1922-03-16

[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Mr. Mc-Murray for an Address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, resumed from Wednesday, March 15.
Mr. CHURCH (resuming) :: Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned last evening I was referring to the Good Roads question. In the session of 1913 legislation was introduced in the Dominion Parliament providing for an appropriation of $20,000,000 for good roads. Canada has been away behind the times in the matter

of a Good Roads policy, although in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario rapid strides have been made in dealing with this important matter. In the interest of the solution of the transportation question, and many other problems which vitally concern the country, the Good Roads question is one of tremendous importance and one which especially concerns a country of vast distances such as Canada. The subject is one in which there should be coordination and co-operation between the federal government and the several provincial and municipal authorities. I was somewhat impressed with the legislation in the Senate and Congress at Washington some years ago making provision for good roads, under which the federal authorities were empowered to loan money by a guarantee of bonds to the state governments for this purpose. This plan in the carrying out of which there has been cordial co-operation between the federal, state and municipal authorities has been productive of the happiest results. The Good Roads question is still but in its infancy in Canada, but I hope that the present Government will, sooner or later, take it up and deal with it in a broad and comprehensive manner.
I wish for a few minutes to deal with the transportation question which was referred to the other day by my hon. friend from South York (Mr. Maclean). In my opinion there is room in Canada for the activities of both private ownership and public ownership. There is no use in those who support public ownership being unfair or unjust to private ownership. Private ownership has done a great deal for Canada; let us not forget that fact when we are discussing this question. The pioneers in electrical development in Toronto were a privately-owned company, and they bore the heat and burden of the day for many years, and gave a good service as beginners. But another era came, a new day dawned. The era of public ownership set in; and now for years in the province of Ontario many of the municipalities have been operating their own water-powers and light, heat, power and gas plants and telephone systems. Public ownership has for a long time been in operation in other countries but Canada was a slow beginner and was away behind the times in this respect. When we refer to Switzerland, and many other countries in Europe we find evidences of the fact that this country has been somewhat lacking. I repeat that I

The Add) ess
do not wish to be unfair to private ownership; I should be the last one to say anything unjust with respect to its activities. We owe to private ownership a great debt of gratitude for the way in which it has developed the country in many respects. In my own city of Toronto, when the question of electric light installation was before us, we had a pretty capable city corporation counsel who was a great assistance to us in many ways. That gentleman was afterwards appointed to the Board of Railway Commissioners and made the best chairman that board ever had; I refer to the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton). This capable gentleman was acting for the city of Toronto when we took this matter up and tried to avoid the evils of duplication. The Toronto Electric Light Company, the pioneer company in that city, had done a great deal of good in the early stages of its operation. We tried to buy the concern out in order to avoid duplication. We offered the company 125 for their common stock, but they could not see their way clear to accept. We were advised by our experts in Montreal and other cities that the stock was only worth 105, but the city of Toronto was willing to pay them 125 to buy them out. While the city was anxious to avoid duplication we did not want to interfere with the company's bonds or other securities; we wanted to be absolutely fair to private ownership. However the Board of Directors did not see fit to accept the city's offer with the result that we immediately began the construction of the Hydro Electric-the people's own system-and there was duplication.
For the installation of that system at heavy cost the taxpayers of Toronto deserve the credit. I may say that duplication after all did not prove a bad thing, because we have got a better service. Both companies had to keep faith with the public. There was a race to see who would give the best service, with the result that the public got the benefit of cut rates for commercial and domestic lighting. I have the report here of the commissioners for this year and it shows that $22,000,000 has been saved in commercial and domestic lighting to the consumers in the city of Toronto. Toronto's venture in public ownership power plant has already cost $12,000,000. We have to-day taken over the street railways, but an arbitration is pending as a result of which we will probably have to pay several millions. Since the first of September we have spent $12,000,000 on betterments. The roadbed of the street
railway has been rebuilt, the road has had many other improvements and we had built 200 new cars. Other right of way improvements of various kinds have been carried out. Having been in existence for so many years the system was badly run down, but as soon as we are able to carry out our plans Toronto will be given a better service and cheaper fares than ever it enjoyed under private ownership. I mention these facts to show that the city from which I come has not been unfair to private ownership.
In my opinion Canada has the most insane railway policy of any country in the civilized world. Where a railway company like the Canadian Pacific proves a success it immediately adds to its services ocean, oil land, land, and lake services and hotels, with the result that it achieves greater success than ever, but it is retained by private ownership. We are all proud of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and its success. I would be the last man in the world to say anything unfair about the men who compose that company and who have done so much for Canada and for the Empire. While I may have something to offer by way of criticism, nevertheless I wish to pay a tribute to them for what they have done for this country, and for the Empire as well, in the operation of their most efficient railway and ocean services, especially during the war. Where a road is a success in Canada it is retained by private ownership; where a road has been a failure and its managers cannot even raise sufficient revenue to meet the fixed charges the enterprise is handed back to the people of Canada. I wish to be absolutely fair to the pioneers of the Canadian Northern Railway also. Both Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann are good men, and had it not been for the war they would probably have succeeded to a far greater degree in their railway enterprises. I do not wish to say anything unfair against the Grand Trunk Company either. Some of the English shareholders in the three companies I have named are also shareholders in loan companies in Western Canada. How do they deal with their debtors? If a man is behind in the payment of his instalment do they renew his mortgage and give him time to make good the arrears? I think not, even if he is a returned soldier they foreclose and force him from his farm. But Canada does not measure out this treatment to railways that are bankrupt, but gives them more
The Address

money and longer time to pay. I give the Conservative party the credit for the introduction of public ownership in the province of Ontario. It was the late Sir James Whitney and Sir Adam Beck who started the Hydro Electric Light and Power movement in that province which has saved $22,000,000 to the people of Toronto since 1911. There has been no politics in the HydroElectric movement. They have good Conservatives and good Liberals in that enterprise, but it was the Conservative party that deserved the credit for creating that great people's enterprise of cheap light and power. The Conservative party, whom the member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) characterizes as not a respectable party, deserves the credit for the nationalization of railways in Canada. I want to say, in reference to the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) that future generations will owe a debt of gratitude to that brilliant statesman for all he has done for public ownership of railways and all he has done to redeem Canada from the deplorable state of railway affairs which has existed in this country.
But we must not worry about the past, as far as the transportation question goes. There is no use crying over spilt milk. They have spent eight or nine hundred million dollars on direct and indirect aid to railways, and the country does not own anything except a lot of bankrupt railways. I think if you went out on the streets of Ottawa, or Winnipeg, or any western city, and put your hands on the first five men you met and said: " Come to Ottawa and we will make you director of the old privately-owned Canadian Northern, Grand Trunk and Grand Trunk Pacific," any of those five men you might select could not have made a worse mess of thing's than the directors ' of the Grand Trunk Railway, the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern made in the administration of those privately-owned roads. I say that with all due respect to the old directors of those systems. If it had been public-ownership that had fallen down in the transportation sense in the way the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific roads have, which were fed on all kinds of hand-outs, we would have heard severe criticism of them. Not satisfied with federal grants they come also to the doors of the provinces and ask for provincial aid and grants and bonuses. The people's own hydro-radials have never

asked for a subsidy or hand-out from any government, but the publicly-owned roads lived on it. If these bankrupt roads had been owned and operated by public ownership instead of by private corporations, oh, my, what a row they would have raised about the evils and the failure of public ownership in this country! I may say that in the session of 1917 matters had reached such an acute state that in Ontario the Hydro-Electric organization composed of over 300 municipalities, came to Ottawa, headed by Sir Adam Beck, the head of the delegation, that great statesman and patriot who has done so much for the people of Ontario.
I venture to say that Sir John Macdonald was the greatest constructive statesman this country ever had. He did wonders in the negotiations for Confederation, in the building of the Canadian Pacific railway, and the farming of the national policy. He was a Conservative, and I may say that constructive work of his has lasted, and will last for all time. The next greatest constructive statesman, I think, is Sir Adam Beck. Some of my friends opposite will also say that Sir Wilfrid Laurier did a great deal for Canada, but I wish to remind hon. members that all the good is not in one party. Sir Adam Beck was sufficiently in advance of public opinion not only in regard to public ownership, but in regard to cheap light, power and transportation, as to have been the standard-bearer on these questions and has accomplished a great deal. The United States will run out of coal a hundred years from now. That fact is shown by the report made to Congress by the Conservation Commission of the United States. The result will be that that country, as well as Canada, will have to depend on cheap water-powers more than in the past. Just consider what Sir Adam Beck has done in the Niagara district and what he proposes to do in the St. Lawrence. Future generations will bear tribute to him as one of Canada's greatest statesmen, and he will rank with Sir John Macdonald in the years that are to come as a constructive statesman. He is working for the building up of the Dominion. A deputation from 37B cities, towns and incorporated villages came down from the province of Ontario to oppose any further land grants or subsidies to the bankrupt railways, the Canadian Northern, the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific. That deputation was received by Sir Robert

The Address
Borden and his cabinet, who announced that they proposed to deal in the House with that question later on in the session. And they did deal with it by appointing a royal commission to make a survey of all the railway systems of this country. There was a great deal of difficulty in getting men to serve on the commission, but they chose three very excellent men. The then chairman of. the Railway Commission, Sir Henry Drayton, now the member for West York, was one of the commission. Mr. A. H. Smith, President of the New York Central, which is one of the largest, best-equipped and most modern roads in the world to-day, with large affiliations, was the second commissioner. Then they chose a British expert, who did not act, and subsequently they selected Mr. Acworth, an engineer of the Old Country. These gentlemen set to work. The war was on and the country was spending money and the commission started to make an inquiry along certain lines. A survey was made from a public standpoint and the report, which I have before me, is one of the most valuable reports we have ever received in Canada. It is quoted constantly before the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States. I have the records and proceedings of that commission at home. I was reading the reports of the meetings of the Federal Commission appointed by the United States' Government investigating all the electric railways of the United States. They were bankrupt and wanted a different arrangement. I was struck in reading the reports of that commission to see some references to this Dray ton-Acworth report. This report recommended the various things defined in the Speech from the Throne, which the Globe says is the most advanced programme of legislation we have had in this country for many years passed. What do I find in the summing up? The report says:
To summarize our conclusion, we find in Canada 40,000 miles of single track in a country with a population of seven and a half million the year before last. We have as much railway mileage as Germany with a population of 67,000,000 or as much as France with a population of 46,000,000 the United Kingdom with a population of 47,000,000 people.
Canada with a population of seven and a half million people has 40,000 miles of single track, with useless duplication and waste, three transcontinental railways running across Canada where one with a double track would have done for many years with lateral branch lines built off the main line.
Between Toronto and Belleville we have the Grand Trunk double track main line. Then they come along and build the Canadian Pacific, another high-priced track. Then the Canadian Northern is built. So we have the Grand Trunk station at Cobourg, a Canadian Pacific Station, and a Canadian Northern station, all at that and other towns, when there was not more than enough business for one road- useless duplication, useless waste of public funds and capital. This government report found a similar duplication of waste in the Western provinces, and I do not wonder at the movement which has been started amongst the farmers of the West owing to such a railway policy. I am not a supporter of the official U.F.O. Drury-Raney administration. I do not believe they are representative of the farmers of the province of Ontario. They have had two years to make good but have not made good.
I see a lot of young men from the West in this House and I hope they will not make the mistakes of the U.F.O. in Ontario, as we all want to endeavour to do something to make this a better country to live in for the farmer and for the toiler in the city. And to this end I think the farmer, the farm labourer and the city toiler should work hand in hand. As they have a common interest in this country let them work to make it a better country, a more contented and happier country to live in. Now what does this official government report recommend about the co-ordination and consolidation of these publicly owned railways?
For one thing, they say:
11. We recommend that the control both of the Grand Trunk and of the Grand Trunk Pacific be assumed by the people of Canada on terms hereafter set out.
They also say:
25. We have discussed and rejected the following suggestions :-Transfer of all three railways to the Canadian Pacific. Transfer of the Canadian Northern or a portion of it to the Canadian Pacific.
I asked the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) the other day why it took so long for Parliament to consolidate the roads as recommended by this report. He said he could consolidate them in a day. This is what the report says:
30. We recommend that the whole of the Dominion Railways be operated by the trustees as one united system on a commercial basis, under their own politically undisturbed management, on account of, and for the benefit of, the people of Canada.

