear, however, that we have no responsibility; that we are absolutely free and that in criticising or in refraining from criticism the action of the Government we are actuated solely by what we consider to be the national interest. Let me say further : it seems to me possible there will be more discussion in the present sittings of the House in which members in all parts will take part than has been the case hitherto.
Mark you, this is the position taken by the leader of the Opposition in England, who had been consulted by Mr. Asquith in regard to matters of national importance. He made it clear that he absolutely was free to criticise or to refrain from criticising the Government upon all matters of national interest. What further took place? The leader of the Labour party in the Im-

perial Parliament, Mr. Henderson, the very day upon which Parliament opened, demanded that the Prime Minister, at the earliest possible moment, set apart a day for a discussion of the prices which were being charged for foodstuffs in England. The press of March 13 had this to say with regard to the criticisms of Walter Long, a candidate only a couple of years ago for the leadership of the Conservative party:
Walter Long, in a criticism of War Office methods, deprecated the employment of professional soldiers as horse buying and recruiting agents. Canadians had told him that the British'War Office was a gold mine to Canadians by the way in which they were buying horses at prices out of all proportion to their value.
He proceeded to denounce the war office for their administration in regard to . the purchase of horses and in regard to their keeping back information respecting the troops at the front. In language of the strongest possible type, he reviewed and condemned the action of the Government. Lord Charles Beresford, in Ms criticism in the British House of Commons of Winston Churchill and his administration of the Naval Department, stated his case in plain and decided terms. What did the British Government do, in the face of these criticisms ? Did they insist upon the exploitation of a measure to provide that the votes of the sons of England, Scotland and Ireland who were fighting in the trenches in Flanders should be cast in any general election which might take place ? Will any hon. gentleman, upon his responsibility a-s >a public man, seriously contend that the German Emperor is going to cease hostilities in Flanders in order that every Canadian voter may have a chance to take part in a Canadian general election ? Any one who entertains that idea makes a very great mistake. Do the British Government talk about a general election because their actions are criticised ? No; they know that a general election in England at this time would paralyse the whole standing of the Empire. They know that it would stop recruiting. They know that under present conditions England would be more seriously menaced by a division of the people, either of the Mother Country or of any other part of the Empire, than by any attacks the Germans have made or could make upon her.
The hon. member for Calgary directs attention to the heavy burden which has been placed upon the shoulders of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance; he says

that -the hon. minister lies 11 p.m. awake at night wondering where he is going to get the money which is to be used for war purposes. Let me tell the hon. member for Calgary that the Minister of Finance has the money; he borrowed it in London; he has it in his inside pocket, and he is not worrying about it. The hon. gentleman .says also that the Prime Minister is lying awake at night. What is he worrying about ? You have obtained $150,000,000 from England to pay your bills; why should you worry? What hon. gentlemen are worrying about is how many of their party followers can get a portion of that money; that is their chief source of concern. My hon. friend the Minister of Militia, if all stories are true, has been worrying a great deal. What about the committee which was appointed to look after the money that came from England to be used for the purchase of war supplies when he was on the other side? Has that committee reported to the Government or to the House? Hon. gentlemen are worrying, are they? The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, so far as the question of obtaining money for t'he war is concerned, have never lost five minutes' sleep. They may look solemn and wear a portentous air-as both of them can do with the greatest possible ease-but that is all there is to it. When hon. gentlemen venture to criticise the Government, the Prime Minister becomes virtuously indignant. The hon. member for St. John City, he says, has no business to inquire about submarines. It is true that Walter Long criticised the British Government in respect to the purchase of horses in Canada, but we must not mention submarines. Keep your unholy hands, he says, off this question; do not venture to criticise or make suggestions, even if the national interest is at stake. That is the attitude of (hon. gentlemen opposite. They cloud themselves in an imaginary cloak of secrecy, and tell us, who are the representatives of the free people of this country just as they are, that although these are very serious matters, we must not know anything about them. For Heaven's sake, they say, do not say a word or we will have a general election, and then there will be an awful row.
I intend to discuss this Budget, because I think it is in the interest of the people of Canada that it should be discussed. I do not think that this Budget is a war budget at all. The Minister of Trade and Comrevise:
merce said yesterday afternoon that after listening to the Minister of Finance exchanging compliments with the hon. member for Red Deer upon their being the only two economists in the House, he had an inclination to say to them, " A plague on both your houses ! let us have a little common sense about this Budget." Whose Budget is this, anyway? Is it the Budget of this Government? The utterances of the gentleman who fills the position of Minister of Finance would indicate that the Government had nothing to do with it. Four hundred and thirty-five times he said that it was his Budget. If we cannot believe the Minister of Finance after such a frequent reiteration, I do not know how many times he should say a thing before, we may believe it. The Conservative press announced that the Finance Minister, after careful deliberation, had come to the conclusion as to what the Budget was going to be, but that he was not going to bring it down for a few days because it was thought that the Minister of Trade and Commerce would have to look over it.
I will venture that he never showed it to the Minister of Trade and Commerce; the speech of the Minister of Trade and Commerce yesterday showed that he had never seen the Budget before it came down. In the adroit way which is so characteristic of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, he denounced every line of it while apparently favouring it. What about the assertion of the position of the Minister of Trade and Commerce in regard to extravagance in this country? Why should he have asserted his faith upon that question at the present time except for the purpose of indicating to the country, in his own adroit way, that, so far as he is concerned, the present Finance Minister was too extravagant. Apparently a new Caesar Augustus has appeared in this twentieth century who has sent forth the decree that all of Canada should be taxed. That is the situation-taxed under false pretenses. This measure before the House should not be called a Budget, but should be called an act to provide money from the people of Canada for the Canadian Finance Minister under the pretence of a war tax. My right hon. friend the Minister of Finance, in the colloquoy he had with the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark), announced to the House with the utmost confidence that there were only two economists in the House, himself and the hon. member for Red Deer.



D EDITION COMMONS

An hon. MEMBER:: Two in the country.


Mr. DUGALD STEWART:: He forgot the member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Yerville.)


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: He forgot the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Stewart) probably. By the ordinary definition of the word economist I find in the dictionary that it is one who practises economy. My hon. friend belongs to that class of holy Willies who want to offer up to Heaven daily a prayer:
O wad some power the griftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
If he had that power, he would find that he is not really an economist of the class to which the hon. member for Red Deer belongs, but is a spendthrift travelling under the guise of an economist. But if they are the only two political economists, what about the Minister of Trade and Commerce? He was a good one once; he was good enough for Sir John A. Macdonald, and should we expect that my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce will sit there in ecstatic admiration for this new financial colossus who has come in this twentieth century to deal with all financial problems; and our friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce, who was a good one once, is no good now. The Minister of Finance told us that himself, and consequently it must be so.
I submit that this proposition which my hon. friend is asserting in this resolution to go before the Committee of Ways and Means and which he calls war tax, is not a proposition to get money to pay for the war at all. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance gets quite hot under the collar when anybody says that. Last Wednesday he dared any body to say that this is not war taxation. He says that the man on the street knows it is. It is the man on the street, who never takes the trouble to find out what is going on in this House, that my hon. friend is expecting to deceive upon this question. A child of ten years old, he says, knows all' about it. How much does a child of ten years old know about a war budget? But these are the two classes my hon. friend summoned to his assistance as knowing that this is a war budget. I assert in the presence of the Minister of Finance that this is not a war budget, and I Dropose to prove it by a witness whom even the Minister of Finance will be bound to accept. What is the meaning of a war budget? The idea my hon. friend wants to convey to the country now is that Parlia-
ment should pass certain measures by which the Canadian people should be compelled to pay into the treasury of Canada a certain sum of money which is necessary to defray the expenses of the war. That is what I would call a war budget. I say that of the money which will come out of this taxation which is being imposed upon the Canadian people, not a cent will go towards the war and I dare my hon. friend, using the tragic language of the Minister of Finance, who I understand is to follow me, to show me where the evidence that I submit to him and to this House is not correct and does not prove my assertion. The witness I propose to call to prove the statement which I make that this is not a war budget, that not a dollar that will be collected under it will ever go towards defraying the expenses of the war, is the Minister of Finance himself. My hon. friend in his Budget speech, which he delivered on February 11, said.
My proposals for meeting the situation are as follows:
So far as concerns our special war expenditures which may reach one hundred million dollars I should be disposed, if we had not such heavy and uncontrollable capital expenditure to meet, to recommend that we should pay at least a part of it from current revenue. But it is obvious upon a consideration of the figures which I have submitted that we shall not by any reasonable supplemental taxation measures be able to close the gap between revenue and expenditure much less to pay a portion of the principal of our special war outlay In the circumstanres I have no hesitation in proposing to the House that we shall borrow the full amount. required under this heading.
What does that mean, Mr. Speaker? It means that the Finance Minister proposes to borrow the $100,000,000 from England, and, so far as the principal of that expenditure is concerned, he does not propose to pay a single cent of it out of current revenue. He went on:
Canadian Governments have always justified public borrowing for capital account on the principle that expenditure upon enterprises, permanent in their nature, enures to the benefit and advantage of future generations who may therefore fairly be asked to pay interest upon the debt contracted in respect of them. If this theory is correct, and so far as I know it has never been seriously challenged, then we need have no reluctance in borrowing to meet the expense of this war, because such borrowing is for the purpose of accomplishing for future generations that which is infinitely more precious than material undertakings, namely, the preservation of our national and individual liberty and the constitutional freedom won by our forefathers during centuries of struggle, enjoyed by us to-day and destined, we believe] to be ours for all time. It is therefore the intention of the Government to negotiate for a

continuance of the arrangement which I have mentioned with the Imperial Government for the purpose of procuring the funds necessary to meet our special war expenditure.
So that my hon. friend is getting the $100,000,000 from England as a loan; and last August he put upon the country certain taxes, both by way of customs and excise, asserting that he wanted, the money for the purpose of paying the expenses of the war. Every dollar he got as a result of that extra taxation has been put into the treasury, and is being used for the ordinary services of the country, and not a dollar of it went for the war. Every cent of the $50,000,000 which has been at the disposal of this Government since last August was borrowed from the English Government. Every cent of the revenue collected went into the treasury, and the $50,000,000 which Parliament has provided to meet the expenses of this war has been furnished by the English Government. Not a cent came out of the treasury of the Dominion of Canada, and it will not come out of it under this Government. Why should the Minister of Finance play upon words? Why should my hon. friend the member for Calgary, in the impassioned address which he made a short time ago, talk about these gentlemen being weighed down with their responsibility, about the sacrifice of the Canadian people and country in regard to this matter when these gentlemen who are sitting on the. treasury benches have that $50,000,000 in their pockets, and not a cent of the money that will be taken from the Canadian people under this tax Bill will ever go to pay the expenses of the war? Only yesterday the Minister of Trade and Commerce admitted that. He said that the Opposition were perfectly willing to vote $100,000,000 for the war, and to provide the interest on it and the money necessary to the nucleus of a pension fund. There is no question about that. He went on in a half-hearted way to attempt to argue certain matters in regard to home expenditures. He was not like the Minister of Finance who declared here the other night that all the evils he had had to contend with since 1911 had been handed to him by his predecessors.


William Thomas White: "Handed to him"
is the expression.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will deal with that phase, and hand it to my hon. friend in a moment or two. What does my hon. friend think of the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce vosterday, that "he 70J
would be a bold man who would assert that all these things had come from one side-more than the other." I very much admired that speech yesterday. The Minister of Trade and Commerce is mellowing with the years. After his long experience he sees with some degree of vision, and a little farther than my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, who asserted in bombastic fashion on Wednesday night that all these evils had been handed to him by his predecessors. The Minister of Trade and Commerce checked him yesterday by saying that he would be a bold man who would say anything of that kind. All through his speech yesterday the Minister of Trade and Commerce admitted that this money was to be borrowed.


Arthur Meighen: Have you the quotation?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will mark it and
give it to my hon. friend. All through his speech yesterday the Minister of Trade and Commerce justified the collection of this money on the ground that it was necessary to keep things going at home. That was what he was doing; not a word about expenditure for war purposes, and I venture to say that the hon. gentleman who follows me will not attempt to urge from a common sense, practical, business standpoint that a single dollar of the money that will be raised from these taxes will go towards war expenditure. It will go to the general fund, but that is as far as it will get and my hon. friend knows that. Not only has posterity to pay the $100,000,000 that we are going to borrow, but also the $50,000,000 that we	got	last August.	Not	a	centof	that	$50,000,000 that	we	got	lastAugust	comes out of	the	treasuryof	this	country, and	not	a	centof this extra taxation is to be used to>
make up for that. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance, in the course of his first speech, told us that from September to March we had received fro'm the Imperial Government over $40,000,000 on account of the $60,000,000 which the Imperial Government	had	agreed to	lend	us, andhe said	that	the other	$20,000,000 wasarranged	for.	I submit	that	I haveproved	up	to the hilt that Thestatement of	the Minister of	Finance
that this was a war Budget, or that a dollar of the money from this taxation would go towards the war, 'is incorrect, untrue, and cannot be substantiated by any evidence that has been submitted to the House up


Arthur Meighen: The war cloud?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Not the war cloud,
because my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) told us that nobody saw the war cloud, not even my hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: Have yon that quotation?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Yes, I will give it
to my hon. friend. When I get through with the Minister of Finance I am coming to my hon. friend. My hon. friend the Min.-ister of Finance brought down the Budget on April 6, 1914. That is only eleven months ago. This man with the wonderful vision, this man that could see his way through has been silting down there from April to the present moment. What was the situation? The revenue between October and July of last year, beginning with October 1913, continuing in November, December, January, February and March, right up to the time he spoke in Parliament had been decreasing. Up to July 1914, it had decreased over $20,000,000. What was my hon. friend doing all this time with a decreasing revenue? Between October 1913 and July 1914 with a decreased revenue of $20,000,000 he had increased the expenditure by $26,000,000.


William Thomas White: How much was expended on the National Transcontinental railway and the Quebec bridge?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will give my hon. friend all he wants on the National Transcontinental.


William Thomas White: Just give the figures.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I will give them in the order of my address if my hon. friend will have patience, but I do not want to be, deterred from calling the attention of the House to the statement which was made by this man of vision on April 6 of last year with a decreased revenue of $20,000,000 and an increased expenditure of $26,000.000:
We have experienced a considerable falling off during the past few months, but this my expectation that these dealings will with the coming of spring be relatively smaller, and my hope is that next fall we may regain the losses of any of the earlier part of the year. I may say with confidence that the revenues of the coming year will provide freely for Consolidated Fund . expenditure and in large measure for all capital and special outlays. So far as the financial stringency is concerned we may consider the worst is over.
This As what this seer, the man who peered into the future, was telling this country in April of last year. With a falling revenue, and with an increasing expenditure, he rushed recklessly on to the situation in which this country found itself when the war was on, with a practically depleted treasury absolutely and solely on account of his lack of foresight and because of the spending of many millions of dollars when the revenue was not coming in. All over this land wherever there was an artisan, wherever there was a wage earner, not when the war came on but before, people were looking for their daily bread.
The hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) referred to the town of New Glasgow. If my hon. Mend the Minister of Finance had come with me to my constituency when I was home in June last, before the war was on, I would have taken him to the homes of the steel worker and the coal miner in my county and in the county of Gape Breton, and he would have found there that under his administration, instead of the peace, prosperity and happiness which existed in 1911, he bad brought upon these people this woe which he said was never to come upon them. They were without work and without those ordinary conditions necessary to their lives on account of their failure to get work. I will take him now to the coal mines of Nova Scotia where the conditions are not due to the war at all, but due to the absolute failure from the moment he first occupied the position of Minister of Finance to ever take one step which indicated that he had any appreciation of the industrial situation or the needs of the plain people of this country. My hon. friend absolutely failed to peer into the future.


