1917-04-24

PAY OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT IN OVERSEAS FORCES.

Sir EDWARD KEMP (Minister of Militia):: I desire to present an amended return with respect to the pay of Members of Parliament serving in the Overseas Forces. In the return as presented to the House there was a clerical error, the effect of which was to show that Lt.-Col. W. F. Cockshutt was drawing separation allowance and pay. As a matter of fact, he has drawn neither separation allowance nor pay from the Government. The figures should have appeared immediately opposite the name of the officer preceding his, on the return.


Mr. GRAHAM:: What officer was that?


Albert Edward Kemp: Lieut. Carroll.
PUfeLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE.


Mr. MIDDLEBRO moved:: That the Public Accounts and the Report of the Auditor General for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1916, be referred* to the Committee on Public Accounts.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. EDWARDS:: Yesterday a question of which I had given notice, relating to National Service cards, was put, and the Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White) gave what is supposed to be an answer. I do not know who prepared the answer, nor where he got his information. It is given at page 702 of yesterday's Hansard. I would draw the attention of the minister to the fact that in this answer the second part of the question is entirely ignored.


Sir THOMAS WHITE:: The information came from the National Service Commission. I shall draw the attention of the Director of National Service to the observations of my hon. friend.	,



ENLISTED CIVIL SERVANTS.


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Albert Edward Kemp: The hon. member for Guys-borough (Mr. Sinclair) and the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Pugsley) each asked questions yesterday, the first with regard to Civil Service enlistment and statutory increases of pay, and the second with regard to Civil Service enlistments and separation

allowance. The answer to these questions is as follows:
A civil servant who enlists receives full pay the same as if he were employed doing his civil service duties, provided always that his civil pay is greater than that which he would draw as a soldier.
The Government has undertaken to see that a civil servant receives pay not less than what he would have received had he remained at home and had not enlisted. He does not, therefore, receive separation allowance extra, but it is the intention that he shall receive the regular statutory increases provided he is receiving only one salary.


Mr. PUGSLEY:: I understand that no civil servant who is allowed his pay as a civil servant receives separation allowance?


Albert Edward Kemp: The answer covers that question. The civil servant receives his full pay as a civil servant.


William Pugsley: And no civil servants have been allowed separation allowance?


Albert Edward Kemp: Civil servants are not allowed separation allowance.


William Pugsley: Then, am I to understand that members of Parliament, with the exception of Mr. Cockshutt, have received separation allowance in addition to their sessional indemnity, although they have been absent from Parliament?


Albert Edward Kemp: I am not sure on that point. The return speaks for itself. I am not sure that the hon. gentleman is quite correct in saying that all members of Parliament have received separation allowances.


William Pugsley: Then the minister will withdraw the statement that there is no discrimination?



MONEY ORDERS FOR PRISONERS OF WAR.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Albert Edward Kemp: The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) yesterday asked for information in reference to money orders and parcels for Canadian prisoners of war. First, in regard to money orders, the answer is:
About the beginning of the year 1916, arrangements were made by the Chief Paymaster, London, England, through the Red Cross and Post Office, to forward small

amounts of pay to prisoners of war in Germany. The requests come from the men themselves by post card, and up to January, 1917, the remittances were made by post office order. This practice was discontinued at our request because no receipts or absolute guarantee that the money reached the men were obtained. Since January, 1917, the American Express made payments in cash to the men themselves and obtained individual receipts, at first through their own agents in Germany, and, since United States declared war, through Dutch agents of the American Express Company in Germany. Small sums are sent, not exceeding three pounds, which are charged to the men's accounts in London. I may add that the pay of prisoners of war is credited to the men's accounts, and accumulates, less these small remittances.



PARCELS FOR PRISONERS OF WAR.

Albert Edward Kemp: In regard
to parcels for Canadian prisoners of war, the answer is rather a long one, and therefore I will lay on the table of the House the particulars in reference to this matter. These particulars are set forth in the regulations which were in effect prior to the 1st of February, 1917, and the regulations which have been in effect since that time.


Mr. MACDONALD:: I would ask my hon. friend the Minister of Militia if he would be good enough to assent to the proposition that the answer in regard to parcels be published in Hansard. The question is an important one, and that would be the most convenient way by which the matter could be made public for the information of the House and the country generally.


Albert Edward Kemp: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and the permission of the House, I would be very glad that the documents which I have laid on the table of the House should be published in Hansard.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I have before me the statement submitted by the hon. the Minister of Militia. While, it is somewhat out of the usual order, yet, owing to.the importance of this document and the desirability of this information being published as widely as possible, with the unanimous consent of the House, I can see no objection to this document being considered as read for the purpose of being printed in Hansard.
The regulations are:

Post Office Department,
Ottawa, Canada.
Regulations in Force Prior to 1st February, 1917.
Re Correspondence for Prisoners of war in Germany.
1.	Letters (letters should be left open) postcards and postal parcels should be addressed as follows:-
1.	Rank, initials, name.
2.	Regiment, or other unit.
3.	British (or Canadian, French, Belgian
or Russian) prisoner of war.
4.	Place of internment.
5.	Germany.
Place of internment should be stated always if possible, and parcels cannot be accepted unless place of internment is stated. All addresses must be in ink.
2.	Communications should be limited to private and family news and to necessary business communications, and should not be sent too frequently.	-
No references to the Naval, Military or Political situation or to naval or military movements and organizations are allowed. Letters or postcards containing such references will not be delivered.
3.	Friends of prisoners of war are advised to send postcards in preference to letters as postcards are less likely to be delayed. If letters are sent, they should not exceed in length two sides of a sheet of note paper and should contain1 nothing but the sheet of note paper. On no account should the writing be crossed.
4.	Letters cannot for the present be accepted for registration.
5.	Postage need not be paid either on letters or parcels addressed to prisoners of war.
6.	No letters should be enclosed in parcels, and newspapers must not on any account be sent. So far as is known there is no restriction on the contents of parcels; tobacco may be sent and will be admitted duty free but foodstuffs of a perishable character should not be sent. Parcels should not exceed 11 pounds in weight.
7.	Remittances can be made by money order to prisoners of war. Instructions as to how to proceed can be obtained from Postmasters of Accounting Fost Offices. The transmission of coin, either in letters' or parcels, is expressly prohibited. Postal notes and Bank notes should not be sent.
8.	It must be understood that no guarantee of the delivery of either parcels or letters can be given and that the Post Office accepts no responsibility. In any case, considerable delay may take place and failure to receive an acknowledgment should not necessarily be taken as an indication that letters and parcels sent have not been delivered.
9.	So far as is known, prisoners of war in Germany are allowed to write letters or postcards from time to time; but they may not always have facilities for doing so and the fact that no communication is received from them need not give rise to anxiety.
Regulations at present in force. Circular to Postmasters.
Post Office Department, Ottawa, Canada, 29th January, 1917.
Effective on and from 1st February, 1917. Communication with prisoners of war interned abroad.
1.	Letters, postcards, parcels (up to 11 lb. but not to contain foodstuffs or articles of clothing as set forth in the following regulations), and Money Orders may be sent free of all postal charges to prisoners of war (of whatever nationality) interned abroad and to British civilians interned in Austria-Hungary, Germany, Turkey and Bulgaria. In the following paragraphs the term "Prisoners of war" includes all interned persons, military or civilian.
2.	Letter Post:-
(a)	Method of address-The address of letters whether for officers, non-commissioned officers, privates or civilians, must be on the following form and must be written distinctly in ink. As regards the address of parcels, see paragraph 3 (a).
The place of internment, if known, should always be stated. Correspondence for prisoners of war employed in working camps in Germany should be addressed preferably to the "parent" camps to which they belong, and not to the working camps.
Form.
Regimental number, rank, initials, name	
Regiment (or other unit)	
British, Canadian, French, Belgian, etc., prisoner
of war	
Place of internment	
Country	
Example.
No. 12345, Private A. G. Robinson,
48th Highlanders, Canadian Contingent, B.E.F., Gottingen,-Canadian prisoner of war, Germany.
In the case of Naval or Military prisoners.
It is necessary in the case of Prisoners of War interned in certain countries to insert the additional addresses shown below:-
Turkey-"Ottoman Red Crescent Society, Constantinople, Turkey."
Norway-"c/o Vaktchefen, Jorstadmoen, Faaberg, Jernbanestation, Norway."
(b)	Only letters and postcards may be sent by Letter Post. Letters must be left open. Anything else must be sent by Parcel Post (see below). Communications intended for Prisoners of War must be addressed direct to the persons who are to receive them. Communications apparently intended for a person other than the addressee will not be forwarded. Communication through Prisoners of War with persons residing in territory occupied by the enemy is not permitted.
(c)	Letters to Prisoners of War in Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany or Turkey should not exceed two sides of a sheet of notepaper and should be clearly written; otherwise they are liable to delay, and may even not be delivered by the authorities in the country to which they are addressed. They must not contain any kind of printed matter, pictorial illustrations or photographs, except unmounted photographs of persons (see also paragraphs 2 (e) and 8).

(d)	Letters to Prisoners of War in neutral countries should also be short and clearly written in order to avoid delay. Letters containing newspaper cuttings or unmounted photographs of persons will not, however, be stopped, but will be liable to considerable delay (see also paragraphs 2 (e) and 8).
(e)	Letters to Prisoners of War in any foreign country must not contain any information which might be of use to the enemy. No reference to the naval, military or political situation or to naval or military movements or organizations, is allowed. Letters containing such references will not be delivered. Illustrations of warships, camps, docks, or conspicuous landmarks or bird's-eye views must not be sent. Any enclosures whatever in a letter may entail delay.
(f)	All letters must contain the name and address of the sender.
3.	Parcels for British (including Canadian) and Allied Military or Naval Prisoners (other than officers), or Civilians.
(a)	Method of address.-Parcels for a Canadian Prisoner of War belonging to the Canadian Contingent must be addressed in care of the Prisoners of War Department, Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England. Unless they are so addressed they cannot be accepted. The address should be in the following form:- No. 12345, Private A. G. Robinson, 48th Highlanders, Canadian Contingent, B.E.F.,
Canadian Prisoner of War, Gottingen, Germany, c/o Prisoners of War Department, Canadian
Red Cross Society, London, England.
Parcels for Canadian Prisoners of War belonging to the Imperial Forces, for Canadian civilian Prisoners of War, and for Allied Prisoners of War, must be fully addressed to the place of destination, care of Central Prisoners of War Committee, 4 Thurloe Place, London, S.W.
(b)	Packing.-^-Parcels should be packed in the same manner as parcels for delivery in the United Kingdom. Despatch Notes and Customs' Declarations are not required. The parcels will be repacked before being despatched from the United Kingdom.
(c)	Prohibitions.-The following articles, in addition to those mentioned in paragraph 5 (d), must not be included:-
(i)	Tins or other receptacles which cannot conveniently be opened for inspection.
(ii)	Foodstuffs of all kinds.
(iii)	(To enemy countries only).-Regulation uniforms, and all articles of clothing, and boots for naval and military prisoners other than officers.
(d)	Persons desiring to have food or articles
of clothing sent to a Canadian Prisoner of War belonging to the Canadian Contingent should send money for the purpose to Prisoners of War Department, Canadian Red Cross Society. Articles other than food or clothing for such prisoners may also be purchased through the Prisoners of War Department, Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, or may be sent	to	the Prisoners	of	War	Department,Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, to be forwarded if not prohibited. A letter (closed) containing a remittance and asking the Prisoners of War Department, Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, to send food or other articles to such a Prisoner of War should be addressed to the Prisoner of War, care	of	the Prisoners	of	War	Department,
Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, in the form indicated in paragraph 3 (a), and
[The Speaker.]
if so addresed, may be sent free of charge in respect of postage or (where necessary) of registration.
The remittance should be in the form of a Post Office Money Order drawn in favour of the Prisoners of War Department, Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, for the Prisoner of War in question.
The letter will be opened by the Prisoners of War Department, Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, and the parcel will be sent in accordance with the request contained in the letter. The name of any adopter or relative at whose expense a parcel is sent will be communicated to the Prisoner of War.
(Letters addressed to the Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, as distinct from those addressed to Prisoners, care of the Prisoners of War Department, Canadian Red Cross Society, London, England, must be prepaid).
In the case of Canadian Prisoners of War belonging to the Imperial Forces or of Canadian civilian Prisoners of War or of Allied Prisoners of War, the terms of this regulation apply, and the same procedure should be followed, with the exception that in all such cases letters should be addressed care of, and Money Orders drawn in favour of the Central Prisoners of War Committee, 4 Thurloe Place, London, S.W., England, who are acting for this class of prisoners.
4.	Parcels for Officers :-
(a)	Method of address. Parcels should be addressed in the manner stated in paragraph 2
(a)	as applicable to letters. Parcels will not be accepted for transmission unless the address includes the name of the place of internment. The address must be clearly written in ink in at least two places on the outer cover of each parcel.
(b)	Packing.-Parcels for Officer Prisoners of War must be very strongly packed. Ordinary thin cardboard boxes such as shoeboxes, and thin wooden boxes should not be used; nor does a single sheet of ordinary brown paper afford sufficient protection. Parcels which are found to be inadequately protected will not be forwarded. Even where proper materials are used, it is important that the contents should be tightly packed so as not to shake about during transit. All parcels should be packed in such a way as not to impede examination by the censors.
(c)	The following forms of packing are recommended :-
(i)	Strong double cardboard or strawboard boxes. Those made of corrugated cardboard and having lids which completely enclose the sides of the box are most suitable.
(ii)	Strong wooden boxes.
(iii)	Tin boxes such as are used for packing biscuits.
(iv)	Several folds of stout packing paper.
Parcels for Prisoners of War in Bulgaria and
Turkey must be packed in wood, tin or hemp canvas ; no other kind of textile material may be used. Parcels packed merely in paper or cardboard cannot be accepted.
Parcels for Prisoners of War in Germany or Austria-Hungary must not be packed in any kind of textile material.
Butter, etc., should be wrapped in several folds of grease-proof paper and enclosed in a tin which should have a tightly fitting lid but not be sealed against inspection ; the tin should be enclosed with any other articles for transmission in an outer box.