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That is the recommendation of this commission which brought the most eminent railway engineers the world over to investigate this matter. They came from England; they came from all over the United States and New York. Mr. A. H. Smith, President of the New York Central Lines, brought all his traffic experts, commercial experts, tariff experts, right-of-way experts, car accountants, engineers, and all that kind of prominent experts to Canada to give recommendations to the commission. Why have those recommendations not been carried out? This Government have not been in power very long and I do not wish to hurry them on this question; I believe in being fair to the Government, and I think the Government will find that I shall be fair to them. I have known the Minister of Railways (Mr. Kennedy) practically all my life-he is an old Toronto boy and moved to Windsor, where he did very well. I congratulate him on being sworn in as Minister of Railways. I would give him all the time he likes, to see what he can do with Canada's railway problem. The recommendations, however, which the minister requires, are to be found right in the aforesaid government report; he does not need to travel throughout Canada to find out what should be done. The train on which the commission used to travel throughout this country was like a caravan or a circus, but the moneys spent by the commission were well spent. The then chairman of the Railway Board (Sir Henry Drayton) loaded down as he was by problems created by the war, gave up his time without stint, and he worked practically twenty-four hours a day for nearly eighteen months on this survey to assist in reaching a solution of the problem. The Minister of Railways

I do not wish to criticise him-has been travelling throughout Canada over our railway system, and he came into the Union Station at Toronto. I think Sir Joseph Flavelle had a private car attached to that train too, representing the Grand Trunk Railway. I do not know how many private cars there were; but the more the better, if the railway problem is solved as a result of these trips. If, however, the Minister of Railways will sit down in this House and study this report and the report of the experts, he will have all the advice and knowledge he requires to enable him to decide what to do with the state railway system so as to effect a remedy for the disease into which the railway business has fallen in this country.

In looking over the transportation question, I find that Mr. Beatty, president of the Canadian Pacific railway, agrees with this report. One night after his appointment as president of the Canadian Pacific railway, a banquet was held in the town of Thorold in which he was born, in his honour by the Board of Trade of that place. I was invited to attend, and I spoke at that banquet. People of both political parties were present; there were private ownership men and public ownership men there. This is what Mr. Beatty says about this question. He is in favour of co-ordinating and consolidating; he welcomes and favours competition; he says that competition is going to be a good thing for the Canadian Pacific railway. He claims that the time has gone by in business in the history of the world when two men quarrel as competitors. Two men, each running a retail store or a hotel, need not quarrel because, as a result of competition, there will be business for both of them. I will read, without any comment, his very words on the railway situation; and it is amazing to me to see the different position taken by the president of the Canadian Pacific railway now from that taken formerly by him and also the remarkable stand taken by the former president, Lord Shaughnessy. The Drayton-Acworth report was a Conn servative Government report; it was made before the Union Government was formed.
I was never a believer in the Union Government; I am a Tory of the old school and I intend to continue to be one even though the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) says that it may not be a respectable party. The Conservative party was in office at that time. As the hon. member for South York pointed out the other day, the railways have always been in politics. True it is that the president of the Canadian Pacific railway in the late election said that the Canadian Pacific was not in politics; but the Canadian Pacific has been in politics as long as it has been a road, since away back in the early seventies. The greatest politicians that this country has ever produced have never sat in the legislatures at all; they have been general managers and presidents of railways, and they have been managing legislatures and things pretty well for themselves. As some one has said, Ottawa never knows what the rest of the country is thinking, but these railway presidents manage things pretty well as they want to. My understanding is that the Canadian Pacific

The Address
have always changed their politics with the party in power; they are friendly to every administration. If the Farmers' party came into power, they would now support the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar). Had it not been for the unpopularity of the Drury Government, they did not carry out their pledges to the Progressives; if they had done what their U.F.O. officers said they would do for the hon. member for Marquette, he would today be occupying the Treasury benches. That should be a lesson to the Progressive party from the West to stand by their principles and not join the Government here. Had the hon. member for Marquette succeeded in forming a government, the Canadian Pacific would have wished themselves on him whether he liked it or not. When a man becomes a railway man, he knows no politics; the railway business is his politics. Some of the railway magnates in the past have been very successful in managing various legislatures of the country; they have been most successful in their management of the United Farmers government at Queen's Park. Mr. Beatty goes on to say, speaking at the Thorold banquet:
On the occasion of our last banquet, the railway sitaution was somewhat different than it is to-day. It has now advanced another step in what some regard as being the logical consequence of the first step, and we are met with the rather unique situation of the existence of two strong railway systems in Canada, both backed by adequate credit and both desirous of fulfilling to the best of their ability their share in supplying the transportation requirements of the country.
Some people have regarded the railway situation as highly controversial, and it was to the extent that the adherents of the two systems of administration, privately and publicly owned, have been insistent on the correctness of their respective views, and expressly apprehensive of the results of any other system than that which they advocated. To my mind, to regard it as controversial is now unnecessary and unwise, and the chief consideration of all of us is as to what will be the result to the country as a whole in the matter of railway service, and to ourselves in particular as one bf those engaged in supplying a large part of that service.
The Canadian Pacific has been built up over a long period of years into an organization of which we may all be conceivably and properly proud, and an organization, the usefulness of which in public service is probably now more important than at any other period of its history. It is a company which can only continue to succeed by being administered with strict integrity and in accordance with the highest business ethics. Upon its success in service depends its rewards.
There has always been competition and there always will be competition and the character of business competition does not alter in any of
its essential details as the years pass on. Our competitor is and will be a very extensive system, which will probably increase in magnitude. We all hope it will be a success, and we do not need to be altruists in order to harbor that hope.
I think I can say to you with perfect candor that no man in Canada has more reason to hope for its success than I have, for two reasons, first, because its success as a railway undertaking means a gradual release of the burden on the taxpayer, and the Canadian Pacific is a fairly heavy taxpayer, and secondly because the factors which contribute to its success will ensure the further and continued success of the Canadian Pacific. If the traffic development of the country is such as to support the National system, it will undoubtedly be sufficient to add to the support of the Canadian Pacific. You will, therefore, appreciate that on national and selfish grounds the success of the National railways is something that every Canadian Pacific official should desire.
It involves competition of course-keen competition. Competition which is both keen and honest cannot help but redound to the advantage of the competitors, to the improvement in the character of the service they render, and to the resultant advantage of the people and communities served. Personally I would have no fear of the competition adversely affecting this company or its interests, and the reason why I think I have a right to that confidence is to be found in the organization itself and the character of the officers and men who comprise it-officers and men who, I think, can be relied on to play the game of transportation competition as it was meant to be played-adroitly, persistently, aggressively and fairly.
Depreciation of Roads
In years gone by it was considered an act of proper aggressiveness for one competitor to decry the methods and wares of his rival. This is not the case to-day. It is foolish to depreciate your competitors outwardly or otherwise- foolish for two reasons: first, because they probably do not deserve your depreciation of them, and secondly, because it is bad business.
Now that is what Mr. Beatty says in regard to the question of duplication and competition- and in support of his theory of a public-owned system. The officials of the Canadian Pacific railway are very fond of talking about what that railway has done in the interests of the country. What, on the other hand, has Canada done for the Canadian Pacific Railway? I think they should consider that question on the other side of the account. Lord Shaughnessy declares for co-ordination too, and government ownership with Canadian Pacific railway operation and I think he has expressed the belief that his policy is approved by some gentlemen in the House. He says that coordination is both logical and economical. Well, of course, it is-for the Canadian Pacific railway. If Lord Shaugnessy could have his way he would have everything in Canada, and the heavens above, and the earth beneath and the waters under
The Address

the earth, all placed under the control of the Canadian Pacific railway, and would lord it over all the inhabitants of the earth. His predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, said with regard to public-ownership, " This country and all that is within it belongs to the people who inhabit it." Lord Shaugh-nessy would go him one better and declare that this country and all who inhabit it belong to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Others have expressed themselves on public ownership. Let me quote what some have said:
Every measure must be tested by this question only: Is it just? Is it for the benefit of the average man, without influence or privilege? Does it embody the highest conception of social justice, without respect to person or class or particular interest?-Woodrow Wilson.
Real public ownership is the essence of democracy. Instead of dividing men into masters and mastered, it brings men together in a union of interest, and affords the conditions necessary for the highest traits of conscience and character.-Prof. Frank Parsons of the Boston Daw School in "The City for the People."
In its search for truth the commission had to overcome many obstacles, such as the burning of books, letters, and documents and the obstinacy of witnesses who declined to testify until criminal proceedings were begun for their refusal to answer questions. The New Haven Railroad system has more than 300 subsidiary corporations in a web of entangling alliances with each other, many of which are seemingly planned, created, and manipulated by lawyers expressly retained for the purpose of concealment of deception.-From the Inquiry of the Interstate Commerce Commission, July 11, 1914, into the New Haven and other Railroads.
If public ownership had been in such a condition as was revealed by the Interstate Commerce Commission as aforesaid, I wonder what private ownership advocates would have had to say? What would Lord Shaughnessy and Mr. Beatty say? I asked the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) the other day why it should take so much time to co-ordinate and consolidate these roads, in view of the recommendation made by the commission appointed by this Parliament four years ago. Take the New York Central lines in the United States as an example of the expedition with which consolidation can be achieved when an effort is made toward this end. That system co-ordinated many branch lines in Ohio, the Lake Shore passing through Geneva, Cleveland and other centres down to Toledo. How long do you imagine it took the New York Central to co-ordinate that system? About forty-eight hours. The leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) the other day referred to the subject of arbitration of the Grand Trunk. It is true that a delay was exper-