Arthur Meighen: What steps does my hon. friend say he should have taken ?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If this country had not made the mistake of turning out the pilot who had guided the ship of state along a marvellous way, through storms, past reefs and all difficulties, for fifteen years, all these evils would not have come upon us and Canada would have faced this war with an overflowing treasury. What was this hon. gentleman, who could see hi.s way through, thinking about in April of last year ? We knew about this lack of prosperity in our town. Men from the West knew the 'conditions up there last year. They pleaded with him, and begged him, to give some consideration to their special interests. But he refused. Everything is going to be all right; the crisis is past; no more difficulties! So he drifted on spending more money every day and all the time until December 31 of last year. The consolidated revenue fund expenditures were increasing, the revenues decreasing, and he was bringing Canada into 'such a position that to-day he has to come before Parliament and, under the guise of a war tax, attempt to get money

to make up for his recklessness in dealing with the finances of this country. That is the situation. Take some more of my hon. friend's prophetic visions of last year:
So far as the financial stringency is con-'Cerned, we may consider that the worst is over. From this time forward until the culmination of the next economic cycle, we are, on the experience of the past, justified in looking for [DOT]much more normal monetary conditions.
2 deny that this is a war Budget, and I -want to submit the evidence to people who have given any attention to this matter. I do not mean to submit it to the man on the street who will not look at -it or to a child of ten years of age who would not know if he did look at lit, but any one who studies the financial condition of this country will find that the reason why Canada was in the position in which she found herself last year when war came upon us was because my 'hon. friend was 'drifting, did not see what was coming and *did nothing.
He put off dealing with the tariff; he put off making the scientific examination that he was always going to make. He kept on spending money when he was- not taking in money. The returns showed that. The result was that when war broke out in August, 1914, my hon. friend was caught in a trap. All his predictions had proven false. All his prophetic visions had proved to be untrue. The result is that he stands to-day in this unfortunate position before the Canadian people, that he is asking them, because there is a war on, to let him tax them in order to put into the treasury money that would be there if he had been a good and careful overseer.
My hon. friend wanted to know something about the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Quebec bridge. I am very glad to be in a position to inform my hon. friend. He forgets sometimes that he makes certain statements. I believe that on Wednesday night he forgot about his statement in the Budget speech of last year. My hon. friend said:
At least $25,000,000 or $35,000,000 will be required before the Quebec bridge is completed. 3 mean the total expenditure.
He wanted the House and the country to believe that he had to provide that $25,000,000 or $35,000,000. He knew that he was including in that the cost of the old bridge which fell down five or six years ago, which [DOT]meant $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 with which he had nothing to do. He knew that he was also including in that amount $4,000,000 that [DOT]had already been paid on account of con-

tracts. If my recollection is right-and I speak in the presence of the former Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham)-the total of the contracts let for the Quebec bridge was in the vicinity of $14,000,000.


George Perry Graham: I think it was a little
less.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Whence does my hon. friend get this terrible load of expenditure in connection with the Quebec bridge?


William Thomas White: What about the interest on the money spent on that bridge since the beginning of its construction?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend made it a question of interest when discussing the war expenditures. So with the Quebec bridge, it is only a question of interest; but he wanted the House to believe that he had to find the whole sum of $25,000,000 or $30,000,000.


William Thomas White: It will cost that.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The new bridge? If my hon. friend goes on giving extras to the contractors, it will cost that but not otherwise.	.
In regard to the Grand Trunk Pacific, my hon. friend did not always sing this song of complaint. He got into this financial hole as the result of his bad management, and he was trying to put the blame on some one else. As the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce says:	" He would be a bold
man who would dare to put the blame on one party or on the other." The Minister of Finance can look into the future; he can see his way through all the time. This is what he said in 1912-I quote from his Budget speech of that year:
I desire to say, both to those of our own Dominion, and to those in Great Britain, if there be any, who have felt misgivings as to the very large amount of estimated expenditure upon the eastern section of the National Transcontinental and the burden entailed upon the country in consequence, that I think it will be reassuring to know that, great as the cost has been, and will be, a large proportion of that cost for the past, has been and for the future (if conditions continue as I believe may very well be expected), will be liquidated from the surpluses on Consolidated Revenue Account and will not become a charge upon the future. I think we are all glad that we are able to make that statement.
He went on to speak in a general way about provision for public works and transportation. The Grand Trunk Pacific and National Transcontinental had not been completed when my hon. friend and his

friends came into power in 1911. He goes on to say:
The greatest problem we have to-day, in my judgment is the problem of transportation- to give our people access to the markets of the world.... The Government is committed to the project of building the Hudson Bay railway. The Canadian Northern Railway Company is extending its transcontinental line to Vancouver. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, part of the National Transcontinental systems is pushing on to Prince Rupert. In time we shall have the opening of the Panama canal. Questions will arise as to moving the wheat to the West and providing terminal facilities for that traffic. Great capital expenditures will be required to provide facilities both on the Atlantic and on the Pacific. We must provide adequate expenditures for all these purposes. And if, as I have said, the money is expended wisely and economically, I believe that any Government of Canada at this stage of the country's development will have the hearty support of the people in making these expenditures.
Did he then wish to blame those nasty Grits for having started the National Transcontinental? He was glorying in it. That is not an isolated statement of my hon. friend. He spoke about that question not later than' last year:
"When we consider, apart altogether from its physical resources and its economic strength as a community, the great public works owned and paid for by the Dominion-its canals, railways, including the Intercolonial and the now almost completed National Transcontinental- it can he affirmed with certainty that the national debt of Canada has been kept within very moderate hounds indeed.
And then my hon. friend goes on to say later on in his speech:
Ou railway policy has resulted from the construction of two vast systems within the past year. Construction upon the main lines Of these systems is nearing completion.
In that regard I was very glad to-night to hear my hon. friend the member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) assert that the West demanded that the National Transcontinental should he extended down to the ports of St. John and Halifax. He could not have heard the Minister of Finance denouncing the proposition of the construction of that railway from Quebec to the maritime provinces. In 1904 an election was run upon that question. My right hon. friend the present Prime Minister did not take the position at that time that the National Transcontinental should not he built. That was not an issue at all. When my hon. friend sneers at those two rails of rust that exist to-day from Quebec to those sea-ports, he is speaking with the narrow view of some of those Conservatives who at the time of the proposal to construct the National Transcontinental wanted
to take all the trade of the Northwest down by North Bay and Buffalo to the American ports of New York and Boston.
As regards the Canadian Northern, an hon. gentleman opposite said that those babies had been left on their doorstep. I always thought that the Minister of Finance was a Canadian Northern baby that was left on the doorstep of the Prime Minister of this country. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance in his speech endeavoured to justify the construction of the Canadian Northern railway. Here is what he said in regard to the Canadian Northern railway in 1912:
It is to the interest not only of the province of Ontario, hut of the Dominion of Canada as a whole, west and east, that this line, the Canadian Northern line, should he built without any delay whatsoever.
My hon. friend on his own account gave the Canadian Northern a free gift of $15,000,000 in 1913 against the opposition of hon. gentlemen on this side. He came to Parliament last year and with declining revenue actually gave them an absolute present of $45,000,000 against the opposition of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House. $60,000,000 of the Canadian people's money, for the expenditure of which, so far as the Canadian Northern is concerned, no man in Canada except the Minister of Finance was responsible! Yet he states that these things were left in his charge. My hon. friend, after the great assertions which he makes in regard to these matters, claiming to be a seer able to see his way through, should not come round with the cry-baby act, but should say: It is true, I had these things; we all thought they were good; but now I have them, and so on that account I am to blame.
This afternoon we had a very interesting performance with regard to the British preference. The Prime Minister undertook, with a good deal of vigour, to lead the Canadian people to believe that this Government in putting a tax of 5 per cent on our trade with the people of Great Britain was not placing any impediment in the way of that trade. He declared that they were going to have 2i per cent more preference -a new preferential policy! The Minister of Finance (Mr. W. T. White) last Wednesday night, stopped himself suddenly in his speech after asking: Who is the father of this preference any way? I think that he caught himself just in time and that he was going to claim to be the fatheT of it himself. Hansard shows that he stopped there

and changed to another subject. What are the facts with regard to the British preference? Plon. gentlemen opposite have never been very clear about their attitude in regard to it-they talk one way at one time and another way at another time. Just now it would appear that their attempt is to run off with the credit of having conceived the British preference and of now making a new one. But their record in Parliament, including that of the present Prime Minister in 1897, shows that they have been opposed to the measure. In 1897, a proposition was made in this House to give a preference to Great Britain in our market. At that time Great Britain had treaties with other countries on the most favoured nation basis. It was impossible to give a preference to Great Britain without it applying to these other nations also, not on account of any trouble that arose in Canada, but on account of these treaties. The preference went into effect, and ultimately, through the action of the present leader of the Opposition, then Prime Minister, the denouncement of these treaties was secured from Mr. Chamberlain, and so the preference went into effect for Great Britain alone and has so remained ever since. Now, hon. gentlemen opposite have put an extra tax of 5 per cent upon all goods coming from Great Britain. Does that mean an impediment to the trade between Great Britain and Canada? Here are the real results. Up to March, 1914, approximately $130,000,000 of imports came into this country from Great Britain. If those imports were coming in this year they would have to pay an extra tax of 5 per cent, or, on importations of that amount, $6,500,000. This is the penalty for the Canadian people trading with Great Britain. All the rhetoric that the - Prime Minister can summon to his aid will not enable him to get away from that proposition - that every $100 of goods imported hereafter from Great Britain will have to pay $5 into the Canadian customs. Now, the great reasons why we have moved in this question is that we feel that at a time like the present this impediment to our trade with the Mother Country is grossly unfair. Great Britain is loaning us the money to carry on the war, and to-day a great many industries in this country-a hundred industries, I understand-are working upon contracts given by the British Government for the supply of munitions of war and other like articles. Were it not for these contracts there would be destitution in many of the industrial 
centres of this country. I know that in the steel centre in my own county to-day-that great industry which, under Liberal rule, was kept busily employed from January to December-has for its only work the providing of these munitions of war for the British Government. Is it right, or fair, or reasonable, that Canada at this juncture should place this penalty upon every Canadian trading with Great Britain? But the Prime Minister says, with a good deal of casuistry: Admitting that it is true-though he hardly does admit it-that you have to pay this money to trade with Great Britain, if you try to trade with the United States it will cost you 7J per cent instead of 5 per cent. That is a peculiar argument. To-day, the increases in transportation charges and insurance charges far more than make up for this 2J per cent of so-called added preference to Great Britain. The result will be that the trade which we have been doing with Great Britain will be driven to the United States, because they are so much handier, and trade with them is free from the difficulty of high freights and high insurance that stands in the wily of trade with the Mother Country. In the eight months down to November, 1914, the latest returns I have, our trade with Great Britain was only $63,000,000, whereas in the eight months of the previous year it amounted to $93,000,000, a loss of $30,000,000 in our British trade. In the same months the trade with the. United States amounted to $336,000,000. The slogan was at one time raised in this country: "No truck or trade with the Yankees." Yet, strangely enough, under the administration of this Finance Minister, the trade with the United States has almost doubled, while the trade with Great Britain has decreased. And if the Government penalizes that trade by this additional tax of 5 per cent added to the other impediments of war time, it will make that trade practically impossible.
It is growing late, and I do not wish to weary the House. I have only a couple of matters further to which I wish to refer. I submit that the attitude of the Opposition with regard to this matter has been more than justified. I have shown, first, that we have the right, in the national interest, to criticise this Budget; second, by the admission of the Finance Minister himself this is not a war Budget-not a dollar of it will go to pay the principal money of the war; third, by the argument of the Finance Minister himself, he was not justified in the attitude he took last Wednesday in discussing this proposition. In the national interest, therefore, and with

the greatest possible satisfaction, I support the amendment moved by the right hon. leader of the Opposition.
The hon. Minister of Finance referred to my right hon. leader in regard to the discussion on the navy. History has shown us that the renegade, having established himself in his new position, becomes more violent in his assertions than the person who previous occupied the position. It is the zeal of the convert, and is applicable to present-day conditions. The hon. Finance Minister, in discussing this question the other night, went far afield with his Shakespearean suggestions, and my right hon. friend the Prime Minister went a little out of his way this afternoon to read from a German newspaper in dealing with the naval question. If the right hon. Prime Minister had made inquiries, I think he would have found that the information which the German newspapers and the German people have is that my right hon. friend had formed an alliance with the Nationalist party in the province of Quebec; that he had three ministers in his cabinet who were s'worn to oppose anything in the way of naval assistance to the. Mother Country. The information which the German newspaper had was that over 20 gentlemen, who were elected to the Dominion Parliament from the province of Quebec, were absolutely opposed to naval assistance to the Empire, and desired to repeal the only piece of naval legislation on the statute book. Speaking for myself, and for hon. gentlemen who sit on this side of the House, I am sure that when the right hon. gentleman who leads the Government announces to the Government his permanent naval policy, he will be bound to announce as his policy the policy inaugurated by the right hon. leader of the Opposition in 1910.
I am sorry that the Minister of Finance is not here with his Shakespearean scene, because I should like to transfer him to the tropics, and to draw his attention to matters affecting the colony of New Zealand. We have heard a good deal about the splendid feat of the Sydney in sinking the Emden, and how unfortunate it was for Canada that she could not be represented by battleships on the high seas. If it vrere not for the Nationalist opposition at Drummond and Arthabaska and the combination between the Prime Minister and the leaders of the Nationalists in 1911, we would have had Canadian Sydneys to catch the Karlsruhe and the Dresden, just as the Australian Sydney caught the Emden. Then there is the Niobe. Any man in the maritime provinces knows
that if the Niobe had been in commission, if she had had her full complement of men and had been ready to put to sea, she could have got after half-a-dozen German vessels that were skirting the coasts of the maritime provinces. The big German steamer, the Kronprincessin Gecilie, has been moored in Bar Harbour since before war was declared; other German steamers passed in front of Halifax harbour-but the steamer Niobe was tied up in deference to the Nationalist sentiment. It was three or four weeks after war broke out before she got up steam and put out to sea; but from that moment to this she has been doing duty in the north Atlantic, side by side with the Berwick, the Cornwall, and the other ships that came over from England.
I want to present to the Minister of Finance the opinion of the Minister of Marine for New Zealand as to the attitude of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal party in this House in 1913 in respect to naval matters. I think Mr. Fisher is a pretty good witness; he knows what he is talking about just as well as my hon. friend the Minister of Finance does. This is what he said on December 3, 1913, after all our discussion of the matter had been concluded.
I quote from the New Zealand Hansard:
The policy of contribution, to my mind, is objectionable. It has been thoroughly debated in the naval debate which has taken place m the House of Commons in Canada. I hold with the view so ably expressed there, that it is not worthy of this country, nor would it be worthy of any other' portion of the British Empire, that we should ask the people to fight for us and not with us. Sir, I cannot Put it into better language than quote a speech delivered by Sir George Ross in the Senate of the Dominion of Canada. .
He then proceeded to quote the eloquent words of Sir George Ross, with regard to the inadequacy of the naval proposals of that time, which had in view the sending of money instead of men. Then he goes on:
A great fight has been going on in Canada for a year in the House of Commons and Senate, as to whether they are going hack to the old and obsolete method of contribution; because giving ships is equivalent to giving a cash contribution, and nothing else-it is a money contribution to a country that has no need of money. . Australia, moved with national aspirations, has already founded her navy, and no party in Australia is so loyal to that navy as her Labour party.
He proceeds to discuss the whole question, just as we discussed it here, and condemns contribution as being absolutely futile. He goes on:
No person in this country to my knowledge has ever been satisfied with the system in

