1919-06-02

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Report on Export of Electricity from Canada, and Report of the Power Controller; Statistics of the .Food and Drug Laboratories of the Department of Trade and Commerce for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1919; Final Report of the Fuel Controller, March 31,	1919.-Hon. A. K.
Maclean.
Copy of Order in Council of 29th May, 1919, approving of the general scheme of housing of the province of Quebec.-Hon. Newton W. Rowell.

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On the motion of Mr. Michael Steele, the second report of the Special Committee appointed to consider the possibility of reducing or re-arranging the staffs of the Inside Civil Service with a view of securing greater efficiency with the minimum number of employees, was concurred in.

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Rt. Hon. Sir ROBERT BORDEN (Prime Minister) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 130, to amend the Act to incorporate the Canadian Red Cross Society. He said: The purpose of the Bill is merely to give the society the power in time of peace to carry on and assist in work for the improvement of health, the prevention

of disease, and the mitigation of suffering, throughout the world. There was a convention of the various Red Cross societies in Geneva during the past winter, when this purpose was declared to be a desirable one, and also, as I recall, a clause has been introduced into the Peace Treaty which commends the purpose that is to be given effect to by this Bill.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.


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Bill No. 127, respecting the Grand River Railway Company.-Mr. Euler.
Bill No. 128, respecting the Ottawa, Northern and Western Railway Company.-Mr. Devlin.
Bill No. 129, for the relief of Stanley Gordon Eversfield.-Mr. Douglas (Strath-cona).


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Mr. M. R. BLAKE (North Winnipeg) moved the adjournment of the House, under rule 39, for the purpose of discussing a matter of urgent public importance, viz.: the strikes in Winnipeg, and other Canadian cities, together with all the circumstances, conditions, and causes, near and remote, having any bearing or connection therewith.
Motion agreed to.
Mr. BLAKE:: I have moved this motion, Mr. Speaker, because of the great industrial unrest which exists in this country to-day. I am somewhat surprised at the great anxiety of the Opposition to precipitate this debate to-day, instead of waiting until Wednesday, as I had planned. Of course, we must appreciate their kindly interest in the strikes in Winnipeg and elsewhere, but I wish to recall the fact that last year, when a much more serious condition, riot and bloodshed existed in Quebec City, not one of the members now so insistent, rose to support the motion of the hon. member from Simcoe to discuss those serious disturbances which existed at that time. I hope, Mr. Speaker, this discussion will be of a moderate nature and in character entirely constructive, which will have a tendency to allay the prevailing unrest and be of some assistance to the Government in its efforts to formulate a policy which will effectively deal with

the situation. II hope the tariff is not unduly blamed for all the high cost of living and unrest, as I am informed that barring probably New Zealand, the cost of living is lower in Canada than it is in any other country in the world. Mackenzie King in his booklet " The Four Parties to Industry," starts out by saying the truth must be arrived at, and the truth shall set us free from fear of the future and shall aid in the enforcement of that social justice which the truth demands.
Canada stands to win more out of this war than any other nation of the world, provided we are fully united in taking the full measure of the opportunities afforded. The eyes of the world are upon Canada. Her sons have done as good fighting, and I think I might safely say the best fighting in this Great War, that has been done on any of the 37 different battle fronts. Industries must needs flock here to a country whose natural resources are so great and opportunities almost unlimited. Canada is confronted with the opportunity of developing more in the next ten years than probably she has in the last fifty years. But, that development cannot be expected to take place unless we have industrial peace.
When we see a patient we must first make a diagnosis and then proceed with the treatment. At the very .bottom of this unrest lies misunderstanding and distrust and jealousy. If we define industry as King does in his little book-and I would commend its perusal to hon. members-we get this definition:
Industry is the means by which the material resources of the world are transformed, through human intelligence and human energy, with the aid of natural powers, tools, and machines, into commodities and services available for human use. It is a vast process of transformation, itself a series of transforming- processes so inter-rclated and numerous as to unite mankind, in this age of world-wide industrial expansion, in an enterprise that encompasses the globe.
The four parties to industry he defines as labour, capital, management and the community. We have heretofore been inclined to regard labour and capital as the two factors of industry, leaving out both management and the community. This is King's definition of the community:
It is the community which provides the natural resources and powers that underlie all production. Individuals may acquire title by one means or another, hut it is from the community, and with the consent of the community, that titles are held. It is the community, organized in various ways, which maintains government and foreign relations, secures law and
order, fosters the arts and inventions, aids education, breeds opinion, and promotes, through concession or otherwise, the agencies of transportation, communication, credit, banking, and the like, without which any production, save the most primitive, would be impossible. It is the community which creates the demand for commodities and services, through which labour is provided with remunerative employment, and capital with a return upon its investment. Apart from the community, inventive genius, organizing capacity, managerial or other ability would be of little value. Turn where one may, it is the community that makes possible all the activities of industry, and helps to determine their value and scope.
Labour must fully appreciate its responsibility to capital and the State, -and capital must as fully appreciate its responsibility to labour and the State. The tired feeling is abroad in this land. Nobody seems to want to work. In many industries, I am told, only 40. per cent to 60 per cent of efficiency is produced. This is not fully appreciating the responsibility to capital and the State.
The aim and object of many of the workingmen to-day seems to be to get the most possible money for the least possible expenditure of energy. The tramp says the world owes him a living, and he is going to get it. I hope we are not coming as a nation to the same status as the tramp.
One may well wonder that capital takes no more interest in labour than it is now doing. For nearly 100 years workmen and employers have been organizing, and as yet we do not find a full understanding between the four parties interested in industry. We seem to be much in need of reconstruction in our industrial life. 'Some people have defined reconstruction as restoration; others demolition and reconstruction from the ground up. Between these extremes stands a majority which interprets readjustment as restoration, with more oi less modification, the degree of modification varying considerably, hut' the structure of pre-war days being in its essentials retained.
I have seen both capital and labour abuse their privileges. I had an opportunity of spending two winters in the lumber camp" of Northern Ontario. During the first winter 1906-7-lumber was at a premium, prices were good, and labour was in great demand, but the labourers were not producing anything like their maximum. If the foreman said a single word to them of complaint or reprimand they would walk ovei to another camp of the same firm and get work. The next year there was not much demand for lumber, and one firm which had intended operating a large number of



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camps cut them down to three. That winter I saw them bring down labourers from Winnipeg and charge them 3 cents a mile for the trip, and also charge them high prices for their supplies, and when the company were about even with the boys they gave the latter their time and told them to hit the trail. Men who had walked twenty-five miles to lumber camps were told there was no employment .for them and they might go. Both parties during those winters abused their privileges and did not show any friendly spirit towards one another.
One of the chief ways that a solution of this difficulty and ill feeling that exists between capital and labour, or rather, misunderstanding, can be blotted out, is by each appreciating more fully the interests of the other. Labour cannot go on without capital, nor capital without labour. A process of education must be entered into, and probably, as charity begins at home, we could well spend a few minutes criticising the Postal Department. As I said on the floor of this House there would have been no strike at Winnipeg had the protests of the men been paid more attention to last year by the Deputy Postmaster General. I am provided by some unknown person with a clipping from the Financial Post of Toronto. It starts off on the loose management of the post office and is a tirade-a great deal of which is justified-against the Deputy Postmaster General, who is probably doing better now, but last year he was not fully appreciating his responsibilities towards the employees. Both employers and employees must be educated as to their responsibilities to the State. Garretson, who is head of the railway conductors, says:
An army of unemployed is being created that must in the last analysis be reckoned with and unless a remedy is found whereby incentive may be restored and recompense made apparent, society itself must pay the forfeit.
Lord Brassey in his book on Work and Wages refers to certain railway labourers whose wages were raised from 2 shillings to 2 shillings and 6 pence and then to 3 shillings a day, and he states that they produced work more cheaply at the higher wages than at the lower. The same thing occurred on the Metropolitan drainage system, London, while in India when the wages were increased, the employees lay down bn the job and would only work enough to give them a living. Some courts must be established to deal with their difficulties.

The Whitley plan in England has been productive of allaying much of the unrest in that country. One of its aims was to make and consider suggestions for securing a permanent improvement in the relations between employers and workmen, to recommend means for securing that industrial conditions affecting relations between employers and workmen shall be systematically adjusted by those concerned with a view of improving conditions in the future. The circumstances ait the present time are admitted on all sides to offer a great opportunity for securing a permanent improvement in the relations between employers and employees, while failure to utilize the opportunity may involve ithe nation in grave and great industrial difficulties. This should be a move in the right direction to improve the conditions of 'the working people
Heretofore, as after the South African War, and during the industrial depression say of 1907-1908, people were left to hustle for themselves and make the best of the conditions which existed at that time.
The community seems to be now more alive to its responsibilities, and more care is being taken to alleviate the suffering that is bound to follow after this great crisis. The Whitley report suggests a triple organization starting in the workshops and extending into the districts and the nation. The object is to secure co-operation bv granting to working people a greater share in the consideration of matters affecting the industry in which they work. This can be achieved only by keeping employers and working people in constant touch. The report aims to deal with the better utilization of the practical knowledge and experience of the work people, and to establish methods of negotiating issues arising between employers and working people, with a view both to the provisions to discuss them and to the better adjustment of them when they appear. It also aims to deal with industrial research; utilization of inventions; improvements of processes; proposed legislation affecting the industries, but above all-the fullest measure of cooperation between employers and employees. The report is very pronounced on this last, it being mentioned three or four times. It is very insistent in bringing forward the fullest measure of co-operation and in stimulating such between employer and employee. The councils in their work ol promoting the interests of their own industries will have regard for the national interest. This is a point that should not

be overlooked in even the smallest industry in the country.
There should be adequate organization on the part of both employer's and work people. We hope that representative men in each industry, with pride in their calling and care for its place as a contributor to the national well-being, will come together in the manner here suggested and apply themselves to promoting industrial harmony and in removing the obstacles that have hitherto stood in the way. It is contemplated that agreements reached should carry with them the same application of observances as exists in the case of other agreements between employers' associations and trade unions. That point should be carefully studied. We have fought in this war for what was termed by the Germans as a scrap of paper. We have in Winnipeg an instance where civic employees had gone out on strike, as the Minister of Labour said, almost before the ink on the agreement was dry. Agreements should be binding and that proposition cannot be too emphatically laid down. There will never be a court whose decisions will please every one; yet there must be some tribunal to settle disputes, whose decisions when rendered are final. In this age and generation it should not be found necessary to strike in order to settle disputes. It has always amused me to see people strike, and then arrive at a settlement and go back to work. Probably neither side is completely satisfied. Some tribunal such as a district council or the men's own union should have settled the matter if both parties had played fair. In every particular, from welfare to wages, immediate results will depend upon the temper and degree of enlightenment of employers and employees. The old saying of employers during a depression, when many men lined up at their offices day after day seeking employment-it is our turn now-should be a thing of the past. The majority of employers, in my opinion, have a new outlook and a greater willingness to concede the existence of a viewpoint other than their own and not to regard theiT business an autocracy and themselves the rulers.
In New Zealand a Board of Trade has been appointed by the Government to investigate and report on conditions, trade prices, cost of living, etc., in that Dominion, and to enforce the Commercial Trusts Act of 1910. If I am correctly informed, this board had a dispute with some merchants; it took over two of the stores and ran them for one year losing one-fifth oi
a cent per pound on the meat, It was however, able to stabilize prices and arrive at a new basis on which the men could carry along. In dealing with the problem of the cost of living, the Board reported that the fixing of prioes was a remedy that could be applied only with the greatest of care, as the supply might greatly diminish, it not cease entirely, so that prices should not be fixed except in the case of commodities of which the whole supply could be controlled from the field of production to the final consumer, the intermediary changes being limited to fair remuneration for services rendered. By such means little could be done to keep down the prices of products imported from abroad. It also recommended that steps should be taken to control the manufacture and sale oi goods that might be considered as luxuries as valuable labour was expended on these which should be diverted to the production of essential commodities. In New York State a personnel of Managers' Club has been established whose objects are the methods of promoting good relations and industrial peace. They seem to be standing with reluctant feet at a point of departure from familiar paths-their faces turned in the right direction, but themselves not ready to go 'Confidently forward.
It is a seriously debatable question how long any amount of amelioration in industrial relations with structural changes in the social edifice will suffice to keep the working people or population in a state of reasonable contentment. In Canada we have a Boyal Commission investigating industrial conditions and the other day a committee was appointed to inquire into prices. When their reports are brought down, I have no doubt they will form a basis on which 'the Government may take action.
War has been a ferment, a tremendous power the action of which cannot yet be fully determined. Victorious people have always been a complacent people, but this war seems to have furnished a variation. People are thinking differently. It is estimated in the States there are 800,000 revolutionary union workers. The world is living in fear of a thing called Bolshevism. Force will not destroy it, no ring of armed men can stay the fusion of its subtle poison, where injustice makes misery and misery makes desperation. Employers must prove their case and their intentions to the working people and to the community. WTe must have justice. The text of justice must rest in its inclusiveness, it must be just to all men. Brain and brawn should each receive the full value of work done. Decent
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subsistence means 'food, shelter, clothing and opportunities for recreation-nothing extravagant, nothing luxurious, nothing lacking.
It is the belief that the employer benefits disproportionately by increased production that causes conflict. I have heard it said that men in the shop say: What do we care whether we produce more? It does not do any benefit to us because we get our pay just the same. All work is not equal in value, and the rewards should not be equal. Justice must take this course by orderly procedure with the utmost rapidity possible.
During the war we considered that cooperation between employers and employees was a national duty and privilege. The war was but a transient affair, and this feeling of national duty and privilege shouiu be me more applied in times of peace. The National Association of Employers in the United States lays down fair dealing as a fundamental and basic principle on which relations between employers and employees should rest. Misunderstandings must be eradicated. The Golden Rule may be hard to apply in business, but it should not be impossible of application. It is quite different from the old saying " Business is business," and that justifies everything that strays from the Golden Rule. The trouble to-day with labour is that it is being misled in the West. The revolutionary and socialistic elements seem to be in the control. In Winnipeg, I am told, that only 8,000 voted for the general strike, which has recently taken place. Many men join the unions to make life more pleasant for themselves in their shop and then pay little attention to the elections and the choice of leaders.
I have here a copy of the Western Labour News, Special Strike Edition No. 5, printed on May 22, which gives a list of 58 unions that are on strike. It says that the partial vote as reported Wednesday morning showed only 8,000 in favour of the general strike and 600 against it. I will lay this paper on the table of the House so that hon. members may see that these contentions are taken from Labour's own paper. Men who are earning $70 per month in wages are out oh strike in Winnipeg for men earning $160 and $170. The fact that only 8,000 voted for the general strike, while 35,000 are out on strike, backs up my contention that the labourers are not taking a proper interest in their unions and in the election of their leaders.
The heart of Labour is all right, but many of the leaders are all wrong. The Minister

of Labour says he has no doubt that while the strike in Winnipeg arose over a definition of collective bargaining, it was at heart really an attempt at revolution and the establishment of a Soviet government. To use the words of the Winnipeg Citizen "it was not a strike, but plain, ugly revolution". To back up that point I lay on the table of the House the Winnipeg Citizen, which quotes as follows from the Western Labour News of April 25:
The Russian Soviet System.
Was worked out from the blue print from which this reproduction (the diagram) was made. The western Labour News has, it is believed, the only copy on the American continent. It will pay you to vote for the "One Big Union."
This quotation from the official organ of the Labour party at Winnipeg shows that the Minister of Labour w-as quite right when he said that this was not a strike but a plain, ugly revolution. Many of the leaders in Winnipeg have openly during the past year declared that they would soon take over the industries and run them themselves. On the second day of the strike, one of (the leaders was reported to have proclaimed that Winnipeg was controlled by the Soviet. One alderman is reported to have said to the Mayor in the Council Chamber, " What are you giving us? We can run the city, we're running it now." The labour leaders in Winnipeg are telling the men that if this strike is lost the trade unions' cause will receive a terrible setback, which it will not recover from foi many years. They have fears that the capitalistic cause will seize the opportunity of exploiting labour in its weakened condition. Government assurances that legitimate trade unions will not suffer would do much to allay the fears. If we found ourselves individually in the same position that this country is in, what would each and every one of us proceed to do? Work the very hardest we were able to do, cut out extravagances and save. Now, the people as a nation must do the same as individuals would do in the same crisis. What made France a great nation and enabled her to pay all her indemnity to Germany so rapidly after 1870? The whole nation worked and saved. In France during the earlier stages of the war it was found that the men from the Sunny South were not equal in energy and staying powers to the men of the North. To have to buck nature produces a hardy and virile Tace. Canadians occupying the northern half of this continent have a rigid climate to en-

dure which has undoubtedly produced a virile race which should be second to none in industrial activity.
We come now to another class of the community which has not received very much attention, and which is suffering perhaps more than any other class; I refer to the salaried men, the "silent sufferers'* as they have been called. Although the figures show that the cost of living has doubled, the salaries of this class have probably ndt been raised in proportion to the increases granted to the working men. To solve the difficulty, we must first control the spread between .the manufacturer and the consumer. The manufacturer has been blamed almost altogether by the public for the high cost of living, but I think I am safe in saying that the middle man is more to blame than any other. I recall one instance where an article sold wholesale at S3 a box, at a profit of 30 cents, when retailed was sold for nearly three times that price.
Sedition must be stamped out. It is all very well to talk of free speech, but to talk of Bolshevism and riots and overthrowing the Government is a different thing, and I think the Sedition Act might well have been amended four years ago instead of now; but better late than never. Radical Socialist leaders must be interned or deported. As I have already said, the heart of labour is all right, but many of labour's leaders are all wrong. Free speech must be allowed where it deals with plain justice. Leaders who speak of Bolshevism or revolt must be taken in hand. In a full house at the Walker theatre at Winnipeg a few months ago, the meeting which was strongly in favour of Bolshevist rule in Russia, passed a resolution approving of the Soviet system in Russia.
Sympathetic strikes must be abandoned. The community have a great deal to say about that, and the community have shown where they stand in regard to the strike at Winnipeg. The outlook in the morning papers is good. Many of the unions are beginning to realize that they have troubles enough of their own without taking on others. The Toronto Street Railway workers have refused to go out on strike, and the same is true of many other unions.
The Government must deal with the situation with a firm hand The Criminal Code should be amended to prevent civic, provincial and federal employees joining in any sympathetic strike. These employees are employed for their service to the community and not for gain. The community
is alive to their interests in industry. They are out for justice. They appreciated their position last year when the civic strike was on at Winnipeg, and they have appreciated it more keenly this year. They are going to be a bigger factor than heretofore to reckon with, both from the standpoint of labour and capital. I hope that they will pursue not only in Winnipeg but in every other large centre an aggressive campaign of education for both capital and labour. They must be reckoned with in any sympathetic strike.
I speak as a neutral. I have not a dollar invested in any industrial enterprise in the country. I work among the poor of Winnipeg. I know their troubles and II have spoken as the truth came to me.
Our men have fought nobly and well, but some of them find it hard to settle down again. They have proved themselves heroes in fighting the battles of the Empire; they are proving themselves greater heroes in fighting the much harder battle of life. The war is a thing of the past, and henceforth they will be judged by the success with which they fight the battle of life. We must not forget, first, our service to our country, our service to our fellow man, and our service to the perpetuation of Canada.
IMr. E. LAPOINTE (Kamouraska):	Mr. Speaker, I think no one on this side of the Mouse feels it necessary to offer apology for any anxiety to discuss this subject to-day. Neither will I answer the rather unkindly remark of my hon. friend at the beginning of his speech with reference to the troubles in Quebec last year-troubles which the Right Hon. the Prime Minister described in England last summer as having been greatly exaggerated by the press both of Canada and of Britain. The good old much-abused, ill-understood, wholly Canadian province of Quebec seems to be remarkably at peace at the present time, and I think 1 might very well confine my remarks to a discussion of the trouble where the trouble exists.
This debate is certainly of the most extreme urgency. We have been criticised for not having already discussed in the House this alarming situation. I was personally of the opinion that the hands of the Government should not be hampered and that full liberty of action ought to be accorded them in order that they might try to effect a speedy settlement, and I also thought that it was better to afford some time to the Right Hon, the Prime Minister to do something with a view to remedying a condition that is largely the result of negligence, mal-
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administration and blunders. But, Sir, the period of blunders does not seem to have ended with the return of the Prime Minister. Indeed, every day brings forth new and terrible mistakes. The troubles are spreading to places and centres which formerly were industrially at peace, and the Government appears to be lamentably impotent and inactive. Wt.- has the Government done so far? After waiting until it was too late, it sent two ministers to "Winnipeg as mediators and for the purpose of reorganizing the mail service. Later on I shall express my opinion of this mission of our two ministers. The Government has also appointed a Parliamentary Commission to investigate the high cost of living. In this connection is it not appropriate to repeat those famous words of a British statesman, uttered two years ago: " Too late ! Again it is too late." Undoubtedly, the cost of living and the war profiteers have a great deal to do with the grave situation with which we are confronted. Consumers cannot readily recognize the fairness of a system or a policy which allows meat trusts, flour trusts, and otheT dealers in the necessaries of life to pile up their dividends and multiply their millions while the prices of bread, bacon, meat and other commodities are soaring into altitudes heretofore unknown. If my hon. friend from Victoria (Sir Sam Hughes) thinks, as he expressed himself in the House the other day, that the Government is owned by 'Sir Joseph Flavelle, is it any wonder that so many people in Canada regard the administration as being directed and controlled by the profiteers? The workingman is told that his wages have greatly increased. But, Sir, wages are purely nominal when their increase is only made to correspond with a larger advance in the prices of articles. It is immaterial whether a man earns fifty cents an hour or two dollars an hour; the significance of his wages depends altogether on what the fifty cents or the two dollars can purchase and thereby make for proper living in his home.
But, Mr. Speaker, whatever may be the finding of the Parliamentary Commission on the high cost of living, whatever light it may throw upon the subject, the important question is: What will be done in the meantime to end the strikes which paralyse the country? What remedy will he resorted to? We cannot afford to wait. As was said on a memorable occasion: We are not confronted with a theory; we are facing a most terrible condition, and it is useless to try to mystify the public by acting a Bolshe-
[Mr .E. Lapointe.]
vist melodrama to cover administrative and governmental negligence. We cannot allow a chaotic policy of laissez-faire while industrial unrest is growing steadily more acute; and the apparent willingness of Parliament to let matters drift from bad to worse will but breed a dangerous intolerance among the wage-earners. We must have industrial peace in this country. Too long have suspicion and distrust prevailed between capital and labour, those two .twin brothers of productive enterprise. Unless capital and labour solve their difficulties by working frankly and whole-heartedly in co-operation. *Canada cannot be equipped for the coming war of commerce, and she cannot be able to devote all her energies and all her work to the expansion and betterment of her trade and national life.
A union between employer and employed is necessary to the welfare of the individual, the family, and the country, and for Canada to-day this is a question of life and death. Formerly the labour man knew only his wants, his desires., and, at times, his sufferings. But he has come to know his power, and realizes that he is an indispensable factor in the production of wealth, and he accordingly claims the right to be treated frankly as a partner, with equal rights and *equal responsibilities. Unfortunately certain employers look upon their employees as cogwheels in the industrial machine, having a market value hut no recognized rights as human beings. It is fortunate that the big nations of the world agreed upon some fundamental principles as to the rights of labour and that such principles are to be embodied in the Peace Treaty. Let me read the first two principles. They are:-
First. The guiding principle above enunciated that labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce.
Second. The right of association for all lawful purposes by the employed as well as by the employers.
When the hon. the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) indicated to the *House those two clauses as being among-the principles to be included in the Peace Treaty, he said that they had been adopted on the motion of the Right Hon. the Prime Minister. I do not know whether he was right in that assertion, because I happened to read in a French newspaper that some other gentleman was the mover of the resolution, and I thought that perhaps it might have been a piece of little propaganda or impropaganda, and that my hon. friend might have received his information from his own information bureau. How-