(d)	Customs Declarations, which must be prepared in ink in duplicate, are only required for parcels addressed to Holland.
Despatch Notes are only required for parcels sent to Turkey and Bulgaria.
(e)	In addition to the articles mentioned in
paragraph 5	(d), perishable foodstuffs must
not be included in a parcel for an officer.
5.	Parcel Post-General.-The following regulations are applicable to all parcels for Prisoners of War, whether officers, naval or military prisoners other than officers, or civilians.
(a)	The name of the sender must be clearly shown on the covers of all parcels for Prisoners of War. A list of the contents must be given on the cover of the parcel.
(b)	The address of the sender must also be clearly shown.
(c)	No Customs Duty is payable. Information as to any special restrictions that may be imposed from time to time at particular camps, may be obtained from the Central Prisoners of War Committee, 4 Thurloe Place, London, S.W., England.
(d)	The following articles must not be included in a parcel:-
(i)	Written communications (letters must be sent separately by letter post).
(ii)	Printed matter.
(iii)	Pictorial illustrations and photographs.
(iv)	Money..
(v)	Stationery, stamps, playing cards and similar articles affording facilities for secret communications.
(vi)	Textiles, wool, cotton, leather or rubber. (Articles of clothing may, however, be sent to Officer Prisoners of War).
(vii)	Tennis-balls, footballs, and golf-balls.
(viii)	Spirits or solidified spirits for cooking stoves, matches or other inflamable material.
(ix)	(To enemy countries only.) Photographic apparatus, field glasses, sextants, compasses and other instruments of use for Military or Naval purposes.
(e)	Any parcel found to contravene these rules will be returned to the sender or sent to the Dead Letter Office for disposal if the name and1 address of the send'er are not known.
6.	Printed matter from the United Kingdom (i.e., newspapers, books, magazines, etc.) may not be sent to Prisoners of War in neutral or enemy countries except by the holders of special permits from the War Office (publishers or newsagents in the United Kingdom) to whom therefore orders for the dispatch of papers, books, magazines should be given by members of the public desiring to have such articles forwarded. Addresses of firms holding permits for this purpose may be obtained from the Chief Postal Censor, Strand House, Portugal St., London, W.C.
Educational books (not fiction, magazines or current war literature) may also be sent from the United Kingdom to British (including Canadian) Prisoners of War through the medium of the British Prisoners of War Book Concern (Educational). Information respecting that scheme may be obtained on application to A. T. Davies, Esq., Board of Education, Whitehall, London, S.W.
7.	No printed matter to be sent from Canada. No newspapers, books, magazines, or printed matter of any kind, are to be sent from Canada to Prisoners of War interned in neutral or enemy countries.
8.	Registration.-Letters addressed to Prisoners of War in Holland only may be registered.
No charge is made for registration ; but the fact of registration does not necessarily give any claim to compensation for loss.
9.	Remittance of Money.-(a) Remittance may be sent direct to Prisoners of War and should be made by means of Post Office Money Orders, which are issued free of commission. Instructions as to how to proceed can be obtained from Postmasters of Accounting Offices. The transmission of coin, either in letters or in parcels, is prohibited.
(b)	Postal notes, bank notes and cheques may not be sent to Prisoners of War in enemy countries.
(c)	Bank notes and cheques may be sent to Prisoners of War in neutral countries.
10.	No guarantee of delivery of either parcels or letters can be given. Considerable delay may take place, and failure to receive an acknowledgment need not be taken to mean that letters and parcels sent have not been delivered.
11.	Prisoners of War abroad are allowed to write letters or postcards from time to time; but they may not always have facilities for doing so; and the fact that no communication is received from them need not give rise to anxiety.
12.	Central Prisoners of War Committee.- Persons seeking information and advice in regard to British (including Canadian) Prisoners of War are invited to apply to the Central Prisoners of War Committee, 4 Thurloe Place, London, S.W., England.
13.	It is to be noted that the above regulations governing communication with Prisoners of War contain numerous and important changes, superseding previous regulations on and from 1st February, 1917.
R. M. COULTER, Deputy Postmaster General.



LANCE CORPORAL READ.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. CHARLES MARCIL (Bonaventure):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to call the attention of the hon. the Minister of Militia (Sir Edward Kemp) to the case of Lance Corporal Read, who is now at the front and who is a member of the 13th Battalion. Corporal Read wrote me a letter, dated the 7th April, in which he calls attention to something which I believe is important not only to himself but to others in a like situation. He was married on the 8th October, 1916, with the permission of his commanding officer, after having fulfilled all the formalities required of a soldier. He finds now that a separation allowance is refused his wife, the conditions having been changed. He sets forth all the facts in a communication to the chief paymaster of the regiment, and he asks me to call the attention of the minister to the case. I do so now because Corporal Read was formerly a resident of Notre Dame de Grace, Montreal. Two certificates accompanied the letter. His wife has been left without support of any kind. I hope the minister will give the matter his attention.



CANTEEN SYSTEM IN ENGLAND.

Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Would the hon. the Minister of Militia be good enough to give the House a statement, similar to that which he has just given in reference to the treatment of prisoners of war, in regard to the position of the canteen system in the various camps in England which are under the control of the Canadian authorities, as to whether there are wet canteens still in existence, as to who the contractors are who have to do with their maintenance and carrying on, and what is the policy of the Government and the department overseas in regard to the matter?


Albert Edward Kemp: I will look into that matter and endeavour to get my hon. friend an answer in due course.



THE BUDGET.


Honourable Sir THOMAS WHITE (Minister of Finance) moved:: -
That the Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I avail myself of the opportunity afforded by this motion to make the annual budget statement.
The features of the public finances in which I conceive the House to be chiefly interested at the present time are the relationship between national income and national expenditure and the increase in the national debt. For the first year of the war the revenue from all sources was about one hundred and thirty million dollars. It rose during the second year to $170,000,000. For the year ended March 31 last, I am happy to say, our income will reach two hundred and thirty-two millions, or one hundred million in advance of the fiscal year 1915. In round figures, $134,000,000 of the aggregate was derived from customs, $24,000,000 from excise, and $12,500,000 from the business profits war tax. From this last named tax, which was introduced by the Budget of last year, we estimated that we should receive twenty-five million dollars during the three years of its currency. Our experience has proved that this estimate will be largely exceeded. This tax was retroactive, being levied in Tespect of business accounting periods ending subsequently to December 31, 1914. The profits of the first accounting period of businesses subject to the tax were much affected by the severe depression and dislocation of business in-

cidental to the first months of the war. Nevertheless, from this first period the sum of $12,500,000 has already been collected, and when the full levy is made we expect [DOT]to have collected in respect of this period as much as $15,000,000. For the second accounting period the taxes for which are payable during this year we estimate that the amount collected will be much larger- in fact, as high as $20,000,000, or more. The increase will, of course, be due to the business prosperity which has prevailed in Canada during the past year and the profits made in supplying munitions of war. On the whole, notwithstanding the difficulty of organizing on short notice the official machinery necessary to cover so large a country as Canada the tax has worked out much more satisfactorily than we expected, and the total results will be much greater than the estimate.
I have said that the total income of the past fiscal year was $232,000,000. Leaving aside for the moment our direct war expenditure, our outlay for the past year was upon ordinary account $145,000,000 and $27,000,000 upon capital and subsidy account, or a total of $172,000,000. It Is to be borne in mind that of our ordinary expenditure $25,000,000 represents increased interest and pension charges due to the war. Taking our total revenue at $232,000,000 and our total current and capital expenditure at $172,000,000, we find that during the past fiscal year we were able to pay from our income all current and capital expenditure, all charges of interest upon our increased national debt, all pension outlays, and in addition devote the sum of $60,000,000 to payment of the principal of our war expenditure. For a country such as Canada, of sparse population and without the conditions of long-established and concentrated wealth prevailing in older and more settled communities, the result must be regarded as extremely sa'tisfacto' /.
Coming next to the .question of our direct war expenditure, we find that with our increasing military effort it also' is continually increasing. Since the beginnng of hostilities our total war outlay, including estimated and unadjusted liability to Great Britain for the maintenance of our troops at the front and inclusive of withheld pay, totals, so far as we can calculate, about $600,000,000. As the result of this large war expenditure, the net national debt of Canada, which was $336,000,000 before the outbreak of war, has risen to over $900,000,000, although this will not 'be shown by our official statements for some months to come.

By the end of the present fiscal yeax it may reach 51,200,000,000.
From the beginning it has been clear that it would not be possible for the people of Canada to pay, during the war, more than a part of the principal of our war expenditure. The policy of the Government has therefore been directed along two main lines: first, to fund the war indebtedness so as to postpone its maturities to periods well beyond the end of the war, and secondly, by increased taxation on the one hand and the recuiction of current expenditure on works on the other to be in a position to meet from annual income all annual outlays including increased interest and pension charges and in addition a substantial amount of the war expenditure itself.
In order to carry out this programme it will be necessary, as our war expenditure, and consequently our interest and pension charges increase, to increase also' our income. This raises the question of the sources of revenue still open to us. A higher customs taxation upon luxuries has been frequently suggested, but this proposal overlooks the fact that most articles of this character are embraced under fixed rates in the treaty with France, and the tariff cannot therefore be raised in respect of these. Apart from this we should hesitate at a time when France needs the advantage of all her sales on this -side of the a*i - *-[DOT]- i	11ci cxcnange, to place a
prohibition or increased duty against importations from our great Ally.
Then it has 'been frequently suggested that following the example of Great Britain and thte United States, we should adopt an income tax upon all incomes beyond say 51,000 or 52,000. The comparison in this regard, however, of Canada with either of these countries is fallacious. We are not a country of large accumulated wealth find of incomes derived from investments. Canadian incomes are derived mostly from personal earnings, and while there are many exceptions, the rule prevails generally throughout, the Dominion. So far as I am aware the incomes of the professional and salaried classes throughout Canada have not materially increased since the outbreak of the war. In the case of many they havie actually declined. This being so, it does not seem equitable to impose upon these the burden of an additional income tax-for they are taxed now upon their incomes by municipalities land (provinces-at a time when owing to the war the cost of living has so greatly increased. If such a tax is
to be imposed, it seems to me that so far as the great majority of Canadians are concerned, it might better be levied in time of peace, when the cost of living is again normal. It is further to be pointed out that the maximum amount which would be obtained from such a tax in Canada would in terms of Dominion finance be comparatively small and that its administration would require almost a second Civil Service sufficient in number to cover every municipality, rural and urban, throughout the Dominion. The cost of levy and collection of such a tax would be much higher proportionately than in a geographically small, wealthy, densely populated country like Great Britain or than in the United States, which although of the same area as Canada has twelve times the population and much more than twelve times our wealth. On the whole it would appear to me that the income tax Should not be resorted to by the Dominion Government until its necessity becomes clea/rly and unmistakably apparent notwithstanding the drawbacks which I have mentioned. In connection with this tax it is also to be observed that the larger incomes in so far as they are not personally earned are derived in part from holdings in joint stock companies already subject to taxation under the provisions of the Business Profits Wa- tw	~	alau oe remembered that the Canadian public are voluntarily supporting the Canadian Patriotic, Red Cross, and other funds. The amount contributed annually to these funds is much in excess of the amount likely to he realized from any income tax. It is true that some wealthy men do not contribute their fair share to these funds. But this would also be true in any scheme of income taxation especially with issues of Dominion bonds exempt from Dominion taxation.
The question of further revenue then narrows down to abnormal profits made by business firms during the period of the war and this in my view is the proper and legitimate source to which to look for increased revenue to meet the increased cost of the war. If a business is making, in war time, profits above the normal, they
must be due to the abnormal conditions created by the war, thajt is to say such a business is deriving advantage from the war. It follows that it may properly be required to contribute a share of such profits to the Government for the purposes of the war. I do not see, -Mr. Speaker, that


William Thomas White: 

3.	That the tax shall be paid each year within one month from the date of the mailing of the notice of assessment;
4.	That with 'respect to every business, liable to taxation hereunder the period for which the returns shall be made and during which it shall be liable for assessment shall be at least thirty-six months, commencing with the beginning of the first accounting period ending after the thirty-first day of December, 1914, or for such less period as the business may have been carried on from the beginning of the said accounting period to the end of the period for which the said tax may be levied under the said Act.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN (Halifax):: paid considerably less than $60,000,000 on account of opr war expenditures - from the beginning up to the present time. Now, it is a fair question to put to this House and to the country: With our expenditures on war account, great as they are, and with this country so prosperous, whether it is satisfactory that we should have contributed out of our revenue toward that expenditure only $60,000,000 or less? Are we now doing our full duty, or are we leaving too much to the future to pay? I believe that we are borrowing too -much and paying too little.
There are facts which should be carefully considered in this connection. Aifter the war, we shall have a national debt of from $1,300,000,000 to $1,500,000,000, with charges for interest and pensions approximating, as I have already pointed out, $100,000,000 a year, which must be paid and for which the people must be taxed. We shall have a simalfex -supply of capital, interest rates will be higher, -and tihe productive capacity of the country will be less. The transition from a state of peace to -a state of war was made easier in our case by the absorption qf men into the army, but the transition in the reverse direction will be complicated, not only by the discharge of munition workers from their employment, but in addition there will be the demobilization of the army. These are important facts and should be considered in discussing the question whether we should or should not now tax ourselves more in order to pay a greater portion of our war obligations than we are paying. We must further remember that the immense expenditure for war which is being added to our debt is unproductive. It leaves us richer in ideals and in history, it is true, but in a monetary sense the expenditure is unproductive. If the *amount which we -are obliged to borrow for war purposes were expended in the construction of railways, the development of agriculture, and the establishment of industrial enterprises, it would add to the productive power of industry and trade thus making it relatively easier to meet interest and sinking fund charges upon the debt. With these things in mind, i-s the Government policy with respect to taxation for war expenditure the correct one? Is it one which is approved by the best judgment of our people? Are we not handing down to posterity the obligation to pay too largely for our patriotic performances?
Taking the position, as I do, that we are not presently contributing sufficiently to
[Mr. A. K. Maclean 1
war expenditures, I realize that hon. gentlemen opposite will naturally inquire what *suggestion hon. members on this side would make, what policy they would propound. In the first place I assert, and this ,is but a repetition of what we on this side have said on every budget deliverance of the Minister of Finance since the beginning of tile war, there should he further retrenchment in civil expenditure so as to leave a greater amount to apply to war expenditures, thus minimizing the additions to our delbt. We have presented this view in the past, generally and in detail, and there *is no necessity fox me to repeat at length these arguments, nor do I intend to do so. Some little improvement has been made, and I think hon. gentlemen on this side of the Hou-se have reason tp feel gratified that their criticisms in this respect in the past, have borne some fruit at least.
Our consolidated fund account expenditure for the last year amounted to $122,392,000. Our interest charges and pensions, due to the war and payable in the last fiscal year, amounted to $14,500,000; at least that is what 1 make it from an official statement furnished me, although I understood the Minister of Finance to say this afternoon that it amounted to $25,000,000. But, I think $14,500,000 represents the actual additional amounts chargeable to war and paid on interest and pension account for 'the year ended March 31 last. If you deduct this $14,500,000 from the $122,392,000, the total amount of the consolidated fund expenditure last year, you have a net consolidated fund account expenditure of $107,482,000, not a cent of whicli is attributable to war. The question naturally arises, and I put it to the House, if that is a fair amount for this country to expend in war days, a sum which is above the amount expended for similar purposes in days of peace, and when the country was growing and developing in population and in wealth, and when every branch of the public service was adequately fed. In 1910 our expenditures on consolidated fund account amounted to $79,411,000; in 1911 to $87,774,000 and in 1912, to $98,161,000. These were prosperous days in Canada; they were days of peace. Am I making an extravagant statement when I say that in the year ended March 31 last, having in view the circumstances and conditions prevailing, $107,-
482,000	was an expenditure for ordinary purposes which w7as unnecessarily excessive. If that had been reduced to the amount of the expenditure in 1910, our sur-