operation-of contribution without representation, without voice, without any say in the control. I propose to quote a few lines from a speech of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, because I think he is a great Liberal whose reputation is world-wide.
The following remarks of the leader of the Opposition, quoted by the Minister of Marine for New Zealand, are very apt at this time:
Mr. Speaker, it is not money that England wants at this moment. England never was wealthier than she is at the present time; her coffers are overflowing. What she wants is the hearts, the brains and the brawn of her subjects ail over the world.
England is not asking us for money; she is giving us money to carry on our part of the war. As the right lion, leader of the Opposition said, what England wants is the hearts, the brains and the brawn of the Canadian boys who have gone across the water to fight; and if it is right and proper that our sons should go over and fight battles of Great Britain on land, were we not doubly right in 1913 when we said: Do not give Great Britain the money, because she does not need it; let us give her ships and men on the sea just as we are giving them on the land. I have had a fairly long experience in Canadian public life. Having taken part in the debate of 1913, I was never prouder of any attitude that I ever took upon any public question than I was of my attitude upon that question; and I know with an unerring knowledge, not with the knowledge of the Finance Minister, that history will say that that is the policy by which, in the end, these various dominions within the Empire must help the Mother Country upon the sea. Sir, history will weave around the brow of our great leader many crowns in recognition of the many wonderful services which he has given to Canada; but among them all there will be none in appreciation of his great career that will show brighter than the clear vision and the insight which he displayed as to the proper attitude of each of the dominions toward the Mother Country in regard to naval assistance on the sea.
The hon. member from Calgary spoke about the consultation which took place in England between Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George and certain Opposition leaders. It is well known that Mr. Asquith, the Premier of England, asked Mr. Balfour, a Privy Councillor and one of the well-known Opposition leaders, to confer with him in regard to matters pertaining to the war. It 
is well known and has been announced in the Imperial Parliament that Mr. Lloyd George had equally conferred with Mr. Austen Chamberlain. I could understand the Prime Minister giving as a reason why he did not consult with our leader upon the question of the tariff proposals to be submitted to this Parliament-although I think his reason was a wholly inadequate one, in view of the fact that the leader of the Liberal party in this country is not only a Canadian Privy Councillor but an Imperial Privy Councillor as well-that it was contrary to proper usage to discuss tariff proposals in any way previous to their being announced in the House. My right horn friend the Prime Minister knew very well that the oath which binds him and all other Privy Councillors would have bound the right hon. the leader of the Opposition. I am not complaining about my right hon. friend taking that position; he did not choose to' consult our leader, and that is a matter entirely for him. But I think it was extremely bad taste for the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Bennett) to give as a reason why the consultation did not take place that there were no Balfours, and no Bonar Laws among the Opposition in Canadian politics. I want to say with full deliberation, and I am sure that decent men on both sides of the House will agree with me, that if the hon. member for Calgary in his public career should ever reach in any measurable degree the high place which the right hon. leader of the Liberal party of the Dominion of Canada holds not only in the eyes of the Canadian people but throughout the world, he -will have attained something to which he has no right ever to aspire.
What are the burdens of our hon. friends opposite of which we have heard so much? Their financial interests are provided for as I have indicated; the men of this country are flocking to the standard just as they flocked to the standard in the olden days. They speak of getting the men to go; but, Sir, the Canadian men have "one of their own will, and, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, they have shown their devotion and interest in Empire concerns without any dragging or compelling. Therefore we on this side of the House do think that we as representatives of the people have a perfect right to discuss this matter, and we intend to vote upon this question along the line of our discussion and to leave it to the Canadian people after they have thoroughly understood it. Whether the question is submitted to them sooner or

later is a matter entirely for the Prime Minister; he will have to take the full responsibility. In regard to the question of the duty of the Canadian people, we on this side of the House, we the Liberal party of Canada in each of the provinces, stand by the Empire in this war for every dollar and every kind of assistance that that party can give at all times until the war is certainly ended.
I could not help being moved to some degree by the earnestness displayed by the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) yesterday. The moderate tone he adopted and the manner in which he referred to the war showed to me that he felt very deeply and keenly the important results which flow from this war. We must not, in the heat of debate, forget that Liberals and Conservatives, forgetting their differences have gone to the historical battle grounds across the ocean; and the casualty lists show that death, with even hand, has laid its toll upon the boys, no matter what their politics were. So we, asserting our right as free men in a free Parliament to discuss that which is in the best interest of the country, say to the Government that, over and above all, on this question of the war Canada is not divided and has no question of taking votes to ascertain where the men who sit upon the left of the Speaker are on this great issue. More than ever in all the long history of Great Britain, we join with her living and mourn with her dead, and we look forward with hope arid confidence that, through all the storm and stress of the trying period of war, the prestige and the vigour that have always carried to honour and success heT arms in the centuries that 'have gone will once more lead to victory, and enable her to trample underfoot the militarism of Germany, and to extend throughout the Empire and the whole world the benefit of those privileges of government and civilization which have been the glory of Great Britain through all the ages that have gone.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. E. M. Macdonald) has not, in his very long address, succeeded in adding any matter or any argument or any light to the question at issue, he has at least made a very creditable effort to atone for that deficiency by an unwonted zeal of language and by a violence, almost ferocity of style.
He has done me the compliment of paying to my questions, and to myself generally, the dignity of silence. He has been
very abusive of his fellow member the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. R. B. Bennett). There was a time, not so very long ago, when my hon. friend and I crossed swords in this House, and when the hon. member for Calgary took a part, but when as to the hon. member for Pictou the situation was quite reversed. Then he was very complimentary as to the fidelity to duty of the hon'. member for CalgaTy, and very sarcastic as to the meagre abilities of myself. I attribute it not to any real change of opinion of the hon. member for Pictou-


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: -I did not say the hon. member was not an able man.


Arthur Meighen: -but to his extreme
facility of conscience. All of a sudden in the course of his remarks the hon. member for Pictou became very complimentary to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster). Oh, what a conversion the hon. member has had. Those of us who have sat in this House for a few years gone by know that there was never a man so subject to abuse as the Minister of Trade and Commerce. The hon. gentleman fancied that he had found in the speech of the Minister of Trade and Commerce yesterday something consolatory to himself. With that, quality of mind of the hon. member which, for want of a better name, I dignify by the name ot versatility, he had found in the remarks of the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce certain castigations of the policy pursued by the Minister of Finance in this Budget. I took occasion to question his authority 'and to ask him for the quotation at two different times. He did me the compliment of saying that he would find it, that he had lots of friends who pould look it up and just before he sat down he told me very vigorously that he would produce it, but I have not had it yet.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend
would hardly expect me to stop in my address to hunt it up. I will get it for him.


Arthur Meighen: I thought, when the
hon. member was pretending to quote, that he had the Hansard before him. I asked him for the quotation, but he told me he did not want to stop his speech. He made a lot of promises as to what he would do. He said he had friends behind him who would get the quotation. He had sixty or seventy, and I have no doubt they
] 116

have all tried, but they cannot produce it. Why cannot they produce it? Because the hon. member for Pictou did not state what the Minister of Trade and Commerce had said, and because it is not there; because if it is unparliamentary to say that he misrepresented what the Minister of Trade and Commerce had .said, I will say that he went as close to it as the limits of Parliament will permit.
He is greatly agitated to-night because he imagines he has been denied or, that someone has attempted to deny him the privilege of criticism, and he says it is an entirely new doctrine that he never heard of before, that there should ever come a time in the history of a country when there should be any restraint at all upon party activities or on party criticism. There is criticism and criticism. For myself, and I speak for every hon. gentleman on this side, for fair, co-operative, collaborative criticism we have no objection whatever; we welcome it; it will be of assistance to us. But I venture to say all of us will agree that there does come a time in this country, as in other countries, when that particular brand of criticism of which my hon. friend is the arch-exponent, that brand of criticism which resorts to every scheme of party trickery, which calls up every old battle cry, which attempts to divide along the old lines over and over again, may well be done away with. And who cannot admire the extreme elasticity of conscience of the hon. gentleman who, through the course of his speech, allowed himself to be animated by party bias and to appeal to party spirit in a manner unprecedented since the war began, then closed the same speech with a blessing on those words of the Minister of Trade and Commerce in which he appealed to both sides of the House to banish party differences and party strife. But, if it is a new doctrine to the hon. gentleman, that criticism may well be held in abeyance while the war is on, while the nation is engaged in a struggle transcending the purposes of party, it is not altogether a new doctrine to his leader, for that leader was one of the first whom I have heard to announce in Parliament that such was his intention, and that by that he intended to abide. It will be found on .page 8 of Hansard of the last session of the House. The leader of the Opposition announced this as his policy at that time.
If in what has been done or in what remains to be done there may be anything which in our judgment should not be done or should

he differently clone, we raise no question, we take no exception, we offer no criticism, and we shall offer no criticism so long as there is danger at the front.
However, the decision on this matter is with the Opposition. They have chosen to swerve from the position taken by the leader of the Opposition last August. They have chosen to base their right to swerve on the ground that certain newspaper publications have not dealt very gently with them; not because, of any action taken by this party or by this Government in this House. They have based their right on the attacks, as they claim, of the publication here in Ottawa called-I do not know its name because I seldom read it myself-called The Press Bulletin, I am informed, and because of other attacks from the party press. I have read some publications, too, and I find myself very severely criticised by a newspaper published in Brockville under the . aegis, I believe, and perhaps under the ownership of the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham). I was attacked for what I thought was a very innocent performance. I was attacked for making speeches throughout this country, constituting an endeavour on my part to aid the country in the war by encouraging enlistment and adding to the spirit of unanimity on behalf of the cause of Britain. But from the beginning there has been no paper more aggressive in its partisan attacks than that very newspaper published in Brockville by, I believe, the hon. member for South Renfrew-unless it is another paper published in Woodstock by the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Carvell); and a paper that closely follows them both up is one published in Montreal, I believe under the editorship of the hon. member for South Renfrew himself. However, enough of that. The decision has lain with the Opposition. They have chosen to descend from the high stand they took in August last, and to come down as gladiators on the party arena; and if they ,do there is nothing for us but, as the leader of the Government has stated, carry the conflict into the field of the enemy.
It has been urged by the last speaker that we are trying to sail under false pretenses because we propose to pass our War Revenue Act and to raise twenty-five or thirty millions of dollars for the purpose of meeting exigencies caused 'by the war. This is no war tax at all; it is only a misnomer to call it so; no war tax in any sense of the word, says the hon. member for

Pictou, and he defies me to meet the colossal argument that he advances in support of his assertion. What was the argument? You cannot have a war tax unless you devote the money to the purposes of war! Let me first call attention to the action of the United States. They have a war tax to-day. The hon. member for Pictou has discreetly escaped from the House. " The wicked flee where no man pursu'eth." All parties in the United States state that it is a war tax. Will anybody deny that? Nobody will deny that. Now, will anybody tell me what money they voted and spent for purposes of war?


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: Is there not room for a difference of opinion as to whether the tax in the United States may properly be called a war tax?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman
denies it. He assumes to know more about economics in Great Britain and Canada than we do, and now more in the United States' than their citizens do. It has always been admitted to be a war tax by both parties in Congress.


Michael Clark: Still in my opinion it is a misnomer.


Arthur Meighen: I have the speech of the President of the United States, a gentleman we heard eulogized to-night by an hon. gentleman opposite, in which he states it is a war tax, and raised because of the financial exigencies entailed by the war. What are these financial exigencies?- diminution of revenue caused by disturbance in trade, and falling off in the receipts of customs caused by dislocation of world commerce. He anticipated that in the United States for the balance of the year 1914 alone there rvould be a falling off of no less than from $60,000,000 to $100,000,000, and to make that up they impose a tax, which they call a war tax, and which 90,000,000 people in the United States denominate a war tax, notwithstanding the better opinion of the hon. member for Red Deer.


Michael Clark: Will my hon. friend allow me? In the first speech I delivered in this House I had the honour of pointing out that in the United States they were faced at that time with the greatest deficit in their history because the argument of protection was falling down. Would an extra direct tax at that time have constituted a war tax?


Arthur Meighen: No, because the receipts did not diminish by reason of the war. No war was on then. " You cannot have a war tax." The ingenuity of the
argument against this position was not confined to the hon. member for Pictou, but the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean), the financial expert of the Opposition, advanced another reason why this was not a war tax. You cannot have a war tax, he says, until you pay up the deficit between your revenue and expenditure. So long as you have a difference, a hiatus in your revenue and expenditure, you are taxing to make up that and you are not taxing for war. Does anybody adhere to that position now? Does the hon. member for Red Deer think it is correct?


Michael Clark: I still think it is a misnomer.
Mr. MEIGHEN. This, then, cannot
be a war tax in the United States at all, because they have a deficit between revenue and expenditure, and to make that up the war tax 'is imposed! If these hon. gentlemen will not 'accept the opinion of the
90,000,000 people that they recently had a great admiration foT, I will meet them with their own opinions expressed no longer ago than last August. One hon. gentleman after another got up and admitted that by reason of the conditions brought upon us by the war we would have to get extra revenue. Does any hon. gentleman ask me who they were ? I have the authorities here. Was our revenue last August equal to our expenditure ? Not at all. My hon. friend t'he Minister of Finance had just announced that by reason of the conditions that had been brought upon us, our revenue was not equal to our expenditure, and a tax was necessary because the deficiency was even greater by reason of the disturbance in Europe. The argument that they now advance is taken out of their mouths by their own speeches in August last.
But more than that; the hon. member for Halifax, the financial expert, says that it is not a war tax, because there has really been no or little disturbance at all on account of anything. He says there has been no decrease in. customs or anything else caused by war. I have his words before me, and I quote them very closely when I say that the effect of his statement was that to no substantial extent had the war affected the revenue of Canada. It might have done so to a small amount, he said. He used the strongest language during last August in endeavouring to describe the effect of the war upon the income and revenue of this country. He said that for some time there had been a diminution by reason of the war con-

ditions, and that the falling off in the revenue was "immeasurably intensified" by the war. I ask the hon. member for Red Deer what stronger words could have been used. There had been a tremendously prejudicial effect upon the revenue of Canada because of the war.


Michael Clark: That is why we consented to the borrowing of $100,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend does not say stronger words can be used; I believe they could, and he is the man who used them. He does not think we have suffered much by reason of the war. He has conceived very recently a great veneration for the opinion of my hon. friend from West Toronto (Sir Edmund Osier) who said that certain industries in Canada had been stimulated because of business arising out of the war, and he believes this is a good ground for expressing the opinion that the revenue of Canada has not been affected by the war. His words were these-he uttered them himself-that the conditions that had obtained before resulting in the diminution of our revenue had been " extremely accentuated " by the war, and he agrees with that to-day.