ienced in connection with that arbitration, but it was entirely unavoidable. The right hon. gentleman was compelled to visit the Old Country on an important mission, in regard to which, as we all know, he acquitted himself so admirably, reflecting the greatest credit on this country. When he returned last fall he announced an election, and as head of the government of that time he felt he could not deal with the important question of co-ordination of the publicly owned roads until the country had expressed its opinion on his policy of linking up the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific. The election came, and nothing has been done since. The Minister of Railways (Mr. Kennedy) has been taking a trip, and now that he is back in the House I trust it will not be long before he can make up his mind as to what it is best to do. What they have done in the United States in connection with their railways should spur the Government of this country to activity. Mr. McAdoo, the Director-General of Railways, under Mr. Woodrow Wilson, soon after he was appointed to the position, took over, on the 28th of December, 1917, all the railways in the United States in twenty-four hours and co-ordinated and consolidated them. True, it was not striclty government ownership but government operation. This taking over of the railways was a war measure that had to be carried out. Many of the roads were bankrupt and could not carry on; they could not, in the state in which they were without certain betterments and improvements which had to be made by the director-general, carry munitions and troops to the seaboard. The Director-General of Railways, however, was able in twenty-four hours to co-ordinate something like, I think, 200 or 800 companies. These roads were taken over for the duration of the war and a period of eighten months thereafter, when, it was agreed, the government would hand them back to private ownership. During the time that they were under the control of the government they were put into a state of repair. The government had undertaken to pay to private ownership 51 per cent, or the average dividends secured each year for the 5 years prior to 1917-during government operation. That, of course, I do not call public ownership. There are several ways of operating a railway. There is, for instance, private ownership practically without any government regulation, such as we see in the case of the Canadian Pacific Railway. There is also private ownership with some degree

The Address
of government regulation. Then there is private ownership and management with strict government regulation, and private ownership with exclusive government operation. There is also government ownership with private operation, such as Lord Shaughnessy wants. And there is what I want-government ownership and government operation. I mean such proper and adequate government ownership and operation as will make the publicly owned roads a success. A few days ago the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) referred to the deplorable condition of the steam roads in the United States, due to over capitalization and lack of rolling stock and equipment, which, coupled with a long period of depression in business and post-war stagnation, had reduced most of the railway companies to financial trouble. A shortage of rolling stock and equipment has rendered it impossible for the railways to efficiently handle even the limited amount of freight that has been tendered to them, and as a result the automobile manufacturers in the Central States have been forced to drive over 80,000 of their cars to New York city under their own power rather than trust to the very unsatisfactory transportation services of the railways. To illustrate the condition of affairs I will quote some of the evidence given before the Inter-State Commerce Commission regarding the difficulties which confronted the Railroad Adiministrator of the United States in the winter 1917-18, when he assumed control of the American railway systems.	.
It was the worst winter in the history of railroading.
I happened to be in the Southern States at the time and had personal experience of the severe winter weather then prevailing.
They were up against:-
War demands-army of millions of men to be transported to the cantonments, seaboard, and back.
Plague of influenza, playing havoc with workmen, 18,000 employees sick at one time in New England alone.	1
Greatest burden of both freight and passenger traffic in railroad history.
Alarming coal shortage, (248 mines idle because of lack of cars).
Terrible freight congestion (180,000 loaded freight cars on the eastern lines alone; many freight embargoes).
Putting in and training inexperienced men.
Drafting of thousands of employees.
Chaos in railroad management, poor handling of cars, locomotives etc.
Great amount of overtime pay necessary to get repair work done. Had also but six months of increased rates to meet 12 months of increased pay.
Inability to get new cars and locomotives because of need of them for war purposes and our shortage of men owing to the draft.
No serviceable locomotives in reserve (at beginning of this winter, however, 1,000 in reserve. )
More or less opposition on the part of railway executives to successful government control ftir fear it would become permanent.
Necessity of handling freight and making repairs at any cost.
No complete valuation of the railroads on which to compute freight rate, and make a budget.
As the hon. member for South York pointed out, if you look over the history of the privately owned railroads of the United States, you must admit that private ownership has not been a success. I shall not labour that point to-day.
The press has devoted considerable attention to our railway affairs, and I wish to direct your attention to an article which recently apeared in one of our leading Ontario papers, written by its Ottawa representative. It reads:
While no sound comes from the hermetically sealed room in which the Gouin Government holds secret counsel as to its railway policy, the stock "ticker-the same prophet that for a whole year foretold the coming of the Great War- keeps chattering. "Something doing in C.P.R.: something doing in C.P.R."
Something doing in Canadian Pacific! We have the declaration of the hon. leader of the Government that he intends to give public ownership a chance, and we have the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) and the hon. leader of the Progressives (Mr. Crerar) declaring themselves in favor of public ownership and operation of our railways. But the Canadian Pacific Railway Company has been most active regarding the transportation situation, and when you see the stock ticker chattering you know there is going to be something doing in respect to our railway problem. Continuing the article says:
Last week C.P.R. stock' advanced in price about eight points. In the same time U.P. stock, which pays the same 10 per cent dividend, advanced only three points. And everybody started looking for the reason. Some Yankee financial papers hinted at "Government ownership," and there is something more than a possibility that they have scored a bull's-eye.
That the railroads were the issue in the recent elections is now common knowledge; that the railroad interests won that election is beyond a peradventure. That the latter are about to take action of some kind is evidenced by the stock market. But what is the action to be taken? That is the question for which politicians and financiers alike are trying to find the answer.

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Again, the article proceeds:
On more than one occasion the C.P.R. made proposals to the late government. They were always along the same line. They always provided for government-ownership of all railroads, with the exception of the old G.T.R., which was to be handed back to its shareholders, but included the C.P.R. And they always provided that the C.P.R. should have the management of the whole government system.
But. naturally, every care was to be taken of the C.P.R. shareholders. They are paid, as said before, 10 per cent on this stock.
And again the article says:
Sacred Cause is Safe
One hundred per cent of the Liberals are for private-ownership. Ninety-five per cent of the Conservatives are in the same frame of mind. Eighty per cent of the Ontario U.P.O. members are as pro-C.P.R. as the Drury Government, and the western Progressives would be, too, if they were not afraid of their constituents.
This gives the sacred cause of vested rights an overwhelming majority in the House. It gives the Gouin ring their long-looked for opportunity to put over any kind of a deal that is even slightly camouflaged.
To put it briefly, the stage is all set for the final division of those accumulated C.P.R. profits. The right kind of Parliament is there. The Cabinet has been especially selected for the purpose. The C.P.R. has prepared its deal.. And the stock-ticker fairly shrieks that it is on the way.
The Conservative party has been a believer in public ownership and favourable to the hydro-electric and hydro-radial movements in the province of Ontario, and the Conservative party gave the province the benefits of public ownership of our hydro-electric development. Eighty per cent of the Progressive party in Ontario, or of the U.F.O. are said to be as proCanadian Pacific Railway as the Drury Government. It is said that the western Progressives would be pro-Canadian Pacific too if they were not afraid of their constituents. I should think that some of my Progressive friends are too young in their parliamentary experience to be afraid of their constituents^ so early in their public career.
The hon. Prime Minister said in the course of his speech on Monday, " Give the railways a chance." I hope he will give them a chance, but what does he mean by that word? The Drayton-Acworth Commission recommended that a free hand be given to a board of directors to consolidate all the government-owned roads. When we appointed a transportation commission to take over the Toronto Street railway, on which they spent $11,000,000 on betterments in the last four months of 1921, and will spend another $11,000,000 in

betterments this year, the citizens carried by a large majority the proposal to take ' over the light, power and transportation systems within the city, with a commission to administer them. When we were considering the powers and scope of the transportation commission, I took a very strong stand to give the commission an absolutely free hand and full control over the entire system and also rates and fares, and insisted that the commission should be free of any and all interference from the city council and should have full power to fix rates and operate the street railway system to the best of their ability, and make it pay and administer it solely from the commercial aspect.
That principle was adopted by the city council and the legislature and was embodied in our act. It would prove a success in its application to our publicly-owned federal railway systems. That is the only kind of management that can be successfully applied to our national railway system; without it we might as well have no public ownership at all. What has been the secret of the success of the Hydro-Electric in Ontario? First, the absence of politics in its administration; second, efficient management and operation,-and without these things public ownership cannot succeed. I hope that if the railways are handed over to a commission, there will be a stop to the passing of legislation as to receipts and expenditures and the financing of the road, or affecting hours and conditions of labour; matters of that kind should be left to the commission. Labour has everything to hope for from public ownership; it has very little to expect from private ownership. Public ownership will always deal justly and fairly with the workingman so far as working conditions and hours of labour are concerned. Under public ownership the same rates of wages and hours of labour apply as in the case of private ownership because they are established on a similar basis or on a higher and better plane than under private ownership.
I hope that the state-owned railways will be given a proper chance, but when the Minister of Railways addresses the House with regard to this matter I would like him to tell us what he means when he says that state-owned roads will be given a "chance." The Drayton-Acworth report indicates how they can be made a success. Let the Government carry out the recommendations of that report and thus follow