plus for this year, instead of being $60,000,000, would have been over $80,000,000, and that we would have reduced the national debt to that further extent.
On previous occasions I have discussed with some particularity the financial operations of some of the departments of Government. I find that still there is very little reduction, if any, in many departmental expenditures, and it is very difficult for me to understand why this should be so, because in several of these departments at least there is not the peace time activity, and there is not accordingly the necessity for the same volume of expenditure as in days of peace. I find that our Immigration expenditures for 1911 and 1917 are practically the same, the difference being only $68. In 1911 I suppose our immigrants numbered
300,000	or more-I am speaking from memory only-last year our immigration did not much exceed 50,000. The quarantine branch expenditures are practically the same as in peace days notwithstanding the fact that at our national ports we have no immigration. I suppose if one took the time to inquire why there was no diminution in the expenditure of this particular branch of the Government one would find that at the ports of Halifax, St. John and Quebec we have quarantine officers who are being paid the usual salaries which they received in peace days, notwithstanding the fact that there is absolutely no immigration at any of these ports, and there has been none practically during the last three years, yet these quarantine officers, I believe it would be found, are being paid for services which are not performed. The expenses of administration of the Indian department are a little larger than they were in 1911, a circumstance which is difficult to understand and more difficult to explain. The Dominion Lands expenditures to-day are greater than in 1911 notwithstanding the fact that our lands entries in the Canadian Northwest are necessarily far below those of peace days, the natural result of the loss of immigration. In the Public Works Department there was last year a very substantial reduction, a reduction which should have been commenced immediately after the beginning of the war. I might inform the Minister of Finance that the Public Works Department made unnecessary expenditures in 1915 and 1916 which will exceed the amount he will likely obtain next year from the taxation proposals which he announced to-day. We find that public works expenditures on consolidated fund account are still practically spending what it was in 1911. I have not the figures before me, but they are somewhere about $8,000,000. I repeat what I have said on many other occasions when discussing the budget that there is no reason why the expenditures of this department should not be very much reduced below what they were last year, and they	were	very	considerably	below
what they were the previous year. I find that the Post Office Department expenses were greater than in 1911, or 1912, by about $6,000,000. I do not intend to refer to the departmental expenditure at greater length. I have said what I have largely to again impress upon the Government if I can the fact that the method of procuring money to meet war expenditures and to keep the national debt down to the minimum, is to retrench in our civil expenditures, and I submit to-day, as I have oftentimes done in the past, that there is an opportunity for a saving of $25,000,000 in that field, which is a very substantial sum, and it should be saved.
It should be said that very substantial reductions have been made in two or three branches of the public service; but they were forced reductions, they were unavoidable. For instance, in the fiscal year ending in 1917 the expenditures on account of the militia were $3,800,000. In 1914 the expenditures for militia were $11,000,000. Here we find a saving of over $7,000,000 in one department alone. That, of course, was a forced reduction in expenditure. It was inevitable, it was unavoidable. Similar reductions have occurred in respect of the naval service, in respect of steamboat mail subsidies; and were it not for the fact that in respect of these three branches of the public service savings aggregating ten or eleven million dollars, have been forced, there would have been, in reality, no reduction in the civil expenditures of the country as compared with the expenditures of former years.
One cannot but ask: Why are not some very substantial reductions being made in our ordinary expenditures? I think I have established pretty clearly, and pointed out, I trust, in a very fair way, that there is an opportunity of administrative retrenchment which would amount to $25,000,000 or $30,000,000, and naturally I ask: Why is this not done? I submit that if the Government made up its mind to be'bold and strong in the crisis and to part company with patronage and party considerations, this could be done, and that if patronage and

party considerations were eliminated from war expenditures we would be relieved of adding to our public debt a sum which would approximate over $100,000,000. The announcement of the application of $60,000,000, being the surplus, towards the reduction of our war expenditures was received with much gratification by hon gentlemen opposite. But that is no proof or evidence of proper administration upon the part of the Government. The statement I make is that instead of the application of a surplus of $60,000,000, there should have been an application of a sum of considerably over $100,000,000, and that would have been more gratifying still to hon. gentlemen opposite, as it would have been to hon. gentlemen upon this side of the House.
Upon the occasion of the Budget debate last year, we received from the Minister of Trade and Commerce some encouragement that hereafter there would be an elimination of party and political considerations in the expenditure of public money, particularly in these days. I should like to read to the House, in order that hon. members may not forget, the very noble utterance, the solemn exhortations, of the Minister of Trade and Commerce upon that occasion directed largely to his own colleagues in the Government and his friends behind him, in respect to this phase of public affairs. He said:
Now, as to patronage, I have been thirty-four years in public life; I have to n a pretty close student of political parties and political history in this country, and I have simply this to say-* I give it as my individual opinion-I have long felt it and I feel it now

that in the whole course of my political life I cannot point to a single, instance where political patronage ever raised the status of the bench, ever promoted the efficiency of the Civil Service, ever helped to economy in administration or enhanced the status of public administrators, no matter what functions they performed, ever helped a member of Parliament in reality, or ever strengthened a) Government in reality. On the contrary it almost always causes the dry rot and disintegra-' tion that break up government after government and party after party, and I wish now, in the white heat and light of this great contest and struggle and the self-sacrifice that we are called upon to make, that we might speak from the heart out, and make an agreement in this country between both parties, that hereafter patronage shall not be applied by political parties in the administration of our public services.
I had hoped for much from these remarks of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, given to the House last year. I had hoped that he would have been a powerful influence in translating this solemn exhortation into actual practice. I had hoped that he would have exercised a favourable

and compelling influence upon his colleagues towards the elimination of patronage and waste in respect to Government expenditure. But, the Minister of Trade and Commerce has been on -many and on long journeys since then. I fear he is absorbed in visionary occupations which consume too much altogether of his time and energy and which apparently up to this date have all been barren of result, so far as the good of the country is concerned, jft would seem that the solemn injunctions of the Minister of Trade and Commerce last year and the practice of the Government in this respect are practically two separate currents, running in absolutely opposite directions and seldom, if ever, gliding into one another. A great gulf, I am sorry to say, separates the preachments of the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the actual practice of the Government in this respect to war expenditure during the year that has jusit closed. In respect to war expenditures I wish to submit, though I do not propose discussing the matter in detail, that we still find partisanship and patronage entwining their vulgar forms around the beautiful administrative ideals which the Minister of Trade and Commerce held up to our adoration last year and which he exhorted the Government to adopt.
I notice upon the Order Paper a Bill .standing in the name of the Minister of Railways, entitled " An Act to Encourage and Assist the Improvement of Highways." I have not seen the Bill, but, according to the newspapers, it involves a contemplated expenditure of $10,000,000.


William Pugsley: In these war times?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: widened, as it is a fair matter of complaint on the part of many of those who are already taxed under that Act that there are many other concerns and partnerships which barely fail to qaulify within the Act as taxpayers, but which should be contributing something. In many cases their profits exceed the profits of companies and concerns which are taxed under the Business Profits War Tax Act. It is very hard to answer that criticism because, as the minister himself stated this afternoon, any businessman or concern that is to-day making a profit, is doing so almost entirely owing to war conditions, and therefore, as the minister put it, such profit is fairly a matter of taxation.
I shall not, at the present moment at least, analyse the announcement made 'by the minister this afternoon in respect to additional taxation under the Business Profits War Tax Act. 1 would, however, point out to him that it would have been far better had he last year imposed this taxation under that Act to the same extent as he proposes to do this year, because the profits earned by those liable to taxation under that Act were very much greater last year than they will be this year, or than they will be next year. Many concerns in Canada manufacturing munitions which made large profits last year are not likely to make very much profit this year and are likely to make much less the next year. The minister states that if the war continues, the Government will probably have to make a further levy of taxation upon business profits. The time to secure all you can as a tax on business profits is when the maximum profits are being earned, because it is useless imposing taxation when such profits have practically ceased to be earned. It is in the day of prosperity that he should secure by taxation the maximum amount, and he should not wait until the last days of the war, when the financial conditions of the country will not be as they are to-day, to impose fresh taxation in the hope of securing additional revenue. If he does so, I believe he will fail.
I wish to refer briefly to that portion of our revenue which is secured by taxation upon imports. At the beginning of the war or shortly afterwards, the minister brought into effect amendments to the tarriff, imposing seven and a half per cent surtax upon the general tarriff, and seven and a half per cent upon non-dutiable goods. This application of the seven and a half per cent

tax was made indiscriminately, and I said then and I say now, I am of the opinion that it was not in the interest of the country, nor of the revenues, to have applied the seven and a half per cent tax indiscriminately as he did. In the one case to the general tarriff and in the other by applying it to free goods. Were one to take the time to study carefully the result of the imposition the seven and a half per cent upon the general tarriff, one could, I think, show that it has yielded little or no revenue. I find in the Customs returns for 1916 at page 192 sets forth that the tariff war tax yielded $21,814,000, and I take it that that statement in the Customs returns means that the $21,-
814,000	came from the seven and a half per cent super tax on dutiable goods and the seven and a half per cent tax on free goods.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: What year was that?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The year ended March 31, 1916. I find that in that year free goods were imported to the amount of $254,312,000, and seven and a half per cent on that would yield about $19,000,000, so that it would appear that out of the total revenue of $21,-
814,000	received from this source, $19,000,000 came from free goods and practically nothing came from the imposition of the seven and a half per cent super tax upon imports already dutiable. If that statement be susceptible of any explanation, I have no doubt we shall have it. As a matter of fact, however, I think it was always anticipated by the Minister of Finance that he would get little revenue by reason of the imposition of the seven and a half per cent super tax on dutiable goods, but that he would get a substantial levenue from the imposition of the seven and a half per cent tax on free goods. If it be the case that the imposition of the seven and a half per cent super tax on dutiable goods is yielding little or no revenue, it should be removed, it does not promote trade interests it rather impedes trade. It adds to the cost of articles essential to life to-day, now oppressive in prices, thereby involving a great hardship to the masses of the people.
I submit there should have been some readjustment of the tariff this year, and what more natural than to expect a remission of the surtax of 7i per cent upon the general tariff. Why should it not be removed, in some cases at least? If its imposition was intended virtually to prohibit some classes of imports, which might at present in some cases be desirable, I would not object.. It might be justifiable to continue

the present duties on luxuries. Speaking generally, however, I say that the imposition of the 7| per cent surtax was a mistake in the first place, and I think in justice to the people of this country it should be removed, or modified at least and this would have been a proper time for t'he Minister of Finance to act in that respect.
The Minister of Finance was considering the question of tariffs quite re-5 p.m. cently, from motives of party welfare I have no doubt, and not in the interests of the state, and by subterranean paths rather than by direct routes. I am sure it must have been a veritable Getbsemane for him when the hon. gentleman who now sits at his right hand (Mr. Meighen) returned from the West a few days ago and informed him that he must enter into a reciprocity treaty with the United States. The Government have, in fact, entered into a statutory reciprocity treaty with the United States, terminable at the will of either country, in respect of wheat and flour, which have been so long the subject of discussion in Parliament and the country. If the Government are truthful men, and speak after intelligent consideration of the matters upon which they assume to guide and instruct the public, I suppose now, in view of this arrangement, we must expect Canadian wheat to lose its identity, Canadian east-bound and westbound traffic to be very much injured, if it /does not altogether cease to exist, the flour mills of this country to be ruined and go into the hands of receivers, and this country to become, for a time at least, the back-door of Chicago. Rut if the Government are not true prophets, and the prevailing view in Western Canada is correct, we shall all be benefited temporarily, and later this temporary arrangement will inevitably be made permanent.


George Perry Graham: Under which flag?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am not going
to say very much about the placing of wheat on the free list, because there are many gentlemen on this side -of the House *who are better informed on that subject than I, and they propose discussing the subject in this debate. I have only one word to say about it. This statutory treaty, was negotiated and put into effect under the War Measures Act. Now, Mr. Speaker, I say that by no flight of the imagination can any man truthfully say that that Order in Council was properly a war measure.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: It was a death-bed repentance.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: It was a political measure prompted by partisan motives almost entirely, I venture to say. It involved an amendment to the tariff of this country. Now, in our Customs Act, we have ample machinery for doing exactly what was done by this Order in Council passed under the War Measures Act. At any rate, Parliament was about to meet; the representatives of the people were soon to assemble in this forum to deliberate on all matters of interest to the country, and in fairness and justice to the people, who are the masters, I say this change in the tariff should have been announced here by the minister. He should have given Parliament his reasons for the change here to-day; the representatives of the people should have heard from his own lips the reasons which prompted him to make this move, so that we could determine whether or not he was justified in making it.


George Perry Graham: His reason for the change is sitting right beside him (Mr. Meighen).


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I doubt very much if he had authority under the War Measures Act to pass the Order in Council. I have not given the matter much consideration, though I propose to do so later on, but I doubt very much if the Order in Council is within the spirit of the Act, and I am afraid my hon. friend had no legal [DOT] authority for passing the Order in Council. Indeed, I doubt very much whether the United States will accept the Order in Council as the equivalent of placing wheat and flour on the free list. I doubt if in the end they will permit our wheat and flour to enter the United States duty free. It is certainly not within the spirit of the conditions contained in their tariff Act. I doubt whether the proper authority in the United States responsible for rulings on tariff questions will consider this Order in Council as placing Canadian wheat and flour on their free list in the sense intended by the United States Tariff Act. However, this matter will be discussed later on. I assume that hon. gentlemen opposite consider that the passage of this Order in Council will result in some benefit to the producers of wheat in western Canada. I assume they had that in mind when the Order in Council was passed, although not so much as they had in mind party considerations. But if they thought it would benefit the West, why was not the Order in Council passed last

autumn? Would iit not have done more good then than to-day, when last year's production has been largely disposed of, (although no doubt a considerable portion of the crop is still held in the West. But if it was a good thing to do at the beginning of the seeding season of 1917, would it not have been a better thing to do at the beginning of the harvest season of 1916? Will the Minister of Finance or has colleagues explain upon what grounds the Government refused to place wheat and flour on the free list in August or September last, when it was urged just as strongly then as now? How long does the Government expect that this Order in Council shall remain effective? Do I understand the minister and the Government to say that as soon as the war ends this Order in Council becomes void?