ever, whether as mover or supporter of the labour resolutions, the hon. the Prime Minister gave his assent to them. This being so, I am at a loss to understand how the principle of collective bargaining can be resisted or objected to if the Government intends to live up to the agreement entered into at the Peace Conference.
The right of association to the employees is worthless and Valueless unless it is accompanied by, and means, "the right to make association or organization effective. It is apparent that the individual labourer is at a great disadvantage when bargaining with the employer. The employer is often a big corporation, a combination of capital. The labourer is poor and to make his living must rely on working in the property of other people. Having no resources to fall back upon, he cannot wait until he can obtain the best bargain from the employer. It is a case of the necessities of the labourer pitted against the resources of the employer. It is only when the labourer bargains collectively that he has bargaining power approximating equality with that of capital. I do not think there is a better definition of collective bargaining than that which is found in the report of the Commission on Industrial Relations in the United States:
This term embodies and implies the right of employees to organize and to exercise those functions which are necessary to make organization effective, to make bargains collectively rather than individually and, most important of all, to have a definite, recognized voice, coequal with that of the employer, in determining the wages, hours and working conditions upon which their safety, health and life are dependent.
If collective bargaining is at all desirable, organized labour must be conceded the right to use the methods through which it can be secured or obtained by agreement. On Tuesday last the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) answered a question asked by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews) as follows, Hansard page 2956:
Now one can easily see that what is called the right of collective bargaining, if interpreted in a certain way and carried to an extreme, length, might have an unfortunate effect so far as the public interest is concerned. More than that, as is suggested in this public statement, it might have the effect of placing labour men and labour unions themselves in such a situation that they could not make their oivn bargains except with the approval of some body that might be situated thousands of miles away. Before the phrase "collective bargaining" is insisted upon, we ought to have, and we must have, an exact definition as to precisely what is intended by it and as to precisely what the results might
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be if that principle, so defined, should be adopted. On that point the Government will probably have suggestions or recommendations in the report of the Industrial Commission, which we hope to receive not later than the fifteenth day of next month. My hon. friend who has asked this question will realize that it would be out of place and, indeed, invidious for the Government to attempt, by way of anticipation, to pronounce upon questions which are properly within the scope of the duty imposed upon that commission.
On the following day I inquired whether some part of (Collective bargaining was favoured by the Government. Still the Prime Minister answered that we would have to await the report of the Industrial Commission. May I say, in the first place, with all due respect to the Prime Minister, that I was astonished at this answer of his. Surely, if he favoured at the Paris Conference, the right of association, which includes the right of collective bargaining, he 4 p.m. knew what that right meant irrespective of any meaning that the Mathers Commission could give to it. There is another consideration. The right hon. gentleman based his comment on a certain statement of Senator Robertson published in the press and reading as follows :
The central strike committee interprets the right of collective bargaining to mean that the central body shall have the power to approve or reject any agreement that may 'be satisfactory to the employer or classes of employers and their employees, which, if granted1, would have the result of enabling any central committee entirely outside the industry or craft affected to dictate the acceptance or rejection of any agreement. Instead of giving to the workmen in any individual plant or industry the right of collective bargaining with their employers, the present plan deprives them of the right and places them entirely in the hands of a central body, which principle, the Citizens' Committee of Winnipeg, Provincial and Federal Government, agree cannot be accepted.
Sir, this statement of Senator Robertson has been challenged by the labour leaders of Winnipeg and it is only fair that I should read their version of the case. I take it from the Montreal Star:
We challenge absolutely this statement ot the Minister of Labour. It is entirely beside the facts of the case. The Postal Federation for instance have never submitted either schedules or agreements to the Trades and Labour Council, nor have the railroads, nor have the (building trades, nor has any organization at any time. The principle at stake at this time is that all workers should have the same rights of organization as have, say, the railroad workers. Senator Robertson must know this has been denied to the Metal Trades workers and because of this the strike was called.
This is the principle at issue in this strike and the interpretation given by Senator Robert-
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son, if he was correctly quoted, is absolutely unjustified.
The workers are on strike for the principle of collective bargaining as understood by the Trades Union Movement. Nothing more and nothing less. For Senator Robertson to misconstrue the issue seems to us absolutely uncalled for. If he is in doubt he can get the fullest information by meeting the strike committee. They have approached him and shown that they are willing to inform him of the correct nature of the struggle.
There is a vast difference between the two interpretations, but this is the interpretation given by the labour men and must be considered as being their own interpretation. They know what they mean better than does Senator Robertson. Is it unfair for the working man to claim the right oi bargaining by industry instead of by craft or trade? The various trades of an industry are all links in the one chain. If one fails the others are worthless. For instance, in the metal industry, there are machinists, pattern makers, moulders and various other trades. Each one of them has its own special union. If an agreement is entered into by the employers with the machinists' union and with the patterns' union, but there is no agreement with the moulders, and there is trouble in the industry on account of that fact, the machinists and pattern makers will have to stop work as well as the moulders. It is easy to see that all the trades of the same industry have a similar and common interest in the proper carrying on of that industry. If you concede that, you must accept as fair and equitable the right of collective bargaining by all the trades in one industry.
The organization of capital has been unlimited. Powerful organizations have been formed combining many industrial establishments. It is only natural that there should be a similar evolution on the other side, on the part of labour, and that workmen in the various trades are uniting to protect their common interests.
The trade agreement, or collective bargaining, is one of the most generally accepted principles to-day in the world, and more especially in the United States and in Great Britain. I perhaps will surprise some hon. gentlemen-in view of the wild and stupid accusations of Bolshevism which are preferred against the labour movement at the present time-when I say that the advanced Socialist, such as the Independent Workers of the World, reject the collective bargaining and the trade agreement because they do not want to agree in any manner with what they call the capitalistic interest. Strange situation indeed to see the extreme Socialists, and some employers, f -Mr, E. Lapointe.!
reject the same means of settlement which evidently must be considered the fair and middle course.
I said that this principle is now accepted in United States and in Great Britain. Every hon. member can consult the Monthly Labour Review which is published by the Bureau of Labour Statistics in the United States Department of Labour. In its issue of March last you may see a list of the most important industries in the United States, which have accepted the principle of collective bargaining. I might quote only two, if you will allow me, Mr. Speaker, which are perhaps better known in this country-I mean the Standard Oil. Company and the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. I have here in the issue of the Labour Review of February, 1919, the agreement which was entered into by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation and the metal trades affiliated with the (American Federation of Labour. This agreement, and you will see that it is exactly what is asked for by the labour men of Winnipeg to-day, reads as follows:
Agreement made this 7th d'ay of January 1919, between the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation (Ltd), a Delaware Shipbuilding Corporation, (hereinafter called, the Company), and the Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labour, (hereinafter called the Department).
Witnesseth: That, whereas the department is an organization composed of national and international unions, (hereinafter called the unions), affiliated with the American Federation of Labour, many of the members of the said unions being in the employ of the company in its various plants ; and
Whereas the company recognizes the said unions collectively as a suitable agency to represent its employees in questions arising as to wages, hours of labour, and general working conditions and ;
Whereas the department is authorized, by the express consent of each union which is a member of the department to enter into an agreement with the company providing for the relations of the unions with the company-
And then the agreement follows. To show how many trades are interested in the same industry let me tell you that the organization of the steel industry by the American Federation of Labour included twenty-four different trades.
In Great Britain the principle is admitted and recognized by the employers and by the State. We have first the recommendation of the Whitley Commission which has been accepted by the British Government, and I will read clause 23 of the first report of that Commission which has been published by our own Department of Labour:
It may be desirable to state here our considered opinion that an essential condition of securing a permanent improvement in the

relations between employers and employed is that there should be adequate organization on the part of both employers and work people. The proposals outlined, for joint co-operation throughout the several industries depend for their ultimate success upon their toeing such organization on both sides, and such organization is necessary also to provide means whereby the arrangements and agreements made for the industry may be effectively carried out.
And in the appendix on page 30, it is said that the councils which are to be formed should be composed only of representatives of trade unions and employers' associations.
At the beginning of the present year, Great Britain was facing a critical industrial situation. The crisis came to a head when the Triple Alliance-the miners' federation, the railwaymen's union, and the transport workers - joined together and threatened a general strike if steps were not taken to meet the demands of organized labour. The Government of Great Britain answered this ultimatum by calling a national conference, composed of eight hundred members representing the employers and the workers interested equally to go into the whole industrial situation and to report upon it immediately. The conference held its first meeting on February 27, and appointed a joint committee which made a report which was unanimously approved by the eight hundred representatives of both the employers and the employees. They agreed on the following things:
(1) A National Industrial Council of 400, half capital and half labour, is to toe elected by the employers and the trade unions and to be recognized by the government as the " official consultative authority on industrial relations." (2) Not only are the unions to be free from molestation, jbuit it Is ruled that workmen should accept their jurisdiction. (3) Parliament is to enact a national minimum wage law, a 48-hour week and measures raising the legal age of child labour and extending the principles of short-time work .to meet the problems of unemployment. All of this programme is now before Mr. Lloyd George's Cabinet.
There was also the Sankey Report-the report of a commission which was instituted to prevent miners' strikes. The Sankey Report has been accepted by the British Government, and it not only grants the right to the miners to unite and bargain collectively but also recognizes their right to co-partnership and to share in the management of the mine.
Ail this shows that there is nothing very new or very revolutionary in the demands set forth by the Canadian labour men. It also shows conclusively that had our own Government acted as other governments have in the face of a situation infinitely
more serious than our industrial situation, difficulties and troubles might have been avoided. While the other governments were taking speedy and effective action the Canadian Government seemed unable to read the writing on the wall, and merely buried its head, ostrich-like, in the sand of its numberless and powerless Orders in Council. Various religious bodies in America and Great Britain have endorsed and recommended the adoption of the demand of the labourer, including the right of collective bargaining.
Among the number are the National Catholic War Council, and the Federal Council of Churches in the United States, and in England the archbishops' committee on Christianity and industrial problems.
May I read to the House the following extract from the New York Nation, which appeared in its issue of March 8th?
Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, lately appointed to succeed Cardinal Farley as head of the Archdiocese of New York, is one of the four men who formulated the striking programme of social reconstruction that has recently been made public by the National Catholic War Council and,, as spiritual leader of 1,32(5,00*0 Catholics, he will play an important part in its further development. Without piety of mysticism, and1 with remarkable tough-mindedness, the War Council has recognized the industrial struggle as the most serious menace to the future peace of every nation. As immediate remedies, it advocates a national system of labor exchanges ; the retention of the National War Labor Board ; no lowering of the wages attained during the war., "even when the cost of living recedes," for, says the pamphlet, "after all, a living wage is not necessarily a full measure of justice" ; the legal (minimum wage ; recognition of the right of labor to organize for collective bargaining; adequate housing; the establishment of co-operative stores; vocational training; abolition of child labor; heavy taxation of incomes, excess profits, and inheritances ; and prevention of monopolistic control of commodities. In its more fundamental suggestions, the programme approaches syndicalism, rather than socialism-the abolition of the wage system, though not the abolition of private ownership. "Full possibilities of increased production will not be realized so long as the majority of the workers remain mere wage-earners. The majority must somehow become owners, or at least in part, of the instruments of production." The capitalist, in the meantime, "needs to learn the long forgotten
truth that wealth is stewardship	 that
the laborer is a human being, not merely an instrument of production ; and that the laborer's right to a decent livelihood is the first moral charge upon industry." "This," concludes this remarkable programme, ('is the human and Christian, in contrast to the purely commercial and pagan, ethics of industry."
I hope I have convinced yon, Mr. Speaker, that, after all, there is nothing revolutionary or Bolshevistic in the demands of the workmen for collective bargaining.
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[Stage Direction]
I will now refer briefly to those charges of Bolshevism against those who are parties to the present labour difficulties. I do not think that any advance will he made towards a settlement of our labour troubles by the slanderous attacks which are made by the Government press against the leaders of the working men. It is not true that the labour leaders at Winnipeg or at Toronto are foreigners on Bolshevists. In both places the committees are composed almost exclusively of British-born citizens. They belong to that sturdy class of immigrants which I have often heard described in this House as being the one class needed in this country. Why, Mr. Speaker, do you think if the Winnipeg strikers were foreigners' or Bolshevists that they would have succeeded in enlisting the sympathy of the returned soldiers? The employers- I beg pardon, the newspapers say-and the employers, too-that the returned soldiers are neutral. I read only yesterday that thousands of them after parading the streets of Winnipeg on Saturday, marched to the Parliament Buildings and intimated to Premier Norris that he should exercise his influence for the recognition of the principle of collective bargaining. If they were neutral, I would like to know what they would do.
Mr. PETER McGIBBON:: Is it not a fact that the Great War veterans of Winnipeg repudiated such action?


Mr. E. LAPOINTE:: Quite true, the officers of the Great War veterans proclaimed their neutrality. But it is also true that the returned soldiers by thousands have evinced their sympathy with the strikers of Winnipeg. In order to try to show that the strikers are animated by Bolshevistic ideals, much is said of their having issued their famous licenses with the words, " By leave of the strike committee." The strikers had no right (to do this, Mr. Speaker. Such a usurpation of power cannot be tolerated in any constitutional country. They made a mistake, and they seem to have realized it, because they have discontinued that course of action. But is that a sign of Bolshevism and disloyalty? The first city in any British country which gave such an example was the city of Belfast. A few months ago when the gas and electricity workers joined the strike, Belfast went without light except so far as the strike committee gave leave to relax their prohibition in that regard. Yet nobody will gainsay that Belfast is a loyal city. It is the loyal city 'par excellence-it is the
[Mr .E. Lapointe.]
capital of loyalism. Belfast is so deeply and profoundly British that the mere prospect of self government being given to Ireland kindled the flames of rebellion four years ago. The strikers at Belfast were wrong when they arrogated that right to themselves; so were the strikers at Winnipeg; but the latter are not more antiBritish or disloyal than the former.
With regard to the action of the Government in trying to effect a settlement of the strike, it has been rather' unfortunate. Senator Robertson seems to have sided with one party to the struggle, and obviously his usefulness as a mediator is gone, and I do not wonder that he is on his way back to Ottawa. His last performance in sending an appeal to Mr. Gompers, the head of the American Federation of Labour, is a most extraordinary one. Here is that despatch as I find it in the Montreal Star:
Samuel Gompers,
President of the American Federation of Labour,
Washington.
May 29.-A general sympathetic strike involving some ninety-five unions was called in the City of Winnipeg for May 15, resulting in a complete tie up of all business and declaration by iStrike Committee of control over civic affairs as well as interference with provincial and federal employees.
As is the case in all general strikes of this nature it has already defeated itself, but I feel it proper to say to you after toeing on the ground for several days that in my opinion the prestige and authority of international unions whose endeavouring, to embroil their members in other cities in sympathetic strikes in support of the lost cause here, should receive the earnest and serious consideration of the executives of the various organizations concerned, particularly of what is know as the metal trades.
The underlying motive in calling the strike is undoubtedly in support of what is known as the "One Big Union," movement and which has for its purpose the destruction of the international trades unions if possible. Will you give this matter your personal attention and communicate with the executives of the various internationals as you may desem desirable.
This is an appeal, clamouring for help, by a Canadian minister of the Crown to a foreign labour leader.
.More humiliating action on the part of a responsible minister in a British country has never before been witnessed, and I hope may never be witnessed again. It stands as a monument to the statesmanship and national ideals of that combine of the best brains of the country which was once gathered together in Canada by some sort of collective bargaining under the name of Union Government.
I have no hesitation in saying that the Acting Minister of Justice (Mr. .Meighen)

was the last man in the world who should have been selected to act as conciliator or mediator. Nobody has more admiration than I have for the ability and talent of the minister, but his temperament, mentality and training disqualify him altogether for the difficult task of mediator. He stands in Canada as the Apostle of arbitrary enactments and despotic legislation. He is the father of the closure in this House. His Italian hand may be discerned in the War-time Elections Act, that nefarious piece of legislation which is still a blot on the statute books of Canada. If there exists in some quarters of the country a feeling of distrust of Parliament and Parliamentary institutions, I believe the Acting Minister of Justice is one of those who are largely responsible for it. Be that as it may, he is so considered by quite a number of people in the country, and he will not be welcomed and trusted by those people as a fair mediator. When, a few weeks ago, I moved in this House that labour should be given representation on the Board of Directors of the Canadian National Railways, it was the Acting Minister of Justice who said in reply that I was favouring a very unsound, principle. He was unable to understand that employees of a railway have an interest in the system different from and larger than the interest of the rest of the community. Yet the principle of allowing labour a share in the management of industry is accepted to-day and advocated by both employers and employees in Great Britain and the United States as the best way to enlist the whole soul and energy of the workingman in the thing he is doing. Individual employers in that respect have been ahead of legislation and universal practice. They have set an example which has, in all cases, been most successful. Why does not the Government of Canada set an example in this country? Why refuse a reasonable concession now and be forced to grant it afterwards? The Government may yet grant it so that such concession of a fair demand shall not take on the appearance of a surrender on the one side and a triumph on the other. I do not wonder that the labour men of Winnipeg could not consider my hon. friend as being able to enter into their minds sympathetically, in order to discover their ideals, aims and desires.
But the situation is becoming more serious every day, in spite of ministerial optimistic announcements we have daily at the opening of the House and the interested denials in the newspapers. Still I ask: What shall we do? What shall the Government do? The Mathers' Commission does not possess the authority or prestige that would give its report or its finding a large degree of influence. It is by no means representative. As was stated in the last issue of Maclean's Magazine by a member of the Press Gallery, it could hardly be considered as a satisfactory camouflage, and that was all it was intended to be. The commission was told in all the cities: " There is something rotten in the state of Denmark." We all knew that. Why does not the Government issue a call for a large national conference of employers and employees, as was done in England? If labour in Canada acts as labour acts in England, why should not Canadian statesmanship be able to follow the example of British statesmanship? Let such a conference be called and let labour select its own representative. When a man is selected by the Government to represent labour on a committee, or commission, or conference of some kind, that man does not properly represent labour; he represents the Government. I have the fullest confidence that the Canadian employers and employees could find a common ground and agree together as British employers and employees have succeeded in doing. In the meantime, as a token of goodwill, could not Parliament and the Government agree to have a labour representative on the Board of Directors of the Canadian National railways?
The Government states that it has no power to enact eight-hour day legislation. I admit there is grave doubt as to that, but there is no doubt that the Government can enact eight-hour day legislation as to its own public works, and such legislation would go a long way towards securing the general adoption of that reform. Something must be done quickly to endeavour to convert class struggle into class harmony, to convert retaliation into reciprocity. But Mr. Speaker, I believe the Government has already delayed too long. Something must be done now, and these are my concluding words to the Government: Do something and do it now.


Mr. J. H. BURNHAM (Peterborough West):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may be allowed to contribute a little something to what I consider in my humble way as the basis of this industrial unrest. I do not purpose indulging in personalities, nor in blaming any body for not having unearthed some solution of a problem that confronts the entire world, nor do I purpose discussing various theories which have been advanced from time to time as solutions of the problem. But I will go to what 1

consider the very root of the matter, namely, the ability of the workingman to maintain himsel'f at the present rate of wages. I firmly believe that if he had the wages which would enable him to live properly and comfortably, he would be satisfied, and if he were satisfied, you could not possibly stir him into any form of unrest.
Some few days ago I asked the Acting Minister of Labour (Mr. A. K. Maclean) if he would be kind enough to answer a question regarding this. After several days he very kindly answered the question and put the answer into printed form which was served upon me to-day. It is headed: " The high cost of living and minimum wages/' and it reads:
Re Mr. Burnham's Inquiry of May 28, Hansard1 for May 28 shows the following: statement:
Mr. J. H. Burnham (Peterborough West) : J would like to ask the Acting Minister of Labour (Hon. A. IC. Maclean) what is the weekly budget for the average Canadian family as found by the latest report of the Department of Labour; and what is the minimum weekly wage to correspond with that weekly minimum budget ?
This was the reply:
Regarding the point raised by Mr. Burnham it may be stated that the weekly family budget printed in the "Labour Gazette" is given as a typical family budget, not as a minimum family budget. The figures as. printed do not vary from month to month or from year to year. The object aimed at in printing the budget is not to indicate in any way what commodities should be purchased but to facilitate an effective comparison of prices at different periods so that the relative purchasing power of money may be shown. The weekly budget printed in the " Labour Gazette " was framed by the Dominion Statistician some years ago and the foods enumerated and the quantities specified go to make up the number of calories estimated as necessary for a family of five,- husband, wife and three children ; save that so far as the workman is concerned the budget is intended rather to meet the case of a man engaged in somewhat severe manual labour, the food allowance being therefore slightly larger than would be necessary if the man were engaged in clerical or other light employment. The figures printed from month to month in the "Labour Gazette" show the cost of the same quantities of the same class of commodity, the prices ranging over a number of years. The budget includes prices as to foods, fuel and rent and dries not include clothing. Clothing is of course an essential part of the cost of living but the subject is one which cannot be easily reflected by statistics, the articles covering so wide a range and the conditions varying so greatly as between different families, different localities and different periods. In considering the family budget as printed in the "Labour Gazette" an addition of from twenty-five to forty per cent must be made for clothes and miscellaneous articles.
Regarding the latter part of Mr. Burnham's question re minimum weekly wage, it may be stated that just as there is no minimum bud-

get known to the Department of Labour neither is there any weekly minimum wage known to the department, save that during the past year or two different provinces have enacted minimum wage laws as to some classes of labour. Wages are, as a rule, fixed for each calling and the minimum wage varies greatly as between one calling and another and as between one city and another. The family budget as printed in the "Labour Gazette" is, it may be added, much used by employers and employees in measuring the fluctuations of living and is therefore of material value in effecting wage agreements in different trades. Attached is a copy of the family budget as printed in the May, 1919, issue of the "Labour Gazette." Attached is memorandum showing food prices for Great Britain, United States and Canada, respectively, for the month of February.
The copy of the family budget attached for staple foods, fuel, light and rent, in terms of the average prices in 66 Canadian cities, shows the cost per week 'to "be $21.34. That budget does not include anything for clothing, for which I have allowed only the moderate sum of $2 per week. It includes nothing for medicine and medical attendance, for which I have allowed $1 per week. It includes nothing for boots and shoes, for which I have allowed 50 cents per week; nothing for headgear, for which I have allowed 10 cents per week; nothing for religion, for which I have allowed the modest sum of 25 cents per week; nothing for amusement s, for which I have allowed 25 cents a week; nothing foT education, for which I have allowed 25 cents a week, (because although education is free in some provinces there are incidental expenses); nothing for insurance for which I have allowed 50 cents per week; making a total of $4.80 not allowed for. This added to the $21.34 makes a total of $26.14, or an average of $4.35 per day for six days in the week which the man engaged in severe toil must earn or he cannot meet this necessary budget. Even then nothing is allowed for the instruments of labour, the tools which the workman must have, and nothing is provided for old age. When ve consider the wage the workingman is receiving at the present time, he is away behind this budget. The Government has worked very hard investigating these prices, and its figures, which are given in the most candid manner, show that $4.50 per day- '$5 per day including provision for old age and tools-is the minimum wage which the labouring man in Canada should receive today. But he receives nothing like that, and it naturally follows that there is very great unrest. He does not know, very few of us did, that this was what the budget amounted to; but there are the figures given by the 'Government, in answer to my question, after

several days' delay, and they show that the workingman is away behind. He is going down lower and lower in the scale, and his [DOT]weekly and yearly deficit is becoming most alarming. Restlessness must follow as a matter of course. I do not think for one *moment that the employer can pay more than he is paying at the present time and make things go. I do not claim that there is any inequality whatever in the scale of prices relative to each other. I am simply accounting for the unrest among the masses of the people of this country. To urge that free trade or anything of that description will remedy matters is not to argue by the book.


Mr. M. CLARK:: Give it a trial.


John Hampden Burnham: It was on trial several years ago, and the verdict was "Guilty," and free trade was thrown out. I do not purpose to try it again, because it is a well-known principle in law that when a thing has once been tried, it cannot be tried again.
I have no suggestion to make. I know the workingman says if he was getting only a dollar a day and prices were the same as when that was the current wage, he would be content. It is not that he wants fabulous wages. He simply wants to meet his obligations. Therefofe, I maintain that if you can so arrange things that the workingman can live decently and meet his obligations you will allay the unrest in this country, and in no other way can you allay it.


Mr. F. J. PELLETIER (Matane):: I am pleased that the Government has finally allowed the question of the present industrial unrest to come before the House for a fair discussion and a frank expression of opinion from hon. gentlemen. It is one of the most important questions with which we have to deal.
With the suspension of hostilities in Europe, with the dawn of peace bringing contentment and solace to all hearts, how is it that the country to-day is actually in a worse situation than when we were at war? How is it that the merry ringing of bells announcing the coming of peace in Europe announces at the same time a state of industrial war in Canada?
What is the cause of this industrial unrest and of the universal unsatisfactory feeling that prevails throughout the country? It is not necessary to go through a long and dreary inquiry to ascertain the cause of this trouble. It is apparent and every one realizes it at sight. It is the unbearably high cost of >
living and the
necessity for the working classes to have better conditions, better wages, lower prices for foodstuffs, clothing, and all the necessaries of life. But it is not sufficient to find out the cause of a social evil to remedy the situation. One must see who is responsible for such conditions. Then it will be possible, if there is goodwill on the part of those responsible, to find a solution of the serious problems which must be settled if Canada is to live. The fundamental cause of all the trouble we are actually going through lies in the lack of sincerity, wisdom, foresight and Canadian patriotism on the part of the present Government. The hon. gentleman to your right, Mr. Speaker, may think that such a statement is a slander against the present Government, and it would be such if I did not have absolute proofs to substantiate the indictment. The time has come when we must look the situation boldly in the face, examine our national conscience, and set aside the rubbish of electoral parley to consider if the governing influence of Canada has really worked for the general good, or simply for the benefit of the privileged class. The time has come to put a soft pedal on the patriotic camouflage which has been the only means of putting through this House and the country all sorts of measures and thousands of Orders in Council; and to scrutinize the real motives which prompted the Government to place Canada on the verge of bankruptcy and on the threshold of revolution. Not only does serious industrial unrest manifest itself, but there are innumerable strikes in large cities And there is also a supreme contempt of the Government of the land, and an evident relish for revolutionary ideas and principles, so much so that in the city of Winnipeg there was a tentative Soviet against which the Government did not dare to take stringent measures. Had it been an ordinary industrial crisis, had the Government not been responsible for the situation, and had the people at large had the least confidence in the ministers of the Crown, the settlement would have been an easy matter because the Government would have been the high court to which the grievances would have been brought. But such is not the case. The labouring class is dissatisfied, and does not care to have the Government's assistance, believing the Government to be a party committed to the opposing forces. I do not need further proofs than the fact of the reception given in Winnipeg to the ministers just returned from the West, and the result of their peace-imak/inig mission. Let us consider
."018

for a moment how we have been brought to the unenviable position in which Canada finds itself to-day.
At the outbreak of the war, without any consultation with Parliament., my right hon. friend the Prime Minister pledged the country to England for 500,000 men. This offer was accepted, and to compel the people to accept it as granted, numbers of orators, journalists and canvassers sounded from one end of Canada to the other the note of devotion to the Motherland, to the cause of liberty and civilization, and devotion to the cause of the small countries. They declaimed upon the phantom of German tyranny as if Canada had been threatened with immediate invasion. This was done with the deliberate object in view to cover the extremely dangerous consequences, for a country as small and as poor as Canada, of assuming responsibilities beyond our means. During the long years of struggle, whilst the final victory was uncertain, and as long as the united efforts of the allied nations were necessary to keep up the morale of our soldiers, nothing was said. But now that the war is over and the Allies have been victorious, it can be said to the Government that its action was nothing short of national suicide, and we are beginning to realize the fact. For the four years of the war, we drained the country of our best young men, we crippled our industries by the multiplication of shell factories, we allowed speculators to increase the price of every necessity of life to such an extent that it became necessary to maintain the output of munitions, to increase the salaries of munition workers tenfold, while the other classes of working men were in a sorry plight. Today they ask that these conditions be made bearable, and they are not to blame. The responsibility for these conditions lies at the door of those who have allowed them to be created. But the Government has not only been extravagant in its promises to Great Britain; it has been totally inefficient in preparing for the necessary transition from war to peace. Notwithstanding the advices given privately and publicly, the Government did not see fit even to try to do anything in that direction, all its efforts having been bent upon the prosecution of military service defaulters and the contriving of means whereby to remain in power. Instead of taking measures to fix prices, to protect the labouring men against the greed and heartlessness of speculators, the Government has simply marked time w'aiting for r.M. Pelletier.]
events to pass on at will, seeming unfit to foresee the crisis we are facing to-day. If this is not correct, let the hon. gentlemen to your right, Mr. Speaker, point out one single measure prompted by wisdom and a desire to assist the poor. Let them show in what direction the country was prepared to switch its energies and activities from war-time industry to peace. What did the Government do whqn inquiries disclosed the fact that products, foodstuffs of all kinds, were rotting in warehouses and thrown away in order to maintain famine prices? What is the Government doing today when prices are even higher than they ever were before? What reasons are given for such conditions? Is it admissible that a Government, appreciating the importance of its duty, would allow food to be exported to such an extent thait its own people would suffer and be on the verge of starvation? Is there a country in the world that would bear with such a Government? Is there a country under the sun afflicted with such a ruling power? What is the result of such apathy, such inefficiency on the part of the Government? As long as the war lasted, as long as contracts and profitable orders were distributed, and there were men to be conscripted, this Government showed more autocracy than did the late Tzar. The whole Administration was run by Orders in Council adopted and enforced even when Parliament was sitting.
Now that the war is over, and since conscription has ceased, now that no more munition contracts can be given to heartless profiteers, the only activity displayed by the Government is as T have said before utter severity in the prosecution of defaulters who have suffered heavy fines and imprisonment.
Such a condition of affairs does not conduce to confidence in the Government, on the part of the working class, and a striking proof of this was given by the manner in which the ministers of the Crown were received by the union men in the West. We also have other striking examples of the energetic attitude of the Government in time of crisis, in the manner in which the strike activities were managed. We were sitting here discussing the abolition of titles when the ci >
of Winnipeg was in the pangs of Bolshevism. We are here discussing minor questions when the whole country is suffering, when the entire industrial structure is shaking-we are discussing, while the soul of the Canadian people want action and not words.
The Government has suffered from want of discretion in determining Canada's share

in the war; it has suffered from lack of sincerity in allowing prices of necessities of life to soar as they did; it has suffered from lack of foresight in not preparing for the after-war period.
It has suffered from lack of Canadian patriotism in sacrificing the future of the country; it has suffered from lack of wisdom in passing laws that Spread discontent and distrust in all ranks oi society; it has suffered from lack of ability as shown by the fact that it remained idle when it was time to act.
We are passing through a very critical period and no one knows what the results may be. Whatever the endeavours of this Government may be now I feel that it can accomplish very little, having lost the confidence and support of the people. The only wise and practical thing for the Government to do in the interest of the people, in my opinion, is to dissolve Parliament and allow the (people to elect honestly representatives who have at heart the welfare of the country.