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the basic principle which has brought such splendid success to the Hydro-Electric movement in Ontario. If Progressive members from the western part of Ontario- and I know eight or ten of them from that district-want to see at first hand an exemplification of the success of public ownership as applied to railways in our province, let them go over Adam Beck's railway, the London and Port Stanley, owned by the city of London, which was formerly owned by the Pere Marquette and subsequently the Grand Trunk, and finally taken over by the city of London and electrified. Passenger rates have been reduced enormously; freight rates have been brought down to a minimum, and improved facilities afforded in the way of lake services-London and St. Thomas have been placed thus on lake Erie-with lake services to Cleveland, Erie, Pa., and other points on lake Erie. I repeat that that road has been made a splendid success, because it has been administered by Sir Adam Beck on the basis of no politics and entirely from the business point of view. Operate a road in that way; secure an efficient operation equipment and management, and you will have what the Drayton-Acworth report recommends. But if you are to have the doctors of the Canadian Pacific giving advice, then good-bye to public ownership of railways in this country. If that condition is to prevail it would be far better if the railways had not been taken over.
I was somewhat surprised yesterday upon hearing the remarks of the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan)-and I am glad to see him back in the House, because he is a good friend of mine. He made a very good speech so far as the Maritime provinces are concerned; he knows a great deal about the transportation question. But he did not tell the House all he knows. I say I was surprised, Mr. Speaker, at the stand he took; I do not think his attitude is altogether just and fair in some respects. British Columbia has an equal right to take that stand, and so have the other western provinces. I do not know whether or not it is correct, but some years ago I saw a return which stated that Ontario had contributed about 52 per cent of all taxes of Canada since Confederation. At any rate, Ontario is a very heavily taxed province, and 58 or 60 per cent of all taxes in Ontario are paid by Toronto and the district of Toronto. I saw a return the other day in this connection, relating to the British North America Act
and the bringing of British Columbia, the Western provinces and the Maritime provinces into Confederation. Having regard to the British North America Act there may be something in what the member for Cumberland says, but when the Maritime provinces set up the contention which he makes, it should be remembered that the West, British Columbia in particular, can reasonably do the same. But I hope that they will never make that contention; I hope they will not ask the old provinces of Canada, Ontario and Quebec, to pay for what they are asking in regard to reduced freight and passenger rates, because the old provinces have borne the heat of the day for quite a long time and are already loaded up with a heavy burden of freight rates.
You cannot have faithful and efficient administration of the railways of this country unless solely administered from the commercial aspect, along the line of the Hydro-Electric movement and the Drayton-Acworth report. The railways must be run for the benefit of the whole of Canada; they must be operated on a purely business basis or not at all. The sentiment of the East and of the West, or of the East as against the West, cannot be considered. And in this connection, Mr. Speaker, I think that some of the Western provinces have a good deal to complain of 4 p.m. from the standpoint of government regulation. Government regulation in this country is not what it should be. It is not here what it is in the United States. I am free to say that good work was done by the Railway Commission through Mr. Blair and Mr. Justice Mabee and Sir Henry Drayton. They were strong administrators of the railways so far as their jurisdiction went and they had the confidence of the people of Canada. But in later days the Railway Commission has not been fulfilling the functions for which it was appointed. There have been four increases in rates-freight, passenger, telephone and express. The municipality of Toronto had to fight practically alone against these increases. We spent nearly $30,000 in the services of experts to fight the freight increase and the passenger increase; we spent $30,000 on two fights over telephone and express rate increases. The Railway Commission heard these corporations, and notwithstanding the fact that the war had long been over, and prices were beginning to recede, in the summer of 1920 they allowed these companies an increase of
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40 per cent in freight and passenger rates. I have figured that the total of these increases -I speak subject to correction; I have seen the figures as given by the head of the Hydro-Electric Radial Asociation, Mr. J. W. Lyon, of Guelph, who is an expert in these matters-the total freight increases granted by Hon. Mr. Carvell and his colleagues in the Railway Board have amounted to $300,000,000 a year in the last few years. Fancy all these taxes put on the farmers and working classes without the consent-of Parliament! A railway commission which does not represent the people is appointed to impose taxes amounting to a million dollars a day for every working day in the year, without the consent of the people's representatives in Parliament. I say it is not fair; it is not just; legislation of that kind is not equitable; it is not responsible government. I hope I shall have the support of the Progressives in seeing that something is done to amend such legislation -I know I shall have the support of the Opposition - to bring about a change in this state of affairs. There is something in the Speech from the Throne about freight rates, and I think the hon. Prime Minister says that if there is dissatisfaction with what the commission does, he is willing to let Parliament take some stand in the matter. But if I had my way I would go back to the old method of doing things; I would not have any of these rate handouts by the Railway Commission without the authority of Parliament. It was a particularly retrogressive step for Canada when we placed the telephone and express rates under the control of the Railway Commission, and it is fortunate indeed that Parliament did not place under their jurisdiction also the matter of tolls and rates for water-borne traffic and the control of lake rates. These increases to which I have referred were granted without proper or adequate inquiry, research or investigation; the chairman of the board took the figures submitted by the experts of the Canadian Pacific as to receipts re the freight and passenger increase, etc. The result was he granted a forty per cent increase, notwithstanding the fact that the Canadian Pacific had a surplus of nearly $492,000,000, I think it was, as active and inactive assets.
Then the people of Canada taught the railways and the Railway Commission a lesson, because with a forty per cent increase in the passenger rates they would not travel on the railways; accordingly

the companies had to go back to some of the old rates. The people taught the railway people a lesson with respect to freight rates also. In the district from which I come the largest retail stores, when dealing with customers located on the Toronto and Hamilton highway, transported theii. goods in motor cars. So the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk railways lost heavily in some localities by reason of that increase in rates.
Then the Telephone Company came along. It wanted an increase and nothing would do but they should come to Ottawa and ask the Board of Railway Commissioners for an increase. They preferred their request and they got the desired increase. And this, although the Bell Telephone Company is a rich corporation, with a large surplus, and it was so hard up that it paid eight per cent in dividends for thirty-two years. That company came down to Ottawa, applied to the Railway Commissioners and got a raise in their rates for the asking. This telephone rate increase took a million dollars out of the taxpayers of Toronto and was unjust, unfair, inequitable and not according to the provisions of the Company or the Railway Act. I am satisfied that the latest increase asked for by the Bell Company would have been granted had an election not been pending. Some of the commissioners probably thought they had better look out for their positions on the board, and not grant the increase, for if a new government came in they might be relieved of their judicial duties. So the board divided itsblf 3 to 2 on this second telephone application and it was refused. I hope the present Government will bring in legislation in the interest of the public, and not allow any further increase without the consent of Parliament, a,nd so take some of the taxes from the shoulders of the working classes as well as of the farmers in this country. Perhaps it would be a good thing for this country if provision were made also for a reorganization, root and branch, of the whole board and let us have a living regulation of these powerful public service corporations.
I will tell you what the increase of freight rates has done for the farmers. It has added $5 to the price of every ton of coal which the farmers in the county of York buy. I was one of the directors of the Consumers' Gas Company in Toronto representing the city on the board, and that company pays out a million and

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a half in freight rates alone. It took all the money coming in over the counter to meet the added charges of freight rates, labour, exchange, and increased cost of coal. The price of gas in the city of Toronto was very low at the time, but you can see what was involved when the price of coal went up from $3.20 to $10, $12, $13, $14 a ton. The exchange rate represented an additional charge of $250,000, and the freight rates a million and a half dollars. The price of gas had to be twice raised and it was hard on the working classes.
I would like to consider how these freight rates affect the farmer in another way. I have here a statement issued by a bank that loans the federal Government of Canada, as well as the provincial governments and municipalities, a lot of money -I refer to the National City Bank of New York. It is one of the largest financial corporations not only in America but in the world. This corporation isues a sketch every month describing the economic conditions in Canada and in the United States. In the statement referred to they discuss the high prices of building materials and how the excessive freight rates are keeping building operations back. Reference is made to the iron industry, and it is stated that the difficulty of getting steel for building purposes is very largely due to the present high freight rates and high prices of coal. The coal question, as any coal dealer can tell you, is very largely a transportation question; solve the trans. portation question and you can overcome the high price of coal. Many of the mines in the coal mining regions closed down during the war and after it because of the scarcity of cars and the difficulty of getting coal transported to the consuming ' centres. Now, this is what this bank statement has to say as to how the freight rates affect the building trades and the farmers:
As the liquidation process throughout the industry was extended, the wholly disproportionate margin of cost assumed by the freight factor under prevailing rates was thrown in bolder relief. A typical study has shown that whereas on January 1, 1913, the assembling cost for a ton of basic pig iron in the Mahoning Valley was approximately 27 per cent of the selling price, it is now approximately 58 per cent. The estimated assembling charges in the two periods are $4.80 and $10.55 and the prices $16.45 and $18.25 respectively. With labour costs cut down 40 to 50 per cent from the peak, operating efficiency largely restored and other economics forced, the factor of freight cost obviously occupies a commanding position in its bearing upon future prices.
The statement goes on to say:
Nothing will save the farming industry but a deep cut in freight rates. We are all merely producing tonnage for the railroads, who merely collect from the unorganized workers and turn it over to the organized workers. The latter punish when the politicians fail to do their bidding; we farmers don't.
The farmers did, in Canada. The hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) referred to what has been done in the United States in the matter of electrifying railways. In this connection the New York Central railway has effected great economies in the saving of coal; also the London and Port Stanley railway in Ontario and the Milwaukee, Chicago and St. Paul operating in the Western states. I do not agree with my hon. friend from York that in Ontario we have a million horse power at present available. The power available from the development of the Chippewa has been contracted for, but with half our industries closed down and the other half only running part time difficulty has been experienced already in getting sufficient power.
If the St. Lawrence power scheme were carried out sufficient energy would be available to electrify our railways from Quebec to Fort William. President Harding of the United States has come out very strongly in favour of the St. Lawrence waterway and the electrification of railways in. the United States. Addressing the national agricultural conference at Washington on February 20 last, he spoke as follows:
To this time railroad construction, financing and operation have been unscientific and devoid of proper consideration for the wider concerns of the community. To say this is simply to admit a fact which applies to practically every railroad system in the world. It is as true regarding the railroads of Canada and Great Britain as it is in reference to those of the United States.
In America we have too long neglected our waterways. We need a practical development of water resources for both transportation and power. A large share of railway tonnage is coal for railroad fuel. The experience of railway electrification demonstrates the possibilty of reducing this waste and increasing efficiency.
We may well begin very soon to consider plans to electrify our railroads. If such a suggestion seems to involve inordinate demands upon our financial and industrial power, it may be replied that three generations ago the suggestion of building 260,000 miles of railways in this country would have been scouted as a financial and industrial impossibility."
The waterway improvement represents not only the possibility of expanding our transportation system, but also of producing hydro-electric power for its operation and for the activities of widely diffused industry.
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I have spoken of the advantage which Europe enjoys because of its easy access to the sea, the cheapest and surest transportation facilities. In our own country is presented one of the world's most attractive opportunities for extension of the seaways many hundred miles inland. The heart of the continent with its vast resources in both agriculture and industry would be brought in communication with all the ocean routes by the execution of the St. Lawrence waterway project. The feasibility of the project is unquestioned and its cost, compared with some other great engineering works, would be small.
There you have the declaration of the President of the United States regarding the electrification of railways and the need of stimulating and developing water-borne traffic, on inland rivers and waterways of United States and Canada, in order to properly, adequately, efficiently and economically solve the transportation problems of his and our country.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for South York (Mr. MacLean) referred to motor trucks as a factor in transportation. I cannot go as far as the hon. member in that connection, because, taking the other side of the case, I have the finding of the electrical commission in the United States, who investigated all the electric systems in that country and they found that the motor truck would not be a factor in transportation for two or three reasons: first, on account of the high price of gasoline, second, on account of the high price of tires, and third owing to difficulties of loading and unloading and trans-shipment. As I see it they will only be a factor to act as a feeder to the electric railways, and the electric railways and radials will be feeders for the steam roads. That was proven in the railway administration of the United States, and that is what happened on the New York and Pennsylvania lines and the Michigan Central lines. I do not agree with the hon. gentleman from South York when he said they would be a factor, although at the time of the 40 per cent increase in rates they were a factor, but between inter-urban municipalities I do not believe they will ever be a factor in Canada, especially on account of the climate that we have here for five months in the year. But there is another matter which enters into it. I believe the greatest factor in transportation in Canada in the future is the electrification of railways and hydro-radials and radials as a whole. I regret to see the stand taken by the Drury U.F.O. government in the Ontario Legislature in this regard. I think the radials in