Michael Clark: I said so. The word I used on this occasion was " aggravated." I make the admission quite freely.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend said that it had been aggravated. Last August he said that the condition had been extremely accentuated by the war. Is it a war tax if our revenues are diminishing by reason of the warp It takes a rather strangely constituted mind to come to the conclusion that our revenues have not been diminishing very seriously by reason of the war. Why then is it not a war-tax? The hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) comes to the rescue there, and he figures out a scheme by which he says: We have lost only a very trifling amount, not anything like what you are trying to raise, and consequently this is only about 5 or 10 per cent a war tax. He says that in 1914 our revenues were falling anyway and that for the first eight months they fell $18,000,000. Is not that what he said? He said that, if that falling had kept up during the remaining four months, it would have meant a falling off of $27,000,000. He said that the actual reduction was $32,000,000, and that therefore, the reduction on account of the war was only $5,000,000. Yet, he says, you call all this a war tax. But it escaped the
[Mr. Meighen.l
mind of the hon. junior member for Halifax that the falling off of $5,000,000 was for only four months. $5,000,000 for four months is $15,000,000 a year. My hon. friend said that the $5,000,000 was attributable to customs alone. That would mean a reduction of $15,000,000 for customs alone for a year. Take a like falling off in the other sources of revenue, and you have $10,000,000 more. That makes $25,000,000, which from the reasoning of my hon. friend is caused by the war. If my hon. friend wishes to explain anything, there is no better time to give it than now.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: I am not desirous of interrupting the hon. member's argument, but the actual loss of revenue for the calendar year 1914 over the calendar year 1913 was $32,000,000. Had the loss of revenue for the first eight months of 1914 continued through-out the rest of the year, \the loss would have been $27,000,000. Therefore I say there was about $5,000,000 of a loss.


Arthur Meighen: Therefore, by reason of the war there was a dimunition of $5,000,000 in customs alone in four months?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: There was no loss in excise.


Arthur Meighen: No loss in exise-no loss in anything by reason of the dimunition of trade?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Not beyond this $5,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: Does be argue that we fail to import by reason of our failure to borrow at the rate of $1,000,000 a day, and that nevertheless our trade in Canada and our revenue from excise and all other sources are not affected?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: How do you tell that?


Arthur Meighen: I do not tell exactly;
I do not pretend to tell exactly. I do not *pretend to give the figures exactly; but the hon. member who tries to figure exactly is the junior member for Halifax, and I am taking bis figures.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I will not contradict the hon. gentleman. I think it is very good figuring, and he will find it very difficult to answer.


Arthur Meighen: Although it may be
difficult, I will brace myself for the task, and I will proceed with the answer. Taking my hon. friend's figures, I have estimated that there is a falling off of $25,000,000 for the

year due to the war alone; and even in that the hon. junior member for Halifax failed to take account of the fact, as he should have done, that the revenue had taken an upward turn in the latter half of July, and that the statement of the Minister of Finance in April, that he believed the worst was over, was vindicated by the trend of the revenue during the month of July. Ignore that if you will and you have a dimunition of $15,000,000 from customs and almost $10,000,000 from other sources, on my hon. friend's reasoning, due to the war alone. Add to that $7,000,000 for.interest on $150,000,000 borrowed for war, and you have $32,000,000 or between $2,000,000 and $7,000,000 more than this war tax, and not a dollar provided for pensions. Would it not be wise for the hon. junior member for Halifax, now that he sees the error in his arithmetic, to admit his error in his conclusions?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am not satisfied with your argument.


Arthur Meighen: Not satisfied that the
diminution of $5,000,000 was only for four months? I knew that my hon. friend did not think of that. I knew that if he had thought of it, he would not have followed that method of calculation.
Hon. gentlemen opposite tell us we should retrench, that is the way we should finance these war times. My 'hon. friends opposite are all very willing to have a war, but they do not like a war tax. They do not see any reason why Canada cannot have the luxury of a war wdthout having a war tax. They think that Canadians cannot take part in this affair out of their own pockets. Their idea is that as soon as they show that some one has to pay the revenue, they have made a case out for not having the revenue at all.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Do I understand the hon. gentleman to say that the revenue for the month of July, 1914, had taken an upward turn?


Arthur Meighen: The latter half. My hon. friend will find that in the speech of the hon. Minister of Finance delivered in August last.	[DOT]


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The revenue for July, 1913, was $10,000,000 in round figures. In July, 1914, it was $6,900,000. In June, 1914, it was $7,000,000. Therefore there was a falling off.


Arthur Meighen: July may be a lighter month than June. I ajn comparing it with
other July's, and the latter half took an upward turn. I am, however, omitting that from my argument. I am allowing my hon. friend his way on that and assuming that the downward turn that had been maintained for the first eight months had continued to the end of the year, I have made out a case that the whole of this money is needed by conditions imposed by the war, and nothing else .
Hon. gentlemen opposite say: You should retrench. We have retrenched in the estimates $18,000,000, or within about $100,000 of that; but hon. gentlemen opposite, by means of a peculiar method /of putting figures side by side, of setting an estimate on the one hand against an expenditure on the other and keeping out one class of expenditure altogether, they think that they are getting Hansard into such a shape that they will be able to deceive the electorate of this country. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark)-not with intent, I know, because I do not believe he would intentionally mislead, because I believe he is sincere in his belief in free trade, and because I also believe that he is sincere in his belief that he is gathering converts -the hon. member for Red Deer made a statement on this subject in his speech, perhaps the most emphatic of all- and that is saying quite a bit, for, if any one knows how to be emphatic, it is the hon. member for Red Deer. This is the statement he made when he was chafing under the castigation of the hon. Minister of Finance, that the Government of my hon. friends opposite had set an example to all posterity in all countries in the way of extravagance :	.
With regard to the comparison of the twe Governments, there is this to he said about the previous Government that, if they were extravagant, they had the money to do it with. That is a statement, the accuracy of which X think the hon. gentleman will not deny.
They had the money to spend that they spent.	Is that correct? I do
not know just the year when the hon. gentleman came to this country; but I have a tolerably accurate idea, and I make this- statement, that I do not believe that since he landed on Canadian soil he ever saw a Liberal Government pay its way during a single year of its existence, and that he did not see any Government in Canada pay its way, that is, collect during the year as much money as it spent during that year, until the Minister of Finance who now adorns that portfolio took his seat as Minister of Finance. The hon. gentleman

laughs. He appears to know, because I know he would not laugh unless he had the facts before him to show how ridiculous my statement was. Will he tell us what year it was, and I will give the figures?


Michael Clark: Go on with your speech.


Arthur Meighen: What year was it, after my hon. friend came to Canada, when a Liberal Government ever paid its way, or came within a million dollars of doing so? He has learned discretion. I have the figures before me to show that in every year-I have not traced back behind 1905-06-they spent more money than they raised in revenue. Of course, if you put one class of expenditure aside as capital expenditure and put the whole of the revenue by itself as against the expenditure which remains, you can figure out a surplus. That is the historic way in which the surpluses are figured out. But when you want to find out whether a Government is extravagant or not, why not take all expenditures? Is it not possible to be extravagant in capital expenditure Is that expenditure carried on within some sacred circle where extravagance is impassible? I think the National Transcontinental was a capital expenditure. Does the hon. gentleman say now that he was right in his statement, that if the former Government spent the money they had the money to spend? They spent in 1910-11, the last year of their existence, $122,801,064, and they collected $117,780,409. They spent in the year before that $115,239,016, and collected $101,503,701. The year before that they spent almost $132,757,905, and collected $85,093,404. This is the Government that we are told always had the money to spend even if they were extravagant, a Government that every year since the hon. gentleman knew it, plunged this country deeper into debt in order to provide money for its career of extravagance.
But it is a different story when you come to 1911-12. In the year ending 31st March, 1912, we collected altogether $136,108,217, while the total expenditure on consolidated revenue and capital was $131,046,764. The next year we collected $168,689,903, and all that was spent on both accounts was $144,266,570. That obtained for two years, until the year ending 31st March, 1914, and even that year the revenue collected was $163,174,394, and the total expenditure on revenue and capital accounts was $186,053,919. In only one out of the three years in

which this Government has existed have we been short in revenue, while the Government that the hon. gentleman supported exceeded its revenue every year he knew anything about it. That is a fairly complete answer, is it not-for the hon. gentleman knows how to add, and he knows logic when he hears it-to the assertion that if the former Government spent money they had the money to spend.


Michael Clark: My hon. friend from South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) will tell the hon. gentleman.


Arthur Meighen: I venture to assert that he will do nothing of the kind, but will resort to the well known hoax of comparing expenditure on consolidated revenue only against the whole revenue.


George Perry Graham: -I will not do anything of the kind.


Arthur Meighen: I am glad to hear it; it shows such a decided improvement over the method of the financial expert of the Opposition, because he did nothing else.


Michael Clark: Was not the hon. gentleman in error in his assertion in regard to the hon. member for South Renfrew?


Arthur Meighen: At least it has had the result that now we are sure that he will take all expenditures and all revenues when he attempts to compare the two Governments, and that is a result worth fighting for.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Not very much to it as the hon. gentleman puts it.


Arthur Meighen: I cannot hear the hon. gentleman.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I say it is not a fair conclusion from the figures the hon. gentleman has quoted, because he makes no allowance for the purpose for which capital expenditures were made, and he knows that the present Government has made no expenditures for such an undertaking as the Grand Trunk Pacific.


Arthur Meighen: On four accounts alone, imposed by the late Government, on capital account, we have spent $125,000,000. There is a point that the hon. gentleman fails to see.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I see it.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman
sees it, but he does not want me to repeat it. The Governments were being compared

as to extravagance. I ventured the simple assertion that it was possible to be extravagant on capital expenditure as well as on consolidated revenue expenditure. I know the hon. gentleman sees that, for it is too clear for him to pretend to deny it. If you are going to compare the Gqvernments as to their extravagance, better consider extravagance in all fields and not only the one which the hon. gentleman thinks favourable to his friends.
Mr. Speaker, I would be the last to argue, particularly under such conditions as we face to-day; there should be an additional efforty, the very greatest effort made to see to it that the public resources are conserved and that the best results are obtained for the people for every dollar that goes out of the Treasury. The efforts to economize in times of peace should be redoubled in times of war and our affairs should be so ordered that we should not undertake public works, however desirable, unless the funds for these purposes are well within sight. But it is only necessary to say that the figures of the Minister of Finance show a retrenchment and that is a word hon. gentlemen opposite are very fond of-of almost $18,000,000, which is a very considerable retrenchment in one year. And this is made notwithstanding the fact that a very large proportion of the expenditures we are bound to make by reason of legislation passed and undertakings launched . by hon. gentlemen opposite. We are bound to carry out these things in order to protect the greatest and best of the resources of this country, our honour, our good name.
But these hon. gentlemen say they do not ask for retrenchment in capital expenditure, There is a hole that the junior member for Halifax was pulled out of by the hon. member for St. John City (Mr. Pugsley). Being thus rescued, he said: " When I said that we could retrench on our public works, I only meant expenditure on consolidated revenue, not capital expenditure." What is the difference? I know that the line has been drawn for many years between expenditure on capital and expenditure on consolidated revenue, under one Government as under the other. But it is more or less an arbitrary line. It is true, that for the most part, expenditures on capital are for large works and those of a more permanent nature. But many expenditures chargeable to consolidated revenue account are premanent expenditures as much as those charged to capital account.
What would be the advantage, say, of cutting out the Quebec post office because it comes under income and including the museum in Ottawa because it comes under capital account? That is what the leader of the Opposition proposes: cut out what comes under income. That would cut out the post office at Quebec; I wonder if the right hon. gentleman will adhere to that proposal when he appeals for re-election. The policy of the Government on this subject was laid down by the Minister of Finance, and if any hon. gentleman opposes it in its terms, let him say so. With public works expenditures upon which we have already launched, said the minister, with public works which we have already undertaken, we propose to proceed; we propose to finish them. As to others, they must wait until such time as the revenues and the financial conditions of the country permit. Is that sound, or is it not? Could any policy suited to times of war, when all our resources should be conserved, be better stated than in the words of the Minister of Finance? To say that we have an estimate tor next year of $180,000,000 is not to say that $180,000,000 will be spent; it is to say that the maximum that can be spent is the sum of $180,000,000. If one were to judge from the remarks of the hon. member for Halifax, one would think that the whole amount is to be spent immediately upon it being voted. But the fears of the hon. member for St. John city are quite different. He is perturbed because, as he says, we are not going to spend the money at all, and he does not want to see money voted when it is not going to be spent. He attempted to argue that because the usual method is followed of placing in the Estimates the maximum amount that the Government asks Parliament to authorize it to spend in the public interest, we are attempting to raise money for public works that we do not intend to carry out at all. If that is true then the money will apply directly against war expenditures, and will not that suit him? I was surprised to hear so strong a man as the hon. member for St. John present so weak a case.
The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) is now a disciple-yes, an apostle -of this doctrine of retrenchment and economy. He said that the Minister of Finance had been prodigality itself; that he had squandered the moneys of Canada to the four winds of Heaven, and that because he did not cut out this public work, or that public work, he



has plunged the country into debt, and consequently we have to have a War Revenue Act. The conversion of the hon. member for Pictou is very recent. Would anybody believe that this is the same hon. gentleman who, no longer ago than last June, went down to his own county, and in the town of Trenton castigated the Minister of Finance and poured vitriol upon the Government because they were so parsimonious in their public expenditures? He made a speech there of very considerable length, and you can search it from the first word to the last without finding 1 a.m. any suggestion on his part that one dollar of expenditure ought to be curtailed. You will find no suggestion that economy should be exercised, but you will find many suggestions for the expenditure of money on this or that undertaking, and many aspersions on the minister because he conserved the treasury of this country at the expense of the people, as my hon. friend says, of his constituency. What about that Guysborough railway? The hon. gentleman was determined that same Guysborough railway from Sunnybrae, I think it was, to somewhere else, should be constructed immediately, and that the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Railways had no right in the interest of economy or in any other interest, to cut out of the Estimates the appropriation for that dear Guysborough railway in the county of Pictou. There was also an East river there' which, I understand, if it could be made into a waterway, would compete with the Intercolonial, a Government road. He was determined that at whatever cost the East river should be completed, and that the' people of that constituency should be given water transportation upon this East river. They would have obtained it, he said, if the late Government had been in power.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Your Government is doing that work.
' Mr. MEIGHEN: Then why does the hon. gentleman complain? Why, even if we do follow the suggestions of hon. gentlemen opposite with regard to items of expenditure, they want to pass a vote of want of confidence because we take them, partially, at least, at their word. Was it not interesting to hear the hon. member for Pictou rail at the Minister of Finance because he had utterly failed to take into consideration the conditions of the industry of this country, because, by reason of the failure of the Finance Minister to grapple with the situation down in the part of the country from which 
he comes, parties engaged in the steel industry had to close their businesses and many workingmen were thrown out of employment. I made bold to ask my hon. friend during the course of his remarks what suggestion he could offer as to what the Finance Minister should have done. Did anybody hear him answer? Does be answer now?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I gave my answer.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I remember it now; it comes as borne by the zephyrs. This was his answer: " If the people of Canada had returned my honoured leader to office, we would have lived in the elysian fields of prosperity. What a brilliant, pointed and specific answer! But my hon. friend was not half so visionary last June when he was in the town of Trenton; nor was he afraid to state there what he thought the Minister of Finance should do, I have here a stenographic report of that speech, in which he points out what the Finance Minister should have done to alleviate the condition of the steel industry and the workingmen in the county of Pictou. I commend this quotation from the remarks of the hon. member to the consideration of the hon. member for Red Deer, who will, no doubt, have some sympathy with the Government in that it is attacked on the one hand by himself because they have duties at all and on the other hand by his colleagues because the duties are not high enough. Here is the statement of the hon. gentlemen :
Do you hear much about the tariff in Trenton? Let us look at that during the sessions of the House of Commons under a Liberal Government. That body gave the Nova Scotia Steel Company large bounties every year, amounting to $45,000 each month.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Everybody knows that.