William Thomas White: The Order in
Council has precisely the same effect as an Act of this Parliament.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: We understand one another, I think. When the war ends the Order in Council ends.


William Thomas White: No, the effect of that Order in Council is to place wheat, wheat flour, and semolina on the free list, and they remain on the free list until a change is made by or under the authority of Parliament.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am glad to have that as the opinion of the Minister of Finance. I suppose it is the view of the Government. But from the proposition stated by the minister I entirely dissent.


William Thomas White: If the hon. gentleman wishes, I can give him the opinion of the Deputy Minister of Justice, whose opinion is entitled to some weight.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: It is.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: Does the minister say that these articles can be removed from the free list only by the authority of Parliament?


William Thomas White: Wheat, wheat
flour, and semolina have been placed on the free list by Order in Council, which Order in Council has precisely the same authority as an Act of Parliament.


Wilfrid Laurier: So far, so good.


William Thomas White: The effect of
that Order in Council remains until some other disposition of the matter is made by or under the authority of this Parliament.


Wilfrid Laurier: The minister does not say, by Act of Parliament?


William Thomas White: If the hon. gentleman wants a legal opinion, and if he will permit me, 1 will read the opinion of the Deputy Minister of Justice on this matter. It is as follows:
I have considered upon your Suggestion the effect of the Order in Council of 16th instant, whereby His Excellency the Governor General in Council directed under the authority of the War Measures Act, 1914, that wheat, wheat flour and semolina should be transferred to the list of goods which may be imported into Canada free of duty of customs.
Section 6 of the War Measures Act 1914 confers upon the Governor in Council very comprehensive powers to make such orders and regulations as he may by reason of the war deem advisable for the peace, order and welfare of Canada, and for greater certainty, but not so as to restrict, it is declared, that these powers extend to all matters coming within certain classes of subjects specially mentioned, among others, "trade, exportation, importation, production, and manufacture." It is provided, moreover, that all such orders anl regulations shall have the force of law.
This section has always been interpreted and acted upon as intended to confer legislative powers, and I am of opinion that that intention is expressed with sufficient aptitude, and that therefore the legislative powers of Parliament, within the purview of the section, have been delegated to the Governor in Council. Moreover, having regard to the narrative of the Order in Council, the power executed in the sanctioning of the Order in Council, appears to fall very clearly, not only within the general description of powers, but also within the special enumeration to which I have referred. Therefore I am of opinion that the Order in Council became effective as from its date permanently to remove the duty imposed by the customs tariff from wheat, wheat flour, and semolina, and that these products accordingly become free of customs duty, and will remain free unless fresh duties he imposed by or under the authority of Parliament.


Mr. MURPHY:: What is the date of that memorandum?


William Thomas White: It is dated 17th April.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I have great confidence in the legal acumen of the Deputy Minister of Justice, and ordinarily I should defer to his opinion; but in this matter, I submit with confidence, the opinion which he ha3 given the minister is an erroneous one, if it is c.mtihded that the opinion is to the effect that the Order in Council txtends beyond the end of the war. I bel1 eve that the Order in Council passed under the War Measures Act ends with the war. And if that be true the houses of Hohenzollern

and Hapsburg have as much to do with the termination of this Order in Council as have the Government and the people of Canada. The letter which has just been read is to the effect that under section 6 of the War Measures Act ample authority and power is vested in the Governor in Council to pass the Order in Council in question. That is a debatable question I submit, though I do not deny that there is room for the position taken by the Deputy Minister of Justice. But I wish to call the attention of the Minister of Finance to section 3 of the Act, which is as follows:
3. The provisions of sections 6, 10, 11 and 13 of this Act shall only be in force during war/ invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended.
That is, when the war ends, Section 6 is no longer in force.


Arthur Meighen: But what is done under it is still in force.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Not at all. That is an absurd position, I submit, for my learned friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) to take. Perhaps I should not say "absurd"-


Arthur Meighen: Let me ask the hon. gentleman a question. Under the War Measures Act we are expropriating the Ross rifle factory. Will he say that when the war is over that factory reverts to its former owners?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: No, because nothing is left to revert.


Arthur Meighen: The factory would still be there.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The powers of the Government were exhausted to the absolute extinction of the title of the Ross rifle property in its former owners.


Arthur Meighen: But not of the factory.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Under this Act it is explicitly stated that the provisions of section 6 on the cessation of the war shall no longer be in force. An Order in Council cannot remain alive unless it is based upon some living statutory authority. That is the rational, the reasonable construction of the Act. It was never intended that the War Measures Act should permit an amendment of the Customs Act that should continue in operation after the cessation of the war. At the most it was intended that this power should be extended to the Government temporarily and during the continuance of the war, and during that time the
Act and possibly the Order in Council is in force. Therefore, I say, this Order in Council with respect to flour and wheat is in operation only during the war and terminates with the ending of the war. If the Minister of Finance intended that these products should be placed upon the free list, there was a positive and direct way to accomplish that end. He should have proceeded under the Customs Act. He could have announced an amendment to the Tariff Act to-day in this House, and in that very instant of time the amendment would have become operative throughout the whole country. I always anticipated that it was the intention of the Government that this Order in Council should be operative only during the war. The Parliamentary Secretary for External Affairs (Mr. Hugh Clark), speaking recently at Montreal, stated that it was proper to do this for the United States, because now she was our ally. Now, it seems the logical inference that when the war is over and the United States is no longer our ally in war, the reason for the Order in Council having ceased to exist, the Order in Council itself yvill automatically pass away. The Parliamentary Secretary for External Affairs evidently entertains the same view I do about the scope of the Order in Council.
It was for these reasons that a few moments ago I ventured the statement that the passage of this Order in Council was not a declaration of settled policy, but was a matter of party and political manoeuvring forced upon the Government by their friends from the western provinces. The hon. the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Cochrane) is not as astute as the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Railways is a plain, blunt man who goes directly to his objective point, but the Minister of Finance has more experience and skill in finesse, and he will endeavour to achieve his point, not always by direct, but if needs be by indirect and circuitous routes, if to him it seems politically more advantageous. Had the Minister of Railways been as astute as the Minister of Finance, he would have introduced his Highways Bill under the War Measures Act. The Highways Bill will be designated by the people of Canada of both parties as a piece of political manoeuvring, and the Minister of Railways will likely go down in history as a pure politician. The Minister of Finance attempted to amend the Tariff Act by means of the War Measures Act, and his friends will claim that he is a patriot. That is the dis-

tinetion. It shows that they were brought up in different schools. The one is the product of the methods adopted on King street, Toronto; the other is the plain, old-fashioned, product of the school of North Bay, Ontario. .
If this new reciprocity treaty is to be stable, and if it represents a declaration of public policy on the part of the Government, then it will have the hearty approval of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House. If it is to be in force during the continuance of the war only, and is terminable at the will of our enemies, or at the moment we accomplish their defeat, or if it was enacted, as.it would appear to have been, as a purely party and political expedient, it is to be condemned by every right-thinking man in this country. This is not a time to play fast and loose with such a matter as our tariff. These matters should be dealt with by open, frank and proper methods. It appears to me that it was never intended that this Order in Council was to represent the real economic policy of the Government upon a vexed issue; I believe it to be a pure party and political measure. If the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) desired for the people of the western provinces, whom he represents in the Government, that they have permanently the advantage of the American market for their wheat and flour, he would have suggested and insisted that the Order in Council be based upon, not the War Measures Act, but the Customs Tariff law, or better still, that the amendment to the tariff be made on the floor of Parliament by the Minister of Finance when he was delivering his annual budget.
I am not saying that if this Order in Council is to be effective only during the period of the war it will not be of some benefit to the western producers of wheat, but I do say that it will be more beneficial to them if they know that it is to be permanent. You could not encourage the western wheat producer to grow wheat under this Order in Council if he knew that it ended on the 30th day of June, 1917, if the war should then end. You must have the element of permanency in anything to ensure the full measure of benefit, and particularly in an Order in Council of this character.


Mr. LABOR:: Is the hon. gentleman aware that wheat is 27 cents a bushel to-day higher in Winnipeg than in Chicago?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: If the hon. gentleman says that is a fact I accept his word. I am not endeavouring to argue that phase of 
the question at all. If the price of wheat is 27 cents a bushel higher in Chicago than in Winnipeg then I say, let the western farmer feel that he is likely to reap that advantage permanently.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: I think the hon. gentleman misunderstood me; what I said was just the opposite. I said that in Winnipeg it was 27 cents higher than in Chicago.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Well, I suppose my hon. friend will then say to his friends and the Government that the passage of the Order in Council was a foolish thing. Now, -they give a further reason for the passage of this Order in Council and I want to read it to the House. This is a most astonishing thing as it appears to me:
And whereas it is desirable at a time when a special appeal is being made for increased agricultural production to supply grain and food stuffs to Great Britain and her Allies which now include the United States of America,-
It would appear that the Order in Council was passed to encourage the production of wheat and flour in this country so that we might help our ally the United States. That is what that portion of the Order in Council which I have read seems to suggest. I suppose it was inserted for that purpose. If so, it is deceptive, because it does not truly set forth the facts. The United States is a great producer of wheat, as we are, and our Allies, Britain, France and Belgium look to the United States as they look to us, to exert our utmost efforts to see that sufficient food products are grown this year, next year and the following year after that, whether the war so long continues or not, in order that the needs of the Allies, present and future, may be met. The Order in Council is based in part on the theory that the rich and powerful republic to the south of us might need our wheat and our flour, and as our ally and for her possible succor we should encourage the production of wheat in this country. That is a proposition I cannot subscribe to. The United States has just entered the war. She has dedicated her life and her fortunes, everything	they	have,	andeverything they are, with the pride of those who knew that the time had	come when	they	were	privileged	to spend	their	blood	andtheir might for the principles which gave	them birth	and happiness,,
using the exact words of President Wilson

And they came in at a very opportune moment for the Allies. They came in with 17,000,000,000 to start with, an amount almost equal to the total gold- supply of the whole world. I do not think it is fair to say in that Order in Council that we should necessarily encourage the production of wheat in the Canadian provinces for our new and mighty Ally, the United States. Our wheat is' not vital to her life, I trust. If they want wheat they are willing to buy it and pay for it as a commercial transaction.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: While the Government were considering the matter of amending the tariff under the War Measures Act, which was an objectionable method, I say they should have considered further amendments to the tariff. The Minister of Finance was sweating great drops of blood and undergoing terrible agony when he consented to the new reciprocity treaty to satisfy his friends of the western provinces, and he might as well have considered the abandonment of further items of tariff taxation, limited though it might be, to encourage agricultural production, which is needed now and in the next few years to come. Should the war fortunately end during the current year, as I trust it will, there would .still exist a great necessity for increased productions in all the food-producing countries of the world for 1918, and the same .will be true of 1919 and 1920. The world will be fortunate indeed if it escapes a famine, not only during the days of actual .war, but after the days of peace come and the annies have been restored to their several countries. Any Government policy should be predicated not upon the demands of to-day or to-morrow, or of this year, Ibut upon tho.se of several years to come. Talking production is waste of time unless we encourage and assist as far as we can those who are engaged in agricultural pursuits. The removal of duties upon fertilizers, farm machinery and all the instruments of production would be of considerable advantage in these years to the men who are exhorted by Governments and by business men and by everybody to increase their productions. Even if you did it under the War Measures Act, it would be evidence of good intention at least. But we observe that there is nothing in the speech which has been delivered by the Minister of Finance to indicate that he has given any consideration whatever to aid in this manner increased production.
In many other respects much might foe done to encourage production. There might be a reduction in freight rates upon all the commodities which are instruments in production, such as farm machinery and fertilizers. It would not be a difficult'matter for this country to arrange in one way oT .another, even if it were paid for out of the treasury, to have the freight rates reduced upon these commodities which are so essential in production. It would assist in the accomplishment of the end which we all desire. Then I think the Government might very well insist upon a preference in transportation for such things as seed, fertilizers, farm machinery, etc., in view of the existing congestion of traffic. "If we desire to actually increase production iit is only a fair suggestion that there should be some preference in transportation in view of the congestion and the many restrictions to-day placed upon transportation, in order that we might thus encourage the men whom we .are continuously and persistently exhorting to increase production for the good of this country, for the welfare of humanity, and for the great cause which we have at heart. Further, would not a reduction, or an elimination entirely in many cases, of the duty on 'high-priced articles of necessity be of advantage to the Canadian consumer today? Would it not widen the field of competition and assist in the restoration of more healthy trade conditions and thus restrict the possibility of manipulation of prices and the withholding of products from the market? Every other protectionist country in the world 'has since the beginning of the war reduced or removed entirely the duties upon food products. This is the only country in the world, I think, which deliberately undertook to increase taxation upon the actual necessities of life, even food products, when .the 7i per cent was added to the general tariff in 1915. I think I may fairly foe justified in expressing my surprise that nothing has 'been done by the Government in this direction. Apparently they have not taken into consideration at all the doing of anything to relieve the distress and anxiety of so many of our .people in respect to the high cost of diving. Nothing has been done. A commission was appointed some years ago to inquire into this matter, 'but, instead of being called a commission to inquire into the high cost of living, it might more properly be described .as a commission to inquire as to what was the cost of the living of the dead. They have been engaged

upon this investigation for a long time now, and it looks as if most- persons in this country who might he interested in that report will probably be numbered among the dead before any report is made. An Order in Council was passed not so very long ago delegating to the provinces and the municipalities the poweT of investigating, and, in certain circumstances, taking action where it was found that the prevailing prices were unfair and unjust. That was not a serious attempt to meet the situation, I submit. It is purely a jest. It was never intended as a serious act in respect to a very serious and vital question to the people of this country. I am perfectly justified in designating that Order in Council as .an intended jest.
I said at the beginning of my remarks that there were many things not contained in the financial statement of the Minister of Finance which the people of this country might naturally expect to find in it. But I do not propose prolonging further my remarks at the present time. My colleagues upon this side will amplify and add to all that I have ventured to address to the Pouse this 'afternoon in my imperfect way, and I shall no longer continue my remarks upon the motion of the Minister of Finance.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):: I rise, Sir, because, in the first place, I think it would be unfortunate for this debate to collapse at this moment without some attempt to bring home to'the Parliament and to the people of Canada the exact financial position of the country as a result of the war; some conception of the magnitude of the problems which have arisen during the war and which are, no doubc, present to the mind of the hon. Minister of Finance, as, indeed, he indicated in very, very brief references in a very brief speech.
I cannot, Sir, quite join in the congratulations of my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) to the minister on the brevity of his speech. I myself believe in a brief speech; it is, as a rule, more effective than a long drawn-out harangue. But a Budget speech may be so brief as to be almost perfunctory. We have been accustomed for years in this House, in dealing with trade questions in the Budget, to hear our Finance Minister of either complexion of politics, in stating the figures of the trade, go into a little detail as to what part of it constitutes exports and what part of it constitutes imports; as to what part of the trade takes place with the United Kingdom and what part of it takes place with