Ontario are not a luxury, they are a social, economic and commercial necessity.
I desire to pay tribute to the pioneer, work done by Sir Adam Beck in Ontario. It is a revelation to visitors from all over the world.
I refer to the development in the Niagara river, and to-morrow it will be in the St. Lawrence, and in the West also. Sooner or later we will have a network of electrical lines between rural municipalities and urban centres. We have to look to United States to see what a factor electrical railways and radials and interurban lines of communication are. Take the state of Michigan. A few years ago the city of Detroit only had a population of 425,000. To-day, owing to the network of radials in that great city, the population of Detroit is over a million people. The Ford industry also helped in that development. I was at the Deep Waterways convention at Detroit at which sixteen states were represented and nine state governors were present to discuss the St. Lawrence canal. These states were linked up together as far as they could be on the waterways problem, and one of the main things discussed at that convention was the elfect the radials had in the solution of the transportation problem in that great land, and especially the Western states. Look at what radials have done for Ohio-they solved there the unemployment and transportation question-and were feeders to the steam roads. They have radials from Cleveland all the way; tc Buffalo. Every mile and a half or so, all the way down you see spread out little villages, built up by interurban lines of communications between the cities and towns of that great state and the lake Erie ports. This is the state of Ohio, whence came the present President as well as the defeated candidate for president-Governor Cox. The population of Ohio is as large as that of Canada, namely, 9,000,000. I pay tribute to what President Harding has said as to the electrification of railways and the development of waterways and interurban traffic. That is borne out in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, and in that state of Woodrow Wilson's, New Jersey. In Ontario 200 municipalities have carried Hydro Radial by-laws. It was not Sir Adam Beck nor the commission that first asked for a survey for these lines of railways, but the 200 municipalities themselves-the Hydro Radial policy is not to duplicate the steam roads. The policy is to

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take over some of the unused sections of the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk and electrify them. I believe the Minister of Railways (Mr. Kennedy) in this House, will be a faithful friend of Sir Adam Beck and of the Hydro municipalities, and will do what he can for the Hydro Radials.
I believe he will bring down a policy in this connection to give the Hydro an option on what federal sections of our publicly-owned railways the Hydro wants- unlike the Canadian Northern Railway the Hydro Radials ask no subsidies. When they are operating through the country they will give a service to the farmers, so that the farmer of Ontario will have a fair chance to market his crop to his home market at cost. Sir Adam Beck's report when presented recommended a radial system for Ontario. The farmers are very strong for it, and the reason is this; that the steam roads have absolutely fallen down in the province of Ontario. In the Hamilton district, the Toronto district and the London district we have no steam suburban service. Montreal has a steam suburban service; on the national lines they have about six trains a day out and back. The Canadian Pacific has, I think, about 12 trains running out and back the same day; from the Island of Montreal the Grand Trunk has far more than that. In all they have some 30 or 40 suburban trains a day out of Montreal-the Toronto district has not a single suburban train on the steam road, except one to Oakville on the Canadian Pacific. There is an absence of any semblance of any steam suburban service.
In the territory back of Toronto, for a distance of thirty miles, there is a population of 800,000, over a third of the population of the entire province. That great district is without a steam suburban service. What is the result to the farmer? He cannot get his crops to market. If you go to the Niagara district in August or September, you will find they have a difficulty in getting out the fruit crop. If you go to Hamilton you will see the same. Go to Mr. Drury's own constituency of Halton. and see the same and you will also see that the farmers in Halton are very much dissatisfied on account of the stand the government has taken on the hydro radials. They are a unit in Halton in that respect. The absence of this service is the cause of the high cost of living in the cities and towns and of underproduction. The municipalities were forced to ask the Hydro Electric Power Commission to investigate the radials because-of the way the steam
roads fell down-these radials have done so much for the farmers and the towns and cities across the border. Sir Adam's report, was prepared and then the municipalities voted on and carried the various Hydro Radial by-laws.
It is not an Ontario government radial scheme, it is the municipalities' own scheme. The government of Ontario never lost a dollar in it or on the Hydro Light and Power scheme. Every municipality has a surplus from Hydro, except one or two not yet beyond construction. I may say that is the reason the radials were brought into existence. Now, because of the lack of transportation in Ontario we have rural depopulation in this province. In the period from 1904 to 1914, 500,000 people left the farms of Ontario and went to cities and towns in the West and to cities and towns in Ontario and the United .States. Why? Some of my hon. friends opposite and some hon. members on the Progressive side of the House claim that that was due to the trade policy of the country. I say: No, it is not due to any question of protection or free trade. Some of it may be due to free trade in other countries, because rural depopulation is a world wide problem; but rural depopulation in Ontario was not due to protection, it is not a local, but a world problem; it has been brought about largely by the war. What is the reason and cause of this rural depopulation in Ontario from 1904 to 1914 of, I think, half a million people? It is because of lack of transportation facilities on the farms, because of lack of the very joy of living on the farms, without conveniences such as good roads, hydro-telephones, hydro-telegraphs and hydro-radials. Prior to a few years ago, there was no rural mail delivery, no goods delivery and only a flag station railway service from the steam roads throughout the province. I believe, however, that the hydro-radials will bring about a remedy of those conditions.
Before I conclude, I desire to say a few words about the St. Lawrence waterway. The people of Ontario and, I believe, also the people of the Western provinces are vitally interested in this waterway. In the first place, there is no coal in Ontario; we have to depend on the Maritime provinces or the United States for our coal supply. In about a hundred years the United States' coal supply will be exhausted; we are thus at the mercy of a foreign country. The province contains an abundant supply of water-power, in all
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6.000.	000	h.p., of which approximately
over 800,000 h.p. has been developed. I have in my hand some notes of the evidence which I gave before the International Waterways Commission in October, 1920. As I am placing on the Order Paper a resolution in regard to the St. Lawrence river, I will not go into this matter at any length to-day except to say that the Western provinces especially, Ontario, and indeed, Canada as a whole, should be vitally interested in this proposition.
Nature provided the St. Lawrence for two reasons: (1) For a great waterway to the sea; (2) for a great power plant to develop trade, commerce and agriculture. The development of this river will bring untold relief to Canadians and Americans. Power will be developed; industry and agriculture made more secure; freight rates cheapened; several million tons of coal will be saved annually. Fourteen western states have come out in favour of this project, and I think all Canada, with the exception of some conscientious objectors in the city of Montreal, are in favour of it.
I was speaking to a member of the Montreal Harbour Commission yesterday and they are not opposing this proposition. In the United States they are having a little family spat between the cautious conservative big interests in the East and the more progressive interests in the West over this project; but the West is going to win. The younger generation in Canada will live to see the day when ocean-going ships will come from the Old Country, go up the St. Lawrence and up the Upper lakes with their cargo. The fact that this scheme is feasible from a commercial and business standpoint is strengthened by what happened in 1911 when the big interests were willing to canalize the St. Lawrence in return for the power privileges. They made a sharp fight before the Rivers and Harbours Committee at Washington. They said they would build a canal if they were given the power to build it. Every year
4.000.	000 h.p. of electrical energy, the equivalent of $800,000,000 worth of coal, is going to waste in the St. Lawrence, and the finest system of inland waterways in the world has been lying idle all these years because of lack of development, as deep draught vessels cannot sail up the St. Lawrence 46 miles on their way to the Upper lakes. The St. Lawrence ranks with the Suez and Panama canals in its magnitude and importance. The cost of this project may reach $250,000,000 or more, no one yet knows the cost, but there

will be no great difficulty in financing the work. Private capital stands ready to develop the deep waterway in exchange for the power privileges. The great bulk of the developed power will belong to Canada. Some say that Canada wants to take it all, but that is not so; they can dispose of the power in other ways and sell some abroad. A large part of the power will belong to the province of Quebec. Abundant evidence will be found in the report of the International Joint Commission that this project will be a success. Sir Adam Beck, of the Hydro-Electric Commission, who investigated this project on behalf of the Ontario Government, has made his report.
1.	The report sets out clearly the position of the province in relation to the improvements. It pointed out that in all discussion and consideration of the work the important facts of navigation and power could not be separated; that in all consideration and in all determination as to the future of the river, the fact that navigation and power were so intimately connected that one could not be sacrificed to the advantage of the other.
2.	This report stated that there could be developed at conservative estimate power equivalent to 20,000,000 tons of coaf-per year -more than the total importation of Canada now. It advocated the construction of the proposed improvements to the St. Lawrence, which it said was the most important economic question before the people of Canada.
3.	The final aim of the policy of the HydroElectric Commission is, first the complete development of the available power at Niagara, and following that the joint development with the aid of the federal governments of Canada and the United States of the great international water powers on the St. Lawrence River.
The Hydro served 344 municipalities, every one of whom had a big surplus. If the St. Lawrence scheme materializes, as it must, large industries will inevitably move into Canada and the United States to take advantage of the cheap and abundant power thus made available, and no more ideal location for the exploitation of these enormous industrial activities can be imagined than that portion of Ontario and New York lying adjacent to the shores of the St. Lawrence River. With nearly two million horse power available and with deep draft navigation to tide water the industrial future of this territory would be assured. The canalization of the St. Lawrence is the most important matter to come before the people of Canada since Confederation and the building of the Canadian Pacific railway. I propose to discuss this further when my motion comes up on the Order Paper.