Arthur Meighen: Everybody knows that, and everybodyknowsthatthatis what was in my hon. friend's mind to-night and that he did not have the courage to say it. That is what he thought the Minister of Finance should have done; that is the policy of " economy and retrenchment" that he recommended to the hon. Minister of Finance so far as his constituents in Pictou were concerned. He goes on:
From 1897 that work was going on and the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Co. received that amount of money from the Liberal Government. When slight depressions occurred and people ceased to buy here, the works went on, for the men knew they were receiving the steel

bounties on the work they were doing, and they knew that better times would come shortly.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: How does that appeal to the hon. member for Red Deer? I do not hear any "hear, hear" from him.


Michael Clark: My hon. friend puts a question to me which I do not think he needs to put. He knows perfectly well, if he has any memory-and he has a good one-what I think about steel bounties. He knows that I opposed bounties when he was absolutely silent in regard to them and he knows that the West approved my view and disapproved his.


Arthur Meighen: How did-the West know my view if I was absolutely silent? I was silent in the House of Commons-why? Because my views were the views of the Government of the day and the old bounties were discontinued and I do not make a habit of criticising a Government for doing what I believe is absolutely right. That is the prerogative of the hon. member for Pictou.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Then you were opposed to the steel bounties?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly I was opposed to the steel bounties, undoubtedly.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: All right.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend can
quote that down in Pictou and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) can quote that in Red Deer. The Government of the day under the circumstances that existed, were opposed to the steel bounties too. The hon. member for Pictou thought it would be a fine thing for the people in Pictou county to have the bounty and what did he say:
These bounties were out in 1911.
A rather historical year which I bring to the attention of the hon. member for Red Deer.
Had the Liberal party been in power steps would have been taken to protect these industries. A low tariff exists upon these staple materials and bounties are off and the various steel manufactures have no tariff to protect their interests... .A delegation went from the Steel Company to Ottawa and then came again in 1912 and 1913.
This is the Government that the hon. member for Red Deer says is always at the beck and call of big corporations. What is the complaint of the hon. member for Pictou?
Nothing, however, ever was done, no looking to the future, no /preparing for the time of
stress and dull days, and these industries were not protected, so that the workmen could not suffer.
There was the complaint of the hon. member for Pictou not enough protection on the steel industry, not enough tariff, no bounties and for that reason he castigated this Government before the people of the eastern provinces. I venture to say that the hon. member will not repeat the castigation to the people in any other part of Canada. We should launch a policy of " retrenchment and economy." There is the cure for our ills: No war tax at all, just do as I say, said the hon. member for Pictou. Here is the best advice on " retrenchment and economy" I have heard proceed from the mouth of man. He complained that the Government were very parsimonious in building cars for the Intercolonial. He was strongly in favour of a policy of buying cars liberally and he had a method of his own of getting it done, a method he said he had employed very successfully under the late Government, and he recommended to the good Tories in the county of Pictou to try their own hand with this Government and see if they could not get an order in order to satisfy the growing demand for work of the people of the county of Pictou.
The coal companies are slack just now but they say that another difficulty is that when they do have orders they cannot get sufficient ears to carry these orders. Here, again, is this government with its characteristic stupidity.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: Now I will give an
example of the stupidity:
They gave a 180-car order. Why did they not make 500 or 1,000 for the Intercolonial?
Economy and retrenchment!
The road requires the cars.
Here is the method by which he got the Government to fly in the face of the opinion of the Minister of Railways that 180 cars additional were sufficient for the purpose. Here is his method of suggesting to the people of Pictou, a well-tried method of forcing the Government to do as he wished.
The good Tories should have got down after this Government and made them give an order for 500 or 1,000 cars. If our people were in power I would have done that and would have got the order or have known the reason why.
That was the apostle and the great prophet of "retrenchment and reform," preaching the Gospel to the county of Pictou.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I want to say that the coal mines of Nova Scotia have been closed and the workingmen have been out of employment days and weeks in the past summer and the previous summer on account of the insufficiency of rolling stock on the Intercolonial, and does not my hon. friend think that the Intercolonial, being one of the few services on which the Government has a surplus, it should provide the road with necessary equipment?


Arthur Meighen: The minister responsible for the Intercolonial will meet the member on that. It only illustrates that the duty of the Government is to provide public works, cars and everything else needed, even in the time of war. Why is he trying to throw his body and his influence in the way in order to stop the Government doing this very thing?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Because you would
not do it in time of peace.


Arthur Meighen: I have no doubt he will say that they should have put a duty on steel.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: When we come to
discuss the various tariff items in the Committee of Ways and Means I will have something to say in regard to that. Both parties in this country have agreed upon the maintenance of a tariff and have always maintained it. The Liberal party maintained a tariff which I presume is the same tariff which existed until the breaking out of the war.


Arthur Meighen: Undoubtedly. I am
going to try to fit that into the speech of the hon. member beside him (Mr. Oliver), who spoke the other night and see how the two jibe together.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend's task of discussing what individual members on this side of the House say one way or the other is of absolutely no consequence. My hon. friend will require all his time to discuss the record of the Liberal party during the fifteen years they were in power and the prosperity which spread throughout this country.


Arthur Meighen: I will take more time to that than my hon. friend wants me to do. But I am glad of the hon. gentleman's habit of unbosoming himself, and I would not have attempted such a castigation of his party as he has delivered in saying that it was of no consequence whatever what the

individual opinions of members of the Opposition were.
I think the opinion of the hon. member of very considerable importance, and the opinion of any member of Parliament of very considerable importance, by virtue of his representative capacity. And to show how much I do think of the opinion of the hon. member for Pictou, I am going to quote him again. I am quoting from the columns of Hansard of last August. The hon. member said:
I do not think the Government has paid special attention to the exact condition of industry in this country in framing this method of raising taxes.
That is to say by duties on sugar, spirits and tobacco. That method did not suit him because it did not take into consideration the condition of the industries in the country; in other words, because it was not protective. That was the objection taken in August last to the proposals of the Minister of Finance by the hon. member for Pictou.
When he came -to deal with the question of amending the tariff, it seems to me he should have taken into consideration the question of whether or not he might not have dealt specifically with some of the cases where our importations from other countries will continue and the Canadian workmen will be out of employment.
Did you ever hear a more direct and indeed a more forceful statement of the case for protection than that made by the hon. member for Pictou? If you have a tariff at all, and you must have a tariff, he said as late as August last, then you have to frame your tariff to take care of the workmen of your own country, and to protect them against the importation of cheaper products that may still come in from foreign lands. The hon. member for Pictou this efternoon perhaps never more over-stated a ease than the case I am just going to refer to. He harked back to the old Canadian Northern trouble and took very great exception to the prodigality of this Government in granting last session out of the treasury of Canada, as he called it, $45,000,000. He knew as well as I know that not a dollar was granted last session out of the treasury of Canada to the Canadian Northern Railway or to any other railway. He did know of course that their bonds were guaranteed up to $45,000,000, in order that the road might pass on to completion. But he comes here to-day and says: You were prodigal beyond all discretion; you had no regard for the treasury of your country when you

threw $45,000,000 to the Canadian Northern Railway. What did he say about that down in the town of Trenton, where he expected the extension of the Canadian Northern railway would be of service to his constituents, down there where he knew what would happen if we allowed the Canadian Northern to go into liquidation? What were his remarks about this Canadian Northern? Did he criticise us for our prodigality, for our waste of the public resources? No, he had a method of handling this proposition; and I am going to give the House his method and ask the House to consider whether a more beautiful plan of pursuing the policy of retrenchment and reform could possibly have been devised than that recommended to the people of Pictou county by the hon. member for that constituency. Speaking of the Canadian Northern railway he said:
One hundred million dollars more will be needed to complete the road. This is the situation. They will need 52 millions more to pay their debts and complete the road.
This is what the Government said. We will not loan you a dollar, but we will guarantee your bonds and you get out and sell them. If the bonds sell at the same rate as the last did they will net the company about 41 millions of dollars, and out of this Mackenzie, Mann & Company are expected to go out and pay debts of 152 millions and spend 100 millions more to complete the road. Now is it any wonder that no man who has looked into this proposition can see anything but folly in it. The Liberal members said we are not opposed to assisting the road but we do not want to employ this makeshift scheme. We would deal with it in a way that would be effective, just as we completed the ^Transcontinental railway.
The policy of " retrenchment and reform" in the field of railway enterprise recommended to this country is a duplication of that hideous nightmare, the Transcontinental. He goes on:
This enterprise must go on. We need the railway. My hon. friend said that we should have control of the road, not own it, and let us be able to say that we are the masters and not the servants. The reason I moved the six months* hoist in the House was that the scheme was worthless. It was providing 40 millions of dollars where 152 millions were needed. What was the use talking about questions in that way.
That is not the way statesmen deal with a question, a six months' hoist means a direct negative to the proposition, and holding that that was not the right way to handle it, and that was the way I moved the six months' hoist.
It was not open for us-
He had to offer some apology for not suggesting this largesse policy to Parliament. Here is his apology:	,
It was not open for us to move that a hundred million dollars be given. That cannot come from the Opposition. It must come from the Government.
Will	the	right	hon. leader	of the Opposition	be	good	enough to	join in	thesolemn assurance of the hon. member for Pictou that if the people of Canada will in the illumination of their intellects only reinstate into office the Liberal party, that party	will	put	into force	a policy	of" economy and retrenchment " that will mean the re-visitation of their work on the Transcontinental railway. They found fault with	the	Minister of	Finance	for
drawing attention to the Transcontinental. Is there an hon. gentleman opposite who, seeing what he sees today, would load the Transcontinental on the back of Canada ? Do we need the Transcontinental ? Is it worth the money ? What is the cause of our financial trouble at this hour ? Two hundred millions of dollars-more than enough to finance Canada's 'share in the whole war of liberty -thrown into a road built between Winnipeg and the town of Moncton. It was built under a contract-and what a contract! Of its weaknesses I purpose to speak just for a moment to-night. Two hundred millions of dollars thrown into a road, well built for the most part, if the road were needed at all, a road built for the most part in the northern wilds of this country, planted foT all time by the people of this country under a hope embedded in a contract framed by hon. gentlemen opposite that it would be taken over by the Grand Trunk Pacific and operated for the benefit of Canada. The time may not be opportune for going into details of that contract, but I want to sow just a little seed in the mind of the leader of the Opposition. I wish to refer to the words of the hon. member for Pictou, I think, that that was one of the grandest contracts framed by any government.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: What I said was that I was very glad to hear the hon. member for Calgary advocating the necessity of the construction of that railway to Moncton and to the ocean ports of the Dominion of Canada.


Arthur Meighen: I will be a whole lot gladder to see the hon. member for Pictou find that in the speech of the hon. member for Calgary.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The whole House
heard him if you did not.


Arthur Meighen: I think he will be just as successful as he was in making the quotations from the speech of my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: If my hon. friend
thinks I have any desire to refrain from showing him the quotation in the speech of the Minister of Trade and Commerce I will not interrupt his speech now but I will on a later occasion when we go into committee on ways and means give them to my hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: That will be exceedingly interesting and I hope he will read his own statement as to the words of the Minister of Trade and Commerce.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Certainly.


Arthur Meighen: Now, there is a contract for the hon gentleman. If he does it in Committee of the Whole let him also place his statement that he has just made in regard to the speech of the hon. member for Calgary alongside with the apposite remarks of the hon. member for Calgary. There is a second contract for the hon. member for Pictou.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend's
hearing is rather bad.


Arthur Meighen: My hearing is good and my reading is very good too. The hon. gentleman boasts of his hearing but he is a very poor reader. Where do we find ourselves to-day? Has anybody seen the Grand Trunk Pacific springing forward to take possession of the Transcontinental railway? We have spent the money. We had a clause in our contract which allowed the Grand Trunk Pacific to say just what money we had to spend here and there and in what way. We have put ourselves under an obligation to the company to see that every mile of the road should be of a certain character with regard to construction, and we were blandly told by hon. gentlemen opposite that there we had a great safeguard for the people of Canada. Yes, it has been a mighty fine safeguard! The Grand Trunk Pacific became the contractors, drew millions of dollars out of their contracts-millions upon millions they drew-and now we are up against the time when it becomes their duty under the contract to take over the road. What is the security that this country has that the Grand Trunk Pacific will take over the road? We have not witnessed any great alacrity yet. We would be mighty glad to see it. Security? Does any hon. gentleman opposite remember the security?

What security have we that they will take over the road? Nobody remembers any and I do not either. There is not a dollar of security in the contract. We are faced now with the position that while during all those years we handed under this contract the keys of the treasury of this country to the Grand Trunk Pacific we have no adequate means of enforcing the contract against them if they choose to resist the taking over the road and relieving this country from its operation. I do not want to spend much time upon that point. The time will come when we shall do it. The road is there, the road is built and how will my right hon. friend the "leader of the Opposition feel if he learns by the progress of events that what he expected would be a great monument to his memory lies a streak of rust spurned by the very people whom he thought were going to take it off the hands of the people of this country? A contract that is the pride of Canada? If there ever was a contract, weak at eve~y pore, if there ever was a contract bleeding fiom a thousand wounds, it is this contract, with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. A contract the pride of Canada? Who drew it? Hon. gentlemen opposite are responsible for it. Twelve million dollars of the money of the people of this country already represented the penalty we have paid for the way that contract was drawn. Are we at the end of these penalties? If one looks at that contract from any corner he is impressed by the fact that its outstanding features are its weaknesses, perhaps so fatal that one is at a loss to say whether they are attributable to recklessness or design. It has all the crudeness of innocence and all the deformity of guilt. Gur money is in the road to day, almost $200,000,000 of our money is there. There it lies; interest piles up day by day, year by year. That and the Quebec bridge represent the burden upon the people of this country. While our hon. friends are almost shaking themselves out of their clothes in a struggle to dislodge a little chaff and straw, would it not be well for them to open their eyes and help to lighten the load that bends down the back of this country at this hour? The hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham) is to speak to-night.