the United States, the two countries with which, of course, we do the vast proportion of our trade. That is one of the items in which, I venture to say, the speech of my hon. friend was brief almost to the point of being perfunctory. I can join, however, my hon. friend, the junior member for Halifax, in his congratulations to the minister on the favourable statement he has to make to the House as to the mere fig ires of the trade of the country and as to the prosperity we are enjoying at the present time. I join equally my hon. friend in the warnings he gave the House-warnings which were not needed by the minister-as to the transient nature of that prosperity and as to the peculiar way in which our trade has been increased.
Let me repeat, that it would be a misfortune if this debase had been allowed to collapse at the present moment. I do not think that the minister's speech, apart from dealing with the mere figures of our trade at the moment, can be considered a satisfactory statement of the financial conditions of the country; nor yet did it afford evidence of any idea in the mind of the minister or in the policy of the Government, as to the ineces&ary (steps which must be taken to deal with the terrible problems which axe before this country and which have been referred to in a measure by my hon. friend the junior member for Halifax. Take the one figure that was given to us by my hon. friend from Halifax, that of a yearly interest charge of $65,000,000 which has already accrued as debt interest alone in this country since the beginning of war. When I reflect, Sir, that, the total income and expenditure of Canada for all purposes was much below that figure twenty years ago, I cannot but think that as we are approaching the end of the war-we all hope so, anyhow-the minister might have given some evidence of the steps and the policies which will be necessary to deal with such interest charge and with the other innumerable problems which have already arisen out of the war and which will Increase as the months go on.
The Minister of Finance closed his statement by saying that there were no tariff changes in the Budget. Well, as my hon. friend from Halifax has pointed out, that is not the way we get our tariff Changes nowadays. In other words, if we are to apply the arguments which we heard in the country six years ago from my friend the Minister of Finance and from every gentleman on the other side of the House whose speeches I have perused-and which

we have heard from the minister in very recent timesi-we have been annexed to the United States by an Order in Council. Our railroads and our railroad services have been automatically twisted north and south by those who swore upon a hundred platforms that ,so far as they could they should never run any way except east and west. Well, if my hon. friend the Solicitor General and the Deputy Minister of Justice are Tight in their law-or, rather, I ought to say, if my hon. friend from Halifax is right in his law and the Order in Council lapses at the end of the war, I can only trust that the annexation will lapse then also.
I would not like to be in the position of the Minister of Finance on this question. He and I have had many good-natured bouts across this floor, and I do not think any one in the House has a greater admiration for many of his qualities than I have. But I must say that there is one of his qualities which I would not want to emulate, however much I might admire if. I have had far too little experience myself as a quick-change artist to envy his position at the present time. I cannot help recalling that oply in the last session of Parliament my hon. friend delivered a speech one hour and three-quarters in duration-and that was quite a long speech, much longer than the Budget speech; one of his speeches upon which the member for Halifax could not have congratulated him on the quality of brevity-in which he gave the reasons why we should not have free wheat. What changes this war has brought about! I recall a special sentence in the first speech which my- hon. friend delivered in this House. After having told us how 'his party had been put in power by the assembled and serried hordes of men behind him from the province of Ontario and how he had got the support of all classes in that province, he turned to us and said: "Would it not be the part of wisdom, the great province of Ontario having spoken in this way, for hon. gentlemen opposite to accept the verdict?" And now he himself, by an Order in Council, has torn the verdict to shreds and tatters. What changes, Mr. Speaker, this war has brought about! But I should be the last man to quarrel with the change, and here I offer my hearty congratulations to the minister. I hail with pleasure anything in the way of freer trade, come from where it may, and I offer the minister my hearty congratulations, as I do also upon
his increase of direct taxation announced in his Budget statement.
I know, in answer to the comments that I have been making, that it will be said by some hon. gentlemen opposite-they have already been saying it in the country- that this free wheat is a mere war measure, and they leave the people of Ontario to infer that it will disappear at the end of the war. The Minister of Finance and the Solicitor General do not feel disposed to take that course; and if they do not, I shall give them credit for courage and honesty; but the fact remains that hon. gentlemen opposite are saying on the public platforms now that this is a war measure, and the inference is that it will disappear after the war is over. Something of that meaning must have been in the mind of the Minister of Trade and Commerce at an interview he gave on the status of the change. He made one of those curious statements that only he is capable of producing, when he said: "This is removed from the realm of trade." When I read that statement, two thoughts occurred to me: the first was, if it was removed from the realm of trade, into what realm was it removed? I wondered whether it had gone into the realm of science or astronomy or some realm of that kind. The second was, that we are dealing in wheat with the United States, disloyal though that may be, especially in this time of war. The keystone of the arch, as my hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) said in the debate six years ago-I remember what he said because I followed his speech-is gone. We are dealing with the United States, but the Minister of Trade and Commerce says that this thing is removed from the realm of trade. Had he been here, I would have asked him what realm it has gone into. Then I would have gone on to ask him why a Minister of Trade and Commerce should rejoice in any act of the Government being removed from the ' realm of trade. To an ordinary man like myself, a Minister of Trade and Commerce ought to be a man whose endeavour is to promote trade, but the gentleman who holds the portfolio of Trade and Commerce at the present time might be better described as a minister to prevent trade. He went to the Antipodes and came back without paying expenses as the greatest commercial traveller in the world. On his way back he stopped off at Japan, but I do not know that our trade with Japan has increased by reason of his visit, and I do not

know of anything he has done to increase the trade of the country; and now when the Minister tof Finance, aided by the advice and assistance of the Solicitor General, brings in a measure for the establishment of free trade in wheat with the United States of America, the Minister of Trade and Commerce rejoices in the fact that it is removed from the realm of trade. It will be said that this is a war measure and the inference will be drawn. I suppose every one says it is a war measure; that this is being done under the War Measures Act. If it be that, then I think even as fair an opponent of the Administration as I am myself, or as fair a critic of the Administration as I claim to have been, is entitled to point out that a little tardiness has been shown in producing this measure. The war has been in existence for two and three-quarters years. Surely, if it be only a war measure it should have occurred to the Administration sooner. The war was in a very active state a year ago when the Minister of Finance delivered a speech lasting an hour and three-quarters, telling us why we could not do this very thing. If it be a war measure-and we are all interested in war measures and in their success, I call you to witness, Sir, that no man can charge me with having taken much interest dn anything else than the war for the last three years-why was it not put into force at the beginning of the war? My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) has pointed to the fact that nearly every country at war made tremendous tariff changes almost immediately the war began. Take Germany, our great opponent in arms, but the exemplar of hon. gentlemen opposite in tariff matters-at least until lately. I really hope they will not go to Germany. The Minister of Trade and Commerce will not even call them Germans; he always refers to them as " Huns." What an illogical thing it would be for a civilized gentleman in the twentieth century to do-to go. to the " Huns " for a fiscal policy. I should be sorry to do it myself; I would rather go to free England. That, however, is by the way. What did Germany do in regard to these matters? I read:-
On September 17, 1914, His Majesty's Minister at Copenhagen forwarded a list of the articles in respect of which customs duties had been suspended by the German Government up to that date.
From some points of view these Huns are a pretty wide-awake people, for this was done within six weeks of the commencement of the war.

This list, which is a lengthy one, includes inter alia:	Bread, beans, butter, eggs, poultry,
edible fats, fish, meat, prepared alimentary products, cereals and flour, potatoes, cheese, cattle, pigs and sheep, and margarine.
The Board of Trade have also a copy of a German proclamation dated March 8, 1915, which temporarily suspended the customs duties on a large number of other articles, including certain fruit, game, arrowroot, sago and tapioca, sugar and yeast.
Let me say that similar changes were made-and almost as early-in Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, and in non-belligerent 'countries, such a3 Portugal and Spain. In Sweden customs duties on wheat and Wheat flour-the very change to which my hon. friends opposite have become wideawake after the war has been in existence for nearly three years-were suspended in December, 1914, when the war had not been in existence six months. I think it is fair to give the history of what these countries have done and to indulge in the reasonable criticism that, if this is to be defended as a war measure, then tue Government must, with that defence, receive the condemnation of having been at least two years and a hailf too long in introducing it.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.


Michael Clark: Mr. Speaker, the war will pass. It is taking a long time and has brought heavy burdens and large problems, but it will pass. But the problems arising out of it, I venture to predict, will remain as long as the breath lasts in the body of the youngest member of this House. When I arose this afternoon it was with the serious purpose of endeavouring to contribute my humble quota to the financial principles which I believe will need to be followed by this country through its responsible ministers, of whatever political stripe they may be, if we are to deal satisfactorily with those problems within the present generation of men. I believe there will be such a change brought into the life of our country by the experiences of the war, and especially when our soldiers return, our soldiers who have gone in numbers which no one would have predicted was possible for Canada before the War, that our people will not be content with any perfunctory handling of these problems. They will demand that our public men shall go to the roots of them, shall study the needs of the

[DOT]country, and the economic principles which are necessary to solve those needs.
I want to lay down four principles which I believe will guide our statesmen of the next generation in the solution of these problems. These principles will compel themselves to be adopted by our statesmen, whatever they may call themselves, Liberal, Tory or Independent. The first of them has nothing novel about it, but there must be something good about it, for it has always had very strong supporters in this House. I know that in enunciating these principles to my hon. friend the minister of Finance, I not only have one of the aptest minds to impress that Canada has at the present time in her service, or has had at any time so far as my knowledge of those minds goes, but from his utterances today I know that he is partially converted to my views already, and to the extent that he is not converted he has such an agile mind that I know his conversion will be simple if the conditions are at all favourable.
The first principle that I want to emphasize was dealt with at considerable length and in very great detail by my hon. friend the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) this afternoon. It will be absolutely necessary to economize to the utmost extent in the moneys of the country. Since Confederation, as far as my reading of Hansard has informed me, every party in this country when in opposition has preached ecomomy and I am afraid it is equally true that every party in office has practised extravagance. That is a very lamentable record for the people of this country. There are two reasons why that record will be broken after the war. I believe, Sir, for a time conditions will be so bad that there will not be the money to spend, and that is a sure way of curing a man of extravagance. I indicated the other reason a moment ago, when I said the people of this country will be so chastened, so changed by the war, and will direct such close attention to the proceedings of Parliament that they will no longer be content to watch the struggle between the ins and the outs, but will demand that sound principles be applied to finance and to the public policy of the country generally.
We have ten governments in this country; ten prime ministers for seven millions of people! Heaven save the mark. Ten sets of cabinet ministers, and ten
sets of legislators. That is a pretty formidable thing just as I have stated it, but when you have each of these governments spending far more money than they should, I submit, Sir, that public extravagance has become in some of its aspects, the most serious problem and the most serious evil in the public life of this country. I do not want to say more under that head. I am perfectly certain that what I have said finds a resting place in the mind of every serious hon. gentleman in this House. It must do so, because the moment they get into Opposition they say exactly what I am saying, and have said so ever since Confederation.
The second principle which I want to lay down, and which will be forced upon the attention of our finance ministers, is that wealth must contribute more largely to the expenses of the Federal Government than it has ever done in the past. My hon. friend the minister indicated that this afternoon; he bases his proposed taxation in this Budget, as he did in his last, upon that principle. But I am not quite satisfied with the extent to which he is carrying his principle out. I am sure he means well, and I am sure the country recognizes that he has brought to the greater problems that have arisen during the course of this war a very acute mind and a very great knowledge of financial technique, and I am sure he has done what is perhaps the best thing that any man can do in this world: he has brought to the discharge of his duties an enormous amount of energy, continued application, and hard work. I say that with the very greatest pleasure, and I believe that it is generally recognized throughout the nation. But when I reflect that the business tax imposed last year, with all its retroaction, raised only $12,500,000, I do not think any one will seriously claim that wealth is making anything like its proper contribution in this day. towards the expenses of the Government. It is making no contribution comparable to the services and the sacrifices of the men in the trenches, and the generosity of the whole of our people, from the poorest to the wealthiest, in their private capacity, in support of the Belgian Relief, Red Cross, and Patriotic Funds, and in the hundred other ways that money has had to be raised in the course of the war. Compare that sum of $12,500,000 with the enormous increase in our trade, as revealed in the figures of the Finance Minister, especially the enormous increase in our export

two little islands which could be put twice into my province of Alberta and you would have 30,000 square miles left, and with all kinds of material out of which she had to make the articles of export brought into the country, not even found there as we can find them .in such rich abundance here! Shall we as Canadians, in face of a record like that, made in times of peace, be content to follow false fiscal ideals and keep our progress as s/low as it has been? Why, Sir, I venture to think that if this country had the courage to face the issue and to apply those principles that it ought to apply, there is no reason why in ten years time Canada should not have 15,000,000 people and be the most marvellous country, or one of the most marvelous countries, in the world. That is my belief in Canadians, and it is my belief in Canada if they will not hamper it. You should increase foreign commerce, you should broaden it out, and you cannot do it by building a Chinese wall around your border. You cannot increase foreign commerce in that way. You must release foreign commerce by taking off the obstacles that prevent its expansion. You must down with your tariff wall and *trust to freedom. Why should we not trust to freedom? That is what we are fighting for in Europe. We are fighting for freedom ; our sons are dying for it, and we have shouldered the burden in order that the fight for freedom may be brought to a victorious end.
But you say: Oh, yes, but we are fighting for freedom from oppression by a foreign tyrant, for civil and religious freedom, for the freedom of self-government. But what is any freedom worth if you cannot sell in the best market the produce of physical brawn and sinew and effort? We must increase our foreign commerce. That is my next principle.
The fourth principle I want to lay down, and which I think should be easily understood by hon. gentlemen opposite is that we ought to make Canada fiscally as good a country to live in as is the United States. When I first talked tariff in this House (before my hon. friend the Minister of Finance was in it, although he was a keen observer of 'Canadian affairs at that time) and when I first talked free trade, I was told that toy hon. gentlemen opposite that I did not understand this country, that I was up against a condition. It was said to me: Look at the tariff of the United States. Well, I am looking at it, but my hon. friends opposite have stopped looking at it. It is they who are up against a con-