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The Hydro from the Niagara district exported from Canada 90,000 horse power. Each horse power represents from six to twenty tons of coal according to the character of the industrial plant which is supplied. I have attended as a Toronto Harbour Commissioner the convention of the Port Authorities and heard the arguments for the St. Lawrence scheme. Those against it were all founded on a fallacy. To sum up in a few words the advantages of +he St. Lawrence route:
1.	It is one of the great natural waterways of the world.
2.	The cost of improvement is less than that of other routes. Moreover, it would be divided between the two nations sharing its benefits.
3.	It is a high-speed highway avoiding long passages by canals.
4.	It would accommodate the large vessels of commerce, opening the Great Lakes to ocean freighters and avoiding the cost of rehandling goods.
5.	The improvement would develop vast water power, more than any other project-develop it where wanted.
6.	It would be jointly owned and used by Canada and the United States, and such joint ownership and use would cement the friendship of these two great peoples.
7.	If, failing to join with the States, we insist on an all-Canadian route, then we may expect an American route as well; we should then have two costly waterways paralleling the way to the sea, where one less costly and more efficient than either would suffice. It is a practical and sensible plan.
We believe there is a distinct advantage in joining hands with our sister nation to the south, the United States.
Millions of horse power are available, that, while incidental would more than repay the entire cost of the improvement.
This development would represent a saving of coal running into tens of millions of tons annually. Coal miners may strike, but the St. Lawrence never goes on strike. Yet this great development is but a by-product incidental to the greater object to be achieved.
Nature has done so much to afford the Great Lakes a flowing road to the sea that it seems to me utter folly that we should neglect to improve the short stretches that bar the modern freighter from the Canadian lake ports.
Without a deeper St. Lawrence our whole harbour expenditure rebuilding the Port of Toronto of over twenty-six millions will be in jeopardy and founded on a wrong foundation.
The St. Lawrence is Nature's highway to the sea. Give us a great water highway, a flowing road down which the products of the west may float from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
In seeking a better water route to the Atlantic, we must have the best highway that can be obtained.
It is a national duty-a Canadian duty-an International duty-to develop water power wherever possible. Give us this mighty colaborer with coal in keeping the wheels of industry revolving and you will put the country beyond the power of any man or group of men
to cripple and imperil as the country is crippled and imperiled to-day.-Pamphlet T. L. Church on St. Lawrence.
We have engineering and commercial assurance of these three facts:
1.	It can be done ; it's practical.
2.	The cost will be less than other routes proposed.
3.	There would be developed water power running into millions of tons of coal per annum and millions of horse power available for trade and commerce and industrial development.
The people of Ontario believe that one joint route for Canada and the United States is better than two rival routes. We believe that such a route can be accomplished more cheaply, that it provides a more direct way to the markets of Europe, that it is more practicable, more serviceable, better than any other plan yet offered.
We believe that this improved St. Lawrence will bring great commercial development to our own country and corresponding benefit to the peoples of the world with whom we shall trade.
The St. Lawrence route has long appealed to my interest. I am hopeful that we are going to get a report which will give us in concrete form the cost and the possibilities that will grow out of this great international waterway.
The water has been running to waste through all the ages, and at a time when this country is suffering for want of fuel for producing and short of power for our industries and our railways.-T. L. Church Pamphlet.
Water-borne traffic is going to be a very important factor in solving the transportation question in Canada, and I hope the Minister of Railways will bring down some scheme in that connection, especially as we have the findings of President Harding of the United States and the findings of the International Joint Comission. I understand some interests in Montreal are opposed to this scheme. The Premier of Quebec, Hon. Mr. Taschereau, is opposed to the St. Lawrence canal for some reasons; but I think his objections can be met by agreement with the United States, for his arguments are based principally on antiAmerican prejudice. He claims that the navigation feature of the project is but a cloak for an attempt by our neighbours to grab the power; that the Americans expect to get international control of about 2,700,000 h.p. of energy. But there will be the same amount or a little more belonging to Canada, and Quebec will have its share. He goes on to refer to the position of the high-level dam which, he- says, will be located in the United States. That location has not yet been fixed; it is a matter for agreement with the United States Government. The broad fact for Mr. Taschereau to answer is that 4,000,000 h.p. of electrical energy is going to waste every year, and he has no suggestion
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to give for making it available. This is the equivalent of 48,000,000 tons of coal having a value of $240,000,000, and it is allowed to slip away every year without being used.
I wish to say a few words regarding trade with Germany. In many centres of our population there are complaints that certain localities are being flooded with German goods. I have had many complaints in this connection from constituents of mine and from other people in the Toronto district. They point out to me that as a result of the war, many industries had been started up by Canadians to supply minor goods which Germany had formerly supplied to Canada. In this way, plants had been established for making such things as toys and small-wares of all kinds. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Robb), no doubt has not yet had time to look into this problem, but I hope he will do so, and that he will be able to lay down a policy for the House and the country. So far as I am concerned I am in favour of protection to these small local manufacturers. I do not believe we should have any trade relations with Germany at all.
Something has been said about Senate reform. In 1896, the Liberal party's platform declared strongly for Senate reform, but, as has been well said, platforms are generally made to get in on and not to stand on, and it was so in this case. Workingmen can sit in the British Parliament, but no workingman can sit in the United States or the Canadian Senate. So far as I can see when the Liberal party attempted to implement their platform of 1896 and reform the Senate, they simply made the Senate "ten times more reform" by appointing Liberals. I would suggest that the British North America Act be amended, after a vote of the people at the next election, on a Senate reform referendum, with a view to abolishing the Senate altogether, because I feel that its usefulness has gone. I do not know how the Progressive party feel on this subject, but in their platform they advocate strict economy and the saving of taxes, and this would an excellent way of economizing, besides ensuring better legislation and to some extent abolishing privilege in this country. The moment a man is appointed to the Senate he thinks that he is absolutely independent. It is all very well when men are trying to get into the Senate: they are then in favour of the policy of the existing government. But in a recent debate in the

other House an hon. gentleman in that Chamber assumed an attitude of independence and disregard of the government of the day. They say some of them: We are judicial officers as senators and can oppose bills as we please.
Mention has also been made of Civil Service reform. I am in favour of the patronage system. I believe that you can get better results under the patronage system than under the Civil Service Commission. I am a Conservative, but let me say that I have been sent to Parliament to express a liberty of speech on what is good for the people and to exercise an independence of thought and action for the people; and while I am glad to call myself a Conservative, at the same time I am an independent Conservative. I noticed that the Liberal newspapers at one time condemned the hon. member for Centre Toronto (Mr. Bristol) for suggesting that all vacant judgeships, at the time he spoke, " should be filled with good Tories." Well, it is a credit to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that he did not so commit himself. But he has raised no objection to this principle applied the other way, for I see that he has been himself doing the same thing, as can be seen in the appointment of such good Grit lawyers as Judge Fisher, of London, and Mr. Duncan Ross, the ex-member for West Middlesex as judge for Elgin, Judge Mulligan of Carleton, Senators Pardee and Boyer, and others. The Civil Service Act, it seems to me, applies only to the spade and shovel men and not to those higher up on the civil pay rolls, like senators, judges, lieutenant-governors and others of that class for whom there is no sort of examination, a la Civil Service Commission.
With regard to Canada's wonderful banking system, I have been looking over the Bank Act from cover to cover, and I may have something to say in this connection later on.
The Prime Minister the other day, referring to the Conservative party, seemed to rejoice in the fact that it had been wiped off the map in six provinces. Well, I can sympathize with him, for he also was wiped off the map in about three provinces -in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba -in which he obtained two seats out of forty-one. So he is in the same boat as those on this side in three provinces as to being wiped out. It is true he carried Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Quebec, but in some other provinces he did