Mr. G. W. ANDREWS (Centre Winnipeg):: Mr. Speaker, when the election was on, a year and a half ago, it was my privilege to address an audience of Winnipeg workingmen on the subject of winning the war. The issue at that time was quite clear cut. I told them I was a candidate for the Union Government and as such stood for the conscription of men. I pointed out that this meant the particular men I was talking to. I also told them that I stood for the conscription of money, which meant their money, and for the conscription of the last dollar and the last man in Canada, if need be, to win this war. That was pretty straight talking. When I got through one of the men got up and said: "Well, we understand exactly what you mean now." 1 told them I would not think of going over the top with men who were not prepared to go all the way. When the 17th December came they knew exaotly what it meant for the men who were going to the war. When the election was over, in spite of the fact that my opponent was the secretary of the labour union, it was found that they had voted for me in the proportion of three to one.
These are the men who, -to-day, are on strike. There is certainly something wrong somewhere. In addition to those men, as good and as loyal citizens as Canada evei had, there are many of my own comrades who stood in the trenches in France; they are on strike. I say, standing in my place here, that in my opinion eighty per cent of the returned men of Winnipeg are in sympathy with the strikers and the object of this strike.
On the first of May the men of the metal trades went on strike, partly because the masters refused an eight-hour day and a larger hour wage but chiefly because of their employers' refusal to recognize theii union. The building trade employees presented their schedule to the masters who frankly admitted its fairness and reasonableness, but declared their inability to meet the demand. Here we have the two vital causes of the strike (1) a living wage, and (2) the right to organize. This is the cause of the strike in my opinion after the most careful consideration and
5 p.m. after using every means in my power to find out the facts. When the ironmasters let it become known that they were going to make it a trial of endurance, the trades and labour council called for a sympathetic strike of all organized labour in the city. A vote was taken and all unions, including public utilities, came out.
As to the blame, I accuse no one, I judge no man, but the fact remains that the men are on strike and that is a fact that we must not forget. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the labour unions in Winnipeg in all good faith, in the month of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, were forced to strike for a living wage and for the right to organize. So far as the living wage is concerned, I think hon. members will agree that if ever a .strike is justifiable it is for a living wage for the striker and his family. With regard to the right to organize, there was a time when a combination of employees was accounted conspiracy and treated as such but to-day it cannot be denied to those whose saleable commodity is labour, the free right to say what terms they will sell their labour at; how much of it they will sell, and whether they will sell it for six or for twelve hours a day. The days of serfdom in Canada have passed. Nor can their right be denied to agree together as to the price at which they will sell their labour and the quantity of labour they have to sell, so long as this right is granted to any other class in the community.
The single workman is helpless against the great corporation; the individual union or craft is equally so. Collective bargaining is the logical outcome of organization and it is now too late in the day for any corporation to refuse it-that principle is embodied as one of the provisions of the

charter of labour formed by the League of Nations.
The sympathetic strike is the natural and logical sequence of organization. What more natural than that men who have interests in common should stand together in an emergency? A particular union or craft in striking may be striking for a principle that is absolutely vital to every man in the industry and just as the employers can down one single man so they can down a single union unless all stand together. This is co-operation; it is brotherhood, and it is absolutely the same principle of sticking together that was employed in France. Twenty-seven allied nations had a sympathetic strike, and they won. That sympathetic strike brings one naturally to the "One Big Union," and here again Of believe is an entirely logical and absolute sequence of organization. If you once permit men to organize, and by their organization to deliberately make the boss "come through" with something with which he does not agree, that is force, and there is no other word for it; and the "One Big Union" is a logical way of fighting. It took us a long time to fight it out in France, but we did fight it out eventually, and once we got "the One Big Union" and "the One Big Foch" we won the war; and in the case of labour unions that is a logical conclusion once you begin to strike. I do not believe in strikes, but we have them in Canada. Having got them, there is need for the application of intelligence in their settlement. Once you have got labour lined up on one side you find there will also line up the Bankers' Association, the Manufacturers' Association, and all the other representatives of employers, and there is likely to be a first-rate fight. A little fight has been started already, and it will be "a real proper one" if we do not have a change soon. There are only two ways of settling disputes, as far as I know, one by arbitration and the other by force; and there is no more reason for the strike that is going on in Winnipeg to-day than there is for myself and any hon. member of this House who had a difference of opinion, going out on the lawn in front of this building and settling that difference with bombs; we should both of us be regarded as criminal lunatics if we did that. I have heard some criminal lunatics advance suggestions in connection with the settlement of this strike, and the sooner those persons are in the "jug" the better it will be.
In speaking along these lines it has been my experience that in military matters you

will find in every platoon, every company, every battalion, and every regiment, men that are termed "roughnecks"-fellows that f you do not run them they will run you; and it appears to me that we have some of this class at large in Canada to-day. There is no question that if we do not do something to curb them they will run this Government and the country as well. We have got farmers' organizations, soldiers' organizations, 'and God knows what other bodies, all lining up for a fight, and I think it is about time that the members of Parliament, the representatives of all the people in Canada, had something to say in the matter. Let us have a little constitutional government; I have heard too much about organization and that sort of thing to please me. When a man begins to organize he is preparing to fight. I stand for arbitration and not for war in industrial relations as well as international relations. The Prime Minister the other day declared that if we could not settle this little business of our own it boded ill for a League of Nations. I think it does. I would suggest, if I may, that a national industrial conference should be called at once. In the meantime this striking has got to be stopped; if it does not stop one side or the other will win. I do not know which side will be the winner, I am playing no favourites, but I do know that the work people in Winnipeg are determined to win if they can. If they do not win they will starve, they will go back to their work with a bitter feeling. There are men on strike to-day that were repulsed by the Germans three years ago, but that did not end the war. The principle at stake is one of absolute force, as far as I see it, and I would like to see that changed. It can be changed, it is being done every day. If we cannot settle the problem I think it is time we got out and let somebody else have a go. In that respect I agree with an hon. gentleman who has spoken this afternoon.
There is another point I want to touch upon for a moment or two. Twice this afternoon I have heard tne term " Bolsheviks " applied to the strike leaders in Winnipeg. Gentlemen, if you apply the term to those men you apply it to me, 'because they are my friends. There is a man called James Winning, a good level-headed Scotchman, who has spent practically all his life working for his fellowmen. The only erratic thing he has done in tms agitation has been closing down the press and participating in the strike. As to the press, I had the misfortune to hear an hon. gentleman, one of the oldest members in the chamber, state

his opinion that the press was corrupt, and he was not called a " Bolshevik " for saying that. If ever a strike by workingmen in newspaper offices was justified it was in this case if the newspapers were not playing the game. There is another man called Russell in Winnipeg. Russell is a Socialist and not a man who advocates force. I know tnese men, and for them force would be absolutely the last resource. Russell wants a change. So does Robinson, so does Simpson, and so does Rigg. They want a change because they are not satisfied with present conditions. How many hon. gentlemen in this House are satisfied? I venture to say many of them would welcome a change of government.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


George William Andrews: I feel a little that way myself, but I would like to see some further action by the Union Government first. It does seem to me, Mr. Speaker, if ever there was a time that we should get together and all take hold of one rope and pull in harmony, it is now. We talk about working six hours a day. In my opinion the time has come when we should work eighteen hours a day, and I think the fellows would do it too as long as they did not fear they would work that length of time to enable one or two men .to make millions out of it. They will not do that but they are ready to work and work well, when they deem the cause is a legitimate one. As an old farmer I cannot help but realize that it does not take any more bushels of barley to feed a hog to-day than it did five years ago. Yet the hog is worth five times as much to-day, it is a good time to sell hogs when the same amounted grain would yield five times the value, ft is about time that we got off our coats and worked together. I would like to see some very strong action taken with regard to the present situation. I do not like compulsion nor conscription; but I cannot help thinking that we ought to be able to establish courts of arbitration in this country that will give- a just award on a dispute that is referred to them. If that is done I think there would be enough public opinion behind the award to enforce it, and in	that
case our	troubles would be	over.
It is far better than letting this strike work itself out to the- bitter end, which means another fight. There are times when on principle I have as little theoretical regard for conscription as my hon. friend from Dorchester (Mr. Cannon). I do not believe in conscription, I never did; but, unlike my hon. friend, there are times when I think
it is justifiable. During a prairie fire if you come across a deaf man you do not stop to argue with him, but you grab him and take him along, and when he finds you did it to save his life, he is very glad that you did not stand upon ceremony. Conscription, I think, is sometimes justifiable, and in my closing words I strongly recommend that in this instance the Government adopt it forthwith.


Mr. W. A. BUCHANAN (Lethbridge):: 1 would like to venture into this debate, Mr. Speaker, as an employer of labour as well as a member of this House who has attempted to keep in close touch with the aspirations of organized labour. We are discussing industrial unrest largely because of the developments in Winnipeg during the last few weeks; but, to my mind there has been unrest amongst organized labour for some months past. I have attempted to ascertain the reasons for that unrest, and I would enumerate them not in the order of their importance but as I have noted them down.
First of all, I think one of the paramount reasons for the present unrest among the working classes is the high cost of living; second, I would say that what we have been calling " profiteering " since the commencement of the war is another very important reason; third, the failure to fulfil some of the promises that were given to the labouring classes during the war, that out of this war would come a new world, and that they would live under new conditions; then there is a demand, of course -and I would classify this as a fourth reason-for better living conditions; there is a universal demand for the recognition of the eight-hour day; there is also a universal demand for the recognition of unions, and, again, there is the feeling that there should be more equitable sharing by the working classes in the profits of business.
Having enumerated the reasons for the unrest which exists, I will try to point out some of the remedies that we, as the Parliament of Canada, should provide. In regard to the high cost of living, I would say that it is our duty to adopt legislation to reduce that high cost. When the Budget comes down this week it seems to me that we should deal with the tariff in such a way that the cost of living will be reduced. It is argued that if you attempt to deal with the tariff you are going to injure the industries of this country. Are not those industries being injured now on account of the unrest that

is being caused by the high cost of living? If we can remove some of that unrest we are to that extent going to stabilize our industries. So I believe it is in the interest of the country as a whole that we should without any further delay remove the duties from foodstuffs and the real necessaries of life.
It has been argued that it is impossible to deal with the high cost of living; that it is too intricate a subject. I find that in New Zealand in the year 1915 the Government passed what is termed a "Cost of Living Act," in which they attempted to reduce the cost of many of the necessaries of life. I saw an article the other day dealing with the price of footwear, and stating that in New Zealand the Government regulated the cost of the leather supplied to the manufacturers, and instructed them to manufacture only certain classes of boots in order that there should be a standardization of footwear, with a view to reducing the cost to the lowest possible point. We might very well keep in mind that it is possible to introduce legislation.-preceded, of course, by proper investigation.-that will attempt to relieve the unrest that is due to the high cost of living.
Now, as to profiteering. I feel that one of the greatest reasons for the present unrest, is the extravagant display of luxuries by people who have amassed wealth, because such display arouses dissatisfaction among those who have not the same means, and these feel that the men of wealth are getting too much profit out of the industries of this country compared with what the workers themselves are obtaining in the way of wages. That is one of the reasons for the demand by the working classes for co-operation or a share in the profits of industry. To remove the feeling against profiteering, I hope that very advanced steps will be taken this year in connection with our income taxation so that the real wealth of the country will be made to bear its share of the cost of government, and that wealthy people will be made to feel the burden as they have not felt it in the past.
The promises made during the war undoubtedly were featured by the assurance that following the war, there would be greater democracy throughout the world, and I think labour feels that that greater democracy should be realized without delay. If we are to have a new world we must have different living conditions. We must not have the housing conditions that have existed in the past; and we must attempt to look after the old and the infirm

by legislation rather than leaving them to be taken care of by fraternal societies and other organizations.	*
As to the eight-hour day, I may say that in the business I conduct we have had the eight-hour day for some years, and as a result of that experience I am an advocate of the adoption of the eight-hour day in every line of business in this country.


Mr. NESBITT:: How much does my hon. friend think that the cost of living will be reduced by adopting the eight-hour day for farming?


William Ashbury Buchanan: I am speaking of the industries of this country. I do not think that it is practicable to adopt the eight-hour day for farmers. In the summer they may be working twelve hours or more a day, and in the winter they may not work for more than four or five hours a day.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: So far- as the farmers of Ontario are concerned, they work twelve and fifteen hours a day winter and'summer.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.
Mr. BUOHANAbl:	I would like very
much to be able to continue the discussion with the hon. member for North Oxford, but it is impossible under the circumstances. As to the eight-hour day, I would like to quote the views expressed by Lord Leverhulme, a member of the British House of Lords, and one of the best known business men in Great Britain. He is not only advocating a reduction in the hours of labour to eight, but he is bringing the period down to six hours. I am not going to argue in favour of the six-hour day, but I would point this out, that in a book written by him he made the statement, that in the munitions industry in Great Britain at the commencement of the war, working hours at first were about twelve hours a day, and gradually they were reduced to eight and a half hours, and that this reduction of hours resulted in a greater production of munitions per day and perAveek. If that was the case, there cannot be very much objection to the adoption of the eight-hour day throughout this country. Lord Leverhulme in this volume from which I am quoting made this statement:
Government reports repeat over and over again, from definite experiments, that in a reasonable number of hours the human being turns out its maximum output. Fatigue the human being one day, let the man or woman come fatigued to work the following day, and so on, and after two or three days the output goes down, down, down, and is continually falling.

I think that is the case. I am satisfied that in my own business the production is just as good as when we had a nine-hour day.
In 1886 the output of a certain class of worker in the United Kingdom was 312 units;-
I am quoting these figures to exemplify an argument used by Lord Leverhulme to show that in the United States where they were more advanced in their legislation as regards working hours than they were in Great Britain, the production was greater.
In 1886 the output of a certain class of worker in the United Kingdom was 312 units. In 1906 it had dropped to 275 ; in 1912, the last recorded year before the war, it had fallen to 244-a drop of 68 units in twenty-six years. In the United States the output per worker in 1886 was 400 units; in 1906 it was 596 ; in 191 it was 600-a rise of 200 units. The output also rose during the same period in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, so that Lord Leverhulme is forced, to the conclusion that, of the English-speaking races all over the world.
And Lord Leverhulme reaches the conclusion that by the reduction of hours of labour, production in Great Britain will not be interfered with, but rather it will be helped.
Since industrial troubles have arisen in this country, many views have been advanced as to proper co-operation between labour and capital. Only yesterday, I read in a Canadian paper an article explaining the system adopted by the Sears-Roebuck Company of Chicago. I am going to place the two systems that I have before me on record because I think they are of considerable value in this discussion:
The Sears-Roebuck Company, a great mailorder house which employs about 20,000 men and women, have had in operation for about three years a plan of profit sharing.
In 18 mo.nths of its operation, the plan discovered the following facts:
Ninety-one per cent of the eligible employees contributed to the fund.
The employees in 18 months paid into the savings fund about $439,500. The company contributed in the same period $1,318,712, that being 5 per cent of its net profits without deduction of dividends to stockholders.
Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears-Roebuck, made the following statement:
An employee earning $25 a week would, on the basis of the past two years' record, have accumulated in 20 years' service, approximately $2i0,0'00. An employee earning $50 a week would in the same period of service have accumulated $40,000. It is estimated that this is a minimum!
I quote this merely as an instance of the possibility of developing co-operation between working classes and employers in order to bring about greater contentment
and a better opportunity for living well in this world. The other view that I have here was expressed by a manufacturer from Brantford, Ontario, merely giving his idea of a scheme that might be adopted to encourage better relations between employers and employees:
1.-The payment of a fair living wage. The happiness of the workingman will not depend on whether he has an eight or nine-hour day-
That may be considered a contradiction of the argument I have advanced in relation to the eight-hour day, but I am giving it simply as the view of this gentleman.
but on ensuring him a wage sufficient to keep his family comfortably and permit them to enjoy the good things of life.
(2)	The organization of sick benefit associations in connection with factories, similar to the Massey-Harris plan, the benefit to amount to say, $8 per week.
(3)	Every manufacturer should insure his employees, so that in case of bereavement the family will have something to carry on with.
(4)	Provision for old and faithful employees in the way of pensions when they retire.
(5)	The taking of the employee into partnership to the extent of each man's earnings. If he earns $1,000 he should be paid the same dividend on that amount as is paid the shareholder. It would encourage men to be faithful and to look after the interests of the business, because in so doing they would also benefit.
Having expressed these views as regards what capital should do to remove some of the grievances of labour, I would say this in regard to the position that organized labour should take. One grievance that the employer has and, I think, has justly, is that when he engages what might be termed a union man, he is not always guaranteed that the man is efficient for the work he is engaged to do. Labour should see that every man who is provided with a union card is efficient, and is entitled to earn the wage that is paid to him. It should also see that when an agreement is made with an industrial concern, that agreement is kept, not only by the union but by the employer. If we could bring about a proper understanding between labour and industry, I am satisfied that all agreements would be observed and that we could have a guarantee of efficiency.
I may be a little advanced in expressing the view that we should encourage labour representation in the House of Commons. I believe many of the problems we have to deal with to-day would be solved a good deal more easily i.f we had in the House a few men who represented the views of labour, and we do not have them here at the present time and we should encourage them. That would be an advantage not

only to the Government, but to Parliament and the country. Probably one way in which we could bring about a proper representation of labour would be by the adoption of proportional representation in Canada.
I have listened to the remarks of the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre (Mr. Andrews), and I am inclined to think that while at the beginning the difficulty in Winnipeg may have originated with reasonable labour men, it got into the hands of unreasonable labour men and I believe the One Big Union is at the back of the movement there. I have no sympathy whatever with the One Big Union, because no organization in Canada that expresses sympathy with Bolshevism and the Spartacans in Germany could have my sympathy, and as I understand it, the One Big Union, when created in Calgary, expressed sympathy with those movements. What I want to see is a development in Canada along constitutional lines, and we should keep as much as possible in advance, but I do not think the reasonable labour people of Canada have any sympathy whatever with the movements in Russia and Germany along revolutionary lines.
I have no disagreement with the principle of collective bargaining, as I understand it in my business and as I know it exists at the present time in the Canadian Pacific. If I might be personal and explain the method adopted in dealing with the International Typographical Union, collective bargaining is simply this: The International Typographical Union, in the city of Lethbridge, represents the employees in all the printing and job offices. And when we come to negotiate an agreement with the union we negotiate it with the employees of all the offices, and representatives of the employers meet representatives of the employees. That, in my judgment, is collective bargaining; but if collective bargaining goes beyond that and means that men in the baking, or milling, or moulding business are going to decide whether an agreement in another line of business is to be accepted or not, then I disagree with collective bargaining along that line. But if it is to be bargaining between men and employers in a certain line of business, then I am quite satisfied to have it generally adopted throughout Canada.
It would be in the interest of Canada that we should remove a good deal of the suspicion that exists between employers and employees and between employees and employers. I know the employer is under the

difficulty that he is suspicious of the motives of his employees, and on the othei hand the employee has the same suspicion wben dealing with the employer. I do not say that is always the case, but it is the case to a very great extent.
If we can get the heads of the industries of the country to trust and co-operate with the men in their employ to a greater extent than they have done in the past, 1 believe we shall remove a great many of the difficulties that have arisen. If I may make another reference to that book of Lord Leverhulme, one of his principles was this: " Trust labour whole-heartedly and wisely, and all will be well." Lord Leverhulme, one of the greatest employers of labour in the Mother Country, has been able to get along well with labour by cooperating with and trusting the men, and I feel that if we develop that feeling of trust in this country we shall alleviate many of the difficulties that have existed.
In conclusion, I would urge the Government to consider the organization of a permanent commission-I am not going to try and foist on the Government another commission, but I think it would be in the interest of labour and capital in this country if we had a commission somewhat of the same type as the Railway Commission to move about the country and consider difficulties that might arise, and try and solve them before they develop into a strike, when sometimes the difficulties are almost impossible of solution. There are many little differences and difficulties that occur in industries that, with a proper presentation of the case to an impartial tribunal could, I am satisfied, be solved before they had reached the stage where they are beyond solution and where a strike develops. It might be difficult to form in Canada a commission that could cover the whole country, and it might be necessary to have it divided so as to deal with East and West, because the commission would undoubtedly be kept busy meeting individuals from the Atlantic to the Pacific who had representations to make. I feel that it is our duty at this really critical period in the history of industry in Canada to get together, not only those who sit on the Opposition side but those who sit on the Government side as well, and do all that is possible to bring about a solution of these problems, in order that we may have peace and become the Canada that the men who fought and died for us in France aimed to possess when they came back to this country.


Mr. W. F. NICKLE (Kingston):: I do not know whether I can usefully add anything to this discussion, as when I came to the House this afternoon I had not the slightest intention of seconding the resolution of the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Blake), but when he wanted a seconder I was very glad to lend my name so that the matter might be discussed.
In the discussion that has taken place it seems to me that we are to an extent not appreciating the changed conditions that have taken place, particularly in Winnipeg. Like the hon. member for North Winnipeg and the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Buchanan), tl have endeavoured to secure as best I could a correct appreciation of the development of the facts in reference to the Winnipeg strike. I agree with wnat the Lon. member for North Winnipeg says in this respect, that the strike was originally precipitated probably because the ironmasters were unwilling to recognize collective bargaining,. that term being accepted in the ordinary sense. It means the ironmasters were not prepared to recognize the organizations within their own shops as having the right to speak and bargain for those whom they represent. There was also the question of hours and wages, but the crucial issue over which the cleavage occurred was whether or not collective bargaining should be recognized by the ironmasters, and this, as I understand it, was refused by them. But when the break toox place a change came o'er the spirit of the dream. The Central Strike Committee came into existence, and as the strike continued that committee became more aggressive in the demonstration and assertion of its point of view. Collective bargaining in the narrow sense of the word gave way to a different collective bargaining as being demanded. The collective bargaining, as I understand it, that is demanded to-day is not the collective bargaining that was refused by the ironmasters, and which, I may say in passing, I think they would have been wise in granting, but it is a new collective bargaining. It is a collective bargaining that recognizes tne right of a central strike committee to determine and bargain for the rate of wages and other conditions, not in respect of any particular employment, but in respect of any employment where there may be a difference. That changes the entire situation. It takes the bargaining away from the employees of a factory or craft and turns it over to a recognized outside committee, who shall have power to determine what the rate of wages and conditions shall 192
be in any particular industry or craft. The hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) was Keen in directing attention to this point. It seems to me he overlooked another fundamental point when he laid emphasis on the fact that the extreme socialistic view as represented by the Independent Workers of the World refused to recognize collective bargaining in any sense. To be consistent, the Independent Workers of the World and those who hold their views must be unwilling to accept collective bargaining in any of its phases, because they are unwilling to recognize the position of capital in industry. They are unwilling to recognize bargaining at all because, they say, there should be no such thing as capital in industry, that labour and the community are the only two parties interested in industry. In other words, that industry should not either directly or indirectly be affected by capital, but that labour, as the operators of industry, and the community that purchases the goods are the only two parties concerned, and that therefore there should be no collective bargaining because it is impossible for one party to bargain with himself. Labour is to take control of industry, and therefore labour could not bargain with itself in control. But to a very great extent that is theoretical.
Coming now to the practical, -we are face to face to-day in Canada and throughout the world with conditions that have confronted belligerent nations at the conclusion of all great wars, namely, unrest and high prices of foods, but there never was a time in the history of the world when a war produced such world-wide conditions, and the problem that confronts us to-day Teally is this: The immensity of -the task that we have just completed has practically put all the world -at one, in that high prices prevail not only in the countries which took part in the war but in other countries throughout the iw-orld. If hon. members interested in this discussion will turn to the last copy of the Labour Gazette which we secured in our boxes a day or so ago they will see that the cost of staple foods in the family budget has risen from $7.34 in 1913 to $13.35 to-day, and that the grand total of -the budget, as mentioned by the hon. member for Peterborough (Mr. Burnham), has risen from $14.02 to $21.34. But, Sir, these conditions are nbt confined to Canada. They are world-wide, and as I shall not be here to-night, and have but a few moments at the present time, I shall but roughly direct the attention of the House to -some of the conditions one finds
REVISED ED:TION