George Perry Graham: This morning.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member for South Renfrew cannot in his capacity as minister be charged with the inauguration of that folly, but he has made himself re-

sponsible for it by his words. And the burden thereof which is added daily and weekly to the backs of all Canadians is tremendous in proportion to the small, trifling items for which hon. gentlemen are detaining Parliament week after week at the present time.
Well, enough of that. Hon. gentlemen opposite do not like the present proposals. They tell us that we are endeavouring to assist our friends, as they choose to describe them, and not to collect revenue. They tell us that it may be that our tax is necessary but this is not the way to go about it. If criticism at this time were intended to help the country, were intended to be of assistance to those who are loaded with the responsibility of office in- these strenuous days, surely they would tell us how they would raise this revenue. One would expect to have had some suggestion in the amendment moved to the motion to go into Committee of Ways and Means. There is no suggestion, and the speech of the financial expert of the Opposition makes no suggestion whatever, although it contains some very marvellous remarks. The speech of the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) is full of very beautiful abstractions and wonderful negatives but, with the skill of a fencer, he took care never to make any suggestion as to where we could get a dollar of money. He says his party are perfectly loyal, and just as anxious as we are to support the war. To show it he says: "We will vote $150,000,000." They are the freest people in the world about voting money, but when it comes to raising the money they are different altogether. No suggestions whatever are made by them. They are willing to vote money out of the treasury, but when it comes to voting money into the treasury they are not with us at all, and not around at all. Here is the attitude of hon. gentlemen opposite. Here is the suggestion, as far as I can see one, from the hon. member for Halifax:
A revenue might possibly be obtained by an increase of 7i per cent in the tariff rates upon selected Imports.
Did he describe them? How is he going to select them?
Here and there items of imports might be found where this could be done with success from the revenue standpoint.
They might be found "here and there," but he took very good care not to put his finger either "here" or "there." One would have thought that he would have suggested a method. Here is his method:
Investigation would lead the way in selecting the articles.
One would have thought that the leader of the Opposition, or at least the financial critic, would have led the way instead of leading up to this rather visionary abstraction, called "investigation." The hon. member for Halifax does not think he is incapable of devising a method himself of getting this money, and he says to the hon. member for North Grey:
" Some time,. when I have nothing else to do"-	[DOT]
He wants us to wait until after the next election.
-"and the hon. gentleman wants to know how I would arrange a tariff that would yield additional revenue under the circumstances prevailing to-day, I might do so, but I am not inclined t o do so at the present time."
Every sentence of his speech bore out that disinclination. He was inclined to oppose any and every method of getting the money into the treasury for this war, but be took good care not to acquiesce in or to suggest any method of his own whatever. Is that constructive statesmanship? Is that assisting the Government of the day to meet the contingencies and the exigencies of this great struggle, or is it not simple carping, party criticism of the lowest possible level?
According to hon. gentlemen opposite, we cannot tax anything. If the hon. junior member for Halifax ( Mr. A. K. Maclean) follows his own principles, his own rules, he would never put a tax upon anything at all. You cannot tax railways, according to hon. gentlemen opposite. Who today was anxious to tax railways? Was it not the hon. member for Uarleton (Mr. Carvell)? Yes, he wanted railways taxed, but the hon. junior member for Halifax says: do not ask railways to pay taxes. They cannot afford to pay even this extra 10 cents on bituminous coal; and if yo.u tax them, up will go the freight rates in this country. Do not touch manufacturers either, says the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley). If you touch the manufacturers, for example, the manufacturers of bituminous coal, they will have to raise the price to the consumer. Do not touch raw products, says the hon. junior member for Halifax, because to do so is to violate every canon of both protection and1 free trade. Do not touch the finished product, says the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Turriff), because to do so might help the labouring men and the manufacturers, and my farmers would never stand for that.

Do not touch necessities, the Tight hon. leader of the Opposition proclaims, because you might tax some one without the 5 cents. The right hon. gentleman is the protagonist of the poor man in Canada just at this hour. Never touch necessities, he says, for I will never allow my party to vote for a tax on necessities. Do not touch luxuries either, says his financial expert. The hon. junior member for Halifax says the main characteristics of a war tax are that it should be on articles "relatively cheap and of universal consumption." The right hon. leader of the Opposition looks at me in astonishment. That is the doctrine as propounded by his own financial expert, and his expert had the assurance to say that he spoke for every member on the Opposition benches. The Opposition, out of the mouth of the hon. junior member for Halifax, unless he is repudiated by his right hon. leader, is committed to a policy against a tax on luxuries in this country to pay for the necessities of the war. We must have our tax. If it is to be a war tax, it must, he says, be on articles relatively cheap and of universal consumption. I see the leader of the Opposition consulting with his friend on his left, the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Graham), and I am rather inclined to believe that he thinks that I am not correctly quoting his financial expert.


Wilfrid Laurier: I was saying that my hon. friend was not speaking to the question.


Arthur Meighen: For any fear that my right hon. friend might later on develop, I will quote exactly what the hon. junior member for Halifax said:
Now what should he the main features of a war revenue tax? It should be made as much as possible on articles relatively cheap and of universal consumption.
In order to show that he was firm in his allegiance to that doctrine, just a few pages afterwards he goes on to criticise this Government because it did not put a tax on tea. He says: It shows that you were not animated by considerations of patriotism at all; you were animated by considerations of politics alone, by unworthy considerations, because you refused to put a tax upon tea. He says: I am the father of this doctrine, and I speak for every member behind me when I say that when you are taxing for the purposes of the war, you must tax things relatively cheap and of universal consumption. Will the right hon. leader of the Oppo-

sition say that luxuries are relatively cheap and of universal consumption? Has he come to the conclusion or has his financial expert that the poor people are not using things of universal consumption, but that they are consuming luxuries? Does he agree with the hon. member for Halifax? I can-nbt get an answer out of him. There is the basic teaching of the Opposition that when you put on a war revenue tax it must be its cardinal and universal principle, so it is propounded by the hon. member for Halifax, whom the right hon. gentleman set up to lead the way for the Opposition in this discussion. No doubt he told the hon. member for Halifax to say that in every line of his speech he spoke for every hon. member of the Opposition.
I set out to say that, if we follow hon. gentlemen opposite, we never can raise a dollar upon anything one way or another. I invite any hon. gentleman opposite to suggest a single tax, not at present in the Budget, that we possibly can impose and at the same time not conflict directly with the dictum of some hon. gentleman on the other side. We could not impose a dollar of taxation and not fly directly in the face of the principles propounded in this House by the hon. member for Halifax speaking for every member of the Opposition. Nor could we save money either and not run directly against the principles preached from end to end in Canada last June and later than that by hon. gentlemen opposite. How then are we to get a war tax? War without taxation is the policy of hon gentlemen opposite. Live on some one else! Do not pay the money! Vote it out of the treasury, if you like, but do not get it from any one! That is the war policy of hon. gentlemen opposite. Adopt the C.O.D. policy of the Liberal party in 1900, and send the soldiers away at the expense of Great Britain.
But we have a suggestion from hon. gentlemen opposite. Perhaps I did not do justice to every hon. member opposite. I do not see it included in the amendment of the right hon. leader of the Opposition, but we have a suggestion on the one hand of a land tax, and on the other of an income tax. The leader of the Opposition knew that it would never do to put those into his amendment. He knew that he would not have a show on earth before the people of this country, and that he could not carry his party with him; and he was afraid that if he suggested it, it would be like his suggested free food policy, a policy only "for

the moment." The hon. member for Saltcoats (Mr. MacNutt) suggests a land tax. He wants, he says, to be easy on the farmer,
I am at a loss to know any method by which a distribution can be made that is fairer or easier for the farmer of Canada than the methods of this Budget. The hon. member for Saltcoats offers a suggestion, and tells us that he has the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association, of which we have heard in times gone by, behind him in his proposal. They are good citizens for the most part, and on that account their suggestion is worthy of consideration. The suggestion is a tax on land. I will give you as an example the instance of a farmer in western Canada, and I regret to say not an uncommon instance. He is the owner of a half section of land which is worth, let us say $10,000. He owes this year $7,000 against it; his interest is about $3,000. The proposal of the hon. member for Saltcoats is that we tax that farmer on $10,000 of property and let the fellow with the mortgage for $7,000 go scott free. The farmer whose interest is $3,000 pays on $10,000 and the leisured man who has the mortgages for $7,000 pays nothing ait all. That is not an unfair representation of how that would operate in the western country as well as in all parts of Canada. That tax is also open to the same objection as the right hon. the leader of the Opposition levelled against the duties now under consideration. " Ah," says the leader of the Opposition, " you are taxing British goods after they have escaped the German submarine." But what would he have said if we had taxed the farmer's land and the labourer's land? He would have said: "At this hour, when the possibility of our surviving depends upon production from the soil, and when we should conserve production, you impose a tax on land." He would say: " Because the land of the western farmer has escaped the violence of the Krupp machine, you expose it to the devastation of your murderous Revenue Act." Would that not have been the argument in his mouth?
And if we had levied taxes on income, where should we have been? The tax on income is notoriously a slow one and takes years to develop. Further, it is essentially a tax that belongs to the provinces. And when the hon. member for Saltcoats advocates a tax on income I would suggest a course for him by which he might establish himself in the
good wishes of his own government in that province. Let him go to his friends who are in power in that province and urge upon them to establish a tax on incomes. And let him say that if they levied that tax, they might relieve this Government from some of the obligations we are assuming in the way of advancing seed grain. What is the situation to-day? We have the provinces coming to this Government at this time-and especially the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan where there are Liberal Governments-and saying: We have not money enough to take care of the interests of this province and we would like to supply seed grain for the drouth-striken people; but we have not the money; we ask for your assistance. The municipalities come and say: Our land people are the heaviest taxed and they cannot pay, and our land is going to tax-sale. And here would be the remedy of the hon. member for Saltcoats-the only remedy suggested-that while your municipal lands are going for taxes, you should tax them more, and where your provinces cannot get revenue the Government of Canada should invade their field and rob them of what sources of revenue they have.
I have no sympathy in times such as these with a policy of despair. I believe that now, when we are inviting the people of Canada, particularly the employers of Canada from one coast to the other, to stand by their workers and employees, is the time when the Dominion Government should set an example in that respect and not follow a policy of despair. I believe that when we are asking our railroads to struggle against great difficulties and if possible keep every man in their employ, we should not do as suggested by the hon. member for Assin-iboia, weakly allow our railroads to go into liquidation on a mere technicality which would forbid the Minister of Finance to advance money on bonds guaranteed by the Dominion of Canada itself. I do not believe in a policy of this kind, a policy which will allow the industries of this country to lapse further than they have already lapsed according to the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald). I do not believe in turning more workmen out on the street and adding to the army of workers who in every country to	a great	extent, and
here to some extent, surge around the doors of Parliament. The hon. member for Assiniboia	(Mr. Turriff)
seemed willing to go to the country on this issue. The hon. member for Pictou tried to

modify that attitude to some extent. But the challenge was thrown out, and it lies there yet. Anxious to go to the country! Anxious to go to the country on a policy of timidity and despair, at this time when of all times we should present a strong front to every form of danger. Anxious to go to the country on a policy of liquidation for our railroads, stagnation for our industries, agitation for our western farmers, and starvation for our workingmen. That is the policy inscribed on the banners of hon. gentlemen opposite. At a time like this, I do not think hon. gentlemen opposite should be too anxious to challenge this Government to go to the country. At a time like this when upon the firmness of the grip between us and the Motherland may depend the safety of both; at a time like this when union and co-operation may mean the life of this country; when all depends on joining hands and presenting the strength of all as the strength of one; at a time like this, when all the resources of our country should be conserved to bring about the best results to our people, and when none should be allowed to go the way of waste-at such an hour, I venture to say, the people of Canada, getting behind the sanctity of the ballot, will never reinstate in oflace the destroyers of naval collaboration and the perpetrators of the Transcontinental railway.
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (South Renfrew) : Mr. Speaker, I must apologize to the House for taking up even a short time at this hour of the morning. The subject has been debated at great length, though not by my hon. friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen), for he only touched it for about twelve minutes. He dealt with everything else, and carried on a very pleasant conversation with hon. members. As I listened to his wonderful peroration about unity, I wondered if he had delivered that to the Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane) and the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) in October last. Now the hon. gentleman cries unity; do not break into unity by an election; and a few months ago the men sitting beside him tried to force an election in this Dominion. He should have delivered this oration to them at that time. Why did he not do it?
I want to make myself absolutely clear. It has been said, and said untruthfully, that I challenged the Government to go to the country. I say " untruthfully " advisedly. My hon. friend said that the hon. member for Pictou is not a good reasoner; he himself is a mighty poor listener if he thought that what I said was a challenge.

Members on the other side of the House have been talking about elections. In answer to the hon. member for Assiniboia they have been saying several things about elections. If, in fact, at any time during the session we attempted to criticise, the big club was held up in a threatening manner. I satd to hon. gentlemen, what we do or win not do will make no difference with the Government; they will go to the country if they want to, and will not if they do not want to. I said if they are going why linger shivering on the brink as they did last fall? Why not go? I issued no challenge; I say now that it would be little less than a crime to involve the country in a general election at this time, in the face of what is now taking place in Europe.
My hon. friend insisted that we on this side of the House should tell him how to raise this revenue. Nearly all hon. gentlemen opposite have shown their lack of confidence in themselves by asking the members of the Opposition to frame up a policy for them. My hon. friend began by speaking of co-operation; we invite co-operative criticism, he said.


Mr. MURPHY:: After the deed had been done.


George Perry Graham: There was a time when hon. gentlemen opposite could have had cooperative criticism; there was a time when they could have had more co-operation, perhaps, than they can have now. Every time we say anything now hon. gentlemen opposite interpret it as a want of confidence in the Government. Had the Prime Minister of the Dominion been as big as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a conference would have been held between the leaders of the parties and something would have resulted to prevent, perhaps, all this criticism. I say advisedly that no conference was offered to the leader of the Opposition and no conference was held. The Prime Minister to-day, very weakly, I thought, said that he had sent a programme to the leader of the Opposition. But that is done every session. That is not a conference; that is the supplying of information to the leader of the Opposition as to what the Government is going to do-it is not asking their advice as to what action the Government should take. That is not the way the Prime Minister of Great Britain went about it. The
2 a.m. Prime Minister of Great Britain had a conference at which the advice of the leader of the Opposition was asked, and, no doubt, received. A con-

ference was also held between Lloyd George and Austen Cfhamberlain. That is the course the British -Government took in the way of co-operation. They appointed Kitchener as first war lord, and both parties united to carry on ithe war to a successful issue. But this Government have kept these matters as close a secret as they would keep a writ of general election. Not until they found that the people did not take kindly to their horizontal increase in the tariff did they suggest that the right hon. leader of the Opposition or any member of the Opposition should be consulted. They have departed from every British precedent in the management of the war so far as the Opposition is concerned. By their actions they have -said:	we do not
want the co-operation of the Opposition, except to vote whatever we tell them to vote. That is not co-operation. The hon. Solicitor General comes too late with his invitation for co-operation. He could have had co-operation with the leader of the Opposition, who is a sworn member of the Privy Council, and that co-operation would probably have resulted in a policy not subject to the criticism which is being made at the present time. The Government was more anxious to have an election last fall than they were to have co-operation with the leader of the Opposition; I am looking at men now who know the truthfulness of what I say. I repeat that some members of the Government-yes, I think I can include all members of the Government-were prepared to go to the country last fall and were more anxious to secure a party verdict when ithe Empire was at war than they were to secure the co-operation of the leader of the Opposi tion.
The hon. Solicitor General said that I am the editor of a paper in Montreal. That is not'true; I am president of the company, but not the editor of the paper. I merely want to correct my horn, friend; he himself takes so much care to correct hon. gentlemen on this side when they are wrong.


Arthur Meighen: I said I understood the hon. gentleman was the editor.


George Perry Graham: The hon. gentleman's
understanding was wrong; I am simply correcting him. He said also that I was responsible for the opinions of another newspaper. I am not going to discuss these two points further than to say to him that he
thinks the Liberal papers are going to remain silent while a newspaper looked upon as the organ of the Minister of Railways and the publications of an organization in Ottawa said to be under the direct control of the Minister of Public Works malign and misrepresent them, he does not know the Liberal press of the Dominion of Canada. In some of these Conservative papers not for one day was there a cessation of the attacks which were made upon the leader of the Opposition. The people of the country will laugh at the statement of the Solicitor General that he and his Government did not know this.