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not do so well, and I think he knows what it is to be wiped off the map. He ran second to the Tories in Ontario and British Columbia, and we divided fifty-fifty with him in New Brunswick.
I do not see the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) in the House, but during the campaign in the Toronto district he evinced a keen interest in the cost of living, the question of trusts and combines, and other allied subjects. This question of combines has been made a football of by the Government of Canada and those of the provinces for many years, and I trust we shall hear the end of it and that the Government of Canada will take a leaf out of the book of the Attorney General of the United States, who prosecuted 285 combines in one year and broke them up. As a start the Government might take action against the tobacco trust. I have had several letters from soldiers and others, strongly urging that something should be done to break up this combine. The prices of a good many of the tobacco commodities of life are on the down grade and it seems an outrage that the working classes should be obliged to pay 15 cents for a plug of tobacco, while tobacco is lying in the fields not cut. Steps should be taken at once to regulate all trusts of this nature.
Before I conclude I want to protest against any action or any speech calculated to loosen the ties that bind this country to the Motherland. I think that this declaration is timely, because there is an agitation on foot in certain localities-and among certain classes that would tend to loosen that connection. I do not think that anyone did more than our King during the war to forward our interests, or was more concerned in the welfare of the Empire. Our Governor General, too, a brilliant soldier, was an inspiration to all fighting Canadians, and, I say, long may that office continue. Another office that is of use in the affairs of the country is that of Lieutenant-Governor. I do not agree with those who advocate the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council; this, I think, would be one way of loosening the ties that bind the Mother Country and Canada together. In regard to the question of Canada's representation abroad, it is my opinion that there is no necessity for an ambassador at Washington; nor do I believe that we need a High Commissioner in London. If we can do without an ambassador in Washington, why cannot we dispense, without great inconvenience, with a representative in London? I wish it distinctly understood, of course, that I have absolutely nothing to say against the appointment that ha? been recently made by the Government to fill this office. The appointee is a good business man, a gentleman who is admirable in more senses than one. I sat with him on the Toronto General Hospital Board in Toronto for a number of years, and from my knowledge of and association with him I have formed a high estimate of his ability and his character Nevertheless, I do not think that the office to which he has been appointed is very necessary. I may say, in passing, that as a friend of Mr. Larkin, I wish him good luck. I think he should answer those papers that criticise his income tax payments. In Toronto some time ago he paid taxes on an income of $50,000. But the next year-1921-when he was assessed on a similar income, he appealed to the Court of Revision and made a declaration to the effect that his income was only $25,000. The Court of Revision, without taking any evidence on the subject, reduced the assessment to that amount. Sir John Willison, the Canadian representative of the London Times, wrote an article which appeared in the London papers stating that Mr. Larkin's income was $500,000, and some of the London papers are commenting on it and on his assessments. Now, while undoubtedly Mr. Larkin will make an excellent High Commissioner, I think it would have been better, both for him and the country, had he followed in the footsteps of the First Commoner, yourself, Mr. Speaker, when you announced in such modest terms that from the moment of your election to your high office you ceased to be a party man. It would be better for all concerned if Mr. Larkin refrained from attending party dinners. I say it would be in his own interests, and I am speaking as a friend of his; for, I repeat, I found him an honourable business man, having sat with him on the Board in the building of the Toronto General Hospital, a $5,000,000 hospital. I can say that he has done a wonderful service as a citizen. As his friend, I say that he should make it clear just what his income is on which he has to pay local and federal taxes and answer his critics. I have every confidence in his integrity.
In conclusion, I desire to thank you, Sir, and the members of this House, for the way they have listened to me, and on my own behalf I thank you for your patience.
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Hon.   S@: Mr. Speaker, I had no intention of taking part in this debate, and I would not now rise to address the House were it not that the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen), in the course of his speech, thought it proper to refer in the manner in which he did to my attitude during the last electoral campaign. I crave the attention of hon. members for a short time, and I also crave their indulgence, for though I may count myself as one of the veterans in our public life, yet as a newcomer to this House I must confess in all candour and sincerity that I feel exactly as does the young member who rises for the first time to address his fellow members.
Listening to the oft repeated references of the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) to the declarations that I made during the last general election, and also to the declarations which he says I may have made, I could not help thinking that my right hon. friend should be exceedingly grateful to me for having sought and won the confidence of the electors of Lau-rier-Outremont. Had I not been elected for that constituency much of the best effect of his great speech would have been lost.
I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that I do not intend to detain the House for any length of time, by attempting to answer all the statements which have been made about myself by my right hon. friend.
For many years I sat in another legislature and I have always avoided what might be construed as an attempt to impose my personal views on my colleagues in respect to any subject; I have never made a long speech to defend myself against personal attacks, and I do not intend to depart from that rule on this occasion.
I gladly accept this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to add my most sincere congratulations to those which have already been so happily and so justly extended to you by those hon. members who have preceded me. I am glad also on this occasion to most heartily congratulate the hon. proposer and seconder of the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne on their remarkably eloquent addresses.
My right hon. friend, the leader of the Opposition has endeavoured to put me in a contradictory position by quoting a paragraph from the Speech from the Throne in which it is stated:
Our Dominion has not escaped the worldwide economic disturbance and industrial depression, but has suffered less from it than other
[iSir Lomer Gouin.]
countries. Keen observers of the business barometer feel that the worst is about over and that at an early date we may look for a substantial revival of activity.
My right hon. friend has contrasted with that paragraph certain opinions which I expressed during the late general election to the effect that our country was passing through a most serious crisis. The picture I then drew of her economic, commercial and industrial condition, was no darker than that drawn by the right hon. gentleman himself at that time. Indeed, were I to trespass on the time of hon. gentlemen by quoting newspaper clippings to the extent that he did, I could very easily convince the House that on this point I hardly exceeded any of the statements of the right hon. leader of the Opposition himself.
With regard to the statement quoted by him, that I told the electors of Montreal, or Three Rivers-I do not remember which exactly-that the population of Canada was declining, he should at least, it seems to me, have given me credit for sufficient knowledge to believe that I could never make such a declaration, I did say more than once that our customs revenues were decreasing, and that is borne out by the official returns. I stated also, and rightly, that our foreign trade was falling off and I do not suppose that any hon. member will pretend that I misled the people of my province when I stated that our national debt was increasing to an alarming extent. No, Mr. Speaker, none of my declarations during that campaign were exaggerated; ail and each of them were strictly in accord with our economic condition and the state of mind of the people at that time. In a word, there is no contradiction between any of my modest speeches and this Speech from the Throne. I would remind the right hon. leader of the Opposition that circumstances have changed in this country since the dissolution of the last Parliament. Great and important changes have happened in the interim, and I make bold to say that this feeling of security which already is so noticeable in our people, as well as the general revival in business, are due to a large extent to the confidence which the citizens of Canada repose in the new Government which they chose last December.
My right hon friend has referred to my standing on the tariff question, and if I understood him aright he even insinuated that that stand was inspired by certain interests which he holds responsible for his defeat and for the triumph of the Liberal party. My views on the, tariff

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question have never changed during the last twenty-five years. For fifteen years 1 have followed, approved and endorsed, the Laurier-Fielding tariff policy. During the last election I advocated that policy; I told the electors of Laurier-Outremont and I told the electors of the province of Quebec that if the Liberal party secured their confidence and was returned to power it would remain true to that policy and would carry it into effect through a revision of the tariff to meet the necessities which have arisen since the last revision, taking into account the interests of the consumer, of the farmer-whose industry we have always regarded as the basic industry of this country-and of the manufacturers in general. That policy I advocated before the general election, Mr. Speaker, at a dinner given in the city of Quebec, and at which the right hon. leader of the Opposition himself was a speaker. On that occasion, Sir, he applauded my declaration and made no such insinuations as those he made the other day.
The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), in his speech, quoted from the Montreal Gazette certain remarks that I made at a dinner held in connection with a convention of the shoe manufacturers of Canada. The hon. member seems to have found in my remarks a declaration tending toward an increase of duties on shoes imported into Canada. I am surprised that he made such a discovery, and if he has the patience to read that speech,-or reread it, if he has not already done so-he will find that all I said may be summed up in the affirmation that it was the revision of the tariff of 1907 which brought to the shoe manufacturers of Canada that era of prosperity which they enjoyed until the recent crisis occurred which has affected their industries as it has affected all others in Canada. I reminded the Shoe Manufacturers' Association-and here I may say that these gentlemen have invested in their industry a capital of over $32,000,000 and that they afford subsistence to some 70,000 of our people-I reminded them that what they had of prosperity they owed to the Laurier-'Fielding tariff policy.
The right hon. leader of the Opposition, speaking of the railway question, endeavoured to convey the impression that some mysterious power had inspired those hon. members who expressed themselves as not believing in state ownership or state operation of railways. My right hon. friend has come out categorically in favour of the nationalization of our railways. He is sincere in his views, I know; but why should he cast suspicion on those 5 p.m. hon. members who are not of the same opinion in the matter? As the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) declared in his speech, there are on this side of the House, as there are on the other side, members who do not look upon state ownership or state operation of railways as practicable and profitable for the country. But we now own our railways and the Government has decided to give the system a fair trial under the best possible conditions. I cannot understand why my right hon. friend should doubt the good faith of the Government or of any of its members in that matter. The question is not one which concerns Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver or any city in particular; it is a question which concerns Canada as a whole, and the solution which we seek is a solution which shall be satisfactory to the interests of our country generally.
The right hon. leader of the Opposition has stated-and he has repeated the assertion several times-that his government was defeated by the big interests of Montreal. The interests that defeated my right hon. friend's government are the Liberals, Mr. Speaker, who voted to a man against the late administration and its followers, joined, as they were, by the majority of the Conservative electors of this country who by their vote and through their newspapers declared that they did not believe in the National Liberal-Conservative government. The power which defeated the late administration was the will of the Canadian people.
Referring to the remarks of the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Mc-Murray), who declared that the time had come when we should have responsible government in Canada and should cease administering the public affairs by Order in Council, the right hon. leader of the Opposition said: Every one of the Orders in Council that we passed was necessary for the good government of this country. He went on to say: You have a new Administration; you have already passed an Order in Council by which you deprive the Canadian Parliament of certain of its rights. Mr. Speaker, there were many Orders in Council passed by the government presided over by my right hon. friend. and by the government which preceded it and of which he was a member. But although he declared that all these Orders
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in Council were necessary lor the proper administration of our public affairs, in every case where such Orders in Council were submitted to the courts they were declared illegal and ultra vires, and as a result the government was condemned.
It is not an Order in Council of that kind that the Government of Canada has passed with regard to the administration of fisheries in the province of Quebec. We have passed that Order in Council, Mr. Speaker, only to conform with a judgment of the Privy Council; and I wish to state here that in passing such an Order in Council the Federal Government has not abandoned an inch of its territory or renounced the shadow of a right in favour of the province of Quebec. My right hon. friend allows himself to be blinded-to be blinded by his bitterness against the city of Montreal and against the province of Quebec; and he is wrong in leading other provinces of the Confederation to believe, that by that Order in Council the Government has granted a favour to the province of Quebec, because that province never asked for, and never received any favour, from this Government.
My right hon. friend ended his speech by asking my colleagues what had been the verdict of the last general election. I will be very frank and I will tell him that I could not altogether analyze the vote which was cast at that election. It would be very, very difficult to find the determining factor; but there is one thing certain and that is that the people of Canada, by-an immense majority, voted against the continuance in office of the Meighen Government, who suffered in that election such a defeat as no other government has experienced since Confederation. As to my right hon. friend who leads the Opposition, I wish to be allowed to say that I admire his high attainments. He is a very eloquent speaker; he is a good fighter; but I regret to have to say that he is not a good loser. But he is now in the right place to learn. In his present seat he will have an opportunity to learn, and I hope that some day we will be in a position to say that he is as good a loser as he is a fighter.
Another word, Mr. Speaker, before I resume my seat. My right hon. friend has taken pleasure-particular pleasure-in designating me as " The Master of the Administration." This is an old game which has been played before in this House by some of my right hon. friend's predecessors. Still there is one thing I regret: it is that it is resorted to to-day

not so much to annoy me as to accentuate the unfortunate differences which have existed far too long between certain provinces of our Confederation and the province of Quebec. Mr. Speaker, the Liberal party has one chief and one chief only: that chief is the Prime Minister of Canada, the leader of this House. He has, and he can depend upon, the loyal support of all his colleagues, of everyone of the Liberal members of this House, and of every Liberal in Canada. As for myself, Mr. Speaker, I am nothing but a man of good will. I hope that I will be long enough in this House to convince all my fellow members, Conservatives and Progressives as well as Liberals, that I have only one ambition in coming here: It is simply to be permitted to serve my country in my own modest way and to try and help bring about that spirit towards which I have directed all the efforts of my life for twenty-five years in another field, the spirit of unity, Mr. Speaker, which is so necessary for the prosperity of our country and for the happiness of our citizens.


Mr. D. M. KENNEDY (West Edmonton) :: Mr. Speaker, in rising for the first time to address this House I hope that I shall not find myself out of order too often. Public speaking has not been my business; I have been engaged in the far Northwest for the last number of years trying to subdue this earth or a part of it. The life of a farmer is not the kind of life that tends to make one a finished public speaker. It is a life that serves to give one a practical view of things; and I hope that if my remarks are not quite so polished in form as those of some other hon. gentlemen who have preceded me, the House will nevertheless hear me with patience.
I represent in this Chamber the constituency of West Edmonton-the largest, possibly, in Canada. It reaches from the Saskatchewan river to the northern boundary of the province of Alberta; a distance of 450 miles north and south, and about 250 miles east and west. It has a population of something like 70,000 people, an increase of 99 per cent since 1911. I consider, as an ordinary citizen of this Dominion, that it is a great honour that I should be chosen to represent this constituency, and I also realize that I should do my best to live up to the great responsibility that has been imposed upon me. West Edmonton has a population that is composed of farmers, miners, lumbermen, fishermen, and town and city dwellers.