throughout the world. In the United States, for instance, prices have tremendously increased. The Canada Labour Gazette says:
The index number of the retail prices of foods in the United States calculated1 by the Bureau of Labour Statistics showed a considerable decrease for February, being down to 172, as compared with 185 for January, 187 for December, 1918, and 183 for November, 1918, and 160 for January, 1918, and 100 for the year 1913.
The normal price is taken as 100.
In the United Kingdom the Minister of Labour reported the retail prices of food to be 113 per cent higher on April 1st than in July 1914, as compared with a level 120 per cent the month before	
In Norway the statistical officer reported the cost of living for a family in November, 1918, to be 155 per cent higher than in July, 1914.... In retail food prices at Borne an advance of 1.8 per cent was reported in January, the level being 159 per cent higher than before the war. In Milan the cost of. living for a family in February was calculated to be 253 per cent higher than before the war, food being up 298 per cent, clothing 274 per cent, heat and light 11'5 per' cent, while rent was unchanged.
In South Africa the increase was about 40 per cent. And thus it is throughout the whole World. The question naturally is, why is this so? And the difficulty is in obtaining the facts. If we could get all the facts, then probably we should be able to apply economic theories to them and more easily find a solution. The hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) said something which I was sorry to hear him say, because I think it only adds fuel to the fire that exists throughout the country. He directed the attention of the House and of the country to what he stated as a fact: That the food trusts, as he termed them, and the milling trusts, were responsible for the very large increase in the cost of living. He very briefly called attention to the immense profits made by these industries, and, by his speech, gave the House and the country to understand that if these tremendous profits had been swept away the result would have been a very substantial decrease in the cost of commodities supplied by these industries. Now, Sir, I read with great care the report of Mr. O'Connor when it was published, and I also read the report of the cold storage inquiry as conducted in Toronto and elsewhere; and I gave considerable attention to the report of the milling industry as prepared by Miss McKenna. If I understand the purport and finding of these reports, it was to the effect that while these industries, through the immensity of their overturn, made very large profits, yet if the profits in respect of
fMr. Nickle.]
each item of overturn were reduced to nothing it would practically have amounted to this, that the cost of foodstuffs would have been decreased by a negligible quantity. Not for a moment do I argue that these industries should be left with such large profits, but at a time like this, and such as we have experienced during the past four years, it is absolutely essential that production should be driven to the extreme, and you cannot expect men, while human nature is human nature, to conduct an industry unless it can be made profitable. Price must always be in excess of cost, if an industry is to be maintained; and if this Government had been unwise enough to put the margfn of profit so low that the industries could not have been successfully operated, then the industries would have closed. But I do think that the Government should take, as it did take- and probably should continue to take by way of taxes-a very large proportion of the unusual profits earned by these companies, because it is not difficult for me to understand the unrest that pervades the labour classes of the country when they see such stock as that of the Maple Leaf Milling Company growing from below par t.o within 160, and stock of the Dominion Textile Company which a short time ago wias 98, standing to-day somewhere in the neighbourhood of 120. What the working people of the country are asking is : Are we, after having contributed liberally of our flesh and blood to the cause of the country, to be called on at the present time to bear an unequal burden in relation to present day conditions? The hon. member for Matane (Mr. Pelletier) asked what was the cause of the unrest to-day; why were people willing to make sacrifices during the war and to-day were restive? It seems to me that the reason is this-and it is a fundamental reason-that, unless human nature changes, we will bear a great loss or suffer much in respect of a great gain that we anticipate, but will not bear the irritation of small things when we think we are being unjustly dealt with. And if I can gather the spirit of the labouring people to-day-and I may say that I have had in my riding three strikes within a year-the dissatisfaction that pervades their ranks is due to the fact that they know that increased wages have not brought them any greater comfort, and they are imbued with the idea that unusual and improper profits are being made by certain people. Now, Sir, when you consider the philosophy

that underlies wages, you have to realize that money is only a medium of exchange. Price is only the declaration of value in money, and value is the ratio of exchange of goods. What happened in Canada after the war broke out? We have not forgotten that within a few months following the outbreak of war there was great depression in the country and men were willing to work for anything, for the question resolved itself into the alternatives of work or starvation. Then munitions contracts began, and the cry was " Full steam ahead, because the Allies want munitions." Competition was eliminated because the need for munitions and war supplies was so great that the cost was immaterial. They had to be had, otherwise the war could not be successfully carried on; and none of us have forgotten those days in 1915 when we thought we had almost lost because we had not the shells and other necessary impedimenta of war, and as the demand for munitions became greater the cost of living increased. There was an inflation in currency, and you may have an inflation in currency in two ways:	First, because there is more
money in the country than there should be, and, for a second reason, money may be circulating more rapidly. You may have a direct and an indirect inflation, and we had both in Canada. Vast amounts of money were being poured out in Canada, and money was circulating with great rapidity from the manufacturer down through to the workman and into the bank; fresh loans were made and the money went round again. Men received higher wages than they had got before, and prices rose correspondingly. We had in Canada a condition that has been experienced by every country at war. Prices were enhanced, but so long as times were good people did not complain. Wages rose, perhaps always somewhat behind prices, but there was a steady increase in wages in ratio to the increase in prices. But then peace came and the workmen were confronted with changed conditions. In all economic papers throughout the world,- and in our own newspapers, articles appeared which directed the attention of the workman to the fact that in the future he must look to a reduction of wages, because it was impossible, if Britain was to carry on her export trade and if Canada expected to conduct her business and secure trade, and to undertake the payment of her debts, for wages to remain as they were. Wages must come down, it was pointed out, 192A
because, in international trade, goods would be bought from the country which could most cheaply supply them. The workmen began to look around and to consider what their condition would be. One most thoroughly conversant with labour economics and world-wide conditions and a man of extensive knowledge in my riding, said to me: "I have worked and slaved during the war and never had such wages before. But the day after the war was over I found myself no better off than before the war, and all I have earned is gone, having been swallowed up in the cost of living." As a panacea for this evil-because the high cost of living is an evil-some gentlemen in this House advocate the -control of prices. It is a popular policy to shout that profiteering shall be stopped, but i't all depends on how you define your term. What is profiteering? Is profiteering to be defined as a reasonable effort by a man to produce his goods at the minimum of cost and sell them at the highest reasonable price? Or is profiteering to be regarded as the securing of monopolistic control, and by that control the lessening of supplies and the securing of prices out of proportion to the value of the goods? The first is quite justifiable, and if my views are worth anything in this House today, what I would urge is increased production. But if profiteering means, according to the second definition, the controlling of supplies and the -creation of a monopoly, and the taking advantage of the conditions so created to secure more than the article is worth, then profiteering should be condemned. But, Sir, the control of prices, is not as simple a matter as it appears to be. During the war France tried i-t and failed. According to a statement contained in Bulletin No. 27 of the Department of History and Political and Economic Science, Queen's University:
The Food Controller of France compares himself to a game keeper surrounded- by poachers and laments "that the tradespeople and m;ddle men have invented no end of tricks to evad-e his prescriptions, and this he blames for his embarrassments."
The control of prices was also tried in Germany-a country whose people had been accustomed to control, who were used to paternal government and to submit without complaint to governmental regulations.
The food controller of Germany said that he had utterly failed because ways were found by which the wealthy secured supplies from those who produced them, with the result that the condition of the poorer

people was worse with the control of prices than without. Mr. Hoover frankly admitted to the people of his country that price control could not be successfully operated.
In Canada conditions were such that the fishermen on the Pacific coast laid up their vessels because they were not able to make a living at the prices that were to be paid for fish. I only direct attention to this because I should be sorry to see the Government adopt a scheme that failed in other countries, and because I am satisfied that the last condition in this country would be worse than the first. The moment you adopt a food price that places the value, or the price, of a given article at less than the cost of production-because as I said at the beginning, no man will produce unless he can sell for more than it costs to produce-just so soon will the production fall off.
From the information I have been able to obtain from those who should know, and with whom I have discussed the question, it is evident that the great want in Canada to-day is agricultural production. We are an agricultural people. A great many of our young men went overseas. We have made a contribution to the war that I shall never regret. I do not agree with the hon. member for Matane (Mr. Pelletier) when he says that we impaired our national usefulness by the magnificent contribution that we made to the winning of the war. That is a contribution that our people will always be proud of and one which has placed Canada in a most enviable position in the eyes of the world. But, we would he blind to facts if we forgot that taking 450,000 or 500,000 of our men from the ordinary channels of industry has lessened the output of our industries. We would be blind to facts if we forgot that the destruction of war has robbed the world of a large part of the raw materials -used by the industries of Canada and other countries in their operations. We would be blind if we overlooked the fact that for the past four or five years a great majority of the young men of the world have been engaged in destruction rather than construction. Keeping all these points in view, I suggest that the Government should be careful not to make a move in the wrong direction, because if they start out wrongly, conditions will be worse than they are to-day.
I realize that discontent exists among the working people. I realize that they are not satisfied with their status. I do not know *whether or not a solution of the difficulty
IMr. Nickle.]
will be found in the Whitley report or not. It seems to me -that the principle embodied in that document has reference to conditions as they are in England more particularly than to the conditions as they 'are in Canada. In Great Britain the various crafts and trades are more closely co-ordinated than they are in Canada. We are a more scattered people and I doubt very much if the principles of the Whitley report could apply to Canada. But I say that the status of the working people has to be improved in this country. I do feel that the time has come when the demand of the working people for an eight hour day should be recognized-eight hours for five days a week, four hours on Saturday, Saturday afternoon for recreation and Sabbath for worship. I quite realize that it is impossible for this Government, within our constitutional limitations, to prepare and pass an eight hour day law but I do believe that the legislatures ought to give serious consideration to it.
Although I seconded the motion of my hon. friend from Winnipeg (Mr. Blake) this afternoon, I would not want to be understood as agreeing with every contention that he put forward. He stated two propositions at least this afternoon in which I think he is radically wrong. One is, if 1 understood him correctly, that he seemed to stand for the curtailment of free speech. I believe that is a mistake. I have always been impressed with the fact that there is safety in free speech. When in London and Glasgow in 1916 I heard it on the street corners and in public places. While in Glasgow I heard things said that were much more radical than .anything I had ever heard in Canada. While in Hyde Park I heard views expressed such as we are not accustomed to hear in this country. I have always felt that the free speech enjoyed in Glasgow and London was the safety valve of the people. If you give men an opportunity of voicing their views, while you may not agree with them you have an opportunity of refuting them. It is better to have views expressed in the open than in the byways and secret places.
Nor would I agree with the hon. member for Winnipeg that sympathetic strikes should be prevented by legislation. I do not believe that would get you anywhere. If you are going to recognize the right of collective bargaining as usually understood, if you are going to recognize the right of men to strike if they are not satisfied with the conditions of their employment, then you must recognize the right of those who are not satisfied with the recognition

being obtained by others of their craft to strike in sympathy and legislation against sympathetic strikes would not get you anywhere. It would make confusion worse confounded. It would make the unrest greater in Canada in the future than it is to-day. The parts in respect of which the Lemieux Act has failed are not the positive portions of the Act but those parts which say "Thou shalt not." Positive legislation is what is required and while I sympathize with some of the views advanced by the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Buchanan), I want to urge the Government to be careful not to do something that will make conditions worse than they are to-day, but to do something that will bring employees and employers together, that will recognize the desire of labour for an improved status and that will bring at least harmony out of the discord that prevails in Canada. It is useless to say that this discord is mainly fomented by the foreigner. Vancouver, Victoria, and Calgary, are the homes of the strongest English-speaking groups that you have in any place in Canada and there is no place where the voice of discontent is more loudly heard than in these three cities.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. CHARLES GAVIN POWER (Quebec South):: For the past two weeks we of His Majesty's loyal Opposition have been content to keep silent while serious events weTe transpiring throughout the country. This silence of ours has been variously construed. We have been told, and have heard, that we feared to handle the situation. We have been told, too, that our silence may be attributed to our desire to allow the Government to remain embedded in the mire to which its own actions have brought it. But I think I can safely say, and in doing so I am speaking for everybody on this side, that we considered the situation too serious to attempt to inflame the minds of the public whose patience has already been stretched almost to the breaking point, and that we considered it was well to allow the Government ample time and opportunity to propose a solution and to come to a satisfactory settlement of the present unrest. We considered that it was possible for the Government to bring about, by legislation, by arbitration, or by some means, economic and industrial peace in
Canada. We have waited, as I have said, two whole weeks, and what has happened? We have the spectre of revolution, which first became apparent two weeks ago, appearing like a hydra-headed monster in dozens of Canadian cities. We have in cities everywhere, from Halifax to Vancouver, with the possible exception of those in the province of Quebec, which I am glad to say are as yet untouched by the prevailing malady, industrial unrest; we have an upheaval such as this Dominion has never seen. ' And, if we are to believe the reports of the press, anarchy is being openly advocated, revolt is being encouraged, and grim revolution stalks unmolested through the cities of our country.
The lime therefore has come for us to face the situation, and I am convinced that we will do so, not in a cowardly, vacillating fashion, but in the manner in which we have for four years faced the issue of war- as men, conscious of our duty, proud of our common heritage and steadfast in our purpose to maintain justice and advance the common welfare.
In order to come to a proper understanding of our situation, it is perhaps well to go back to those first principles which should be the mainspring of any action in the relations between man and man. These relations have become more and more complex as our civilization has advanced, and in modern times we are occasionally at a loss in our endeavours to establish a code for their proper determination; but the principles themselves are as immutable as the laws of nature, as old as the human race, as true to-day as they were when the tablets were delivered to Moses, or when the Saviour of the world delivered his sermon on the Mount.
Applying these principles to the relation of capital and labour, it is possible to enunciate certain truths which are generally admitted. These truths have found their best-expression in modern days in an encyclical of His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII, from which I expect to quote at great length. These truths can be summed up somewhat as follows:	The condition of the worker is
primarily of the utmost concern to the State:	He should not be allowed to be
exploited by capital as a mere instrument for the making of money; hence it is unjust that the fruits of man's sweat and labour should not belong to him:	As a
rule it is quite legitimate for the worker and the capitalist to bargain; but there comes a time when, driven by fear, necessity, or otherwise, the labourer finds it im-

possible to make a bargain which will give him sufficient to gain a frugal, honest and honourable living: When that time comes it is the duty of the State to see that the labourer is not oppressed by the capitalist -to enable the employee to make a fair bargain with his employer:	Further,
the standard of living should not be the minimum at which the worker can keep body and soul together; there should be given to him a wage sufficient to provide him with comfort and recreation, to enable him to educate his family, and to provide against accident, sickness, and old age: To establish this standard, it is essential that the workers unite, for experience teaches us that man is naturally greedy, and the rich and powerful will rarely concede anything to the poor unless coercion is applied:	It is the duty of the State,
therefore, to foster and encourage such unions when the poor have not the same facilities for protecting themselves as the rich: It is also the duty of the State as much as possible to remove all causes of complaint between employer and employee, to prevent by remedial measures, taken beforehand, any recourse to the strike, which is invariably a great economic loss, in many cases most seriously affecting those not intimately concerned in the struggle, and always leaving rancour and bitterness in its train. It is neither justice nor humanity to grind men down and stunt their minds with labour of their bodies: Daily labour must be regulated so that it is not protracted beyond the strength of the workers. In all agreements between master and workman it is implied that proper leisure be left to the workman for rest, recuperation and recreation.
Now, having laid down these principles, let us examine the present situation. The demands of the men on strike, if I understand them rightly, are somewhat as follows:	first, recognition of their unions;
second, an eight hour day; third, collective bargaining.
With regard to the first, recognition of The unions, it is so generally admitted that the necessity for argument is scarcely apparent. Besides, I have an Order in Coun-[DOT]cil of July, 1918, in which it is stated:
That all employees have the right to organize in trade unions, and this right shall not be ^denied or interfered with in any manner whatsoever, and through their chosen representatives should be permitted and encouraged to negotiate with employers concerning working conditions, rates of pay, or other grievances.
tMr. Power.]
So there is no doubt that the Government acknowledges that the unions are to be recognized.
The second point, the eight-hour day, presents, perhaps, more difficulty. But bearing in mind that the sweating of employees is a most inhuman and immoral act, we have to come to the conclusion that under the strain of modern industrial conditions a man cannot work very much more than one-third of the twenty-four hours. This fact had been scientifically proved before the war; but it became more generally admitted when a commission of the British Government on the health of munition workers found that the efficiency of the labourers was augmented and that their health was better undeir an eighhhour working day than under a nine-hour or ten-hour working day. Ten hours work was found over-fatiguing and incompatible with the highest efficiency. Further, since the labourer is entitled to a certain time for rest and recreation, we must at least take that time from the ordinary ten hours of work. The members of the American National War Board on July 20, 1918, issued a memorandum on the eight-hour working day, and their conclusion was as follows:
The way to crime and chaos lies' plainly in the exploitation of our men and our women as if they were coal or oil. In our free America there is to be industrial and social freedom. Out of the ferment of unrest there has already begun to come a truer sense of the human values; a better adjustment of law to those values; a keener conscience as to the treatment of those values and the conservation which shall not stop with saving water or wood, but will make its greatest and more fruitful task the conserving of our people themselves.
So that we find it generally admitted in Europe and in America that an eight-hour day increases efficiency, promotes health, and helps' towards the happiness of the labourer.
Now I come to what is, perhaps, the most difficult of the demands made by the workmen-that is, collective bargaining. It is generally admitted that unions of any particular craft or trade should be recognized, and should be allowed to bargain with their employers.
But it is not generally admitted that, for instance, the employer of a metal worker can be asked to bargain with regard to the wages of that worker with a typesetter or a carpenter. This is the objection which,
I understand, has been voiced by the Winnipeg Citizens' Committee, and also by the

Minister of Labour. If we admit that a worker may bargain collectively in a given trade, I hardly see how we can deny him the right to bargain as a class. We have already granted different classes in this country the right to bargain as a class. Lawyers, for instance, in every province in Canada, have their bar associations or societies, and they not only bargain, but have their bargains, arrangements and fees consecrated by Acts of Parliament. The farmers-and all farmers are not the same kind of farmers, because there are different classes of farmers-are now endeavouring to bargain with the Government with regard to the tariff, although I do not know with how much success. The manufacturers -and there are many different classes of manufacturers-are also endeavouring to bargain collectively with the Government. Therefore, if one class, the farmer class, or barrister class, or manufacturing class, is allowed to bargain as a class collectively, I cannot understand why the labourer should not be allowed to do the same.
As I have already said, capital is invariably greedy of its privileges, it invariably seeks to obtain further privileges; and it can hardly obtain these further privileges except at the expense of the man who produces the capital. Therefore, if we are to remain in the present state; that is to say where one trade bargains with its employer, we might be in such a situation as this. We might find a strike of metal workers, such as we have, in which the employers would win. The strikers would be obliged to return to their work and the increase in wages and the better conditions of labour which they demanded would not be granted. I have no doubt that other capitalists, encouraged by this victory and using the military tactic of destroying one enemy after another, would be very pleased to emulate the victory of the metal men, and, one by one, our trade unions would be destroyed or rendered impotent. I, therefore, hardly think it is possible for us to admit the right of one trade, one craft to strike and not admit the right of all other labourers in the same locality or even in the same country to bargain collectively with regard to their own conditions, providing they have a common interest, and in the class which we have before us there is a common interest. There is a general demand in Canada for an eight-hour day. There is very little more to be said as regards the sympathetic strike. If we admit the principle of collective bargaining, there is absolutely no reason why we should not admit the principle of a
sympathetic strike. The same arguments apply in both cases, and if we admit recognition of the unions and collective bargaining, we should admit the principle of sympathetic strikes.
There is a question whether or not we should admit the advisability and the possibility of a strike amongst the servants of the State. By servants of the State, I mean those who serve a Government, whether federal, provincial or municipal. The condition of the worker under the State is somewhat different from that of the worker under the private capitalist. The former is assured, first of all of a permanent position; he receives his wages, and he knows that through political action he may be able to obtain higher wages. I do not think anybody can reasonably object to his striking, but we can all reasonably object to his joining a sympathetic strike. He, after all, is the servant of the people of Canada; he, after all, is administering or operating utilities for the whole of the people of Canada. The postal clerk is delivering the mail; the fireman is putting out fires; the policeman is the bulwark of law .and order. The same reasons which apply in favour of allowing a sympathetic strike in other trades apply in favour of prohibiting a strike amongst the servants of the State, because the latter can, by direct political action, increase their salaries, improve their conditions and establish a condition whereby their wishes may be met. The civil servant has not been sweated by the ordinary profiteer; he is the servant of the State, and should things not satisfy him, be has a good weapon in his hand-the ballot. Therefore, we should admit recognition of the union, the eight-hour day, collective bargaining, the right of civil .servahits to strike, but not the right of civil servants to join a .sympathetic strike.
It would, perhaps, be well to examine a little into the causes of the present unrest. There is, I admit, a general world-wide cause. We have just been through the greatest war in history; commerce has been dislocated, and if I may say so, our population has, to a certain extent, been brutalized. We have found that might and force have been the only means whereby justice and humanity have been able to conquer, so that in .spite of ourselves we have come to the conclusion that if we are right, we must fight. Therefore, amongst the people of Canada, as amongst other people throughout the world, the feeling ha*

arisen that we should have no patience; that we should proceed at once to obtain what is ours. This feeling is general, and it is probably brought about by the conditions of the last four years. But we cannot altogether blame on the world-wide war the state of unrest into which our country has been brought. There is no doubt that some time before the war the labouring classes were in a state of ferment. We had strikes; we had threatened strikes; we had unemployment; the conditions of labour were by no means normal.
However, we have found that in the four years of the war the world has advanced probably two or three generations, and that which satisfied the people before the war will satisfy them no longer. We have also found that there has been something wrong with our economic system. To quote a newspaper which I read recently;
The traditions of law show more respect for *property than for the person-more for Capital than for the Labour that makes wealth. This is all wrong. And labour does well to try by every honourable means in its power to procure for itself equal justice. Labour has as good a right as Capital to collective bargaining. Capital is doing it all the time in spite of laws to the contrary. As well might the Kaiser have attempted to dispute the right of the Allies to make Poch their generalissimo, as for capital to dispute allied labourers right to unity of action and collective bargaining.
The world has changed, and we cannot judge men and affairs by the standards which we would have used four or five years ago. To come down.to the more particular causes of the strike, we have found, to quote again the same paper, which dn turn quotes from one of the Winnipeg papers, I think tihe Labor News:
The Government was indifferent to it all. It appointed food controllers who did not control. It recommended titles for profiteers. It muzzled criticism, suppressed free speech, strangled independent newspapers, censored the truth and imprisoned the protesters. It let contracts to its patrons, and so by sharing in the plunder rendered itself impervious to protest and indifferent to need.
We find that the Government of this country, in disregard of our constitution and our traditions issued during some eight or nine months decrees as tyrannical and ukases as evil as ever were issued by the Bolshevik government of Russia or by its predecessor the Czar himself. Order in Council after Order in Council was issued until at last the people decided that they would no longer have any respect for them. The Government considered Parliament useless, Parliament was not summoned in any crisis whatsoever, but an Order in Council was passed; and, whether right or wrong,

the result was always the same-to bring into still greater disrepute the law and constitution of our country.
The policy of the Government with regard to the labour situation has been weak and vacillating. It reminds me of nothing so much as the policy of the last king of France before the Revolution, who, when the revolutionists were crying at the gates of his palace, was one moment for granting them a National Assembly and the next, for sending the ring-leaders to the Bastille. It might be likened also to the policy of the Czar just before the revolution, when one moment he was for summoning the Duma, and the next for letting loose the most reactionary elements in that country. And so with the Government of this country. In July, 1918, a set of pious ejaculations were issued by the late lamented Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers). We were told what the relations of capital and labour ought to be. The capitalist was told to be good, the labour man was told to be good, we were all told to be good; but no solution was found for the difficulty. Still later, after a trip West of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Carvell) an Order in Council was issued on October 11, 1918, in which it was decreed:
Any male person, employer or employee, of military age, 'as defined1 by the Military Service [DOT] Act, who violates any of the regulations above-mentioned shall be subject to the military law for the duration of the present war and de-mobilzation thereafter, and shall forfeit any exemption granted him and any right to obtain exemption under the Military Service Act.
As hon. gentlemen will remember, that raised a storm of protest throughout the country, and on the 2nd of November the Order in Council was amended. Later on, when we were still in<the period of demobilization, an Order in Council was issued on November 19, 1919, repealing the previous Orders in Council and providing:
That the Government is informed that concerted movements are now under way on the part of employers and workmen respectively which aim at improved relations as between employers and workmen, and looking to the elimination, so far as may be practicable, of lockouts and strikes in connection with Industrial disputes.
'I am very glad the Government was informed of that, and I would have been still more glad had their hopes been well founded. Unfortunately, shortly after this pronouncement from the Government, the unrest became acute, culminating in the present strikes at Winnipeg, Vancouver and elsewhere.
We have, therefore, as one of the proximate causes of the present unrest the diffi-

culty which the Government has found in demobilization. I do not intend to go into this question at any great length. Many theories have been advanced as to whether demobilization should proceed more rapidly or more slowly, but we have found this: The Government, despite all its agencies-its employment agencies, its land settlement scheme, its war-service gratuity scheme, and even its pension scheme-has been unable to find work for the returned soldier, and unable to provide for the dislocation of industry consequent on the armistice. The Government have been unable in any way to prevent or forestall the unrest which it was patent to any one of us would follow the conclusion of the war.
The cost of living has been going up by leaps and bounds, and there has been no attempt to prevent or control it on the part of the Government. I do not wish to tire the House by quoting the figures of the percentage of rise for all the countries in the world, but I might mention the increase that has taken place since 1914 in the following countries: United Kingdom, 120 per cent; France, 137 per cent; Sweden, 220 per cent; Canada, 84 per cent; United States, 75 per cent. One hon. gentleman stated today that in New Zealand the cost of living had gone up higher than my figures show, but if my figures are correct, and I have reason for thinking so, the cost of living in New Zealand in October, 1918, had increased only 42 per cent. So it will be seen that the increase in the cost of living in Canada has been exceeded only in European countries subject to blockade conditions. Compared with all other countries except these the increase in the cost of living in Canada is by far the highest.
It has increased considerably more than in the United States. There is twice the increase suffered by New Zealand and nearly two and-a-half times that in Australia. In one paper it is stated:
For four years our Government has permitted and even fostered one of the most nefarious following now to become organized into a band of middlemen, which is as great a curse upon the country as the cold storage octopus. It has an army of agents running wild through the country buying up everything in and out of sight upon the farms, giving the farmers such fabulous prices that it not only unsettles and sometimes prevents them from taking advantage of the normal rise in prices, but they themselves are admitting that the produce is not worth the prices that they are being sold for in the city of Quebec.
The excuse is that there is a shortage of food in Europe. If there is a shortage of food in Europe, where there is revolution and strife, is that any reason why we
should export more of our surplus and create the same labour unrest at home? Would it not be better to take the bull by the horns and bring down the high cost of living by spending millions immediately in building cold storage houses and controlling the farmers' produce, so that there may be normal prices, only charging sufficient commission to pay the working expenses of the cold storage plants? Then, again, can we not make a law to imprison the dishonest promoter and speculator by making it an offence punishable by imprisonment for middlemen to engage in speculation?
There is another reason for this general unrest. I think the Government is, to some extent at least, responsible for it. The wealthy people of Canada have not been judicious in the manner in which they have enjoyed their wealth. It is said:
The wage-earner is measuring his income against the evidences of luxury, advertisements of ladies' dresses at prices that have to support a family for a year, and not too much of them at that. Gentlemen's neckties at from five to fifteen dollars, and all else in proportion- goods whose commendation evidently is their dearness. Daily appear such appeals to fashion luxury in the newspapers as might well be called immoral in their encouragement to ungainly waste. Meantime, the wage-earner reads with rage of millions made out of war necessities, and of one claim upon the government, that he has to support, for eighteen million dollars, which a contractor would have made had his product not been rejected. He stands aghast at such figures, and, in his corporate capacity of trades unionist, he rebels against it. Here is the way the Winnipeg worker sees it: "During all these fearful years the rich became richer and the poor poorer, and with the increase of wealth the arrogance of the wealthy increased. Their wealth did not make them more beneficent. It made them mad for still more wealth. They became more and more callous and indifferent to the needs of the masses."
I charge the Government with responsibility, even though indirect, for this condition of things, in that they allowed this profiteering. They .allowed great wealth to be made in munitions and in the sale of supplies to our Allies, and people made wealthy through the instrumentality of the Government used their wealth most injudiciously. We have been told that we have in this country a very undesirable element-the Bolshevik!-and that in Winnipeg this element is in control. I am not fully apprised of all the circumstances of the strike in Winnipeg, but so far as I can see there is little on the part of the labour men except a just and legitimate claim of labour to enjoy the fruits of its labour and to enjoy better conditions. But it is be-