Arthur Meighen: What statement?


George Perry Graham: I am not going to repeat it; the hon. gentleman will see it in Hansard.


Arthur Meighen: I did not make it.


George Perry Graham: The hon. gentleman does not know what the statement is, but he says he did not make it.


Arthur Meighen: How could I know what it is if I did not make it?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend denied
having made the statement to which I rereferred before he knew what the statement was.


Arthur Meighen: Because I did not
make it.


George Perry Graham: I want to discuss this
matter fairly. My hon. friend is very clever and very ingenious in twisting things about; I do not think that any other hon. gentleman opposite-not even the hon. member for Calgary-could do so well in that particular kind of argument. Because of my not having the legal training which he has, my hon. friend will excuse me if I do not see the fine points of some of his criticisms. The hon. gentleman spoke of the revenue from excise in connection with imports. I suppose my hon. friend did not mean to say that, but when he comes to read the proofs of his speech, he will see that he did say it. Or perhaps it will not appear in Hansard, because of my hon. friend's having previously corrected it.


Arthur Meighen: I never do that.


George Perry Graham: In discussing the duties my hon. friend first referred to a decrease in imports and then said that there was consequently a decrease of excise as well. Of course, there is no connection

whatever between excise and imports, because excise is duty payable upon goods manufactured in Canada for home consumption.
Anticipating what I was going to say, the hon. gentleman insisted that I should deal only with current revenue. He knows the way in which he deals with these things when he gets outside of Parliament and has no one in front of him to challenge his assertions, and he insisted that I should deal with them in the same way. I will oblige my hon. friend, if I can, and give him the benefit of any doubt, if he can find any. He pointed to the year 1911-12 as a year in which there was a slight surplus over current and capital expenditure. Does he not know that the Liberal Government were in power in October of 1911, that the Conservative Government not only took over our Estimates, our plans, our specifications and everything but, as his colleagues said, they only completed what we had undertaken; and if there is any credit to be taken the credit is for the Liberal Government. I regret that the Solicitor General is not quite in the Government; there are lots of things take place in council that perhaps they do not .tell him about. They are so secretive I wonder that he found out anything about this war business at all. Now I come to 1912 and 1913. In this House and in the-Conservative press of 1913 what was the answer to the discussion of the Estimates? Why, these are your own Estimates! The late Government went out in October, 1911; the departments had their estimates prepared for 1912 and 1913 and we were told in the House, when we attemoted to discuss the Estimates, that these were our own Estimates; and still the hon. member wants to take credit for them. The Estimates for 1912-13 were the Estimates of the Liberal party and the year's account show a surplus over both capital and current expenditure.


Arthur Meighen: We did not spend all your Estimates.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend was not in a spending department. If my hon. friend takes the expenditure he must take the revenue as well. If we are.charged with the expenditure of 1912-i3 we must be credited with the revenue.


Arthur Meighen: I did not charge you.


George Perry Graham: He was explaining how they got a surplus over capital and expenditure. But the first year the Government makes up its own estimates there is a deficit of $21,000,000. Take 191314 the first year

for which this Government prepared its own estimates, and they came out with a deficit of $21,000,000, if we do what my hon. friend wanted to do, put capital and current expendtiture together. So much for my hon. friend's flourish of trumpets about the member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) supporting a Government that did not pay its way. The hon. member for Red Deer was absolutely right and 'hon. gentlemen seem to forget that the chasm between economy and extravagance is the difference between living within your income and living beyond it; and they started to live beyond their income the very first year they had the complete handling of the finances. He made another pecular argument. He said it does not follow that because we are asking for all this money we propose to spend it. He dilated upon that at great length. That is what we have been arguing on this side of the House. Hon. gentlemen, according to the Solicitor General, are putting money in the estimates which they may not expend and on the basis of asking for money which they do not expend they are imposing taxes on the people of Canada. What I say is that they should only ask for the money they intend to expend and to expend economically, and base the rate of taxation on the money which they really want and not on the maximum of what they could spend.


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman's argument is correct that the money will not be spent for public works or other purposes, then will not the money be put in the public treasury and be available for the purposes of the war?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend is now going to tax the people to get a surplus, but is that good financing when the people of this country are in the position we are in to-day?


Mr. PUGSLEY:: That is not even honest.


George Perry Graham: If it is not intended for the war or public works, it is not even honest to ask for it. The hon. member spoke of the Canadian Northern Railway, gingerly, delicately, touched it on one side and came away, then he as delicately touched it up, on the other side, looked over his handiwork said: I think I have polished off that statue very nicely. He forgets that the late Liberal Administration did not aid the Canadian Northern Railway in the extension of its lines west of the Rocky mountains, and that a large share of the money

required to be got through the guarantee of bonds last year was to provide for the railway started in British Columbia by Sir Richard McBride but which they could not finish without more aid. The Canadian Northern Railway in British Columbia is constructed under a provincial charter, not a Dominion charter, under a contract with Sir Richard McBride, and he is to control the rates and not the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada. The Canadian Northern Railway people did come to the late Government asking aid for that line, and I say now that we refused them aid for the line west of the Rocky mountains. They entered into a contract with the British Columbia, Government and every person in Canada knew that the railway could not be built under those conditions. Since this Government came into power they came here and got a distinctive grant of money for that line. I think it is unfair of my hon. friend to blame the late Government for all the Canadian Northern Railway expenditure as far as that part is concerned and that was a large part of the $45,000,000 with which the Liberal Government had nothing to do; it was for a line which they did not encourage. My hon. friend's argument is that if the Government had been a Tory Government instead of a Liberal Government they would not have these obligations to meet in connection with the Canadian Northern Railway. If his words mean anything they mean that. Will he. say that he would not have aided the Canadian Northern Railway in any shape whatever from the beginning?


Arthur Meighen: I never argued on the question of responsibility for the Canadian Northern Railway, hut if the hon. gentleman wants to engage in that discussion with me I am perfectly willing.
Mr. GRAHAM; He argued several times on the Canadian Northern railway.


Arthur Meighen: Not in the sense of responsibility for it.
Mr. GRAHAM; Then he was not arguing at all, and I will drop it because he argued that it was one of the lines covered by the $45,000,000. I think he will find on reading Hansard that he left the impression that we were responsible for the Canadian Northern Railway.
Mr. MEIGHEN; I believe you were, too.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend says now I am right. I want to ask him this: Would
he not have aided the Canadian Northern Railway as we did, if this Government had been in power? .


Arthur Meighen: I would have dealt with the Canadian Northern railway the same as any other public work.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend has admitted that they would have done it. He talks about us taking refuge in silence, but he takes refuge in worse than silence.
I now come to the Quebec bridge, about which I have a little quarrel with the Minister of Finance. The impression has been sent out to the country that this Government had to pay all the expenses of the Quebec bridge. That is rubbish, absolute rubbish, they did not have to do anything of the kind.


William Thomas White: When was that sent out?


George Perry Graham: I think the speech was read out to-night.


William Thomas White: I think my hon. friend had better read it again.


George Perry Graham: It was read in the House to-night. I remember hearing my hon. friend speak one day about the Quebec bridge, and he referred to the fact that it fell down or something of that kind. Does not that mean that he wants the country to believe that this Government had to pay for the loss of the Quebec bridge falling down? I say they did not have to pay a farthing, and they did not pay a farthing. The Laur-ier Administration settled up for that disaster before it went out of power. I want to ask a question. Is there a member of the Government who will say to-night that they would not have started the Quebec bridge?
Mr. SAM. SHARPE: We would not have let it fall.


George Perry Graham: They admit that they
would have started it.


William Thomas White: No, they do not.


George Perry Graham: If the Postmaster General was in his seat; but he does not need to be in his seat for every hon. member for Quebec knows that both parties for years put themselves on record as being in favour of the construction of the Quebec bridge. Both parties were committed to it years ago. Then how can they say that it was a burden left them by the Liberals.
I come now to the Transcontinental, one


Arthur Meighen: If the hon. gentleman would do me the courtesy of saying what I stated, I should not have to interrupt him. I said nothing of the sort. I said that we had no security to compel them to take over the road, and I will abide by that till the last letter. I should like the hon. gentleman to show where we have the isecurity. But if we have not, is it not more honest and better to say so ?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend is getting very honest.


Arthur Meighen: You had better get honest.


George Perry Graham: He said that the Grand Trunk Pacific contract was bleeding at every pore. He practically said that the contract was no good.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, no.


George Perry Graham: I do not want to discuss it at any great length just now, for the time will come when it will have to be discussed. The Solicitor General practicady said that the Grand Trunk Pacific contract was the weakest contract ever drawn up in any country. If my legal adviser told my adversary such a thing as that, he would lose his position mighty quickly. I say the Solicitor General has done injustice and discredit to himself in this 	. J
House to-night. He has told the Grand Trunk Pacific that we have no case.


John Hampden Burnham: The Opposition is not bis client.	.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend is about that size. My hon. friend says that the Opposition is not his client. Sir, the people of Canada are his clients.


Arthur Meighen: And I tell the people the truth.	[DOT]


George Perry Graham: I am glad he admits that he tells the truth. Possibly he knows that in_some cases it needs an admission. f I leave it to the country and to the members of this House if I have exaggerated the position taken by the Solicitor General. If he did that in a private case between two litigants he would soon be out of his job as solicitor for one of them. They would tell him to go over to the other side in whose case he had more confidence. There was no necessity for his going to that length at a moment when he admits inferentially that there is a difference of opinion about taking over the road. He practically told this House that the Government has no case. *


Arthur Meighen: No, he did not.


George Perry Graham: It could not mean anything else.


Arthur Meighen: I think the ex-Minister of Railways in dealing with this subject should be a little more careful than he has been. I said there was no security, but I never said a word to the effect, or even intimated that we could not compel them to take over the road, or that we could noi get a judgment to that effect. I said the late Government failed to put in security. I do not intend to proclaim a falsehood even to satisfy the hon. member.


George Perry Graham: I am not going to discuss that any more. Had he only said that, it would have been all right. But that is not all he said, and hiding half of what a man has said is the worst kind of misrepresentation. I charge this Government- and the action of the Solicitor General tonight only substantiates what I am going to say. When this Government came into power, for some reason they started to change the grades on the Transcontinental. They will not say they did not.


Mr. COCHRANE:: I say no.


George Perry Graham: I say they did. They changed the grades on the road, and they

argued in this House by the hour-the Solicitor General knows that-that the changing of the grades did not interfere with the hauling capacity of the trains. But they admitted changing the grade of the road in many places. It is on record. Any person can see it on Hansard. And the Government argued for days, not that the changes were not made, but that they did not injure the efficiency of the road. What happened then? The president of the Grand Trunk Pacific notified this Government in writing that, if they continued to change the grades and structures as they had been doing, the company would not take over the road. That letter is on Hansard and hon. gentlemen can look it up. I think the words of the president were:
Wo. cannot take over the road,** or it was something just as emphatic. But the Government instead of endeavouring to meet the company, continued to change the grades, and I say that the company hardly received a courteous letter in connection with the matter. These letters are all on record in Hansard. With that staring the Government in the face, would not a Government that was trying to make a success of the Transcontinental have met the company and endeavoured to arrange the difference. But that was not done so far as I ever heard. My hon. friend talks about not taking over the road. The Transcontinental is not finished to-day.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. gentleman not recognize that he is committing flagrantly the offence he charged me with?


George Perry Graham: I certainly am doing
nothing of the kind. I am stating what was put on record but what my hon. friend said to-night was never put on record before. This road is not completed. The present Government, instead of pressing on with the work of the National Transcontinental railway, has proceeded not only to change the grades but to make new plans in Quebec. I am not going to argue the efficiency or inefficiency of those plans. The plans were changed, and any correspondence which I have been able, through returns, to get my hands on, does not indicate that the Grand Trunk Pacific Company has ever yet agreed to these changes. It is clear that the road is not completed according to these changes. Surely this Government is giving the Grand Trunk Pacific every possible excuse for not taking over this line-why? If, as they say, the road is two streaks of rust, whose fault is it? This Government is responsible for that condition. Bet
me point out the real situation. The Grand Trunk, in its stress, was not anxious for the operation of the railway down through New Ontario, or a portion of it, but it was made a part of the contract with the late Government that they must take what may be the lean portion for a few years with the fat portion of the line. That was put into the contract. One of the chief duties of the Government in connection with the National Transcontinental railway was to watch diligently so that no excuse should be given to the company for not taking over the road. One of the greatest difficulties we had with the late Mr. Hays was along that line, and after some weeks we succeeded in getting the consent of the Grand Trunk Pacific that they would put in their claims as to differences before the arbitrators within a stated time. Had we not done so these claims would have come in long after the road was completed, and the Grand Trunk Pacific Company .would have had reason for not taking over the road. Up to the time the late Administration went out of power the Grand Trunk Pacific had not one excuse for not taking over the road. When this Government came into power they proceeded to give them an excuse. They did not even stop at that. This Government hired two partisans at $100,000 to make out a case for the Grand Trunk Pacific. Without discussing that report, let me say that there never was a more misleading document placed before any Parliament or country. It not only was misleading, but in many instances it waa absolutely and wilfully untrue. What have the Government done for the Grand Trunk Pacific? They have had a report made out by their own commissioners showing that the Grand Trunk Pacific had cost $40,000,000 too much, and the company now hands it back to this Government. The Grand Trunk Pacific does not have to make out a case. This Government, entirely for political purposes, and to give two partisans a job, have made out a brief for the Grand Trunk Pacific. My hon. friend the Solicitor General is hedging and pretending that there is something wrong with the contract. He sees what is coming, and he now tries to blame it on the contract. The contract was strong enough, but this Government did not live up to it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The contract was drawn by the Chief Justice of the Dominion.


Arthur Meighen: Had you not better leave that to the engineer?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend, who is an astute lawyer, knows that what I say is correct.


Arthur Meighen: I know it is not.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend does not know what I am going to say yet. My hon. friend knows full well the strong evidence that was handed to the Grand Trunk Pacific in the form of the report made by their own commission appointed to investigate the National Transcontinental. The Chief Justice of Canada drew that contract.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: And he knew as much about drawing contracts as the Solicitor General does.


George Perry Graham: Let me proceed along another line. I have dealt with the Quebec Bridge, the Canadian Northern and the National Transcontinental railway. My hon. friend has said that these are legacies.
I have pointed out that they would have had to build them just the same. The hon. Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Cochrane) said in reply to me two years ago in this House that he had never heard anybody object to the construction of the National Transcontinental railway, but they objected to the cost. It would only be a question of degree as to the amount anyway, because the head of the Railway Department had admitted that they would have constructed the road themselves.


Arthur Meighen: No.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend will find it in Hansard.


Arthur Meighen: Had the hon. gentleman not better produce it?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend knows that what I am saying is true. I was discussing the statement that some members of the Government were against this road, and the Minister of Railways and Canals said, and it was absolutely true,that he had never heard of any one being against the building of the Transcontinental railway but that they were against it having cost so mucfh. However, it would only be a matter of degree. Let my hon. friend take the Transcontinental railway, which is the biggest matter that he has had to deal with since he came into power, and take the surpluses for which the Liberal Government were responsible, and if he does that he will probably find that he will have a little balance 
in his favour after all charges have been met.
I was pleased with the way in which my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Geo. Foster) addressed the House. He made one statement that seemed to me to come home to the members of the Government. He intimated that the Government could reduce their expenditure by $30,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: I cannot find it.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend cannot find anything he does not want to find. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce said that the Estimates this year for public works amounted to $22,000,000. That was an error; the Estimates are $31,000,000. The estimates are $22,000,000 in one place, and $9,000,000 in another. He was discussing what possibly might be done, and when a member of the Government admits there is a possibility of doing this it must be pretty evident that there is a possibility.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, Oh.