dition now. My contention on this point is that instead of telling us that there were no tariff changes in the Budget my hon. friend would have shown more fiscal enlightenment if he had put everything on the free list in Canada that is on the free list in the United States. That would be the natural outcome of the . principle which was enforced upon me by my hon. friends opposite. That would be in accordance with looking at conditions like those of the United States and looking at the tariff of the United States. I have not made a list of the articles myself but I could give one that occurs to me. Why should we have a 30 per cent tariff on boots and shoes and have free boots and shoes in the United States? Is it because the boot makers of Canada are duffers? I am sure that my hon. friend from Montreal, St. Antoine (Sir Herbert Ames), would not admit that for a moment. Why should we have to pay 30 per cent on our boots and shoos with free boots and shoes in the United States? Does Canadian stubble not wear out the farmer's boots, and the boots of the farmer's boys, as fast as the stubble in the United States? Do our streets not wear out the boots of our poor people and of our salaried people that my bon. friend has such compassion for in the matter of an income tax? Do our streets not wear out our boots as fast as the streets in the United States? As a matter of mercy and justice to our own inhabitants why should we maintain a tariff like this? But, there is a deeper reason. We should always try to look at these things as patriotic men who want to try to make our country big and great. We are looking for immigration from the United States and the Director General is moving heaven and earth to get people in from the United States.
Talk about tacking and trading with the Yankees! We would not be convicted of trucking and trading with the Yankees on this side of the House. Bringing people from there and sending wheat there! Is reciprocity dead? It is the liveliest corpse that ever came out of a grave on a resurrection morn. We shall need people to develop our resources, to create wealth, which we shall tax in a direct manner, to produce the material which we shall exchange freely, following the example of the Mother country and leaving forever the example of the Huns. We shall need these people after the war. They might have had the encouragement that I am suggesting, and I really hope that my hon. friend will look into this before he brings in another Budget-according

to the expectation of some people, he may not have opportunity to do that for a long while. But that is something that is in the lap of the gods and in the womb of the future. I hope he will study the question, anyhow, and that, if he does not, some successor of his will do so the next time a Budget is produced in this House.
I daresay that some of my hon. friends opposite would like to turn to me and say: Well you are a great bore; after all, your speech is just another exposition of free trade. Well it is, and what can one do but keep expounding what one believes to he true until it reaches the unenlightened, or those who do not want to be enlightened.
I was told the same thing about free wheat.
I got an immense encouragement from the recent history of the hon. gentlemen opposite, and every little encouragement, to a man who lovies freedom as much as I do, will keep him going on preaching it as long as he is above the sod. It is an exposition of free trade, but I am afraid I have to give the House more than an exposition, of free trade in these war times. I think that the war has afforded the greatest vindication of free trade that ever principle received in the history of mankind. I think so. I pointed out this afternoon that I was glad of the opportunity of putting on Hansard what had actually happened in other countries of the world in regard to fiscal policy since the war began. It is a very interesting study, this fiscal question, more interesting than any fiction if a man will only give his mind to it. The tariff conditions in the world at the time the war broke out were very interesting. It would have appeared at the time the war broke out that while Britain was wedded more strongly than before to her free trade policy, the Central Empires-Germany the leader of them- were more firmly wedded than ever to the system of protection. They had built up the system in Germany in a period of forty years. They had buttressed it in every conceivable way, and appeared to be wedded to it. But the moment the war struck them what happened? Well, this is what happened: that Great Britain stayed with her fiscal policy of freedom, fighting for freedom because she knew better what it was than any other country in the world. She appreciated it more-I mean in fiscal matters-and she knew that . fiscal freedom and all-round freedom was worth fighting for. Little Denmark and Holland, each rather largely free trade countries and wonderfully prosperous as a result, did not need to alter their fiscal
policy. They did not put any imposts on. Whereas Germany and Austria-Hungary and the neutral protectionist countries ran away from their fiscal policies the moment the storm of w.ar struck them.
Mr. Speaker, when I go to sea I .should like to go always in a ship that could stand rough weather-and protection is evidently no ship for sailing when the waves roll high She is all right, perhaps, for foolish economic escapades on the part of young and inexperieced peoples when conditions are reasonably favourable, the breezes are favourable and things are good; hut when a storm strikes her every principle she carries is jettisoned. Protection is deserted, their tariff walls are thrown down as I put on record from Board of Trade figures this afternoon. We are at the parting of the ways in Canada. We have these problems to tackle. Our people, I believe, will look more anxiously to us for the tackling of them than they have ever done before, and we shall have to choose whether Canada is going on along the line of freedom fiscally to get nearer to the Mother Country's example, or whether she is going to keep wallowing in the beggarly elements of the Hun's policies or former United States *policies; whether she is going (to keep decking herself in the worn out and cast aside garments of nations which have become more advanced and more enlightened. I put that to oiie House seriously, not in a contentious spirit, but with the love of Canada and hope for its future as strong in my heart as it can be in the case of any man not born in Canada. We shall have to choose.
Have we any other guidance as to the worthiness of the free trade ship? I venture to think that the greatest financial miracle of the war has been the financing of Great Britain. It has been a war of miracles; we live in marvellous times. We have lived to see the people of Russia apparently cast off in a moment, before anybody was looking for such a thing, the swaddling clothes and bands of autocracy and become one of the free democracies of the world. We have seen her reach her hands over the heads of the Allies and grasp the great democracy of the West to the south of us at a time when that great democracy, speaking the English tongue, is throwing in her lot with the British Empire and giving her guarantee not only of the winning of the war but of the results of the war being such as will be thoroughly satisfactory to every free man everywhere. But financially there has been no miracle in the history of the world like


Sir HERBERT AMES (Montreal, St. Antoine):: It is always a pleasure, Mr. Speaker, for us to listen to the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) and to hear that he still stands fpur-square by the principle of free trade. I do not think, however, that he is making very many converts on this side of the House, nor have we reason to believe that he is making very many converts on his own side of the House. I confess that I was waiting for him to tell us in what manner he would raise the $135,000,000 that has 'been raised during the past year iby the present tariff to meet Canada's expenditures. By what means would he undertake to raise that revenue, which we all know is so much needed? The hon. member for Red Deer loves to tell us that he is a pioneer along the road of enlightenment, but'I am rather wondering whether he is keeping as dose a touch as he should upon the old land. I am wondering whether he is interpreting the signs of the times quite as faithfully as we have been led to believe he has been accustomed to do. If we can judge from the symptoms that are 'being evidenced in Old Country legislation, the days of free trade in old England are numbered. The Old Country, which has been so often held up to us as a shining example of free trade, is, under the stress of war, and of unification of the Empire, beginning to find that the time may not be far distant when it may adopt to some extent a policy of protection that will enable Britain and all her

overseas dominions, by reciprocal arrangement, so to help one another that the great British Empire will be stronger than it ever has been. So I was glad to-day when the Finance Minister, in making his Budget statement, did not deal with any further alterations of the tariff. When the question of free wheat was raised, I could not help feeling that our friends opposite were not altogether justified in considering that the action taken by the Government in this regard was a capitulation of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House so faT as their views regarding reciprocity were concerned. It must be remembered that had the reciprocity pact gone through we Canadians would have lost control of our tariff; our tariff would have been regulated from Washington. As it is, we stil'l keep control of the wheat and flour situation, inasmuch as we are taking advantage of a clause in standing legislation of the United States, and at any moment we can declare that wheat and flour shall again be placed on the protected list. We are in no way implicated in any arrangement that we cannot alter. Inasmuch as great events are probably pending; inasmuch as when this war shall be over new reciprocal trade arrangements may possibly be made throughout all parts of the British Empire, is it not desirable that Canada should not be tangled up with any other nation in such manner as to lose control of her own fiscal arrangements?
I rose not to discuss the remarks of the hon. member for Red Deer, but rather to say a few words in respect to what was advanced by the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) this afternoon. I did not intend to take part in this debate, but I could not quite allow all that he said in criticism of the Finance Minister and the Government and members on this side of the House to pass without challenge. He endeavoured to create the impression here and throughout the country that the present Government was not in any way endeavouring to exercise economy in order to hold the ordinary expenditure on capital and consolidated account within reasonable bounds. Now, those of us on this side of the House who since the war began have had occasion from time to time to make representations to our ministers urging that certain things be done in our constituencies have all certainly come to know that the war is on and that every ordinary expenditure that could be avoided is avoided by the Government. We have come to know also that the appointment of additional employees is discouraged. We have come to know also that the advancing of salaries is not frequent. We certainly, if the members on the other side of the House have not, have had brought to our attention daily instances of the economy practised by the Government. We have received the almost stereotyped form from our ministers: "Inasmuch as the war is on, it is not advisable to make any new expenditures, advances in salaries or things of that kind." We have only to take the figures as they are published to see that these profession? are borne out by the facts. If the junior member for Halifax had presented to the House the comparative summary statement in the Estimates of the figures for last year and this year he would have been compelled in all fairness to admit that the Estimates for this coming year are by no means inflated. We find that even under very adverse circumstances the amount that this House is to be asked to vote this year out of the consolidated fund is less than it was asked to vote last year. That is not so outside. Every industry is increasing its staff; expenses are running up in every other walk of life; the expenses of railway companies are increasing. Every enterprise and industry throughout Canada is complaining that its expenditures in the way of salaries, supplies, and so on, are greatly increased. Yet we find that the Government on consolidated account purposes spending even less in the coming year than was spent last year. If we look over these figures more closely we find that there is still further reason for congratulating the Government on the evidences of economy that are to be found. If you turn to the summary of the Estimates you will find that an estimated expenditure of $182,359,000 is to be made on consolidated fund account in 1917-18 as against $183,956,000 in 1916-17.	'
First of all, it is necessary to notice that there is a great difference in the charges for interest, and you cannot blame the Government if the interest charges have advanced. We have borrowed money in older to carry on the war and the interest must be paid; that is something over which we have no control. In 1916-17, the interest charge was $39,649,000; while in 1917-18, the interest charge is $57,720,000, so, in order to make a fair comparison, we would have to deduct from those figures the amount

alike, with equal unanimity. It was known when those Bills were' presented that the Government intended to borrow the money and spend it for war purposes, and that the amount would be added to our consolidated debt, and for any man to criticise the Government at this time because the debt is increasing is almost equivalent to saying we are doing too much in our time in carrying on the war to the maximum of our ability. If the money is not being spent properly, if there has been extravagance, if we are not getting one hundred cents on the dollar, or as nearly so as possible, the hon. gentlemen have the right to examine and criticise.


William Pugsley: That is the only ground on which we criticise.


Herbert Brown Ames: But to condemn the Government because these figures are growing from month to month is not a fair way of treating this question. The people of this country have responded magnificently in furnishing the moneys necessary ,to carry on the war. I had the privilege of speaking in New York and Washington recently on the part Canada is playing in the great war, and I assure you that the admiration of the American people for what *Canada is doing in this war exceeded all expectations. They admire us not only for the men we have sent and the sacrifices we have made, but for the magnificent way in which the country has financed itself. At the commencement of the war we were under the impression that the only place to borrow money wa>s in England. Almost *all our funded debt was held there, a mere bagatelle being held in Canada, and the only loan, we had floated in the United States was for purely domestic purposes, and we soon ceased to get money in that market. Since the beginning of the war, knowing we could not borrow money in England, and that we could not get money in America for war purposes, we have had confidence in our own people and have had no reason to regret it. It will always be a proud page in the history of Canada that when the Minister of Finance asked for $50,000,000 he got $100,000,000; when he asked for $100,000,000 he got $200,000,000, and when he asked for $150,000,000 bje got $250,000,000. When this war is over perhaps two-thirds or more of our funded debt will be held by our own people, and if our securities grow in value as we expect they will it will be our own .people who will benefit by that, and if anything goes wrong we will bring no one down hut our-

selves. So I think the country has Teason to congratulate itself, and particularly have we Teason to congratulate ourselves and the Minister of Finance on the magnificent way in which we have gone through the last year under conditions which have never been equalled in the history of Canada, or in any other land until this great war came.
^ Mr. J. G. TURRIFF (Assiniboia): Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman who has taken his seat has told the House that he did not intend to speak on this Occasion. Apparently, as the Government was worried over the way things were going, iny hon. friend was put up to get them out of a difficulty, and it was very fitting that he should be selected for that task. For I remember in the year 1911, when the Conservative party found themselves in difficulties in the province of Quebec, and thought their only hope of salvation lay in an amalgamation with the Nationalists, it was the hon. member for St. Antoine (Sir Herbert Ames) who was chosen to make the necessary arrangements between the Conservative party and the Nationalists in order to bring the party home to victory. My hon. friend, of course, was also the party who furnished the money on that occasion. It is only natural, then, that to-night, when the Acting Prime Minister -seems worried and his colleagues beside him, that my hon. friend should be put up to get them out of their difficulty.
My hon. friend began his address by pointing out to the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) that free trade in England was about at an end, and he spoke of certain legislation. I have not followed the legislation of the Old Land as closely, perhaps, as some other hon. gentlemen, but I fail to recall a single piece of legislation that has been introduced in the British House of Commons since the beginning of the war for the purpose of doing away with free trade in Great Britain. The hon. member for Red Deer gave a very able exposition this afternoon of what Great Britain has accomplished under free trade, as compared with what the Central Empires have done under protection. After the experience the British trader has had, and he is the cleverest trader in the world, of the value to Great Britain of free trade in this war, I do not think he will ever depart from the policy that has made Great Britain the greatest commercial nation upon the earth, and has enabled 'her to finance not only her own share of the war, 'but to help her Allies as well. Of course, there was a conference in Paris, and something was said there about trade

am-ongst the Allies. But we have had talk about preferential trade within the Empire for many a long day. For one, I hope I shall never ilive to see the day when the good relations between Great Britain and Canada will be hampered by any written agreement or any preferential trade. The farmers of the West, the men who it is supposed, will benefit most by preferential trade within the Empire, have declared time and again that they do not want preferential trade, they do not want an increased price for-their wheat which will mean that the labouring masses of Great Britain will pay more for their bread. I hope the present relations will always exist, Great Britain -being left free to do what she likes with her tariff and Canada free to do what- she likes with hers, the cordiality of inter-imperial relations being left wholly unhampered by any written or hard-and-fast agreement.
My -hon. friend from Montreal, St. Antoine, (-Sir Herbert Ames) made ,on-e very peculiar statement. If I understood him, he said that if the reciprocity pact had passed in 1911 our tariff arrangements would be made at Washington instead of at Ottawa. Then, what does he think of the Minister of Finance who adopts exactly that policy to-day? Has the minister transferred the making of the Canadian tariff fr.om Ottawa to Washington?


Herbert Brown Ames: I endeavoured to make as clear as I could the point that under this arrangement of free wheat we had not in the -slightest degree impaired our control of our own tariff.


Mr. TURRIFF:: Under the reciprocity
pact it was left open to either side to -bring the arrangement to an end at any time. It is true that in this case ,of free wheat-and I will take up that subject more directly later -oni-the jGoverniment have so provided that they can bring the arrangement to an end even without appealing to Parliament. So they can use the free wheat argument as a vote-catcher for three or four months, while at the same time they can tell their friends in the East, the millers and the railroads, that it is only a temporary war measure which can be cancelled by Order in Council. But in fact they can do more even than that-* they need not even pass an Order in Council. The -matter has been looked into, and it is clear that the moment the war -stops free trade in wheat undeT the present Order in Council comes to an end.