coming the habit in this country to designate every one a Bolshevist with whom we cannot agree. This is a very old failing of the Tory party. For centuries any one who opposed the Tory party was always hailed as the Bolshevist of that day. I remember having read in my history of England of Lord Russell and Sydney having been called Whigs. They were hanged for saying and, indeed, for believing, that the King was not King by divine right. They were the Bolshevists of those days. And the Roundheads, the Puritans, were the Bolshevists of the day of Charles I and Charles II, because they dared to insinuate that the immorality and the bestiality of the courts of England of that time were not conducive to the proper government of the people of England. Later on people were condemned to the dungeons for being Liberals. Then it became a byword of reproach to call a man a Radical. We have learned a lot from the early Radicals, and we have learned a lot even from our own "Radicals. Had it not been for the Liberals and the Radicals of this country we should not at the present time be enjoying responsible government! Men of the Family Compact in Ontario, I presume, called William Lyon Mackenzie a Radical; and yet, were it not for William Lyon Mackenzie,
I doubt whether we would be sitting here in this Parliament to-day. Again, men in Quebec who denied responsible government to the people of Quebec and Lower Canada, called Louis Joseph Papineau a Radical and drove him into exile. But had Louis Joseph Papineau and those associated with him not taken the stand which they took, I am very doubtful whether there would be responsible government in that province and whether we would be sitting here to-day. Later on still, the same attitude was held in regard to those whose views were different from the policies of the party in power, particularly the Tory party, and such persons were called Socialists. Yet we have taken a great deal from the Socialists. The present Government, Tory and all as it is, has adopted the naturalization of railways, something which thirty, forty or fifty years ago would have been considered extreme socialism. To come to our own day and to the present moment, any one who seems to oppose the Government is promptly described as a Bolshevist. Well, Mr. Speaker, if opposition to the Government, and if a desire to establish the rights of labour, and a wish to have it understood once for all that we in this country are opposed to anything which will rob labour of 
its dignity and nobility, is Bolshevism, then Sir, I am wilding to be called a Bolshevist. But if Bolshevism means the subversion of all authority; if it means anarchy; and if it means the government of the country by one class alone; lastly, if it means, as we have been told it does in Russia, the nationalization of women and the murder of all those who are opposed to the theories held by certain sections of the people, then undoubtedly I am opposed to it. And I think you will find that in expressing this opinion I am voicing the views of most of those who have seen service at the front. The ordinary returned soldier has been a labourer, and was such before the war and during the war. I should say, without hav-ig 'the exact figures at my disposal, that before the war fully 20 per cent of the army consisted of wage earners; and further that 60 to 75 per cent were those who worked with their hands as day labourers. These men cannot be expected to become strike breakers. You cannot expect them to lose sympathy with their fellow workers. You cannot expect them to enter into competition with the men at present engaged in manual labour. You cannot expect them in any way to help the capitalist, whom to a large extent they blame for the late war. You cannot expect them to give up their own comrades and to put their services at the disposal of any person who has in view the victory of capital over labour.
He also knows what the promises of the Government are. He has been promised a great deal and given very little. He has his own troubles with them in connection with demobilization, pensions and gratuities and I consider that he is more apt to side with the worker than with the capitalist.
Having said all this, I think the least I should do is to suggest a remedy. A remedy would be to grant the demands of the strikers in so far as an eight-hour day and collective bargaining are concerned. In regard to the civil servants, if they do not want to go back to work, put somebody else in their places. In regard to the undesirable elements which we have in the country, or which I am told we have, if they are undesirable, if their theories and actions are such that we find that the free air of Canada does not suit them, let us deport them. Let us deport them whether they come from the slums of Warsaw from the ghettos of Rome, or whether they be the cockney off-scourings of Whitechapel or the dock rats of Liverpool. It matters not who they are, if they are undesirable citizens; I do not care where they come from; they are not fit to remain in

our country. We had been led to believe until to-day that this undesirable element in Western Canada was the foreign element. We find now that the leaders of the Winnipeg strike are not of the foreign element but are British born-the British born that we heard so much about a few years ago. If these men are not satisfied with the laws of our country as they are at present administered; if they are not satisfied with our manners and customs, deport them. I would like to quote from a little pamphlet entitled " Social Reconstruction -A General Review of the Problems and Survey of Remedies." It is signed by such a conservative body the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States. They say:
The labourer must come to realize that he owes his employer and society an honest day's work in return for a fair wage, and that conditions cannot be substantially improved until he roots out the desire to get a maximum of return for a minimum of service. The capitalist must likewise get a new viewpoint. He needs to learn the long-forgotten truth that wealth is stewardship, that profit-making is not the basic justification of business enterprise, and that there are such things as fair .profits, fair interest and fair prices. Above and before all, he must cultivate and strengthen within his mind the truth which many of his class have begun to grasp for the first time during the present war; namely, that the labourer is a human being, not merely an instrument of production ; and that the labourer's right to a decent livelihood is theT'first moral charge upon industry. The employer has a right to get a reasonable living out of his business', hut he has no right to interest on his investment until his employees have obtained at least living wages. This is the human and Christian, in contrast to the purely commercial and pagan, ethics of industry.
In conclusion, I have confidence in the Canadian workman. I have seen the Canadian workman in more difficult circumstances than those of to-day. I remember well the circumstances under which I saw the Canadian workman two years ago to-day when our trenches from Hooge to Mount' Sorrel had been completely wiped out. I saw the Canadian workmen counter-attack in broad daylight and in the face of numerous machine guns they never faltered. They carried on until there was hardly a man of them left and although they did not take the position on the first day they tried again and again and within two weeks every inch of the trench lost on the 2nd of June, every gun and every trench instrument that had been taken, were once more in the hands of the Canadian workman. Bearing that in mind I have no doubt that the man who was able to do that under those circumstances will be able to make arrangements whereby he will see to it that
he works for the greater prosperity and greater benefit of this country.


Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Minister oi the Interior):: Mr. Speaker, the subject of debate does not concern directly any of the departments of the Administration for which I am just now responsible, but inasmuch as for the moment the seat of chief disturbance is in the province from which I come, and inasmuch as I had something to do with the study of the situation on the ground, I venture to intervene in the debate. The motion of my hon. friend from North Winnipeg (Mr. Blake) will have served a good end if it succeeds in throwing some light upon the age-long problem of the relations between capital and labour -and it can do no more than throw some light upon it-or if it succeeds in bringing into relief, and enabling us to study at close range, the difficult and concrete conditions under which that problem has taken acute form in Winnipeg and various cities of the country. It is wholly beyond hope that by any consideration this Parliament can give to it in any single debate, we can make any substantial progress .towards a solution of the world-wide problem of labour and capital. But perhaps it is not impossible that some ideas and principles may more clearly emerge whether merely precautionary, as were those with which the excellent speech delivered by the
9 p.m. hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle) was replete, or whether of constructive positive policy, of which, I fear, so far every speech has been barren. In the struggle between labour and capital the history of the past has been the advance of the cause of labour, and the history of the future will he the same. No one can read the progress of the past or the signs of the times aright who is not prepared to admit that to the labourer belongs a larger, and ever larger, share of the product of his labour. Whenever legislation interferes it must be on behalf of the man behind. But merely stating a general principle like that does not lead us far in the consideration of any specific administrative acts that we can apply to the conditions that exist in this country.
The first thing necessary is to know the conditions that do exist and the causes that brought them about-what they are, and how far any general principle can be applied thereto. A general strike was declared in the city of Winnipeg on the 15th day of last month. Previous to that on the 10th day of the same month a strike had been

declared on the part of the employees of three concerns-the Dominion Bridge Company, the Manitoba Bridge and Iron Company, and the Vulcan Iron Works-of the city of Winnipeg.
The dispute between the employees of those companies and the companies was a dispute as to what part, if any, should be taken by a body of men elected by certain branches of labour known as the Metal Trades Council in the determination of the conditions of labour in the shops of those three concerns. It is commonly said in Winnipeg, and has often been repeated here, that the principle of collective bargaining was the principle upon which the two sides to that initial dispute split. In one sense that may possibly be correct, but a mere statement like that leads us nowhere, because collective bargaining in the form described by many members has never been denied, and is not claimed to have been denied, by any of the three companies who are taking part in this dispute.
Collective bargaining on the part of all three had been their practice for some time; so much so that one at all events, and I think all of them, had adopted the habit of each week consulting with shop committees of their men as to conditions in the factory, as to improvements that might be made, as to hours of labour and wages. That is to say the principle of collective bargaining had been applied, insofar as collective bargaining was constituted by the negotiations between any single concern and the employees of that concern as a body. That fact admits of no dispute.
On the other hand, however, it was contended on the part of the Metal Trades Council, which is affiliated with, or indeed a constituent part of the Trades and Labour Council of the city of Winnipeg, that a bargain made between the collective employees of a concern and that concern, should not stand as a bargain until it was ratified by the Metal Trades Council. To that the employers in each case objected. They placed their objections on the ground that the Metal Trades Council was constituted by men elected by bodies and by crafts who in large degree had no part in and had no relation to any craft engaged by them; on the further grounds that the Metal Trades Council as constituted was composed very largely of men elected by the Metal Trades of the railway companies, and that conditions that might obtain in the shops of the railway companies could not possibly apply to conditions in the competitive shops of the other companies, inasmuch as the one had to compete in the

markets and the other had not. However, it will be realized at a glance that there was a margin between the two sides to the controversy. There was a " No Man's Land " between. Collective bargaining by the employees in a single concern was not accepted as collective bargaining by the Metal Trades Council, nor by the Trades and Labour Council of the city. The employers, on the other hand, refused to extend, temporarily at all events, the principle of collective bargaining. They did, however, later agree that upon the establishment of anything in the nature of an organization between the employers themselves they would then be prepared to deal collectively with jthe united employees of the three concerns, or with a body of craftsmen of the description of those engaged by the three concerns, though there might be included outside parties not actually engaged by those concerns themselves.
It is only fair to those who went on strike to say that at the time the strike had been declared there was, so far as I know, no concession made of the willingness of the employers to negotiate otherwise than collectively with the employees of the three concerns respectively. Now in this relation it should be known at this stage, that in the opinion of the Minister of Labour the conception of collective employment, as entertained by the employers in that case was somewhat too narrow. fl&t was equally and very decidedly his opinion that the conception of collective employment, as contended for on the part of the Metal Trades Council, was so wide as to be impracticable and dangerous to the cause of labour itself. Hit is the opinion of the Minister of Labour that where there is an organization of employers, then it is the duty of that organization to deal collectively, not only with the united body of their own employees, but with at least single crafts and unions of employees, consisting not merely of their workmen but of men in the same trade or craft though employed by others.
The point at issue mainly is this, and the reason I will explain as I pass along: The employees contended that the Metal Trades Council should be supreme, that they should have the right of imprimatur and ratification of all engagements entered into by the employees of any concern with the management of that concern and the Metal Trades Council as constituted undoubtedly held within its personnel representatives of crafts that have nothing to do with the crafts engaged by the three concerns affected.

Now there are other elements in the controversy of which it is well that Parliament should have full knowledge. The Government of the province, chiefly through the spokesmanship of the Premier, had made strenuous endeavours to effect a reconciliation. In the course of its endeavours meetings were held and a proposal was made that everything in dispute, and the main thing was the principle of collective bargaining, because on the part of one at all events arrangements had really been arrived at between the employers and the employed, but had been refused ratification by the Metal Trades 'Council-a proposal was made that all the matters in dispute be referred to a board of arbitration, the personnel of which should be five, and all selected by the Prime Minister of the province. That w'as not concurred in on the part of the strikers. Then later on, and before the general strike-before the 15th day of May, when the general strike was declared-the Premier requested from the Trades and Labour Council, or the Metal Trades Council, I am not sure which and it does not make any difference-yes, he requested of the Trades and Labour Council, to know whether or not, if the principle of collective bargaining on the part of the Metal Trades Council were conceded by the employers the general strike would still take place, and to that request he received a negative reply. As to that there is no dispute, there can be no dispute. The general strike took place in the face of the denial of the president of the Trades and Labour Council-in the face rather of his assertion that it would take place whether or not collective bargaining on the part of the Metal Trades Council was acknowledged as a sound principle by the employers. Whether or not it would have been so acknowledged I cannot say, but at all events the contingency of its being acknowledged was refused on the part of the president of the Trades and Labour Council as sufficient to ward off the general strike. As a result the general strike took place. The industry of the city of Winnipeg was for the time being paralyzed ; public services were placed in a state of tie-up, and Winnipeg was virtually in a condition of isolation and siege.
Now, in discussing the inner principle of a general strike, and the rightness and the soundness of the action of a sympathetic strike, it is well to consider where action of that kind is bound to lead. It led in Winnipeg, as I say, to a general paralysis of the whole industrial structure of the city. It led to a denial of the necessities of life
to the people of that city, even to the strikers themselves.
And as a consequence inevitably it led to the establishment of a separate Government-or better, assertion of governmental functions on the part of those in charge of the strike itself. And why? Because it could not lead anywhere else. A general strike ties up all industries and all activities, and denies to all parts and elements of the community the service of the necessities of life, not only public service but each and every ministration, the delivery of bread, the distribution o,f milk, the circulation of water-indeed all things that are necessary for the protection and preservation of life. As a consequence, and in order that the strikers might themselves exist, they had to exercise control over the distribution of the necessities of life; they had to appropriate to themselves public services to which all the people had contributed; they had to declare that the public services were their property for the time being and could be used for their benefit alone. And they did so declare, and upon that declaration they acted. They had to declare, furthermore, that there should be such a distribution of water by which they themselves should be served, but by which many others should not be served at all; that there should be a distribution of the milk of the city, that whom they nominated should be provided but that the general public should be denied; they were further bound to declare that the very bread of life should be distributed to such as were named by them, but that it . should be refused to all others within the compass of the city of Winnipeg.
Those pretensions are an assertion of governmental authority. But the strike leaders were driven to make them if they were to continue effectively anything in the nature of a general strike. Consequently I say it is proved by the example of Winnipeg, and indeed follows inevitably from the very logic of the situation, that a general strike to succeed or, indeed, to continue, must result in the usurpation of governmental authority on the part of those controlling the strike. It did so result in Winnipeg; it must ever so result.
When that stage was reached, when that object lesson confronted the citizenship of Winnipeg, that citizenship was aroused and became organized, and as a consequence of that organization and of the united front it presented there was a rapid retirement on the part of those controlling the strike from the position of governmental authority

that they had assumed, and consequently and inevitably there was a reduction in the general strike itself, because the leaders could not continue the strike as an effective general strike without the maintenance at the same time of the exercise of the functions of 'Government. That is why in the last ten days the strike has not assumed the proportions and has not involved the hardship that it did in the early days of the struggle.
A sympathetic strike is, of course, essential if a general strike is to take place. A sympathetic strike is a strike on the part of a class of labour, based not upon any grievance of its own, but founded entirely upon sympathy for those involved in another quarrel. Hon. gentlemen opposite and also, I think, some hon. gentlemen on this side, have approved the principle of the sympathetic strike. Now, I do not want it to be assumed from what I shall say that there is any statutory office this Parliament can fill with regard to sympathetic strikes-at all events, any useful statutory office; there is, however, a function that any Government can exercise in this Dominion, and that is by making known where it stands on this question, and why it stands where it stands, and let that have its influence by way of conciliation, or by way of moral constraint.
Now, what I am arguing is that the sympathetic strike almost necessarily involves the violation of contracts. A union itself is based upon the principle of collective bargaining. A union cannot effect its purpose unless it can bargain as a union, and make its engagement with an employer or combination of employers. In a word, one of the principal functions of a union is to make an engagement on behalf of its constituents with the employer concerned. If, having made any such engagement it is to be free to break it by reason of the quarrels of others, then of what value is the engagement? As a result we found in the city of Winnipeg the remarkable spectacle of men in 'the city by the hundred, yes, I believe by the thousand, who were on strike, as they claimed, for the principle of collective bargaining, and who at the same moment were declaring that any bargain on their pant had no validity at all. In one breath they were saying: A collective bargain must be acknowledged on the part of the employers in this city. In the next breath they were saying: No bargain, collective or otherwise, has any force with us at all. Indeed they themselves were
f Air. Meighen.]
violating a collective bargain which they had made in one case only some few weeks before.
Now, it must be clear to hon. members that if the principle of the sympathetic strike, resulting in a general strike, is to be sound, then there can be no such thing as the sacredness of contracts-there can be no attribute of a bargain that would make a collective bargain of any value whatsoever. Therefore, I say that the Minister of Labour is sound and right when he declares that while a strike may be just when the balance of merit is on the side of the strikers, there is nothing that can justify a sympathetic strike in breach of a bargain; and there is nothing at any time that can justify a general strike involving upon the whole innocent community, the paralysis of industry, and the denial of the necessities of life.
In that condition of affairs we found Winnipeg when we visited it last week. We found at the same time a tremendous volume of public opinion well aroused and determined that assertion of government authority on the part of the strike leaders -or on the part of any one else-as opposed to the constituted authority of the country, should be at no time acknowledged by the-people of Winnipeg. And the citizens of Winnipeg in taking that position have rendered a service not only to their own city and province, but to this entire Dominion. They have shown an example to the citizens of this country that the body of sensible opinion in Canada can and will set its face decidedly and effectively against anything in the nature of a general strike-anything in the nature of a soviet or any other form of government inconsistent with constituted authority.
I do not think it is necessary for me to bring written evidence of the assumption of soviet or other irresponsible authority further than the facts that I have adduced as to the declaration of right, and indeed, the acting upon that declaration of right to control the distribution of the necessities of life. But if further evidence were needed all one has to do is to look up the columns of the Labour News of that city and read the statements of the strike leaders themselves, who openly declared that they were in control and intended to continue in control, although they said they intended to do so without bloodshed and without force. Just as if the whole principle of government of this country could be overturned without bloodshed and without force! But

it is apparent from a perusal of that paper that the strike leaders for a time believed themselves to be in possession of governmental power and were determined to exercise it, but were faced by an overpowering concentration of public opinion against which they could not avail.
Furthermore, the opinion had taken permanent root in that city that the issue that had given rise to the strike on the part of the employees of the three concerns was no longer the main or the present issue to be decided; that it had been swallowed up in a far greater issue, just as if a man or a class of men, in determining that (hey should assert a privilege of their own, had burned a city in reaching out for that privilege. Therefore, they said: Those who are fighting here for some form of collective bargaining have, to ensure the success of their claim, taken steps that are inconsistent with constituted Government, and they have raised an issue that entirely overshadows the first issue on whioh they went out on strike, an issue that must be decided once and for all before we return to weighing and determining the merits of the first cause of quarrel. In that position, I submit the citizens of Winnipeg were right.
It was essential that the greater issue raised by the assumption of Soviet authority-and it was nothing less on the part of those in control of the strike in the city of Winnipeg-should be once and for all decided and be decisively beaten down before they should concern themselves with the smaller and much less important issue upon whioh certain men had originally gone on strike. That is the stand the citizens of Winnipeg took. That is the stand the Minister of Labour took, and I leave it to the House whether or not he acted in the interests of this country in taking that stand as determinedly as he did. In that position the matter rests to-day.
We found as well that about 450 employees of the city post office about 180 of whom were letter-carriers and the rest postal -clerks, had joined in the sympathetic strike, and in violation, as we claimed and I think rightly, of their oaths of office, had deserted their posts, and as a result the postal service, a necessary public -service, was out of existence. What'-action should have been taken under those circumstances? Inasmuch as the strike on their part was on a sympathetic footing and nothing more; inasmuch as within only a few weeks before representatives of those men had, in writing, assured the Government of the satisfactory treatment of their grievances; inasmuch as they had gone out without notice and without cause, we decided that some time should be given to them to return and that with the approval of the Government on the expiration of that time their positions should be vacant if they failed to return and they should be no longer employed in the public service. As a result of the announcement of that decision which appeared in the issue of the Morning Press of Saturday, the 24th May, there returned on the morning of the 26th, I think, 70 of those employees. On the morning of the 26th May returning employees were harangued by the Eev. Mr. Ivens on the one hand and Mr. Winning, President of the Trades and Labour Council on the other, who standing respectively in the rear and in the front of the office tried to persuade the returning men that they should hold back; that the decision of the Government was nothing more than a hoax or a bluff, and with all the. force of their oratory-and it has some quality-they endeavoured to make the men hold fast against constituted authority and stand in full allegiance to the strike leaders instead of to the public of this country. Had it not been for that, I doubt not that more would have returned. The -business, however, of this Government was to see to it that all desiring should have free access to the office; that no physical impediment and no threats should deter them, and that duty was fully carried out on the part of the officers of the Government. No man was deterred, no man was intimidated; all had free and full privilege of' returning to work, and not doing so, the promise of the Government was implemented, and at twelve o'clock on the 26th May all who did not return, about 380 in number, lost their positions in the service of Canada and shall not be further employed.
Concurrently with the action of the Dominion Government in this regard, the Provincial Government took precisely similar action with regard to the telephone employees and their decision took effect also at exactly the same hour. The city of Winnipeg has since taken similar, although not wholly similar, action with regard to its employees. As a consequence, it is only the truth to say that the force of the general strike in the city of Winnipeg has been very largely broken; business has been restored, not to normal, but to something approaching normal level. At all events, the conditions of life are tolerable, but the-attitude of mind of the citizens remains still, in my belief, adamant that nothing

but defeat and complete defeat shall attend the efforts of men who dare to assert the authority of Government and who in doing so 'bring hardship on the whole community in order that they might win in a quarrel between certain employees and certain employers. The strike about that time and since has extended to some other cities in Canada, strikes not altogether related to that in Winnipeg, although in many cases related. Wherever in those strikes, the public service has been demoralized, the attitude taken by the Government and the policy adopted has been, the same as it was in .the city of Winnipeg. We have notified all concerned that if they engage in those strikes on a sympathetic basis-and there is no other-they thereby resign their posts in the public service and they are not further to be employed. That has taken effect in Calgary, and in the city of Winnipeg some 109 railway mail clerks went out on strike after I left, but all returned within the twenty-four hours' time given to them by the Minister of Labour for that purpose. They had not been warned in the same way as postal clerks in other cities, and that being the case, it was deemed fair that a reasonable time should be given to them, so they were allowed 24 hours, and all returned within the 24 hours.
We felt it necessary that the Government of the country should be well advised as to the exact facts connected with the extraordinary circumstances obtaining in that city. The telegraph was more or less denied; communication with the city was very limited; it was impossible at this distance to gauge not only what were the exact facts in dispute and the merits of the various classes that went out on strike, but the state of public opinion in that city in order to enable us to know whether or not we could supply voluntary effort to take the place of the strikers; whether or not public opinion was sufficiently aroused and seized of all the facts to back up the Government and enable it to carry out a policy of replacing those strikers , by voluntary workers for the time and by permanent substitutes at the expiration of a fixed period. Consequently, it was visited by members of the .Government and a survey was made of the whole situation. Men representing the strikers were taken into conference fully and at length. All they had to say, everything they had to urge, was heard sympathetically on the part of the representatives of the Government. For, let me say here: If there stands in Canada to-day a man who repre-
sents in fullest sympathy the cause of labour and labour organizations and labour unions, it is the Minister of Labour; a man who has undoubtedly the confidence of labour and labour organizations in this Dominion, and a man who, in my judgment, having had some opportunity to study closely the circumstances has to-day the confidence even of most of the strikers in the -city of Winnipeg.	'.
I have argued that the sympathetic strike cannot at all events become general, and in the main cannot take place, unless we concede the right to the violation of solemn contracts. I have argued further that the general strike cannot take place unless it is to be followed by an assumption of governmental power on the part of the leaders of the strike, who have no constituted responsible authority.
Let me carry that argument a little further, because what I want to impress upon the House is this: There is not in this dispute any question at all about the recognition of the right to labour unions; none whatsoever. No man can give a moment's thought to the circumstances and pretend to argue that the question of the recognition of labour unions is an issue in any degree at all; it is not an issue. The question as to the form of collective bargaining is in part an issue, and there may be merit on one side and merit on the other. In the opinion of the Minister of Labour there is demerit on the part oi both, and some merit on the part of each, hut no one can argue that the right to labour unions was involved in this strike, What shall be the form of collective bargaining was in the first place an issue. It was superseded after by a far greater, and a far graver issue that is now being fought out and decided; but for the time being it was an issue. What I want to impress upon the House is this: If collective bargaining is to be granted as a principle-and it is granted as a principle, as hon. gentlemen say, in other countries as well as in this-then there must be some unit to which the principle of collective bargaining is to apply, and beyond which it cannot go. It cannot for one moment be argued merely because collective bargaining is to be acknowledged that there shall be an unlimited and heterogeneous collection of all classes oi labour that may get together ad infinitum and then say to employers or to any class of employers "You must bargain with us and cannot come to a decision unless with us." If that is to take place then not only

the Metal Trades Council of the city oi Winnipeg, composed of crafts that are in no way concerned or employed by the employers in the dispute, can itself bargain as to conditions and wages with many of its members, even the majority of its members, have nothing at all to do therewith, but the Trades and Labour Council of the city of Winnipeg may also do the same, and you might extend 'it right on and on until you would have every organization of labour in the Dominion united and all exerting their united influence in every dispute that might occur. Can any one contemplate such an event? Can anyone contemplate that such an event could possible exist concurrently with responsible government by the people? Are we to have on the one hand a concentration of employers, and on the other hand a concentration of all the labour interests of the Dominion, fighting it out for supremacy? Collective bargaining, unless you bring it down to some unit, is bound to reach that end. If you are going to have a combination of all organizations of labour in the Dominion taking part in and determining the event of every dispute as to labour conditions and wages here, there, and at any other point, why then you have the perfection of Bolshevism. It would be nothing less. You would have an organization that could hold aloft the weapon of the strike or any other weapon- could hold that weapon aloft in majesty and dictate and read out to the rest of this country the conditions of life itself. Can any one find fault with the reasoning that leads to that conclusion? .
All I say in this:	Collective bargaining
is sound, but a unit must be found towards which the principle of collective bargaining is to apply and beyond which it must not go. Otherwise, you lead inevitably to a concentration of labour on the one hand, and of capital on the other, to a condition of dictation on the one hand and subordination on the other, whichever it may be, and to the complete elimination of governmental authority, because under those conditions it could not subsist. A general strike would then mean a paralysis of the activities of the entire Dominion, and indeed it might extend beyond the nation itself. Therefore, let me repeat, you must come to some unit, whatever it may be when you apply the principle of collective bargaining.
What should the Government have done that it has not done? I remarked early in my address that we had had nothing in the
193	.
way of constructive suggestion. It is true that the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) prefaced his speech by the assertion, in language of which he is a master, that by our long career of errors and blunders and disasters this Government had brought about the terrible condition of affairs that he says now presents itself, but, no doubt out of affection for the Administration, he mercifully refrained from even mentioning any of these blunders or errors.