George Perry Graham: Perhaps my hon. friend does not like the Minister of Trade and Commerce enough to want to help him.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I do.


George Perry Graham: The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce said this:
Make the greatest diminution you safely can in the expenditure of all other departments, and it will puzzle you to produce an economy of $30,000,000.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


George Perry Graham: Do not laugh, like the Solicitor General, before you hear the whole
of the statement:
-and still do your duty hy the public administration and the services of the country. Yet you have a deficit of $30,000,000 to be made up.
He goes on and admits-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


George Perry Graham: Yes, he admits that there is a deficit of $60,000,000, and he assumes that there could be $30,000,000 saved, and still argues that there will be $30,000,000 left. Surely the Solicitor General does not require to interject anything at all. I am merely explaining what I take to be the real meaning of the Minister of Trade and Commerce.
I was-a little surprised by some of the remarks that were made by the right hon.

the leader of the Government (Sir Robert Borden). The speech of the Minister of Trade and Commerce was wonderfully eloquent, as his utterances Always are; but it seemed on behalf of the Government to partake somewhat of the nature of a plea of guilty and to beg for a recommendation to mercy. He said: You ought to sympathize with the Government; they are not altogether responsible; perhaps you on the other side are responsible for the major portion of it. I regret again that the Prime Minister did not, like the Prime Minister of Great Britain take my leader into his confidence, because if he had done so he would have secured not only his sympathy but as well his co-operation.
I come now to a point in reference to the real question. I could deal with some figures as to the expenditure, but I will not detain the House, because that question has been discussed so fully that everyone must understand it. This however must stand out, that this Government proceeded to increase the expenditure by leaps and bounds after it came into power, no matter what the revenue was. That fact has not been denied. The expenditure has been increased from $137,000,000 to $186,000,000 and this year to $190,000,000. I charge, not that we are not at the present time in difficulties and must have money, but that it is not fair to blame that necessity on the war and on the so-called legacies left.
I have dealt with the legacies. Now let me deal with the other situation. Prior to the year 1914, yes, before that, as hon. members know, times in Canada were absolutely bad; the financial situation was stringent; the banks had shut down on speculation. Some of us know that to our cost. Business men could not get the credit that they had before. Business in the great centres of Canada was in a state of depression long before there was any war in Canada. The city of Montreal, of which I know something-and I shall be borne out in my statement by the hon. Minister of Justice-and all the other leading centres were crying out: How long will the hard times continue? What is going to be the result? Had not the Stock Exchange closed down, there would have been many crashing failures in the city of Montreal. The Stock Echange had shut down before war was declared.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No 72


George Perry Graham: Well, let hon. gentlemen look up the matter.
Mr. MEDER1C MARTIN:	Yes, it was
shut down.


George Perry Graham: I will ask the hon. member for Charlevoix (Sir Rodolphe Forget).
I say the Stock Exchange was closed before war was declared.


Mr. STEVENS:: Because of the war.


George Perry Graham: That is not the question. I have not come to the reason. I was stating that fact, which every one knows to be a fact. Hon. gentlemen should not rush in where angels fear to tread, when they know nothing about the question.
Long before there was a war, long before a war was expected either by Great Britain or by Canada, times in Canada were very bad, and business was at a standstill and worse. Men did not know where to turn in order to finance themselves. The answer to that by hon. gentlemen opposite is that that state of depression was worldwide. Let me take that view of it. If it be true that the depression was world-wide, and that every one knew it, what was the duty of the Government of the Dominion of Canada? What would any business man have done? What would any board of directors have done? What would any president of a company have done? They would have begun retrenchment long before war was declared; that is, they would have retrenched in every possible way. This Government did not retrench although long before war was declared revenues were falling very rapidly on account of the financial stringency throughout the world, as outlined by the hon. Minister of Finance. The hon. Minister of Finance when he made his Budget speech last year, said that he saw that the clouds were lifting, and he encouraged the people to believe that they were going to have better times. The business men of Canada did not believe my hon. friend.
Mr. W. T. WHITE They did.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend says
that they did. Well, wa have met a different class of business men. I have met independent business men whereas my hon. friend has met partisans. 1 met some men in close touch with business affairs, and none of them could see with the optimistic eye of the Minister of Finance. They did not believe, and I did not believe, that times were going' to improve. I do not



charge the Government with bringing on hard times. I am leaving that point for the moment; but the Government with the knowledge that there were hard times, did not take any steps to meet what was coming on account of those hard times, had there been no war at all. I go further and say that, had there been no war at all, extra taxation would have had to be put on at this session of Parliament or else large borrowings indulged in. Had the revenue continued to fall off in 1914 as it had started to fall off before there was a war, there would have been a deficit on consolidated revenue account; but no provision was made by the Government to meet the exigencies of the case, and it went on spending money and increasing the expenditure on consolidated revenue fund from $127,000,000 to $140,000,000, and this year the Government is again asking for the latter amount. The Minister of Finance declares that, through this tariff, he can raise $120,000,000 for consolidated revenue account. We must bear in mind that a tax was put on in August, which the Minister of Finance estimated would bring in $7,000,000 for the balance of the year. That would mean about $11,000,000 for the fiscal year. If he had not put on that tax, we would have had a deficit of $17,000,000 this year, and in the coining year a deficit of $31,000,000 in current revenue account. This Government was remiss in its duty in not preparing for the rainy day when it saw the clouds approaching before the war broke out.
I now come to the point: Are these war taxes? War taxes have been described tonight, but I will make the short definition -taxes on account of the war-taxes that would not be necessary had there been no war. I say that a portion of those taxes would have been absolutely necessary had there been no war. Consequently, to that extent, they are not war taxes at all. The method of raising those taxes has been discussed, and I do not want to go into that question deeply. I was surprised at my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce arguing at length first to set up free trade and then to demolish it. He put up that straw-man, and then he knocked him down, and I think the Prime Minister did the same thing. The Minister of Trade and Commerce knows that free trade is not practicable in the Dominion of Canada at the present moment. He argued protection and free trade for a long time, ignoring, ridiculing the idea of direct taxation, for-
IMr. Graham.]
getting all the time that part of the taxes for which he was going to vote were direct taxes. The stamp tax is a direct tax. Why should we raise these taxes? We have started out on the principle of raising a revenue by tariff. Had we started out with direct taxation or with some other method, perhaps it would have been as well or better for us; but under the circumstances, for many years to come we shall have to have a tariff in the Dominion of Canada. If that tariff is properly worked, it will be of a great benefit; it will produce a revenue, and incidentally give protection to the industries of Canada.
Now, we have heard about how our own industries were going to be ruined if the policy of the Opposition were carried into effect. The best answer to that is that during the fifteen years when the right hon. leader of the Opposition was Prime Minister in this country, our manufacturing stablishment grew, increased and multiplied both in wealth and numbers as they never did before. We must have a tariff. I had supposed until I had heard some of the speeches that this was a tariff for war that these were war taxes. But from some of the speeches of the hon. gentlemen of the Opposition, I have been driven to the conclusion that that is not the case at all, but that these are taxes not for the war onjly. The Minister of (Trade and Commerce argued for thirty or forty minutes on the question of protection vs. free trade. The Prime Minister did the same thing. The hon. member for Calgary for a long time argued for protection against free trade, and lauded this new tariff. This would lead one to believe that this is not a temporary tariff, a tariff arranged to serve an emergency, but is intended as a permanent tariff. Why go to the trouble of showing that it is all right as a permanency if it is only intended to raise a war tax? I do not know as to these taxes, but this much must be borne in mind- and I think hon. gentlemen will see the force of what I say without it being necessary for the Solicitor General to ask me to get a law book out of the United States Congressional Library and read it-as long as the tariff is not too high it produces revenue but it may reach a point so high that it will defeat this very object. Now, there must be in all the range of articles affected by this increased tariff some-and such have been called to my attention by men who are interested-that are bearing now as high a rate of duty as they can bear. In such cases this duty of 7J per

cent will not bring an increased revenue, but will cut off the revenue from these goods that we have had before. It strikes me as unbusinesslike to take the whole range of articles and simply add 71 per cent, and think that in that way we are striking the happiest means of raising a revenue. I feel confident, from what I hear from men who are interested in a number of lines of goods, that in some instances we shall cut off revenue instead of increase it. I think the Minister of Finance would have done better had he investigated, if you like, and had selected the articles on which an increase of tax will bring in a revenue, and not run the risk of shutting out some goods altogether. If these were ordinary times, we might go into a discussion of protection, free trade or revenue tariff. But, as the avowed object is to raise a revenue and nothing else, let us aim at that object. These tariff changes are for war purposes and not for protection according to what we are told by the Government. Whatever the object, the result is going to be, I am afraid that many things will be shut out and that the revenue from these will be diminished instead of increased.
As to the war taxes, the Minister of Finance put it as a question in this way: Do you want us to stop sending soldiers to the front?-because if we do not get this vote we cannot send them. How, is that correct? Surely it is not. I believe that if this House did not vote a cent of these increased taxes the soldiers would go to the front just the same. I am not arguing that; but I say that the way the Minister of Finance puts it is not a fair way in which to place it before the country. We are not opposing any votes for sending soldiers to the front or for maintaining them. But it might be just as well to intimate that perhaps the present generation should not be called upon to pay all the expenditure for soldiers going to the front. And they will not be so called upon to pay, because the Minister of Finance shows us that he is borrowing most of the money. We will join in giving the Government all the money they want for carrying on the war and for sending our boys to the front. Why, you could not prevent the Canadian boys going to the front; if you did not give them a dollar they would find some way to go. What I point out is that it is not quite fair to the Opposition to represent to the country that if this tax is not imposed our boys cannot go to the front. That is putting it altogether too strong, because in any case our troops will go to the war, and the Government is borrowing the 721
money for this purpose altogether outside these taxes.
Now, going farther, let us take the stamp tax. Some details have been given me to bring to the attention of the Government, but it is too late at night for me to do that now. I do not approve of all the stamp taxes, though I believe that the principle is all right in this case. The Solicitor General spoke of pensions as though somebody were objecting to paying them. There is not a word in this amendment that can be construed into anything of that kind. Nobody objects to paying interest on the borrowed money, and God knows the people of the Dominion are doing their best publicly and privately to help on the great cause in which we are all interested. If we are borrowing money, we are ready to pay the interest; and we are ready also to provide pensions. That being so, surely it is not unreasonable that we should say to the minister that he ought to be careful about imposing further burdens in taxation for what, in a large part, is 'due to over-expenditure, and not the result of war at all.
I realize how late it is, but there are one or two other things I wish to say. (Our boys at the front are standing a good deal more in fighting for this cause than we are in discussing it.) It has been argued that times in Canada are very bad on account of the war. I would point out that the Prime Minister said that a hundred factories are providing munitions and supplies for Great Britain and the Allies. Had there been no war dozens of factories in Ontario of which I have personal knowledge would have been closed at this moment, I am not speaking at random. I might quote the hon. member for West Toronto (Sir Edmund Osier) a good authority on finance, who, if correctly reported, said recently that he was not of the class who blamed the hard times on the war. Let me point out further that the farmers of Canada have been helped out by the war. Crops were not so good in some parts of Canada as we could have desired; and though, heaven knows, we all deplore the circumstances which affect the markets to-day, the fact remains that the farmers of Canada are better off than if there had been no war. And, as I have said, many industries are engaged in turning out munitions of war and supplies that would have been idle or running on short time had there been no war, and I hope they will be able to help the cause of the Allies and that there will be no lack of munitions for the war; Canada in this way also is doing her share. While we deplore the war, we realize that in


William Thomas White: That is just what
we heard from the hon. member for Pictou to-night.


George Perry Graham: I think my hon. friend
has an inverse ratio in his mind. That is what we heard in 1897. What was the result? As I have said, the result was the introduction of that tariff-call it what you like-which included thd British preference and which marked the dawn of the era of prosperity for Canadian industries.
Hon. gentlemen have argued that the preference isbeing maintained. In other words, they are giving Great Britain only one black eye when they could have given her two black eyes. The fact remains that to the extent of five per cent it will be more difficult to do business with Great Britain after this proposed legislation becomes law than it was before. Let me put it this way to the minister. Great Britain is lending us $150,000,000, the interest on which at 4J per cent is $6,750,000. We import from the Motherland about $133,000,000 worth of goods yearly, the duties on which at 5 per cent would amount to $6,650,000. There is therefore, but a slight difference between the interest we are going to pay the Motherland on the money we are getting from her and the height of the barrier which we are placing against British trade. That is, we say to the Motherland: we want your money and we will pretend to pay your interest, but we will put up a barrier against your trade which will enable us to get the money back from you. At a time when we have as our Allies the great nations of the world-[DOT] Great Britain is not our ally; Great Britain is ourselves-is it a time to take such a course as this? The world is largely controlled by sentiment. Is it a time for the Dominion of Canada, whose men are fighting side by side with the sons of the Mother Country, to put up trade barriers against Great Britain, who is supplying us with

money? The Minister of Finance himself told us that we could not get our money except by the consent of the British Government. At a time when our sons are fighting side by side vvith Tommy Atkins in the trenches, is that a time for the daughter to puit up a trade barrier against the great mother of the household? Even if my hon. friend were right-and 1 do not admit for a moment that he is-are the interests of Canada which might be served by these proposals paramount to the great object lesson that would be given to the world at the present time, if, while compelled to raise taxation against the goods coming from other countries, we should not increase the taxation against Britain, who is bearing so large a part of the burden of the world's war at the present time? The Finance Minister ought to see to it-and this is the gist of the amendment of my right hon. leader-that the tariff against Great Britain be not raised at the present time. I have not consulted with my leader, but I think I am safe in making the proposition that if the Finance Minister will agree not to raise this barrier against trade with Great Britain at the .present time, we will withdraw the amendment. This would get rid of the bogey raised by the Prime Minister to-day with regard to want of confidence in the Government.
There is no difference between us at all as to the necessities of providing for the war. There is no difference between hon. gentlemen on this side and hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House 'in the desire to stand .shoulder to shoulder with the Motherland in this great conflict.
We have beside us some of the greatest nations of the world, and with them we join not as Tories, not as Grits, but as the people of the Dominion of Canada, a part and parcel of the great British Empire; we join with these Allies not to 'stop, not to hesitate, not to falter, either with men or with money, until triumph perches on the banner of the Allies and the world is granted that peace, that liberty of action and that liberty of conscience for which Biitish institutions and British Government have always stood.


Mr. PARDEE:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Colchester (Mr. Stanfield). Had I voted, I should have voted for the amendment.


Mr. KAY:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Brome (Mr. Baker). Had I voted, I should have voted for the amendment.


Mr. McMILLAN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Stormont (Mr. Alguire). Had I voted, I should have voted for the amendment.
Amendment negatived.
Main motion (Hon. W. T. White) agreed to, and the House went into Committee of Ways and Means.
Progress reported.


Robert Laird Borden: We will go on with the resolutions to-morrow.
On motion of Sir Robert Borden, the House adjourned at 3.29 a.m. Wednesday.
Wednesday, March 17, 1915.