Arthur Meighen: Who told you that?


John Gillanders Turriff: A better lawyer than
my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen)-or rather, as I d.o not wish to say anything objectionable, a lawyer in whose opinion I should have much more confidence than in that of the hon. gentleman.


Arthur Meighen: Read the opinion of that lawyer.


John Gillanders Turriff: The hon. gentleman will get all the legal opinion he wants before this debate is finished. The hon. member for Montreal, St. Antoine, says that by putting wheat on the free list we are not following the example of 1911. But let my hon. friend consider the facts. In 1915 the wheat crop of Canada amounted to 370,000,000 bushels. That quantity of wheat at the price ruling to-day-say $2.25 a bushel- would represent one-third of the total export and import trade of Canada of which the minister boasted, and which certainly was something to boast about. The hon. member for Montreal, St. Antoine, would have us believe that the effect of the reciprocity agreement of 1911 would have been to put the making of the Canadian tariff in the power of Washington, but that putting wheat on the free list, though that crop alone might easily amount to one-third of our total trade, has nothing whatever to do with giving Washington any control in our tariff affairs. The two stories do not hang together.
The same hon. gentleman had something to say about the wonderful economy of this Government, and held it to be a matter of pride that the Minister of Finance was able to announce that $60,000,000 would be left to apply in paying for the war. Well, it seems to me that at this time, when we are having great business success, when we are taking in over a million dollars a day paid by Great Britain and our Allies for war munitions, and when a large part of that money is profit, surely this is the time when we ought to pay, not $60,000,000, but double that amount on account of the war. Had this Government practised reasonable economy during the years they have been in office, they would be able to pay towards the expense of the war more than twice what they are paying. And why not? Why should not we follow the example of Great Britain where, as pointed out by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Michael Clark) they raised one hundred and fifty per cent more revenue by direct taxation than had

been raised in the years previous to the war. But the economy of this Government only shows up when compared with their tremendously extravagant expenditure during the two or three years prior to the war. Compare their expenditure to-day with the really economical expenditures of the late Government-expenditures which the hon. member for Montreal, St. Antoine, in those days criticised as being extravagant in the extreme, and it becomes manifest that the so-called economy of to-day is really extravagance.
Let us see how these figures compare? If I heard my hon. friend the Minister of Finance aright when he was beginning the Budget speech, I think he made the statement that the expenditure on ordinary account during the past year was $143,000,000. My hon. friend from Montreal, St. Antoine (Sir Herbert Ames) says that is very economical, but the last year that the Liberals were in power-1910-1911-the expenditure for the same account was under $80,000,000. When you compare the figures of last year with those of five years ago, the figures of last year do not look economical at all; they are very extravagant.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. gentleman say that what is $143,000,000 to-day was $80,000,000 five years ago?


John Gillanders Turriff: The expenditure on
ordinary account was under $80,000,000 during the last full year the Liberals were in power, and I understood the Minister of Finance to say that the expenditure on ordinary account last year was $143,000,000. Of course, there is some deduction to be made for the extra amount of interest on the debt and pensions, but it does not begin to keep the expenditure of to-day anything near what it was in 1910-11. The only way you can show any economy at all is by showing that you are not quite as extravagant in your expenditure as you were two years before the war. But, in 1910-11 the country was prosperous, the revenue was buoyant, and the expenditures were very much lower than they are to-day. Here w'e are almost three years engaged in this war, we are piling up a war debt of $ 1,000,000 a day, as my hon. friend told us this afternoon, and instead of economising we are going on in the most extravagant way spending fifty per cent more than was expended five years ago. I think nobody will say that there are many more people in Canada to-day than there were five years ago. It is time that there should be

economy practised. We are all hoping that the war will end this year, but there is nothing definite to show that it will end this year. It is quite possible that it will go on for a year and a half, and if it does, look at the debt we will have piled up at the rate of $1,000,000 a day; and it keeps on increasing. The longer we are engaged in the war the more the war costs in Canada per day. When this war is over, when 300,000 or 400,000 Canadians come back from the front, and, being turned out of employment, have to go out and find work w'herever they may be able to find it, and when 300,000 or 400,000 men and women who are working in munition factories are turned out of work, see what it means. For two or three years after the war the country will be coming through an equilibrium again, and during that time the factories that are making munitions will have to find a new outlet for their product. The revenue will fall off, our imports will decline, prices of farm produce will go down, exports will decrease, there will not be the same amount of revenue coming into the Dominion, and if my hon. friend should be Minister of Finance then he will not have the revenue of $230,000,000 that lie has now. He will have a much smaller revenue, and in the meantime our debt will be doubled up as compared with what it is to-day. How are we going to manage the affairs of this country, how are we going to take care of our ordinary expenditure, of the interest on our debt, of our pension fund, of our sinking fund, if we do not meet the situation by economy? This is the time to begin practising economy and not wait until hard times are upon us. We should practise economy now that the revenues are buoyant, when the money is coming in as never before, and when everybody in business is making money out of borrowed money. We are not paying anything practically on account of the cost of the war. As my hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) pointed out to-day, since this Goyernment came into power there have been more deficits than would represent the amount that we have paid on account of the war. We are going on borrowed money, but later on we will have to meet the interest on that money. In the meantime, my hon. friends, instead of practising economy, are going on full sail ahead and spending 50 per cent more than their expenditure a few years ago. Here is a statement showing the increase in the cost of running the different

departments as between the years 1910-11 and 1914-15:-
Increase,
Department.	Per Cent
Justice	 13
Arts, Agriculture and Statistics.... 300
Civil Government	 38
Fisheries	 91
Mines and Geological Sur\	ey	 92
Immigration	 50
Indians	 65
Legislation	 43
Lighthouse and Coastal Service ....	30
Miscellaneous	 151
Mounted Police	 32
Ocean and River Service	 30
Penitentiaries	 63
Police	'	 89
Public Works Consolidated Fund
afccount	 124
Public Works capital account	 233
Public Works collection of	revenue..	36
Railways	 14
Steamboat inspection	 52
Administration of the Yukon Territoy	 12
Adulteration of Food	 124
Customs	 72
Dominion Lands	 105
Evcist	 18
Post Office	   114
Labour	 32
Railways and Canals, collection of
revenue	 18
Weights and Measures	 172
Naval Service	   43
Although there was an increase of 50 peT cent in the cost of immigration, we are not getting one-quarter of the immigrants that we got in 1910-11. With regard to Indians, there is absolutely no justification whatever for the increase of 65 per cent'in the cost of running that department compared with five years ago. It is absolutely absurd and it shows the extravagance of this Government. They are not making any effort whatever to curtail the expenditure. The cost of the administration of the Yukon Territory increased 12 per cent, and, Mr. Speaker, I do not suppose there are a quarter of the people in the Yukon to-day than there were when it cost 12 per cent less. The increase in the Customs Department is accounted for by the fact that the Minister of Customs (Mr. Reid) has just doubled up the number of civil servants in that department. And in the face of that my hon. friends on the other side of the House talk about this Government being an economical Government.


Arthur Meighen: What were the years
compared?


John Gillanders Turriff: I was comparing 1911
with 1915.


Arthur Meighen: Did you make up these figures yourself?


John Gillanders Turriff: I did not make them
personally, but they were made from the blue-books, every one.


Arthur Meighen: You should revise
them.


Mr. CROTHERS:: They are not right, I can tell you.


John Gillanders Turriff: I venture to assert that they are.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I know that they are not as far as the Department of Labour is concerned.


John Gillanders Turriff: What did the Labour
Department cost in 1915-16?


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I cannot give the
figures exactly but I know there was not an increase of 30 per cent.


John Gillanders Turriff: 
Thomas Wilson Crothers: I am satisfied the
figures given for my department are not correct.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend will be
able to give the correct figures. When my hon. friend tries to make out that this Government is practising economy, it is only economical as compared with the extravagant expenditures of the year or two before the war, not with what was being expended a few years back.


Arthur Meighen: Why do you not take
the expenditures for this last year instead of two years ago?	.


John Gillanders Turriff: I took the last expenditures that were available when these figures were made.


Arthur Meighen: Oh no. -


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend from
St. Antoine, Montreal, (Sir Herbert Ames) spoke of how much more the Government was going to tax the wealthy, the manufacturers, under the new arrangement as announced by the Minister of Finance.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: If my hon. friend will turn to page 77 of the Public Accounts, he

*will find that the expenditures for the Labour Department for 1910-11 were $93,000, not $63,000 as he gave.


John Gillanders Turriff: 
Arthur Meighen: No, you are guessing.


John Gillanders Turriff: It was so stated in the papers and never contradicted.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: I never made that
statement in my life.


John Gillanders Turriff: Did not Mr. Baily of
Hamilton hand anything over to the Government?


Arthur Meighen: I believe he did to the Munitions Board.


John Gillanders Turriff: He offered this Government to hand over his factory to your Board, and the second year he handed . over the profits, $775,000, and it was divided up, as was stated, between the British Patriotic Fund and some of the Canadian patriotic funds.


Herbert Brown Ames: We did not get any of it.


John Gillanders Turriff: The Government fixes
the price and enables their friends the manufacturers to charge almost any profit they like. And then we have my hon. friend from Montreal coming forward and stating that this is an economical Government.
I rose foT the purpose of moving an amendment and on that amendment I wish to say a few words. The amendment I propose to move at the conclusion of my remarks is as follows:
That all the words after the word "That" be struck out and the following' substituted therefor:
This House desires to take the earliest opportunity of expressing its pleasure that the Government has at last yielded to the persistent demands of the Grain Growers of the West as frequently set forth by delegations and resolutions of the representatives of the farming interest, and repeatedly voiced by the Liberal party in this House, by placing wheat, wheat flour and1 semolina on the free list, and thereby securing a free market, for wheat and wheat products in the United States.
This House is of the opinion that if the policy of Free Wheat is made permanent it will enormously increase the prosperity of the West and be to the general advantage of the whole Dominion.
In order that the country may be assured of such permanency and that the action of the Administration is not a mere temporary expedient which may be revoked at any time by the Government without reference to Parliament, this House would urge upon the Government the desirability of submitting early in the present session a measure to place by statute wheat, wheat flour and' semolina on the free* list, and thereby encourage the farmers to engage in the largest wheat production possible.
We have heard a good deal in this House during the past few years about free wheat, and the Government have at last been forced to listen to their friends in the West and in the East and to put wheat, wheat flour and wheat products on the free list. What has induced the Government to do

this? Not the welfare of the farmer;' not the welfare of anybody in this Dominion; absolutely nothing but the partisan purpose of helping themselves out in the face of a coming election.


Arthur Meighen: What coming election?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend confessed that there were to. be two, one in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan.


Arthur Meighen: Not on free wheat,
surely.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend the Solicitor General made a trip out West.


George Perry Graham: Free wheat" was one of the prisoners that my hon friend let free.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend went
West to ostensibly look into the question of penitentiaries, and while he was there he was told emphatically by his own friends that unless wheat were placed on the free list his candidates would have very little chance of returning to this House. My hon. friend, by one of his little adroit movements, has now practically got rid of the leading member of the Government from the West and is able to take his place. He does not want to come back from the West without some following there, so he sends out s.o.s. calls for help to his friend, the Minister of Finance, and they prepare this Order in Council to give free wheat to the farmers. I may say to my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, that of all the members on that side of the House I think he is the best.


George Perry Graham: That is a doubtful compliment,


John Gillanders Turriff: I do npt know that that is saying very much, but under the circumstances imy hon. friend the minister has not done too -badly, and I congratulate him for putting wheat on the free list. It will be a help; it is a good thing for the West. I told my hon. friends many times in this House that free wheat had to c.ome; that it was a question that would not down. It has not been downed; it h-as downed the Minister of Finance and the whole Government and they have had to put wheat on the free list. They are entitled to all the credit they can get out ,of it, which will not be very much. There is not a man in the West who does not know that this move on the part of the Government is simply a death-bed repentance; it is just a little better than dying in sin. My hon. friends
think it may help them to get out of purgatory; it may, but I doubt it. Well, we will give hon. gentlemen the credit of having done this, but I wish to point out to them that since 1911 there has not been one year in which free wheat would not have been worth more to the farmers than it is worth this year. I wish tp point out to the Minister of Finance that the statements he makes in the Order in -Council relating to free wheat are not correct. My hon. friend got his information, he says, from the Grain -Commission. Who is the head of the Grain Commission? A police court partisan lawyer from Montreal, recently appointed, who knows no more -about the wheat question than the man in the moon.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who is he?


John Gillanders Turriff: A man by the name of TS.oyd, I think. At all events, he -spent his life in Montreal studying and practising 1-aw. I assume that the only thing that recommended him to the Minister of Finance -and his understudy the Solicitor General was the fact that he was president of a Conservative Association.


Arthur Meighen: Where?


John Gillanders Turriff: Near West-mount. It
appears that he has qualifications that my hon. friend the Solicitor General was not aware of, so he is that much better. This is the kind of person who gives my hon. friend the Minister of Finance information about this wheat question. I quote from the Order in Council:
And whereas in normal times there exists a good commercial export demand for milling purposes from Great Britain and the continent for wheat of all grades;
And whereas this demand has for some time past almost entirely ceased on account of shortage of ocean shipping- due to submarine warfare, practically all available tonnage -being required to transport grain of the higher grad-es and flour made therefrom, purchased in Canada and the United States by the British and Allied Governments for their respective needs.
According to that, my hon. friend the Minister of Finance would want this House and the country to believe that there was not a good demand for low-grade wheat.


William Thomas White: In Canada.