Mr. JACOBS :: It would take too long.


Arthur Meighen: It would not take too
long to mention one, and I am not in such a hurry that I would not give the honourable gentleman a chance to mention one just now.


Samuel William Jacobs: I will in a few moments.


Arthur Meighen: That is the safer course I will give the honourable gentleman a chance to name them all in a few moments, and I hope he will support what he .says. It is true that the honourable member from Kamouraska ended by a pitiful appeal to the Government to do something-something- he knew not what. The honourable member for (South Quebec (Mr. Power) also seemed to think we could in some way reduce the high cost of living by taking the bull by the horns. Outside of these two admirable suggestions, I am afraid the afternoon has passed without any recommendation being offered, except indeed a word of practical caution on the part of the mover and of the honourable member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle).
The Government of this country is peculiarly responsible for the administration of the public service to the best advantage of the people of this country. Is there any step we could have taken with relation to the public service that we did not take? It is argued on the part of some that there was a failure to implement promises made last summer to the post office employees. There was no failure at all. I had (Something to do with the settlement of that strike last summer. With all my limitations, and I know they are many, I ventured to act as a conciliator, and some way or other I had some success. Every promise I made was carried out to fulfilment. I said that if they should return to work I would recommend pay while out, that all should be accepted back, and that immediately the Civil Service Commission should sit upon the determination of their grievances, but that I could not recommend an increase by



way of bonus or otherwise without the authority ,of the Civil Service Commission. Not only were all these promises implemented, but under the special circumstances which were revealed here, a bonus was granted. Consequently, no fault can be brought home to the Administration that has the remotest relation to the strike on the part of the members of the public service that has taken place in the city of Winnipeg. Furthermore, whatever one might argue in that regard the strikers themselves by their action put any such argument by the board because they openly and frankly declared that they struck out of sympathy with the metal workers of that city, and in order, as they thought, to establish the principle of collective bargaining.
Now I am not here to argue as to what should be the change, if any, in the law with regard to strikes. That should first be considered collectively by the Administration, if any change indeed can be suggested. But I do wish to impress this upon the House: that the authority under our Federal constitution of the Dominion Government or of the Dominion Parliament with relation to the settlement of strikes is limited-very limited indeed.
Whether or not it is best that the precise division of responsibility that now constitutionally exists should have existed, or should continue to exist, I do not say. But the fact is that it does exist. It is fixed by the law and constitution of this country, and it is well that all should understand where that division is. The determination of civil rights in this Dominion is in the hands of provincial legislatures and those alone. The relations between employers and employed as to hours of labour, conditions of toil, and so forth, are relations of civil rights, and as such are beyond the jurisdiction of the Parliament of this Dominion. The habit has grown of following a plain assertion of truth of this kind by the comment that it is passing the buck to another; but the buck can never lie at the feet of those who are constitutionally incompetent to move it. Truth lies on one side or the other. Why should we not face it? I am making no complaint as to failure of any provincial authority to intervene or establish different relationships between employers and employed. That is another question altogether. On authority of the officers of the Crown, that power is not ours, and consequently we cannot exercise it, and should not be complained of for not indulging in the exercise of an aut'hor-
ity which we have no power to make effective. We could, it is true, by constituting the employment of labour, say, beyond a certain number of' hours per day, a criminal offense, assert and assume jurisdiction. But it is going pretty far to ask the Parliament of Canada, especially as respects employers and employees in private concerns, to say that a certain act on the part of these concerns is a crime, before any provincial legislature has decided that the prevention of it is a civil obligation. Laws regarding hours of labour in certain classes of workers have been passed by some, I think by all, provincial legislatures of the Dominion. Laws upon that subject generally, upon conditions of labour, child labour, women labour, hours of labour in general, have been passed by provincial legislatures almost times without number and are clearly within their jurisdiction and competency. Laws of that nature are not within our jurisdiction unless we choose to make a certain deed, which is not perhaps at all an offence against civil law, and which is not denied as a matter of civil right, a criminal offense. It would scarcely be suggested that we should take that course. Therefore, let it be clear that as respects a general law for the reduction of the hours of labour in this Dominion the problem, for the present at all events, is one for the provincial legislatures. Furthermore as to a general law setting up and enforcing the principle of collective bargaining, that itself is also a matter in regard to which the function of the Dominion Government can not be directory but com ciliatory and advisory alone. We could not by specific legislation declare and make it an obligation of an employer or set ot employers to adopt the principle of collective bargaining. All we can do in that regard is to say where we stand on the subject-where the Department of Labour stands and what is its advice and to press that advice by way of conciliation where-ever it can do good. Having done that, our powers are exhausted so far as these subjects are concerned.
Now, in a general study of the whole problem, while I think all hon. members will agree that the whole tendency has been and will be an addition to labour of its share in the product of industry, the part that any single country can play at any one time in the solution of that problem is very limited indeed. ,No single nation, no single industrial national unit, can advance appreciably beyond the general line of the industry of the

world. The industrial units of the single pation must compete in world trade with the industrial units of others, and handicaps cannot he put upon them which will unduly or disastrously militate against them in that competition. If such is done all will suffer-employers and employed. Subject to that consideration, it seems to me the duty of Parliament and of Governments, provincial and federal, is to see to it that labour conditions are ameliorated and that labour hours are reduced, because unquestionably with the multiplication and increased efficiency of machinery all the wants of mankind can be supplied without anything in the nature of oppressive toil. Unquestionably, by a much shorter day than has obtained in times gone by we can get along in this world and have all the legitimate wants of mankind supplied; and I say that it is the duty of legislatures and of Governments to make it possible, and indeed to make it imperative so far as lies in their and our constitutional powers, that the hours of labour be shortened and the conditions of labour be improved, so long as we do not go more rapidly than is consistent with the reasonable necessities of our industry in competition with the industry of other nations. That is the way in which I view the duty of the Parliament of Canada, and the duty of the provincial legislatures of this Dominion as a matter of general principle.
The problem is, indeed, a difficult one. These particular employers in Winnipeg have said already, " We are quite ready to go down to nine hours and we believe we can do that and compete with our competitors in Ontario and other provinces, but we say we cannot go to eight hours until they do the same." And they have said- at all events the Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works have said clearly, that just as soon as their competitors in Eastern Canada went to eight hours they were prepared to do the same and to bind themselves in writing accordingly upon that proviso. That is an illustration of the condition and the difficulties that present themselves in one province as compared to another. Consequently it might have been well-I am not arguing whether it would or not; there are difficulties .the other way also-if the constitution had been framed so as to make this question a federal instead of a- provincial one. But it is not worth arguing. The fact is that it is not a federal question.
The tendency is, and I hope it may be more rapid in the future than it has been in the past, to a reduction in the hours of
1931	tP
toil, particularly on the part of the manual labourer, whose title to such reduction is sounder and more just than that of any other class of labour in the world. The tendency, I repeat, is to a reduction in the hours of labour and toward an increase in the remuneration of toil, both in the absolute and relatively, to other occupations. My only object has been to set out as clearly as I could what concrete facts present themselves in the face of the dispute that exists in the city of Winnipeg, and its reflection in many other cities in the-country, to submit that those concrete facts comprised the issue in the first place were overshadowed by a subsequent larger issue, and that such larger issue must be rightly decided before the officesof thisGovernmesrut, or, indeed, of the provincial government can be usefully exercised towards a settlement of the initial dispute. That view I believe the provincial government share.
I have also ventured to outline the general principle along which I think legislation should move in the treatment of the great struggle that has for ages long subsisted between capital anl labour and that can at best be ameliorated and not, at all events for many years, wholly removed or solved.


Samuel William Jacobs: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) this afternoon deplored the fact that when the Government decided to send delegates to Winnipeg to endeavour to settle the unfortunate disturbances which exist there now they should have selected the hon. Acting Minister of Justice (Mr. Meighen) )for that purpose. Those of us in the House who may have thought that the hon. member for Kamouraska was using language perhaps a little too harsh in regard to the hon. Acting Minister of Justice, will, I think, come to the conclusion, after having listened to the address with which he has just regaled the House, that he was quite right in his statement that it was a mistake of prime importance to send a gentleman with the cast of mind, and constituted with such a temperament as his, to endeavour to settle a strike of the magnitude we have on our hands now. One would have imagined, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. gentleman thought that he was in a court of justice and that he was pleading the case of the metal employers as against the employees. I do not know that I ever heard a finer piece of forensic special pleading in my life than that which we heard from the hon. Acting Minister of Justice to-night. Incidentally he told us

that his sympathies were with labour, that at some time in the future labour would probably achieve what it had set out to achieve; in other words, that " man never is, but always to be blest."
We have a situation confronting us in Winnipeg that concerns the whole Dominion, and yet the hon. gentleman talks to us about provincial and federal rights and the encroachment of one upon the other. That is, I consider, something quite beneath the hon. gentleman. When we have our house on fire we endeavour to extinguish the flames in the best way we can with the means at hand, and in our efforts we take the best means at hand. The attitude ot the hon. gentleman towards this question reminds me of the story of Mr. Squeers, of Dotheboy's Hall, in Nicholas Nickleby. He was such a kind man and his wife was such a kind woman that when the poor orphan child was dying they got out the best dictionary in the house and laid it under his head for a pillow. That is what the hon. gentleman is endeavouring to do now. He has treated us to fine words, he has given us a magnificent address; he has told us the position of the manufacturers, and he has told us that the strikers have .actually been so bold as to violate a contract. He says that in going on this sympathetic strike they violated a contract. I admit they violated a contract. The Allies went to war with Germany and contracts were violated as soon as war was declared. Does not the hon. gentleman know a strike is war, that war is negation of all law and that when you are at war you do not stop to consider contracts or who is right or who is wrong while the -war lasts? The discussion does not turn on the question of the contract or who is right and who is wrong, but you ask yourself the question: Why is it that the Government allowed this trouble to go so far without taking any action in the matter? We have sat here for the last four weeks talking on the legislation which has been presented by the Government. For the last four weeks we have had rumours of these strikes in the West, and particularly in Winnipeg. What has been done by the Government in the way of an attempt to see that this strike did not come about? Absolutely nothing. We have a Minister of Labour in Canada. Have any of us ever seen the Minister of Labour? We have certainly never seen ' him in this Chamber for the good and sufficient reason that he can not constitutionally enter this representative Chamber of the people. We have to seek for him in the rarer atmos-
phere of the Senate chamber. Last year we complained about the masterly inactivity of the then Minister of Labour; we charged him with being asleep when he should have been awake, but we never accused him of being awake when he should have been asleep. Now, they have changed the situation and given us a Minister of Labour who does not sit in this House. Last year we were chastised with whips, this year we are chastised with scorpions. For three weeks past questions have been asked almost daily of the Government as to what was being done about the strike, and their maid of all work, the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean), who speaks for the Minister of Labour, would get up, and in his bland manner, tell us that "the Government has the situation
10 p.m. well in hand." They have it well in hand? They have it well on their hands now and it is for them to get rid of it. Nothing was done towards seeing if some solution of the difficulty could not be found. The Department of Labour leaves these two interests to settle their differences amongst themselves. The place for the Minister of Labour during the last four weeks was in Winnipeg attempting to bring the parties together. He did nothing of the kind, and it was only when public feeling was worked up throughout the whole Dominion that he, accompanied by the Acting Minister of Justice, went to Winnipeg. What did they do when they arrived? We find by the press that the mayor of Winni-' peg, who naturally would know something about the conditions which prevailed there at the time, complained that for forty-eight hours after they arrived they never even called upon him officially or unofficially; that they never saw the mayor, in so far as I know, during the entire time they were there. The complaint was made publicly by the mayor that these gentlemen representing the Government, and particularly the Minister of Labour, never considered it worth while to go into immediate conference with the mayor and try to settle the strike.
The question of collective bargaining seems to be the difficulty between the two parties to the dispute, or it was at the beginning. As I understand it, when tne strike trouble first started, the employees of certain industries demanded the right to collectively discuss with the employers matters affecting every branch of trade of that particular industry. What difficulty was there about that which the minister could

not settle? There might have been some difficulty between the two contending parties, but it was the duty of the Minister of Labour to have located himself in the city of Winnipeg at that time and had 'he done so it would not have taken very long for him to have brought the parties together. He could ha-ve brought the parties together if he had been there but he was recreant in his duty. He never faced the situation and now the Government are trying to stand from under when they find me situation is such that .they cannot handle it..
In regard to collective bargaining, it is generally recognized in the United States, it is recognized in England and it is recognized in every country where they have discussed the matter up to the present time. But judging from the remarks of the Acting Minister of Justice one would imagine that if this were to be accorded to the strikers it would mean the overturning of our constitution and the rebellion of the people of the whole country. These people were perfectly right in their demand for collective bargaining because it is only by banding together that they can obtain rights in a way corresponding to that in which the manufacturers band together for their own purposes.
When this conflagration started in Winnipeg what were we doing in this House? We were discussing soothing syrup. You will remember that we went into a very long iand learned discussion upon the question of soothing syrup, not for the strikers ,in Winnipeg but for the infants under one year of age. The hon. member who speaks for the Minister of Labour waxed quite eloquent upon the deleterious ingredients of .soothing syrup. A day or two was devoted to this question in Committee and we finally sent it to a Select Committee for further consideration. Then we discussed the question oif titles. I am disposed to agree that the question of titles is one of importance and that it was right that it should have been discussed at that particular time.
The Eight Hon. the Prime Minister was away at the time, and it was necessary that we should get that Bill through before he returned, or the same thing would have happened here which happened last year. I do not begrudge the fact that we did spend a day and get this matter cleared out of the way before the Prime Minister arrived. "When the cat is away, the mice will have their say." I think the last time I saw the Prime Minister it was a day or two before he left for England last year,
and prior to his arrival on the other side we found that the net result of his having held up the question of titles was that his brother secured one, his private secretary secured one, and the apologist for titles in this House, the Minister of Trade and Commerce, also secured one. Perhaps if I had known titles were so easy to secure, I might myself have said a word or two in their behalf and been rewarded in the same way. I merely mention this to point out that it was necessary that titles should have been discussed before the Prime Minister's return this year.
Then we had the Sexual Offences Bill, the Fisheries Inspection Bill, and matters of that kind, and this important question, which should have been discussed three weeks ago, and ventilated in the House so that the country could know something about it, was stood aside until now, when it has got almost beyond our power. The Minister of Labour finally found his way to Winnipeg, where evidently several conferences were held with the strikers and with others. And what do you think happened afterwards, Mr. Speaker? An S.O.S. call was sent to Mr. Samuel Gompers, Just think of it. A call was sent to Mr. Samuel Gompers, advising him that the strikers had already defeated themselves, a congratulatory message, I fancy, but inasmuch as there was reason to think that possibly the intervention of Mr. Gompers might help to a certain extent, it would be advisable for him to take some action in the matter. Well, as I understand it, Mr. Gompers is not in any way connected with this movement, which started in Winnipeg, three or four weeks ago. It has got beyond the power of Mr. Gompers, and I cannot see why the Minister of Labour should have seen fit to call upon that gentleman unless it be that he wanted to return a compliment which had been paid to us some years ago when a serious strike was on in Colorado and Mr. John D. Rockefeller wired to Mr. Mackenzie King to come down and settle that strike, and inasmuch as the strike was satisfactorily settled I suppose the Minister of Labour considered it would be exceedingly courteous on his part if he were to invite Mr. Gompers to come to Canada for a similar purpose. As my hon. friend the member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) stated, it was a most humiliating thing on the part of the Minister of Labour, implicating, as he did, the Government to invite an outside gentleman to take a hand in the settlement and discussion of this matter. Had it succeeded it might have amounted to some-

thing; nothing has heen heard of the summons, and, as far 'as I know, Mr. Gompers has not even answered the wire.
The Prime Minister is being given a great deal of credit, and rightly so, for tlhe work which he has done in the matter of the Peace Conference at Paris. He is a past-master in the art of peacemaking; that would seem to be his metier. We have it heralded in all the government organs of the country that as a peacemaker he stands pre-eminent. Might I suggest that while he has this divine afflatus about him he find his way out to Winnipeg and see whether he cannot use some of the methods which he has so successfully tried in Paris and bring about the settlement of this strike. We know he is-at least the newspapers have told us so-one of the most intimate friends of Mr. Lloyd George, and probably, having sat at the feet of that estimable gentleman, he must have learned something oi the art of peacemaking. Mr. Lloyd George undoubtedly knows something about peacemaking. Whenever a strike of any proportions whatever looms up on the horizon in England Mr. Lloyd George is on the spot and the strike is settled forthwith. Why is it, therefore, that having had the tutelage of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Prime Minister of Canada does not see his way to bring about a successful termination of the Winnipeg strike? He has the opportunity of his life now, and I hope he will take advantage of it as soon as possible. We have been getting along very well without the Prime Minister. I do not mean to say as well as if he were here:, but we have been pottering along fairly well for the last six months, and I think that the House would be quite willing to lend his services to the city of Winnipeg for a short time to see to it that this strike is brought to a conclusion.
In connection with this matter of collective bargaining, I would like to give the House an illustration of how it is working in the city of Montreal. Hon. gentlemen are aware that some time ago credits aggregating something like #is5,000,000 were granted to the kingdom of Rumania, and orders, were given for the manufacture of clothing and woollen goods to different merchants in Canada. Those merchants met here and parcelled out the orders among themselves. What did they do as soon as they got those orders? They at once sent for the President of the Garment Makers' Union of America, who controls all the garment
[Mr Jacobs.]
workers of this country, and they asked him to supply them with a certain number of garment workers in order to do this work. They asked for pressers, and stitchers and tailors, and so on, and made a bargain collectively with the Garment Workers of America in order to supply the necessary workmen to do this work. That is the way astute commercial men do their business. If that thing can be done in the case of Government contracts, and other Government work,, why cannot it be done in the case of the strike in the city of Winnipeg? I think, Mr. Speaker, it will generally be conceded by the House and the country that the Government has woefully fallen down in its endeavour to settle this strike; that it will have to admit its bankruptcy, so far as settling matters of this kind is concerned, and it will only be a very short time when the necessary petition to force them into the bankruptcy courts will be filed by the people of this country.


Hon. A. K. MACLEAN:: Mr. Speaker, this afternoon the member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Blake) -moved the adjournment of the House in order that he might discuss the strikes in Winnipeg, and other Canadian cities, together with all the circumstances, conditions, and causes, near and remote, having any bearing upon them or any connection therewith. I thought it might be quite fitting that I should read the motion that the hon. gentleman made this afternoon so as to remind my hon. friend (Mr. Jacobs) who has just taken his seat that he has -entirely forgotten that motion, and has not directed any of his remarks to it. This is regrettable because the hon. gentleman is exceedingly able, -and I am sure that the House would have welcomed any remarks which he could offer upon the very interesting subject which has- been debated this afternoon-a subject which is not only interesting, but a serious one for the country. The hon. gentleman was disposed to criticise the Minister of Labour because he had not visited Winnipeg earlier. My hon. friend is apparently under the impression that the 'Minister of Labour had not intervened in this matter until his arrival in Winnipeg some time last week. I wish to assure him that this particular industrial strike in that city had had the personal attention of the Minister of Labour long before he visited Winnipeg, as all strikes throughout Canada from time to time have had his personal .attention.. '
My hon. friend (Mr. Jacobs) also expressed surprise that the Minister of Labour should place himself in telegraphic com-

munication with one of the greatest and most distinguished labour leaders of the world, Mr. Samuel Gompers. This criticism was not quite apt, because Mr. Gompers is much interested in this particular strike, many of the trades unions in the city of Winnipeg being affiliated with the international organization of which he is the head.
My hon. friend complains very bitterly and persistently that the Minister of Labour was unable to be present in this House, for reasons which he gave, and thereby was unable to inform hon. members as to the progress which was being made in the settlement of this particular strike, and as to industrial conditions generally throughout Canada. A statement appeared this morning in the press from the Minister of Labour, which was made public ju&t prior to his departure from Winnipeg for Ottawa, and I am disposed to ask the House to listen to me for a moment while I read two or three paragraphs of that statement. I think it proper that I should do so because the minister is not here to express his views himself, His statement is as follows:
The promoters of the general strike in Winnipeg now sit in the ashes of their folly. Something like 30,000 men and women were called out, professedly for the purpose of enforcing the recognition of the right of collective bargaining. In responding to the call, the majority violated and repudiated their obligations to their own trade union and their contract with their employers. Individually and collectively they wilfully discarded their agreements indicating that the possession of what they are Contending for is of little value.
Labor organizations which require that contracts made be fulfilled, merit and command the respect of employers, of the public and of governments. Labor leaders who advocate that only might is right, who hold that law, justice and honor should be discarded at will, merit and receive the condemnation of all good citizens.
If an employer or a number of employers in a given industry deny to their workmen the right to bargain collectively for the sale of their service, the entire force of the workmen may properly be directed against the offender and the public will approve and sympathize. In a general sympathetic strike the force is directed against the whole community who are innocent of any responsibility for the offence and public indignation Is immediately aroused because of the inconvenience, loss and suffering imposed upon innocent people. Therefore sympathetic strikes must always fail.
In March last at Calgary the play was written. "The Winnipeg strike". Was its first rehearsal with the main performance promised for a later date? The Winnipeg rehearsal has cost approximately two million dollars in wages lost in Western Canada and has proven the play to have been badly written and unpopular With both the public and most of the performers.
Employers must not mistake the outcome of the general sympathetic strike as a defeat to
organized labor, on the contrary, labor will emerge from the conflict strengthened with the wisdom gained from its experience. Numerous strong labor organizations have by their voice and actions largely contributed to the outcome because they believe the general sympathetic strike is wrong, vicious and demoralizing, Employers should rather seek to deal justly and at this period liberally, with their workmen and assist the bona fide labour unions in their legitimate efforts to obtain a reasonable wage for all who are willing to help.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the judgment of a man who is a friend of labour, and there is none greater in this country. I cannot for one moment make myself believe that there can ever be any serious difference of opinion in this country as to the adtion of the Minister of Labour in connection with the Winnipeg strike. Originally there may have been some merit- in the demands of the strikers, as the Minister of the Interior has already stated. That issue, however, soon passed away, and the issue became this: shall constituted authority prevail in this country, or shall a certain section of the community usurp it? That is fhe issue to-day, and it should end in only one way. It would be an unfortunate thing for this country if -the principle asserted by the strikers were to prevail, and I 'am surprized that their action has received the volume of commendation that it has in this House and outside.
Now, Mr. 'Speaker, in connection with the unrest which prevails throughout the world to-day, wfaat we are most interested in is to know, in the first place, what are its causes; and, -secondly, what can be done to abate it. Can any remedy be prescribed? There is to-day without doubt some political, social and industrial unrest in Canada. That is true of every other country in the world, and history shows that it is a characteristic condition following -all wars. I assume that every intelligent and reflective man anticipated political, social and industrial unrest following the war. And it is not at all wonderful, -Sir, that these conditions are found in this country, certainly no far-seeing man could expect this country to participate in one of the greatest wars in his-' tory for a period of four and a half years and at its end find stable conditions politically, industrially and socially. We shall have more of such unrest, and it is well that our people should recognize that fact. It would- be the part of folly to expect that we shall be entirely free of further industrial unrest. Other countries do not expect such to he the case. In the first place, the war 1s not over, and while the world cries for peace there cannot be peace until the treaty is signed, the armies are demobilized

and the economic processes which prevailed in. pre-war days restored. As an actual fact, the combat still goes on in Russia and in Hungary. Before 1914 the war now being waged in Russia alone would, I imagine, have been regarded as one of the greatest in history. Even if the war were over, we could not immediately grasp the results of - that terrible catastrophe. Unemployment will, I fear, prevail in many countries of the world for quite a time to come, and worse than that, famine will make its appearance in many countries. I* would imagine, although I do not presume to speak with accuracy, that up to the present time probably famine has reaped as great a harvest as have the contending armies. The most serious and solemn spectacle which presents itself to the world at the present moment is the fear of famine, decimating the peoples of many countries by the thousands and by the millions. So serious is the outlook that I cannot but take quite seriously the industrial situation in this and in other countries.
Our problems in Canada are largely manifested in the form of unemployment and industrial unrest. Is this a surprise? Should it not have been anticipated? Let me ask hon. gentlemen if it would be fair to expect that any Government or that organized society, could provide absolutely to meet this unemployment and this industrial unrest? The war built up large war industries; existing business expanded; the warring nations were contending for the immediate delivery of war materials and prices which would have been called insane in peace times were offered for wax material. This resulted in increased prices of materials and increased wages for workers; and wholesalers and retailers, demanding some of these increased wages, raised their price to the public. Positions sought men and not men positions. Then a sudden reversion to peace necessitated the disestablishment of all the industrial works that had been established during the war, and unemployment necessarily followed. Then men were looking for positions and not positions for men. This could not be avoided in Canada nor anywhere else. These conditions prevail in every country in the world to-day, and it should be a matter of pride for Canadians at this moment that our conditions in this respect are not at all comparable with the conditions which prevail in Great Britain, in all other European countries and even in the United States.

No Whitley scheme could meet the case fully and completely. Conditions of trade are always intimately associated with industrial problems. Trade is but the exchange of goods, and if opportunities to carry on an exchange of goods are prevented or minimized by any factors, whatever they may be, then trade is hampered, and there must be industrial unrest and some unemployment. We cannot anticipate, and nobody could rationally hope for, an immediate resumption of trade conditions as they prevailed in pre-war days. In the first place, as I have already stated, peace has not yet been signed; axmies have not yet been fully demobilized; capital is timid, and trade channels have been disrupted.
It will be many months, I fear, before a very large part of this world will be able to resume its economic processes. Until international trade is resumed, we shall have industrial problems. We may minimize them by the granting of credits to countries which wish to become purchasers of our products but which are unable to buy the same unless we furnish the credits. This has been done to some extent. The granting of credits has been -criticized, but nevertheless unless this had been done conditions in this country would have been far worse than they are at the present moment.
I refer to these conditions merely to emphasize this fact that employers and employees should recognize them. It should be conceded generally that we are confronted with conditions which we did not create and which are unavoidable, conditions which are difficult of solution, which are capable of a great deal of harm to this country and its citizens. The inevitable conclusion is that the duty devolves upon everybody, employer, employee and citizen, to contribute his part in the solution of a problem unprecedented in our history and one which unfortunately confronts almost -every nation in the worid. If we in Canada exhibit the spirit of patriotism and cooperation which our people exhibited during the long four and a half years of the war, we shall in the end overcome all these domestic, industrial and political difficulties which to-day confront us.
This war means a social reconstruction of this country, and, I imagine, of all countries. Representatives of all strata of society have fought, bled and died together in the same trenches to maintain a common purpose. I believe that this democratic spirit and this comradeship of the

trenches will not soon perish from the earth, and that is generally conceded by men in this and other countries. The conditions of those engaged in labour prior .to the war, especially in some countries, were not creditable to our civilization. That is not as true of Canada as of Great Britain and some other European countries. The war has clearly left the impression upon all thoughtful men that the amelioration of conditions of labour and improvement in the status of people engaged in labour must receive the early and sympathetic attention of all countries, and it is the duty, not merely of governments, but of members of parliament and of citizens to recognize this and to play their part in achieving this end.
The hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Lapointe) this afternoon made many assertions which were, after all, pure assumptions on his part and which, as a matter of fact, are not correct.
For instance, he talked as if there was a tendency on the part of somebody to deny to labour the right of organization. That statement was unnecessary because it is quite incorrect and unfounded. Nobody in this country worth thinking about denies to labour the right of organization. It is a.piece of folly on the part of any industrial head to deny to his employees the right of organization. He should welcome it, and I am sure that in saying that I am reflecting the personal judgment and wishes of every member of the Government.
There is no disposition on the part of the Government to deny the statement that the hours of labour should be shortened. Personally, I should like to see an eight-hour day in this country, and I have felt that way for a good number of years. As a matter of fact the eight-hour day prevails very largely in Canada to-day. It is being adopted gradually, and I trust that it will become common even without legislative intervention. My hon. friend from Kamouraska seemed to argue that there was a tendency on the part of the Government, or Parliament, to oppose the eight-hour day, and he also argued as if there was a tendency on the part of the employers and the Government to oppose collective bargaining. In both these respects he is in error. I know of collective bargaining taking place in my native county many years ago. Collective bargaining may have different meanings in different places; one person may ascribe to it one meaning, and another person a different meaning. But collective bargaining has obtained in this country for
many, many years. I remember reading of it and hearing of it when I was quite a boy. We have instances every day of collective bargaining. We have it in four different ways: First, we have it expressed in the form of an agreement between an employer and a committee representing his employees, whether unionist or non-unionist. That form of bargaining has obtained for many years in Canada. Second, we have the agreement negotiated between an employer and a trades union acting on behalf of the members of such trade in his employ. The hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Buchanan) expressed this afternoon his approval of that form of collective bargaining. Third, we have the agreement negotiated between an employer and a union comprising all the different trades in his employ; we have that in Canada to-day. Then, lately there has been urged the new definition of collective bargaining in the form oi an agreement between an employer and a confederation of trades unions such as the building or the metal trades. Even before the Winnipeg strike we had an agreement of that kind negotiated in the city of Toronto in the building trades, on the principle of the Whitley scheme. That agreement did not succeed in averting a strike,, but at least there was one instance of collective bargaining in accordance with the Whitley Joint Industrial Council recommendations.
The honourable member for Kamouraska, spoke as if the Whitley scheme so-called was exactly the mode of collective bargaining suggested at Winnipeg. I say it is not. The Whitley plan involves collective bargaining, but it is more conformable to, the form of collective bargaining to which, we have been accustomed in Canada for many years past. I should like to read two or three extracts from the report of the Whitley Committee made to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. In the final report I find this:
Taking our first and second reports together they constitute a scheme designed to cover all the chief industries of the country and to equip, each of them with a representative joint body capable of dealing with matters affecting the welfare of the industry in which employers and employed are concerned, and of caring for the progressive improvement of the industry as an integral part of the national prosperity.
On the 31st of December, 1918, in accordance with the recommendations of the Whitley Committee many joint industrial councils had been established, in the following trades, for instance:

Bobbin and shuttle making; bread baking and flour confectionery ; building; china clay ; furniture; gold, silver, horological and' allied trade; heavy chemicals; hosiery; made-up leather goods; match manufacture; metallic bedsteads ; paint, colour and varnish ; pottery ; rubber manufacture; saw milling; silk ; vehicle building; wool textile and woollen and worsted.
Separate joint industrial councils were established in all these trades. The whole purpose of the Whitley scheme, as I understand it, is to set up a joint industrial council in which are represented the employers on the one hand, and the employees of some particular industry, and perhaps some closely allied industry, on the other. It is quite possible this scheme may have good results in Great Britain, and perhaps in other countries. I trust it will be successful wherever it is tried. Obviously, it is more capable of experimentation in Great Britain, on account of the size of the country and the ease with which the district councils may be organized. In Great Britain a few of the great trades might be organized in one industrial council covering the whole country.
I do not think I need say anything about the Winnipeg strike itself or the circumstances leading up to it, because that has been fully and ably covered by the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) who had personal acquaintance with the whole issues.
I should like to say a few words as to one of the causes which is assigned for high prices of foodstuffs, which in turn is assigned as one of the primary causes of industrial unrest in this country. High prices, being world-wide, cannot afford a complete answer for the conditions' which prevail in Canada to-day and which have been the subject of criticism in this debate. In almost every other country of the world prices are just as high as in Canada. Roughly speaking, you will find upon investigation that prices are exactly or very nearly one hundred per cent higher in 1919 than in 1914 in practically every country in the world. Our prices are lower on the average than they are in the United States or in Great Britain; and they are immensely lower than in many of the European countries. Now what is the cause of it? Mere criticism of the fact provides no help in the solution of the problem; and if it is capable of solution only by slow degrees and processes, it is better that we should realize the fact and frankly express that as our view of the matter; because if existing high prices are altogether attributable to governments, then we are disguising the real
[Mr. A. K. Maclean.!
issue. It has been stated by some hon. member, and it is not necessary that I should elaborate the point, that the chief reasons for the high prices prevailing in the world to-day are, first, an inflation of currency, and, secondly, a lack in the supply of commodities. These, I think, are fundamentally the two reasons for the present high prices. The same causes contributed to high prices following other wars; and students of the problem have given these two reasons as fundamental factors in the case. Now, if that be true, the situation can be met only in two ways: first, by greater production, and second by a deflation of our currency, and this latter can only be accomplished by a reduction of our war debt as rapidly as our country sees fit. If these be the primary causes, still I do not wish to be understood as saying that we cannot provide some palliative, something that might minimize these higher prices. At least it is the duty of the Government and of all who hold positions of responsibility to explore, so far as they can and as constantly as they can, any avenues which might provide any solution or partial solution of the problem. Somebody has suggested a fixation of prices. I am disposed to agree with the injunction tendered us this afternoon by the hor;. member for Kingston (Mr. Nickle) in this regard. It may be tried; possibly it should. As a matter of fact, the fixation of prices when tried in other countries during the war has not been entirely successful, and except as regards wheat and newsprint we did not directly attempt to fix prices in this country.
So far as foodstuffs and many other commodities were concerned, the Food Board attempted to control the profits of the wholesaler and retailer, and I believe this had some good effect; and I would venture it as my opinion that that would be a better method than the direct fixation of prices. There are many difficulties in connection with an attempt to fix prices in Canada. England tried it, and with some success. But their circumstances were very different from ours. In the first place, England is an importing country; what she produced in foodstuffs was quite negligible. Every industry and establishment in England was given over to the manufacture of war material, and she was obliged to import practically all her foodstuffs, at least. More than that, she was compelled to purchase these importations of foodstuffs for her people; and thus, being obliged to import, it was not a very difficult matter to control prices as she did. In

many cases the Government of Great Britain assumed part of the loss. This is particularly true as regards flour and bacon, and one or two other commodities. The portion of the cost of flour assumed by the Government of Great Britain amounted to about $5 a barrel. I do not know what it was in respect of other commodities. And in the case of New Zealand and Australia it was easier to attempt fixing prices than it would be in Canada. There, export was rendered almost impossible by lack of shipping, and it was possible, perhaps very much in the interest of producers in those dominions, to assume control of productions which could not be exported. But in Canada there are many difficulties. Some person suggested this afternoon that exportation should be prohibited or limited. I think that that would hardly be a hopeful experiment in this country unless it were carried on in a small way. This country must export foodstuffs particularly and raw material, otherwise we would be unable to carry on trade with other countries. Again, in a country of the magnitude of Canada, it would be impossible, in most cases I would say, to fix a price that would suit all sections of the country. Further, when prices are fixed they must be changed every week or every fortnight or month, and possibly every day, and this would cause endless irritation to consumers and producers. I submit, therefore, that on the whole itwill be found a most difficult method of dealing with the matter of prices. During the whole period of the war, as I have already stated, the Food Board attempted to curtail the profits of the wholesaler and retailer. The Cost of Living Commission, which was a bureau of the Labour Department, throughout the war co-operated with the Food Board and other war organizations in the way of obtaining information as to production cost, and selling cost, and in this way was in a position to afford a great deal of publicity which was of considerable use. However, in connection with the high prices prevailing in this country, which I admit are regrettable and impose very great hardships upon *our people, we must realize that we are in no worse position than the people of other countries. And while this is not much of consolation to those who must submit to burdensome prices to-day, yet it does indicate that the condition is one which is not local but has a world-wide application and is one of the incidents of the war, due to an inflation of money and a lack of supply to
meet the demand, and which we can overcome only gradually and by a resumption of the efforts enjoined in the slogans so popular and acceptable to the people during the war, namely, more production and more thrift. Only in this way can we escape altogether from the conditions now prevailing in respect to prices which undoubtedly account very largely, or at least to some extent, for the present high prices.


Mr. D. D. McKENZIE (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, the question which has been brought to the notice of the House this afternoon by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Blake) is one of the greatest possible importance. It has been very fully discussed from both sides of the House. So far I do not think it can be said that it has been approached as a party question by any person who has spoken. The hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat, the Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Maclean), who is speaking to-night for the Minister of Labour has made one of his usual plausible, well worded speeches but I do not think it can be said that he has given us anything definite, anything constructive or anything that will tend to alleviate the present situation the solution of which is dearest to the heart of every well-wisher of the Canadian people and of Canadian institutions. One would expect from the , representative of the Minister of Labour some constructive policy on this very important question. I take it, Sir, that the hon. Acting Minister of Justice (Mr. Meighen) who was at the scene of the trouble, having spoken and having given nothing in the way of a remedy for the difficulties with which we are confronted; that the hon. the representative of the Minister of Labour having also spoken, having gone very fully over the ground, and having sat down without saying anything that would encourage the hope that there is anything forthcoming from the Government to relieve the situation and to direct us along proper paths looking to the betterment of conditions, both of these gentlemen having spoken and other representatives of the Government, men of importance and standing with the Government and the country, having spoken and having said nothing to answer the substance of the motion;-we on this side of the House have the right to suppose that this is the last word in so far as the Government is concerned and that the Government has nothing at all to offer.
I may say that if I had any function more than that of a private member to

discharge in this House that function, under present conditions, would be brought, and should be brought, to the assistance of the Government if there was anything offered, or if they had anything to offer, to better the conditions with which we are now confronted. I am sure that whether or not we could take any party advantage from the situation, nothing would be further from my own thoughts or from the thoughts of any person who has spoken on this side of the House. I recognize, with hon. members who have spoken as representing the Government, that we must maintain Government in this country and that law and order and government must be respected. I recognize that this Government as constituted to-day represents the voice of the people, and that while they are the Government, and while they are occupying the seats of power that they do occupy, it is my duty, and the duty of every member of this House, to respect their position and to assist them when it comes to a crucial question such as this.
But the question is: Have they on this occasion, and on all occasions since they assumed power, done themselves justice; have they retained within themselves that power which they should have held, or have they been coquetting with and courting powers outside of the Government, powers which are supposed to be largely at the back of the Government? Have they coquetted and flirted with such bodies to such an extent that they have lost the confidence of other large bodies in this country? I fear that whether that is justified by the facts or not, we have large bodies of men in this country, representing the ordinary common people, if I might so speak, who believe-and it is just as bad to believe as if it were absolutely true-that this Government have no more will of their own, but that there are certain factions, combinations and powers which just carry them along, and that they do exactly as they are dictated to by these Higher powers. That, Sir, to a great extent, is what has caused unrest. It is believed the Government have forfeited their birthright for the mess of pottage that they have received from these parties. Whether that is true or not, it is just as bad as if it were true to say that it is true. It is the old saying-a saying that is perhaps not a classic-that you might as well hang a dog as give it a bad name. If you give a government a bad name whether it deserves it or not, its usefulness, to a great extent, is gone. From

the expressions of opinion which came to us from Winnipeg, Calgary and other cities in the West where strikes have been instituted, and from the men who are at the head of these unfortunate movements, it would appear that the Government had really lost that hold which the Government should have on the country.
There is nothing better understood than the responsibilities of Government in performing its own share of the contract. We tulic rbout the sacrednrss of eourructs and no person can have greater re-
11 p.m. speot for the responsibilities of men who are parties to contracts than myself. The Government has a contract. The people of this country agree that they shall support a certain party in power, support a certain Government, or support the King if you want to go that far. They give fealty and support to the King upon the definite understanding that the King and the Government in return will give protection and service to the country. Give proper laws and see that they are enforced. There is such a thing as kings and governments losing the right which they hold under the contract by not performing their functions and doing what they should do under the contract. It is being contended now that this Government is not so much alive to its responsibilities to the people as it should be.
I think I am bound to say-I think I must say, Sir-that toryism exists to-day as it existed a thousand years ago. Men die but principles never. The principles of toryism have been handed down from generation to generation. The good, honest men who sit on the treasury benches tonight are not responsible for the heritage of toryism which has been handed down to them; they are simply carrying forward a principle for the origin of which they have nothing to do. They are merely flies on the wheel carrying forward the principles of the party to which they belong.
Can anybody find anything in Toryism, from Adam down, but adversity to labour, adversity to the poor man, adversity to-democracy? And it is impossible to think that; we are going to get the coloured gentleman in the fence to change his sentiments-or the leopard his spots. It is the same-old thing. We had eighteen years of Toryism in this country. I would ask the most' genuine and orthodox Tory sitting in this-House what, during those eighteen long years, was done for labour, or for the labouring classes, by Toryism. We had a commission appointed in those days. Some-twelve years or so before the Tory Party;

went out of power in 1896 there was a commission appointed with Doctor MacLeod- I forget where he came from-at its head. He joined that commission as an active young man, but before anything was reported he died of old age, and nothing was [DOT]done. The Liberal Party came into power and found nothing but the ashes of this commission, with no possible result. That i,s all that was done by, or that stands to the credit of, the Tory Party for labour in this country during those eighteen jmaxs. Now these things may be disagreeable, they may sound harsh, but such in the case; and, as i said, those very principles have been handed down to this Government; and while it may have been retrograde in other matters, while it may have been inconsistent in other respects, it has been faithful to the law in carrying out Tory doctrine in dealing with labour, and it was determined to do nothing until such conditions as we have now presented themselves. It is no surprise to me, Sir, to find that the same old conditions are in vogue to-day that have been in vogue for the last fifty, sixty or hundred years, as far as the dealing of this party with questions of this kind are concerned.
It has been said that the labour people should have waited, that something was going to be done. I wish to point out that in the carrying out of what I said, the same principle, the same rule, the same tactics as in past years have been followed exactly since the present Government came into power. In 1917 I and others urged in this House upon the then Minister of Labour that something should be done to allay the conditions that then existed. After some trouble, and after some sarcastic speeches had been made against us, the so-called O'Gonnor Commission was appointed. Mr. O'Connor made a report which if acted upon might have been of some benefit and might have inspired the labouring people with some confidence. What occurred? The men who are said to own the Government rose in their might and declared, "The O'Connor Report is absolutely false." Mr. Henderson was then appointed a Court of Appeal to deal with Mr. 0'Connor. A year or so passed before we heard anything of Mr. Henderson and when we did hear from him nothing at all was done. Time passed, and even now we find that the Government is still in the dark and does not see a glimmer of light anywhere. We heard a great deal of my own " light in the window," and there was a lot of fun made of it, but
it appeared that even " the light in the window " has not been seen by the Government from either the O'Connor or the Henderson Report, because, forsooth, they said, " O'Connor was a mere lawyer and Henderson was a mere lawyer. Now we must get a judge of the Supreme Court to perform the operation of trying to penetrate our six-by-eight skulls and get some knowledge and light and leading into them." A commission on which a judge of the Supreme Court sits is now travelling from coast to coast, trying to get information for the Government. It was not very long until the Government discovered that that was not enough, and the hon. gentleman who led the ministry in the absence of the Prime Minister thought at last he had struck on the remedy, the panacea, for all the ills, and he was going to appoint a Committee of this House. So that we now have a committee appointed to try and get information. We had the O'Connor Report and the Henderson Report; we are having Judge Mather's Report; and now we have the promise of a committee report, but nothing in the world has been done. Is it to be expected when the poor people whose bread is so high that they cannot get enough for their children, whose flour is beyond all reach, and everything else that comes upon the table of the poor man is getting entirely out of control, is it any wonder that they should give up all hope of this Government cloing anything and should try to take matters into their own hands? This is where the Government, it seems, cannot assert its rights. As I was pointing out a little while ago, it is the duty of the Government to exercise its vigilance and display its anxiety for the poor man and the people generally and when the Government fails to do that, then to some extent-although rebellion, or trouble, or violation of the law, is never justified- a man is justified when he takes matters into his own hands and tries to do the very best he can. That, Sir, is the situation that faces us to-day, not only in Winnipeg, but in every other part of this country. Absolutely hopeless of getting any immediate action from the Government people are trying to do the best they can to bring about better conditions for themsleves by their own actions.
We are told that nothing can be done toward the cutting down of prices. That was the old doctrine of the Tory Government some twenty-three years ago. Nevertheless, this Government has done something, not in foodstuffs very much, but the principle is the same. It started out, I be-

lieve, by cutting down the price of newsprint, and it has done something to cut down the price of coal and other commodities ; but as far as I know it has not done anything at all to make it easier for the poor man who has to go to his grocery store in the evening with his meagre earnings of the day to get enough to satisfy the necessities of the household wants. The Government has not done anything of that kind, and consequently we have the conditions which to-day prevail.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the chief thing is, what are we going to do? Is there nothing that can be suggested to better the existing conditions? Very shortly after the Prime Minister arrived home I took the responsibility of suggesting to him that the Government ought to have a conference of the leading men, both of labour and of capital, called to meet himself and his Government at Ottawa, and that some good results might follow the adoption of such a course. Nothing was done in that respect, and I suppose, possibly, there is not muoh good in talking about it now. However, I do not think it is too late, and the Government and the Prime Minister would get the credit of being in earnest if they would even now call upon the leading capitalists and the leading labour men to meet and see what can be brought about by a heart-to-heart talk in the presence of the Government ancf himself about matters of this kind. For the last number of years it has been in my mind, and I think I have expressed the opinion in this House more than once, that we should have in this country a court-not a commission but a court-of the highest possible class to deal with such conditions as we are now confronted with. It has been said that such courts have been a failure, but there is no use talking about it, we must have some definite, powerful, capable institution in this country to deal with matters of this kind. As far as I can see, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing to-day which this House or the Canadian people can deal with, the war being practically over, that is so pressingly important as the relations between capital and labour.
If we had a court of importance equal to that of the Supreme Court of Canada- or of more importance if you please- which would devote its attention absolutely to questions of this kind and give final judgments in them, I think that would be the only way in which such questions could be finally settled. I believe that the day 
will arrive when men of sound judgment will be surprised that we left the labouring people so long with no other remedy than the institution of the strike. Where can they go now for any remedy?


Mr. TWEEDIE:: How would you enforce a judgment given by such court?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Just as I would enforce every other judgment. If I had to deal with a company, I would deal with them by an order of the court for specific performance, and if they did not comply with that order or judgment they would suffer the consequences that follow noncompliance.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: Supposing the decision was that 1,000 men should return to work in a factory at a certain hour, and they refused to obey, what would you do?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The judgment of the court would have to provide penalties as against the man who would not obey, just as penalties are provided to-day for failing to obey the judgments of our courts.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: What remedy would you suggest they should provide? That is what we want to get at. The workmen say, "We will not work." How would you compel them to work, or what punishment would you propose if they did not work?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: We have not quite reached that stage.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Hon. gentlemen may laugh. But if a man to-day has a dispute over a foot of land do he and his neighbour fight for its possession? If before we had courts and got used to their judgments, a similar question might have been propounded to me had I recommended the parties to go to court to settle their boundary dispute instead of fighting to a finish: what would you do with a man who would not remove his fence after the Supreme Court' said he must move it? We know what is happening now. The man will move his fence; or if he does not, he takes the consequences of the court moving it at his expense. If a prisoner to-day is told to do certain things under the criminal law, he must obey; if not he subjects himself to certain consequences. Does anybody suppose I am talking nonsense when I say that some better institution than the strike must be established in this country for the settlement of industrial disputes?


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: Do you advocate-


Mr. SPEAKER:: I must ask the hon. gentleman to submit his question through the Chair.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: I would ask the hon. gentleman if he advocates taking away from the workmen of this country the right to strike?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I say to my hon. friend, and to the Government, and to the country, on my responsibility as a member of this House, that if a capable court is constituted, composed perhaps of nine members, representing all the provinces, the best men that we can produce, an institution where I am satisfied that every man will be fully heard and a decision properly reached, then I say: take away the right to strike. If that is any satisfaction to my hon. friend, that is where I stand. And I so stand as the friend of the working man. I can assure my hon. friend and the House generally that such a court will not be five years in operation before every one will say: It is a great pity that we did not have this institution long ago.
I submit that such a court is well worth establishing, and I contend that it would be one of the safest methods of dealing with disputes between capital and labour. I sub' mit that remedy. Sir, and I think that a Bill could be put through this House and through the Senate in less than a week, and that such a court in ten days could be sitting in Winnipeg to deal with the strike there. We would show our friends on both sides, capital and labour, that we are in earnest and are determined to give them an opportunity of dealing with their grievances in a proper way. The procedure can be by what is called a stated case, jr by tne hearing of evidence.
I may be absolutely wrong in this idea, but I am giving you, Sir, and the Government my honest opinion in the matter, an opinion which I have arrived at after several years' deliberation. For a long time I have held the belief that the only satisfactory way to settle a dispute is to settle it finally. A right of appeal might be provided for, but there must be established in this country an institution that will deal with these industrial disputes finally and settle them to the fair satisfaction of both parties. Hon. gentlemen may think that public opinion will not develop along this line. But when it is known that a court of the highest standing has deliberately heard a case and delivered judgment, that judgment appearing in the newspapers and the public be.ing seized of the fact, I am convinced that public opinion would develop to such an extent that no man would dare oppose the judgments of such a court. But if he were so foolish, then, as we have been told by the Acting Minister of Justice tonight, he would be running against the best thought of the country, as some men in the city of Winnipeg, he says, have been running against the strong current of public opinion in that city, with results familiar to us all.
Now, Sir, I have no other remedy to suggest. I submit, however, that the Government has been too slow entirely in dealing with these questions. The Winnipeg strike was in full blast, as I understand it, before the Minister of Labour and the Acting Minister of Justice left Ottawa. It has already been pointed out that they should have gone at a very much earlier stage, and should have stopped this trouble at its inception. ' ,
I may not have had very much to do with this question, but it should be pointed out to the Government that the tendency of their work for the last three or four years has been to create dissensions and divisions in this country for their own benefit, and they find now there are in Canada more dissensions and divisions, at all events, between capital and labour than they counted upon. They were willing to get power and to hold power by dividing this country, they cared not into what divisions of race and religion, one against the other. Now they find, when they are in power, they have lost that respect of the large body of the people which they would have held if they were in power by the lawful constitutional means which usually put governments into and out of power.
As I said at the begining, for my part, I am willing and anxious to respect the Government because they are the representatives of the people while they are here. At the same time, as we are all democrats and anxious to represent democracy in this House, it is only fair to point- out to the people that they are capable of making grave mistakes, and that they made a great mistake when they thought they were getting a democratic government in the one that rules to-day in Canada. I trust that although we have heard nothing yet of a practical nature from the Government, the Prime Minister himself or some other hon. gentleman will, before -this debate closes, tell us, and the people of Winnipeg, and the people of Canada generally, that the Government have some proposition

by which the conditions of this country will be bettered and troubles of this kind will not be likely to break out in future in the violent manner in which they have broken out in Winnipeg and other places lately. I trust that better conditions will prevail, .that good judgment will prevail, and that there will be no clash of any kind that will give this Canada of ours a bad name or any name of being unable or incapable of settling our disputes in a proper and constitutional way.