John Gillanders Turriff: There was demand
in Canada, but the difficulties of shipping to the United States when there was a duty enabled the Canadian buyer to crowd the price down unreasonably. While this year there was a greater difference in the respective values of low-grade wheat

on the Canadian and American sides of the line, so little wheat was selling in those parts of the province where the quality was low-grade that it did not amount to much in the total. My constituency runs 110 miles along the American boundary; it is practically a wheat field 66 by 110 miles, one of the biggest wheat-producing constituencies in the West. In that constituency not 10 per cent of the wheat paid the cost of cutting last year. We were hit worse than any other part of the country. The wheat was of a poor quality, but dozens of my constituents drove their wheat across the boundary line and got from 25 to 50 cents a bushel more for it than they could get at home. If this Government wanted to benefit the farmers why did they not put wheat on the free list last fall? Why did they wait until the great bulk of it had passed into the hands of the speculator? To-day it is estimated that only 21 per cent of the wheat of the West is in the hands of the farmer, 79 per cent, less wheat has been sold, being in the hands of the iniller-and speculators. Although the elevators are filled with the wheat bought for the millers at $1.20 to $1.40 a bushel, they are compelling the bakers to charge the poor people of Canada the price of bread not on $1.40 wheat but on $2.40 wheat. That is the way in which the Government have handled this free wheat question. They have played right into the hands of the speculators from the first to the last. The measure is a good one, brought down at any time, even at the eleventh hour, but if my hon. friends opposite had had the interest of the farmers at heart, they would have given the farmers free wheat last fall. They knew last fall that the crop in the eastern part of Saskatchewan was ruined; they did not have to wait until the month of April to find that out. Just imagine how the farmers were dealt with on this low grade wheat. Let me cite an instance. When I was in the West two or three weeks ago, I was speaking to a man and this is what he told me: "I drew a load of wheat into Carnduff and tlie elevator man offered me ninety cents a bushel." I said, "all right, I am satisfied with that price, but this wheat was grown on flax ground where flax had been grown the year before; there is a lot of flax in it and flax is worth $2.30 a bushel; you should allow me something for the flax.' The elevator man said, 'I have no means of separating the flax from the wheat, but instead of docking you six pounds for the dirt in the wheat, I will dock you only two pounds." Just then a neighbour of his 
came in and said to him, "my friend, you are very foolish to sell wheat for ninety cents a bushel; take it down to Sherwood and you will get a much better price." Sherwood is in North Dakota just two miles south of the boundary line and south of Carnduff. The man replied, "it is only a poor grade of wheat which would ordinarily sell as feed wheat." His friend said, "I do not care what it is, you take it down there and you will get a much better price for it." He, however, sold his wheat at ninety cents a bushel and the next day he loaded up a similar load of wheat and took it down to Sherwood. The elevator man there separated out the flax and paid him $23.50 for the flax that was in it, viz., one bushel out of seven. Then he paid him not ninety cents, but $1.58 a bushel for the wheat, out of which the farmer had to pay ten cents a bushel duty. Then he paid him 25 cents a bushel for the screenings that were screened from the wheat, so that the farmer got in Sherwood double the price that he received in Carrrduff for the same kind of wheat. That is the way in which the farmers have been dealt with on this poor crop and the Government wait until they have practically sold it all before bringing free wheat into force.
It is not necessary to draw the wheat to the American buyers across the line. Another constituent of mine living at Mary-field, in township eleven, sixty odd miles from the boundary line, shipped a carload of this wheat down to Minneapolis. It was only feed wheat that went forty-six pounds to the bushel and the price at Fort William for the wheat was 98 cents on the day that he sold it in Minneapolis for $1,70J. The man's name was Adolf Olsen of Maryfield, Saskatchewan. Out of the price he received he had to pay ten cents duty and three cents difference in freight, or thirteen cents altogether'. That wto-uld give him 1.57$, whereas he could have got only 98 cents at Fort William.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Is there a grain grower's
elevator at Carnduff?
Mr. TURRIFF * There are three or four elevators there and it is quite possible there is one belonging to the Grain Growers' Association, hut- I do not know.


Arthur Meighen: They could sel>
it to
the Grain Growers' by shipping it to Fort William.


John Gillanders Turriff: There is a farmers' elevator owned by the farmers in that part

of my constituency. They have a farmers' elevator down at Shorwotu, because during the last number of years millions of bushels have been drawn by wagons across the line.


Arthur Meighen: Why do the Grain
Growers' Grain Company not pay a fair price for the wheat?	-


John Gillanders Turriff: I refer my hon. friend to the Grain Growers' Grain Company.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend is a
shareholder.


John Gillanders Turriff: I might be a shareholder if I wanted to be one, but I do not happen to be a grain grower and I never was a shareholder in that company.


Arthur Meighen: You repudiate their methods of buying?


John Gillanders Turriff: I do not.


William Pugsley: The hon. member is simply stating facts.


John Gillanders Turriff: As my hon. friend knows, to the cost of his party, the grain growers have done a great work all through that country in the education of the people, and they have done it in my hon. friend's own constituency, and nobody knows that better than does my hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: They pay fair prices in my constituency and I have no criticism to make, but if they do not pay fair prices in my hon. friend's constituency, why does he not go after them?


John Gillanders Turriff: If my hon. friend thinks that the Grain Growers' Company are not doing their duty, is it the duty of the Opposition or the duty of the Government to interfere?


Arthur Meighen: They are doing their duty in my county all right. If they are not doing it in yours, why do you not complain? It is a delicate point.


John Gillanders Turriff: It is not a delicate question at all. I am just showing what this Government did during this season of poor wheat in that part of the country. This does not apply all over Saskatchewan, nor in Alberta, where they had a good season, but in the southern and eastern part of Saskatchewan and in the southern part of Manitoba the crop was very poor, and if the Government had wished to help out the farmers the time to do it was last fall, before the crops were sold, and not this spring, when 79 per cent of the fall wheat of the country had gone out of the farmers' hands.


Arthur Meighen: In the figures which the hon. memiber gave us he showed a difference across the border of 59 cents per bushel. He will admit the best the Government could have done would have been to modify the difference by ten cents, whereas the Grain Growers' Grain Company could have modified it by 49 cents. They must be robbing the farmers to the extent of 49 cents a bushel if his statement be true. How does my hon. friend explain that?


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend always tries to get away from the fact that the Government is responsible. Had my hon. friend taken off that duty last fall instead of this spring buyers from the United States would have come across and bought that wheat. The fact of having to put the wheat through the customs makes it difficult for the farmers. I do not want to be understood as saying that generally speaking there is any such difference as I have stated, but there has never been a year when there would not have been more aggregate profit to the farmers of the West, and the statement that there was not a demand for the low' grade wheat is not correct, because you could sell your low grade in Canada at any time. The low grade wheat is not ground by itself, nor is high grade wheat ground by itself. They are always mixed in the grinding to a greater or dess extent, and this low grade wheat is being bought by the millers in order to mix it with good wheat. Therefore, the Government have taken advantage of the farmers to the extent that they have waited until the wheat was out of the farmers' hands before giving them the relief that they might have given 'them last fall.
The Minister of Finance took credit for the great balance of trade in our favour. According to him, if the Germans had sunk 100 more ships laden with Canadien imports, our balance of trade would have made a still better showing. That was a point hardly worthy of my hon. friend. I am glad to see the minister is getting over the great fear he had five years ago that if we allowed the Canadian farmer to sell his wheat in the United States, the British Empire would totter in ruins, and Canadians become disloyal. That was the statement made by one of the celebrated eighteen Liberals who went back on us in 1911. Sir Edmund Walker said that if the Canadian farmer was allowed to sell his produce in the United States he would become a disloyal Canadian, and it would end in the annexation of Canada to the United States.



The Minister of Finance was one of those eighteen, and I am delighted to see that he has got over the nightmare he had then, and has now no fears of the Canadian farmer becoming disloyal if he sells his wheat in the United States. What has brought about the change in my hon. friend's views? Economics has nothing to do with the change. What did the Solicitor General say on this question last year? Closing the debate on the resolution I had moved in favour of free wheat he said (Hansard, 1916, p. 1068):	*
I have always believed, and never more than now, that at least ninety per cent ot this free wheat issue is purely political, while, for the other ten per cent it is economically unsound.


William Pugsley: Was there a war on then?


John Gillanders Turriff: Yes, the war was on.


Arthur Meighen: It is ninety-five per
cent political now.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend says that ninety-five per cent of the agitation is political. For once in his life he has told the absolute truth, because I am sure that ninety-five per cent of the reasons that actuated him in putting wheat on the free list were purely political. His object was to save the party. Will my hon. friend, who said last year that ninety per cent of the agitation for free wheat was purely political and the other ten per cent mistaken economics, tell us what has made him change his mind? Why has he insisted on the Minister of Finance putting wheat on the free list? Will my hon. friend give us his reasons now?


Arthur Meighen: I said that the attitude of my hon. friend would indicate that ninety-five per cent of his talk was purely political.


John Gillanders Turriff: I say that ninety-five per cent of the motives that actuated my hon. friend in getting wheat put on the free list were purely partisan. His object was to save himself and the Government.


Arthur Meighen: What is actuating your indignation at the present time?


John Gillanders Turriff: I am trying to tell the House and the country that we are pleased to have wheat put on the free list, but the Government made a great mistake, in the interests of the farmers, in not taking this action last fall. If the Solicitor General will put wheat on the free list now, when he still believes that ninety per cent of the

agitation for it is purely political, why would he not do it last fall? What has the Minister of Finance to say? I could read pages of reasons that he gave why wheat should not be put on the free list. What has made my hon. friend change his mind?


William Thomas White: Read the Order in Council.


John Gillanders Turriff: I have it here, and the statements it makes are not true. I do not say the Minister of Finance did not believe these statements; I think he did. I do not think he would put a statement in an Order in Council that he did not believe to be absolutely true; I have that much faith in him. But the statements made in the Order in Council are certainly not correct, and nobody knows it better than my hon. friend the Solicitor General, who went on a trip all through the West, with his ear to the ground, and from every direction the cry came, "Either free wheat, or no Conservatives go to Ottawa at the next election." So at the eleventh hour my hon. friend calls on the Minister of Finance to put wheat on the free list. It was a case of death-bed repentance. However, they are entitled to all the credit they can get out of it, and they will get some credit for it in the West; they will get some votes that otherwise would have gone against them.


Mr. SCHAFFNER:: That is what hurts.


John Gillanders Turriff: It dojs not hurt me half so bad as my hon. friend will get hurt if he appeals to his constituents again.


Frederick Laurence Schaffner: Are you sorry that wheat was placed on the free list? What are you mad about?


John Gillanders Turriff: I am not mad about it. We are pleased to have it on the free list, and my hon. friends are entitled to all the credit they can get out of it. But now the 'Government have left it in such a position that not even an Order in Council is necessary; for as soon as the war ceases, unless the Order in Council is amended or wheat is placed on the free list in the ordinary way which should have been followed, wheat will be no longer free. As it stands to-day this accomplishes exactly the purposes hon. gentlemen opposite have in view -to enable their candidates in the West to declare that this means free wheat for all time, and the candidates in Ontario and in the East generally to do as they have been doing, to tell their electors that this is only a war measure and that as soon as the war is over things will be as they

were before. It is the same old story- playing the double game, one policy for the West and another policy for the East. Now, my resolution only asks these hon. gentlemen to make it clear that they have done that which they say it was their intention to do-to put wheat permanently on the free list. The cry pi the Government is for more production. But how can they expect the farmers to go into heavy expenditure for increased production with the prospect before them that the moment the war ceases they will lose the American market?


Arthur Meighen: That is not correct.


John Gillanders Turriff: Will the hon. gentleman make it clear.


Arthur Meighen: It is clear.


John Gillanders Turriff: The hon. gentleman will excuse me, but it is not clear. I have taken the advice of lawyers who have looked into this question, and they tell me that not only is it not clear that the effect is what hon. gentlemen opposite say it is, but on the contrary it is clear that the moment war is over wheat will no longer be ,on the free list.
The Minister of Finance took great credit to himself for raising $12,500,000 of revenue from the wealth of Canada. He said Canada was not a wealthy country, that the wealth was not where it could be reached by an income tax. But the hon. member for Montreal, St. Antoine, spent five minutes in telling us how wealthy Canada was in that it could absorb hundreds of millions of the war debt. Does not that prove that the wealth of Canada is a good field for taxation? Wealth yielded $12,500,000 in taxes last year, but I venture tp say that the Workingmen of Canada paid $25,000,000 within the same time. The Minister of Finance proposes to tax wealth more heavily. That is a move in the right direction. Why should not the incomes of very wealthy men be very heavily taxed? We have men in Ottawa with incomes of $200,000 and $250,000 a year, and they are not asked to pay a cfollar on those incomes, while the poor man with half a dozen children, who finds it hard to furnish his table with proper and sufficient food, is taxed at every turn.
The Minister of Finance stated this afternoon that there was some correspondence on this subject of free wheat between the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) and himself. May I ask if he will bring down that correspondence?
48 i


William Thomas White: The hon. gentleman. knows I could not do that without violating my oath of office. The correspondence from the Prime Minister, of course, is confidential,


William Pugsley: I am surprised at that ' statement from the Minister of Finance. Surely, on reflection, he will agree that correspondence between one minister and another is not necessarily confidential. Before the recess an ex-minister laid before the House correspondence that had passed between himself and the Prime Minister while they were both members of the Government.


William Thomas White: That may be entirely in the discretion of the minister. I regard any correspondence between myself and the Prime Minister as being of the same character as discussion at the Council Board. Apart from the question I have raised as to a minister's oath of office, there is no doubt that the correspondence to which reference has been made was in fact confidential and could not be brought down,


William Pugsley: That puts it on another ground.


William Thomas White: It puts it on both ' grounds.


John Gillanders Turriff: My hon. friend (Sir Thomas White) cannot blame me ot im-impute to me any wrong motives, I am sure, because he himself mentioned this correspondence. Now may I ask whether before passing this Order in Council the Government had any correspondence with the Government of the United States to know whether that Government would accept an Order in Council putting wheat on the free list as they would accept an amendment of the Customs Act for the same purpose? And will the minister please say if the United States was notified when this action was taken?


William Thomas White: We had no communication whatever with the Government of the United States before taking this action. Immediately after the action had been taken, and after the close of the exchanges for the day, I notified the press, and at the same time I wrote a letter to the Consul-General of the United States in Ottawa, Colonel Foster, enclosing a copy of the Order in Council, and Colonel Foster immediately despatched it to Washington, and, I understand, also telegraphed it.


John Gillanders Turriff: And, of course, the Government have not had any further word from the United States as to whether they will accept that as satisfactory or not. Now, in conclusion, I move the resolution which I have already read. I hope the Government will see its way clear to carry out the idea expressed in this amendment, in order to satisfy the farmers throughout Canada that it is the intention of the Government that wheat shall remain on the free list and shall not he subject to an Order in Council or to automatic reversion to the dutiable list on the ending of the war. If this is done, the farmer will have some inducement to put in larger crops. Not this year, for nothing that this House can do now will effect the size of the crop of the present year. But the season from the latter part of May to the middle of July is the time when, in the West, new ground is broken for wheat for the following year. If it is made clear that wheat is on the free list permanently, you will have a largely increased acreage broken during the present spring and summer and a largely increased acreage sown to wheat during the next year which will be a benefit not only to Canada but to Great Britain, the Allies and the whole world. It was stated here today that there was a possibility of there being a food famine in the world on account of this terrible war and if anything can be done to increase production it ought to be done. There is nothing that can be done that will have as good an effect in increasing production as having it made absolutely clear to the farmers that wheat is on the free list permanently and that it is not to be taken off either by Order in Council, or automatically, as soon as the war ceases.
On motion of Mr. Meighen the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Sir 'Thomas White the House adjourned at 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday, April 25, 1917.