Right Hon.   S@: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie) has delivered a very interesting speech, part of it critical, part of it inspired certainly by an earnest desire to offer some constructive suggestion. I shall not dwell very long upon what might be called the controversial portion of his observations. When * he suggests that this Government is subject to the dictation of . any outside influence, or rather when he says that such is the belief, and that it may be true for all he. knows, I wish to assure hinj of what I am sure he must he convinced in his heart, namely, that this Government is subject to no influence and no dictation outside of this Parliament and never will be so long as I am at the head of it. He has referred at some length in somewhat discursive style to inquiries that were made two years ago or thereabouts. I venture to remind him that as the result of those inquiries, the most drastic measure of taxation was imposed by Order in Council on those engaged in the packing industry in Canada that has ever been known since this war began, or before it began, for that matter, taxation far in excess of anything suggested or carried out in the United States. It was so drastic that when the Order in Council was under consideration, the companies affected came before us and implored us not to go so far. Those big interests that are supposed to dominate this Government told us that their businesses would be absolutely ruined and destroyed if we persisted in going to the length that we purposed. Notwithstanding those protests from the big interests alluded to, the Government carried out precisely what it purposed, and that remains as the law of this country from that time up to the present.
My hon. friend was distressed because of his apparent belief that the present Administration had never, from first to last, taken a single step in the interest of labour since it came into power. Let me tell him that

it did what no previous Government in Canada had ever done or ever thought of doing, so far as I know; it selected a man who then was and still is a member of a labour organization in Canada, made him first -a member of the Government without portfolio and afterwards made him Minister of Labour, which position he holds until this day. I need not dwell further on the controversial portion of my hon. friend's remarks.
He attributes an extreme antiquity to what he is pleased to designate as Toryism. One thousand years ago, he said it began. I have been disposed to think, and I may tell my hon. friend in the greatest confidence, that there are many people who think that he is about as good a sample of fine old crusted Toryism as is to be found anywhere in Canada.
The hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. E. Lapointe) made a number of interesting observations, very largely of a critical nature, but I did not observe anything very constructive in his remarks from beginning to end. He made one suggestion which seemed to be hardly sensible. He said that the Government had allowed matters to drift so long that it was entirely too late to do anything, but nevertheless it was absolutely necessary that something should be done at once. The hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) took upon himself to justify, so far as I could understand, the breaking of a solemn treaty by Germany in his effort to justify the breaking of contracts which had been alluded to by the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen). These, however, are not of sufficient importance to justify me in wasting the time of the House upon them, because, after all, we come here for the purpose of taking counsel together and of endeavouring to find some suggestions, some light, some assistance in solving the difficult conditions that lie before this country at present.
Let me say to the hon. leader of the Opposition, lest I should forget it, that he is entirely mistaken in supposing that this Government has not called into conference both employers and employed in this country during the past two years. The Government has done that not once nor twice, but repeatedly, to my knowledge. I recollect that on the very last occasion that I sat in council before leaving Ottawa on the 8th November last, the Minister of Labour told me that for the first time in this country, employers and employed had come together

to take counsel of each other in reasonable conference, so that they might arrive at a better understanding, have better relations and prevent interruptions by strike. It is quite possible that our anticipations at that time have not been wholly justified by subsequent results; but I know that during my absence, my colleague, the Minister o* Labour, in conjunction with the other members of the Government has, from time to time, been in conference with employers and with employed. It was out of the conferences which he had with employers and employed that the idea was evolved which resulted in the appointment of the commission that is now investigating labour conditions in Canada.	.
So that, the reproach now put forward, that the Government has had no desire and made no attempt to assist in the solution of these problems, is wholly undeserved.
I shall now approach the conditions that prevail, not only in this country, but throughout the world, wiui a view to pointing out the tremendous problems that lie before all the nations, and the absolute importance that we in Canada, both employers and employed, should keep our heads and seek to work out our abundant opportunities for useful service to our country and to the world.	.
World conditions! Do hon.-gentlemen in this House remember that the greatest financial experts in the world said that the war which has lasted for five years could not possibly last more than one year, because the resources of the world would not allow the nations to continue longer? It has lasted for five years, and during that period about men have been withdrawn from productive activity. During that same period the waste which has gone on throughout the world in the endeavour of the nations on the one side and on the other to obtain a decisive victory is absolutely beyond our comprehension. We may state it in figures, but no man in the world can really comprehend or understand what it means. Would you like to have a reasonable estimate of what conditions were in Europe before this war began?-and during the past six months I have learned something of what they are to-day. A very important authority used this language in placing the situation of Europe before the British delegations at the Peace Conference:
By far the most important task before the Allied Governments is to get production and internal and external "exchange economy" working again on something like normal lines.
Before the war some 400,000,000 Europeans by working their hardest just managed to feed, clothe and house themselves and perhaps amass six months capital on which to live. That capital has vanished; the complicated machinery of internal and external production is more or less smashed; production has to a great extent ceased. The largely increasing population of Europe has only been maintained by the increasing development and inter-connection of world industry and finance. If this is not only checked, but for the time being destroyed, it^ is difficult to see how the population can be maintained at any rate during the very painful period of drastic readjustment. If free movement were possible and other countries could absorb it, there would inevitably he a vast emigration from Europe, until an equilibrium were established between the numbers of the population and the means of livelihood. As that is not possible this equilibrium must be reached in some other way.
Then he goes on to point out in a very graphic manner the almost insuperable difficulties that lie before the nations engaged in the task of reconstructing Europe to-day.
What does the present condition in Canada mean? We undoubtedly have very difficult problems before us but we have them in common with the rest of the world, and I fully believe that there is no country among all the nations where those problems are easier of solution than they are in Canada, if we are only true to our purpose, and have reasonable common understanding and common effort. This problem of industrial disturbance, inflation, and high prices, is not a new problem in the world's history. There has never been a war after which these phenomena did not make their appearance. It was the same a hundred years ago after the Napoleonic wars. After 1815 there were inflated prices and industrial disturbances. It was the same after the Crimean war of 1854. These are phenomena which makes their appearance inevitably after every considerable war, and after this the greatest of all wars in human history it was not only absolutely certain that these phenomena would make their appearance, but possible that they might continue for a longer period than ever before known.
It must be apparent to honourable gentlemen that in common with most thinking people in Canada, the Government foresaw there would be a very difficult period of reconstruction after the cessation of hostilities and the conclusion of peace. We sought a year, or eighteen months ago, to foresee conditions as best we could, to make such provision as is within the power of a government for conditions that were certain to arise. I hope honourable gentlemen will



realize, having regard to what I alluded to a moment ago-the withdrawal from productive activity of 50,000,000 men for nearly five years, the non-production and the terrible waste during that period, and the inflation consequent upon waste and non-production-that it is not possible for the Government of Canada or the Government of the United States or the Government of the United Kingdom or for the Legislatures of any of those countries or of all the countries of the world to fully remedy or remove conditions that have been thus created. But it was the duty of the Government to foresee as best it could, and to provide for as best it could, the conditions which were certain to ensue.
What have we done? The hour is too late for me to make more than a passing allusion to measures and policies which have been undertaken by the Government. As to the men who have fought the battle of freedom beyond the seas we believed that it would take a year or possibly eighteen months to effect their demobilization, but from the time that the armistice was signed until they will all be returned to Canada I believe that a period of not more than eight months will have elapsed. In order that they may have an opportunity of establishing themselves we have provided a war gratuity more generous, I believe, than has been provided by any other country in the world.
We have arranged conditions of land settlement which we have certainly endeavoured to make both reasonable and effective. We have provided as best we could for their settlement in various vocations and for their training for that purpose. We have established reasonable conditions to enable them to obtain that training. In addition we have made permanent provision for those who are afflicted with disease as a direct result of the war, and particularly for patients who have shown themselves to be infected by the scourge of tuberculosis. [DOT] These are only a few of the measures the Government has had in mind and carried out. We realized that as soon as the demand for munitions would cease there must be an earnest effort on the part of the Government to provide employment not only for the returning men, but also for those who could no longer find employment in the production of munitions. We went about that in two ways. In the first place we endeavoured to assure the working men of this country a share in the reconstruction of the devastated regions, and a share in the provision of necessary articles for

those countries in Europe which have been engaged in war during the past five years. Thus we have established not less than one hundred and twenty-five, or one hundred and thirty millions of dollars of credits in order that products which give employment to the working men in Canada, shall have their proper place in the markets of the world. More than that, we have embarked upon a policy of undertaking important public works for the purpose of affording employment, although otherwise we would have preferred to postpone the undertaking of these works until a season when the finances of the country were in better condition than at present. Now some hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House have spoken of blunders of the Government and some of them have referred to the alleged inaction of the Government.
Is there a single one of them who has found fault with the Government in respect of any of the matters just mentioned? And is there a single one of them who has even. suggested to the House the taking of any step which the Government has not taken? The conditions of unrest throughout this country are undoubtedly serious. I say, and say it with 'regret, that they are still more serious in the European countries which are now awaiting reconstruction. In Europe the problems that confront governments and parliaments in the various countries are, I repeat, infinitely more serious than any that confront us. Here is the situation in Europe as outlined by a very high authority:
The obstacles to the resumption of production are numerous. The main ones are the following::-
(1)	Destruction or disrepair of fixed plant and means of transportation, i.e., railways, canal, factories:
(2)	Back of raw materials, i.e., destruction hy war of all working capital:
(3)	Consequent loss of external purchasing power, i.e., lack of exports:
(4)	Depreciation of currency; often chaos of currency system:
(5)	Huge rise in prices, consequent loss of equilibrium between internal prices and world prices rendering export difficult:
(6)	Huge floating indebtedness to other countries:
(7)	Reduction of agricultural production owing to currency troubles and lack of purchasing power on the part of the industrial populations.
(S) Enormous taxation, acting as almost complete deterrent to new enterprise;
We have hardly any of these difficulties. Certainly they do not exist in an accentuated form in this country. Except for differences that ought to be composed between employer and employed, there is no

difficulty whatever which should prevent our country going on her way with renewed vigour and increased production, no difficulty in giving to every person capable of work an opportunity of employment which will assure him a reasonable living wage. The high cost of living is due absolutely to the world-wide conditions to which I have alluded, and over which no government and no combination of governments can exercise effective control. It is due to the enormous number of men withdrawn from productive activity, to the incredible economic waste of the past five years and to nonproduction at the present time. Such nonproduction is occasioned by the causes I have just enumerated so far as Europe is concerned. The! high cost of commodities is due also to that worldwide inflation from which we cannot wholly escape. We have a duty in this Parliament,
I have no doubt, to prevent as far as we possibly can undue combination and extortion, and it has been the policy and the effort of the Government during the past two years to carry out that policy. I think we have carried it out in reasonable measure. The tariff is alluded to and reductions in the tariff are advocated. They may be necessary or desirable. But, Mr. Speaker, I invite your consideration to this question. Having regard to conditions as they are in the world to-day-because the cost of living is much higher in the European countries that I have visited than it is in Canada; having regard to conditions in the United States, where the cost of living is I believe as high as it is in Canada, is there any one of us who can say that if the tariff were not modified or lowered hut absolutely wiped out root and branch to-morrow, the cost of living would be appreciably lower in this country? If we are to benefit in that way we must first find a country where the cost of living is lower than it is here. Let us consider -whether the lowering or the abolition of the tariff in the United States, or France, or Canada, or any other country, could overcome the world-wide conditions to which I have directed your attention? Some corporations and companies have made great profits. There is no doubt about that, and we have endeavoured to remedy that condition by the excess profits tax. But I want you to bear in mind that Canada is not the only country that has suffered in that way. In Italy, France, Belgium, and Great Britain itself, the cry is against the enormous profits made by some people in connection with the production of munitions, and otherwise. In every country the chief remedy sought, 184$
so far as I am aware, is to bring a large proportion of such profits into the public treasury for the benefit of the whole people.
Now, coming to the immediate question of the labour disturbances which unfortunately prevail in different parts of Canada let me say, so far as the eight-hour day is concerned, that we are committed to the proposals which are embodied in the Treaty of Peace, and the Federal Government proposes to carry them out to the extent of its jurisdiction and is impressed with the duty of doing so. To quote from the terms of the treaty:
First. The guiding principle above enunciated that labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce.
That stands as the first principle in the labour creed adopted by the nations which sat around the Peace table.
Second. The right of association for all lawful purposes by the employed as well as by the employers.
We are committed to those proposals, and it is the intention, so far as the influence of the Federal Government is concerned, to carry them out. And although my hon. friend from the Cartier division of Montreal (Mr. Jacobs) seemed to consider it entirely . a matter of no consequence as to whether or not we have constitutional power, surely the House will realize that we cannot invade the sphere of provincial jurisdiction merely because labour troubles at the present time are serious.
I took occasion to inform myself as to the respective powers of this Parliament and the provincial legislatures on this question and I have been advised by the law officers of the Crown that these are matters within the jurisdiction of the provincial legislatures and not within the jurisdiction of the federal Parliament. I observe that in the session of ,1910-11 the then Minister of Labour, Hon. Mackenzie King, speaking on a Bill introduced by Mr. Verville referred to the question of jurisdiction in these, words:
Every hon, member of this House knows that no Bill oan be passed by the Parliament of Canada which will give to the working classes generally an eight hour day. They know that that is the business of the provinces primarily, that it is the duty of the provincial legislatures to fix the hours of labour governing any particular industries.
If hon. gentlemen who are interested in this question will turn to the "Labour Gazette" of May 19, page 598, they will find that every province of Canada, except Prince Edward Island, has repeatedly legislated on the conditions and hours of labour and that the jurisdiction of the provincial

legislatures to deal with the question is sustained not only by the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, by the opinion of the Minister of Labour in the late Government, but also by the universal practice every since Confederation under which the provincial legislatures have dealt with this subject.
As to collective bargaining, I put forward the same view, that conditions of labour and matters of that nature all come within the purview of the provincial legislatures. But in so far as our influence and example are concerned, we have encouraged collective bargaining in the sense in which we understand it. The Railway War Board, which was established by this Government about a year, or a year and a half ago is one of the most useful examples of collective bargaining in its best sense that I know of. We meet our own employees at conferences and we have repeatedly brought about conferences between the employers and their men. We have taken every possible step towards a solution of these difficulties by mediation and conciliation and we arp doing our best, in composing these differences.
The leader of the Opposition has made a very important suggestion as to the enactment of a statute by this Parliament which will virtually abolish strikes and compel employers and employed to submit their differences to a fixed Tribunal. I have discussed the question of the right of the men to strike on many occasions and I would suggest to my hon. friend that before we undertake so drastic a step as to take away from the labour men of Canada a right which they prize as tihe Magna Charta of their liberties, we should require to have a very careful conference with them unless we were prepared to make matters very much worse than they are at present. The large majority of the labouring men in Canada are, in my judg-12m. ment, disposed to look upon these questions in a reasonable way.
It would be one of the greatest mistakes that this Parliament could make to drive into what one might call the extreme wing of the labour party in Canada men who have as a whole been fair and reasonable in their attitude towards this question. At the same time I am disposed to say to-night what I have said many times to labour men, that surely, by a fair and reasonable spirit on one side and on the other, wo can eventually, not by means of drastic legislation but by a better comprehension of each other's attitude, find some means more reasonable and more effective than

the strike for composing differences between employers and employed. I most sincerely hope and, more than that, I believe, that the labouring men of Canada will see their way to adopt that principle in the early future.
I put' the case before them, I think it was last summer, in the city of Toronto. We were discussing the question of the League of Nations and the abolition of war by means of conference discussion and publicity,-, with force perhaps in the background but only in the background. Take twenty-five or thirty nations speaking different languages with absolutely different ideals and at different stages of development and having a hard task in comprehending or realizing each other's outlook; if you expect these nations to unite for mutual discussion in the council of the League of Nations and thus compose their differences and if you base some reasonable hope upon the outcome of that proposal, surely the people of this country, living under the same laws and having very much the same ideals and the same point of view should be able to compose their differences at between employers and employed without resorting to the strike which has been described as little short of civil war. Indeed, a general strike carried out, as some people would desire to have it carried out, is little short of civil war.
I do hope, indeed, that the ideal which the leader of the Opposition has put before us to-night may be realized. I am not prepared to say it can be accomplished by the drastic methods which he has suggested. I rather think it must "be accomplished by the better education of employers and employed, and by a realization of the new ideals which are an outcome of this war. In this connection I must express the hope-the very earnest hope-that some of the employers will give better indication of their comprehension of the new conditions and the new ideals arising out of war conditions. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let us have good confidence in the sound, practical common sense of the people, of the workingmen of Canada, to find a solution for our difficulties in the not distant future. And let there be not the slightest doubt that in so far as the Federal Government and Parliament are concerned, and in so far as they have the right to speak or to legislate, their aid and co-operation will not be wanting to bring about a solution of these difficulties.


Mr. G. W. ALLAN (South Winnipeg):: Mr. Speaker, in the debate precipitated this afternoon, by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Blake), the discussion has taken a very wide range.
During the course of the afternoon the member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews) gave to the House his views as regards not only the metal workers' strike, but the sympathetic strike, and although the hour is late I feel I must crave the indulgence of the House. I think it would not be inopportune if, at this stage, before the debate is closed, I should give the point of view as to these happenings, first of all of the employers, or the so-called ironmasters, and secondly of that large portion of the population of the city of Winnipeg that were-not directly at any rate, and to a very slight extent indirectly-in any way interested in the matter in dispute in the so-called metal workers' strike.
I was in Winnipeg five days, returning last Thursday, so that I can speak with some confidence, having been on the spot for that period of time, as regards what the conditions produced by the metal workers.' strike, and by the subsequent sympathetic strike, in that city actually were. I should like, first of all, to read a letter which was handed to me on my arrival by the assistant general manager of the Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works, Limited. I desire to state to the House that I happened to have had an early and a continuous connection with that company from the time it employed only a few men until now it has grown to be a company of some considerable proportions, employing a large number of men in Winnipeg -in fact, between it and its subsidiaries, giving employment to between six and seven hundred men. I am satisfied from the inquiries I made, and from meeting with pretty well every phase of the question, that this letter will give the very closest approximation of the actual happening with the three iron companies, and that absolutely, completely, and without any possibility of contradiction or mistake, it gives the actualities of the happenings with this particular metal company. I may say that the letter does not happen to be dated, but was handed to me on the morning of the day following my arrival in Winnipeg. The letter is as follows:
The present situation developed, so far as our company is concerned, in the latter part of April, through the presentation of a schedule by the Metal Trades Council requiring the signing of an agreement, with that body, whereby many drastic changes would be made in our operations principally:
(a)	substitution of the 8-hour day for 10 hours.
(b)	An increase in.wages of from 30 to 60 per cent.
(c)	The submission of our Shop Rules to regulation by the Metal Trades Council.
(d)	The payment of a uniform wage irrespective of ability.
(e)	The arbitrary classification of men on a Railway Shop basis.
The officials of the company posted a notice intimating that they would be glad toi discuss with the Shop Committee this, or any. other matter considered to be requiring adjustment.
A meeting was held and the company after some discussion offered, as had been done some weeks previously to grant a nine-hour day with ten hours pay and a minimum wage of $4 per day, or practically 45 cents per hour for common labour. We pointed out that as our business was taken in competition with Eastern Canada and the United States our hours and working conditions must be governed by the conditions prevailing there, we therefore made the proposition that should it be established that the eight-hour day was in effect in competitive plants in the East, that it should be immediately put into force here; the same pay as for ten hours being given, that is, the hourly rate would be increased 2'5 per cent. It was thought and stated that this investigation which would be carried on by employees and employers independently would take a month or six weeks. It was also pointed out that for the present the company was prepared to deal with its own men only. The Shop Committee agreed to consider the proposal, and the following day submitted a schedule from which the name of the Metal Trades Council had been eliminated. The company's officials repeated the offer concerning the eight hour day, and stated that rates could be discussed, also other minor conditions.
On May	the larger number of our
workmen were called out, many of them stating that they left against their will, and since that date we have not been operating except in a limited way.
On May 8th, with Messrs. Barrett and Warren, representing the Vulcan Iron Works and the Dominion Bridge Company, I was called into conference with the Mayor and we suggested to him that we were willing to submit all differences to arbitration. He stated that he would put the suggestion before the labour people. This resulted in a meeting being held in the Builders' Exchange May 9th, at which Premier Norris, Mayor Gray, Mr. Winning and other representatives of the Trades and Labour Council were present, together with Mr. Hazel-ton, president of the Builders' Exchange, and we three representatives1 of the Iron Working Shops. At this meeting the question of arbitration wTas barely mentioned and little was accomplished. The following day a meeting was held, Premier Norris presiding, in the Builders' Exchange, at which there were present five representatives of the Metal Trades Council, and the three representatives of the Iron Shops. The following suggestions were offered by the employers:
First. The establishment of a 4 5-hour week on 55-hour pay.
Second. The deferment of the matter of recognition of the union until such time as an Employers' Association

aa outlined before the Mathers Commission had been formed, and the necessary machinery established to make such agreements effective. '
Third. The submission to a board of arbitration to be appointed wholly by the Premier of all points at issue.
The first suggestion was not unfavourably received, the second not discussed but the Labour representatives stated they would submit the third to their meeting the following morning. Premier Norris then proposed the Board as follows, and gave the names to the meeting:
T. J. Murray, Solicitor for the Trades and Labour Council.
R. B. Russell, Secretary of the Machinists' Union.
R. P. McWilliams, Solicitor.
H.	B. Lyall, Manufacturer.
The following morning the Premier named Mr. R. D. Waugh, Chairman, and advised those who had been present at the meeting accordingly. Late that day, on making inquiry, he was informed by Secretary Robinson of the Trades and Labour Council, that it was not an acceptable solution. In the meantime before the hour set by the committee who represented the Labour organization before Premier Norris, for the consideration of his proposal, the notices calling a general strike were being delivered. Since the general strike has been oalled the Iron Shops, at the request of the Citizens' Committee have agreed to enter into no negotiations or make no settlement until the sympathetic strike has been abandoned, and conditions have become normal again in Winnipeg.
The cause of the strike is the alleged refusal of the Iron Companies to recognize "Collective bargaining," which the strikers interpret to mean the signing of agreements with the Metal Trades Council, a local federation of Metal Tradesmen of different crafts. Incidentally it may toe pointed out that the Metal Trades Council is not generally recognized by the railways who have agreements with different orafts only. The term "Collective bargaining" is susceptible apparently of different interpretations. In the report of the Mathers Commission of 1918 signed by ex-President Tipping [DOT]of the Trades and Labour Council, the system then in vogue with at least two of the companies and their employees, whereby they met committees of their own men, and arranged matters pertaining to the individual shops is referred to as "Collective bargaining." This [DOT]system of arranging the settlement of all differences and co-operating with employees by committees in regular conferences with them is as effective a method of "bargaining collectively" as can he conceived. True it does not recognize the Business Agent of the Union as it is assumed that he not having knowledge of the conditions in our shops, andi not toeing on our pay-roll should not exercise any authority in our plant; nor does it contemplate the signing of agreements with any but our own men.
On the other hand under the system no distinction is made between men belonging to the union, and those who do not, and our Shop Rules distinctly provide that we recognize the right of men to organize in any way and to be members of unions. For some months past we have had weekly meetings with Shop Committees at which all conditions were fully and freely discussed with very gratifying results.

Our reasons for objecting to becoming parties to an agreement with the Metal Trades Council at Winnipeg are briefly these:
First. Fully 80 per cent of our business is secured in competition with shops In Eastern Canada, and the United States, and our very existence depends upon conditions being no more onerous in our shops than in competitive plants. No shops in Canada or in the United States, to our knowledge, with whom we compete, operate under restrictive union conditions. We are a relatively small factory in the manufacturing field and cannot take the initiative in inaugurating new conditions.
Second. Winnipeg being a railway centre, probably eighty-five per cent of the metal workers of the city are employed in railway shops. The proposal is that we should sign an agreement putting into force railway sho-p conditions in our plant. These conditions are notoriously unadaptable to competitive business through restrictions on output, and imposition of rules respecting use of machines, classes of work which certain men shall do, etc. The preponderance of railway employees in such unions would inevitably lead to the domination of our shops by men who have no understanding of the necessities of competitive business.
Third. Any agreement made with the Metal Trades' Council of Winnipeg as at present constituted would, in our opinion, be participation in a plan to place industry in Canada under the control of interests which do not truly represent labour, but which have other aims in view than the betterment of social conditions in this country.
Fourth. Until the principle of the sympa-thetie strike is discarded the signing of an "agreement which may be broken the next day on account of a disagreement in some other plant is useless, and would render contract business impossible.
I beg, however, to call your attention to the proposed plan placed before the Mather Commission on Industrial Relations, when it was sitting in Winnipeg this month, by Winnipeg Manufacturers. This plan is an adaptation of the Whitley, Rockfe'.ler, and other systems now in successful operation, and provides for the making of agreements between responsible organizations of Employers and Employees with Councils, Local, Provincial, and	Federal,
through which adjustment of any difficulties can be had. To this plan we can give our hearty assent believing it will solve our particular trouble, and it is the earnest hope of Metal Trades Manufacturers that it may toe adopted in some form or another.
Yours very truly,
H B. B. Lyall.
I now wish to say a few words as to what results the sympathetic strike produced upon that very large	portion
of the population of Winnipeg that had no special interest in and was in no way connected with the metal workers or the metal employers. The sympathetic strike took the people by surprise as it came so quickly, very much after the fashion of the war and due to the difficulty we experienced in believing that it

would be suddenly precipitated upon us in so comprehensive a manner. I for one, having lived in Winnipeg practically all my life-forty years this month-would not have believed it if any one had put it up to me six weeks ago-although I had followed fairly closely the events in that city and mixed freely with all classes of our people-that for a brief period, the Government of the city could have been taken over by the so called " Big Five " or council of five. But the fact was that practically out of the blue the city of Winnipeg was closed up about as tight as a box. The post office facilities came abruptly to an end and also the telegraphic facilities. The going out on sympathetic strike of the employees of the Federal Government, the Provincial Government, and the Civic Government, and the suspension of many services and many businesses produced the most drastic discomfort, at any rate for a short period, and this discomfort still subsists to a very considerable extent. The police voted to go out on sympathetic strike, but remained at their duty at the request of the Strike Committee. What degree of reliance could be placed upon them, I think, can very well be appraised under such conditions. The firemen went out. Then the water supply, the removal of garbage-all those services which are necessary for the comfort of the city with a population of approximately 200,000 people, were impaired or were suddenly brought to an end. The water supply as controlled, was absolutely inadequate for the purposes of protection against fire; and for a time the city was practically helpless in this particular. The pressure was such that no water could go beyond the ground floor of any building. To a very large extent, in common with all western cities, Winnipeg has a markedly large number of apartment houses, and it can be easily imagined, without my labouring the subject, what that meant so far as discomfort is concerned, and also what the cutting off of bread and milk meant, particularly to the patients in the hospitals and to babies. Those conditions in which seemingly for a time there was partially usurped the Federal, the Provincial and the Civic authority passed away very soon, and there is no doubt what precipitated prompt organization on the part of all citizens who were not participating in [DOT] the strike was produced by the practical tie up of the city, and the attempt to usurp governmental control. What was produced there was a banding together with extraordinary solidarity, which I have absolute confidence will remain
to the end, of all those who felt that their property, the lives of their families and the ordinary comforts and protections to which they were entitled demanded their attention and care. They felt that they should, to the full extent of their ability do what the Federal authorities required of them. To voluntarily assist wherever the public service was affected, which meant that when the 400-odd employees of the post office went out, the Citizens' Committee were prepared promptly to give whatever number of voluntary assistants could be taken charge of by some fourteen men who remained in the service of the post office. The statement was made: We will replace either the number that have gone out of the service of the post office on strike, or we will give you a larger number, or we will give you any number that you can handle and will increase that from time to time promptly on your demand. 1 may say that in the choice of those whom they turned over as volunteers to this Government, they gave the men most capable of according effective service. Among others sorting letters in the Winnipeg Post Office were Mr. C. P. Wilson, K.C., leader of the Manitoba Bar, and Mr. P. A. Macdonald, Utilities Commissioner of the Province of Manitoba. I saw man after man the heads of large concerns and others holding important positions in the city so occupied during the first period in which voluntary relief was accorded to the postal service.
To the province similarly the Citizens' Committee accorded volunteer assistance through their daughters and wives to the telephone exchanges to take the place of sympathetically striking telephone operators. Their offer was accepted by the Provincial Government and was of great advantage during the period that I was in Winnipeg. Of fourteen firehalls in Winnipeg, thirteen were fully manned by volunteers offered promptly by the Citizens' Committee to the civil authorities. There was not, on the part of the people in the district surrounding one firehall in Weston, which happens to be a suburb near the Canadian Pacific shops, seemingly a desire to have volunteer assistance, and that is the only firehall out of fourteen that I was informed was not fully manned. During my visit a fire thai had often been dreaded in Winnipeg, and which might have had the most serious results, started next to the Hudson Bay departmental store on Main street, skipped, owing to the wind being in the


Sir ROBERT BORDEN (Prime Minister) moved:: That when this House adjourns this day, it stand adjourned until Wednesday, 4th June.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On the motion of Sir Robert Borden the House adjourned at 12.50 a.m.
Wednesday, June 4, 1919.