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During the late campaign the people were told throughout that constituency that we Progressives were out for class legislation, class domination; but whether one is nominated and supported by a Liberal party or a Conservative party, or a Farmers group, after he is elected I consider that he is not doing his duty unless he is willing to try and represent and be fair to all the people regardless of their attitude during the election. Whether the majority or minority be small or large, we have no right to seek for anything less than absolute justice for minorities whether in a particular constituency or in the country at large.
For some time after the election there was an effort made in the province of Alberta, with some of the Progressives, to provide a seat for a minister of the Crown. I was not able, though I had been invited through the press, to accept the invitation to resign. I think a gallant spirit has been shown in the province of Quebec, especially in the county of Argenteuil, where they have selected as their representative in this Parliament a worthy citizen of northern Alberta, thus providing northern Alberta with a representative in the Cabinet. They have shown that they were willing to try and undo the injustice that was inflicted on Alberta on account of the Redistribution Bill not having been passed by the late administration.
I wish to speak on the Speech from the Throne, and to take issue with some of the statements made by the hon. Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin). I do not believe that anything we can do at this time, or anything we are likely to do, will bring in the millennium, and anything I can or will advocate is simply done as a means of helping to alleviate the conditions, especially, existing in Western Canada to-day. I do not believe the average member of this House-and I refer especially to the members from the East-has any idea of the conditions existing in Western Canada, particularly in the pioneer districts of the country. It may be that in this part of the country, and particularly in the cities, there is a feeling of confidence. It may be that those engaged in industries that are built up through special legislation enacted by Parliament, and are able to pay dividends of 10 per cent and sometimes more, are beginning to feel that there is reason again for optimism and confidence. But the people of the West, the people on the farms of this country,
and the working people who have been contributing out of their earnings to this 10 per cent dividend, and sometimes larger dividends on watered stock, have not the same feeling of confidence or the same assurance with regard to the future.
In common with some of those who have preceded me, I am a little disappointed with the paragraph in the Speech dealing with the tariff. It has been stated by the hon. Minister of Justice that we are going to have a tariff along the lines of the Lau-rier-Fielding tariff. I will be satisfied- that is if the information that I have received from this book is reliable with regard to what that means. If I may quote from this volume entitled "Sixty years of Protection in Canada" I would like to show what has been stated by some hon. gentlemen in days gone by, worthy men in their day, with regard to the Laurier-Fielding tariff. Sir Wilfrid Laurier has declared-
I leave it to the working men in the cities if protection is anything less than slavery*** The moment the government takes one cent from your pocket, and that cent does not go into the treasury of the country, that is robbery to your prejudice.
We stand for freedom. I denounce the policy of protection as bondage,-yea bondage-and I refer to bondage in the same manner in which American slavery was bondage.
The late Sir Richard Cartwright, who was also an eminent authority in his day, has stated that if you add together the sum which has been put into the treasury and the larger sum which has been extracted from the pockets of the people for the benefit of a few privileged and favoured individuals, you will find the total for the last fourteen years is hardly less than a thousand million dollars.
I have been doing a little studying with regard to this tariff question during the last few years, even though my duties on the farm have been such that I have had to work twelve and fourteen hours a day, and perhaps my study has not been just as thorough as the study of some other gentleman, but I fail to find that after 1896 there was any substantial reduction in the tariff from that which existed previous to that time. I fail to see that there is anything to justify any one to-day in stating that that policy, followed during the fifteen years of Liberal administration in this country, was anything different from that which had been in existence previous to that time, and I hope that when we are face to face with the actual proposals with regard to the tariff, they will show some-
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thing more substantial in the way of reductions on farm machinery and the necessities of life than we have ever seen before in the history of this country. We have been told that we ought to contribute in this way to the manufacturing interests through the tariff, to the railway interests through guaranteed rates, and to other interests through large grants of money, to give them protection, in order that we may build up a well united and well developed Dominion. We have large reserves in farm lands that are very rich, and we have been told, as a people, that by simply giving protection to certain manufacturers and certain other interests we would build up a self-contained Dominion, and would have prosperity under any and all circumstances.
We have been dealing with this problem, as near as I can see, for about forty years, and after forty years of that policy I believe we have harder times, in the West at least, than we have ever known before. I believe that we have more unemployment, even throughout Eastern Canada, than we have had at almost any other time. I would like to ask those who have been telling us that this tariff was going to give us security and prosperity, how much longer we will have to follow along this line before we arrive at the place where we are going to have steady general prosperity for all the people? I maintain that the whole tendency with regard to this protective tariff -and that is what we have had-is to segregate the wealth of this country in the hands of a few individuals. We pile up wealth on one hand, and we have a corresponding poverty on the other hand. The result is that we have wealth in one case, but without any corresponding need, and on the other hand we have need, where there is not the purchasing power to supply that need.
Unless at last we can find some method, some system of administration that will give to our citizens something like an equal chance and an equal share of the good things of this country, we can never have a good, sound, reliable, happy country. If we take the past forty years, in the fourteen years prior to 1896, something like $500,000,000 was taken out of the pockets of the people and put into the pockets of the manufacturers of this country, and we have been following the same policy for the last twenty-six years. I understand there is a little dispute going on between the two parties as to which of them reduced the

tariff most during the time that they were in power. But studying the matter as an observer from the outside, I would say that the two parties are very much alike, and if we take into account the increase in Canada's population, I think we would be justified in saying that the same policy has been continued from 1896 onward, and that at least $1,000,000,000 have been taken out of the pockets of the people and put into the pockets of the manufacturers of this -country. If even one-half of that sum were spread around in a (general way amongst the people of this country, that would do far more to bring prosperity, and it would solve our unemployment problem; it would give us a general all-round prosperity in this Dominion of Canada. We have on the one- hand great wealth-the mountains

and we have on the other the valleys of poverty; there is only one way by which to fill up the valfeys, and that is to take down the mountains.
We have, of course, been told that the manufacturers cannot compete; that we ought to protect those great industries because they are vital to the country. I believe our Canadian manufacturers can compete with the manufacturers of other countries, just as our farmers compete with farmers in all parts of the world. We have been speaking about our soldiers, how they crossed the Atlantic and went up against the trained armies of Europe, with practically no training as compared with the training those European armies had, and we are proud that, with this unequal opportunity, so to speak, they were able to more than hold their own. Are we to conclude that there is in our country a class that is not ready to face the world and the conditions and difficulties that all the rest of us must face? Are we to conclude 'that we must ask the large producing class in this country, working men and farmers, to carry an extra burden on their backs, in order that we may pass on some special privilege to another class? I believe, in advocating this Laurier-Fielding tariff by which not one cent will be taken out of the pockets of the people that does not go into the treasury, we are advocating not class legislation, but the doing away with class legislation; for a protective tariff is one of the best examples of class -legislation that we have and have had in the Dominion of Canada.
With the handicap that we have carried of increased prices of the tools of production, increased prices of farm machinery

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and, indeed, of practically all the materials that one needs to develop our farms, we have been able to compete with the world, and to build up, as farmers, the greatest industry in this Dominion. The farming industry is by far the greatest of any of the industries. Our people have had to test out the climate, to test out the soil in new districts; they have been up against the difficulties of long freight hauls, of climate, hail, drought and sometimes too much moisture; but in spite of all these difficulties and with the handicap of increased cost of the tools of production, they have been able to compete successfully with the well established farmers to the south and with the well established farmers of other parts of the world. Nevertheless, they have been asked to share the results of their labours with speculators and others who are not contributing in any specific way to the general wealth of the country.
I wish to pass on to deal with the question of immigration. I should like to have seen, with regard to the reduction of the tariff, something as definite in the Speech from the Throne as we had with regard to immigration. During the war the stream of immigration was much interrupted and restricted. Now that the business of peace is with us, the renewal of efforts to bring in new settlers must apparently be made. It requires some courage to make a statement of this kind during the present condition of unemployment. Are we to conclude that our Government is going to be very considerate of financial interests and manufacturing concerns, with its guarded expression with regard to the reduction of the tariff; but that as regards the people who are unemployed and the general common people of the country, the Government is ready to launch out with an immigration policy. It seems that there is just a little tendency to assume an attitude of caution with regard to doing anything at all that would imperil in any way the returns of capital; but as regards the interests of the common people, it would seem that the Government is ready to launch out with an immigration policy, and take chances. While we are not quite able to provide employment for a large number of people in this country, we are ready to bring in others.
Of course, a reasonable endeavour is going to be made to attract to our country people of the most desirable class. I think I know something of conditions in Western Canada, and I suppose that most of the
immigrants would go to our western country to settle on the land. I know something of the people that we desire to get, but the people who can make good on the western lands to-day are not the kind of people who are easy to move. People who, under present conditions, can make good on farms in Western Canada, are people who can make good in almost any country in the world. They are not the kind of people who can be swayed by pamphlets; they demand facts; they cannot be easily influenced to move by pamphlets with a picture of a tar-paper shack on the front page and a picture of a splendid farm on the second page, with the caption, "After a few years." They are people who are making good generally where they are.
If a campaign is launched to get new settlers we shall get some who, in spite of our best efforts, will prove unfit for the land, and who will therefore tend to drift to the ranks of the unemployed. It seems to me that it would be better to try to improve conditions by a reduction of the tariff, so that the people who are already on the land may be able to make good. They certainly will not do so under present circumstances, no matter how industrious and thrifty they may be. When we can reduce the tariff and can have prosperous and industrious people in Canada we shall have the best and the cheapest immigration policy that this country could possibly have. The only way we can get the class of settlers we need to develop Western Canada is through the efforts of their friends, who are satisfied with their lot here. Those who really know conditions in the West will bear me out when I say that it would require, on the part of any of those living under general conditions in the West to-day, a great faith in the heroism of their friends to advise them to come here, if they are at all satisfied where they are at present. We should all like to see the country filled up and the population increased three or four times, but we desire to see the population increase under such conditions as will assure general prosperity. I do not think that the creation of millionaires and the piling up of huge fortunes is in the interests of any country in the world. What is good for the ordinary individual, for the artisan, and for the ordinary farmer, will give us general prosperity, which we can never have under existing circumstances.
Some hon. members who have spoken from this section of the House have mentioned the Wheat Board, and I want to

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emphasize the fact that Western Canada does need that Wheat Board and is demanding the old board under the old conditions. We want to see it in operation for the 1922 crop. It is the general wish in the West to see the Wheat Board ready to take over that crop, and we want to see it established as soon as possible.
Another matter that appeals to the people of the West is the question of freight rates. In the Speech from the Throne we have a reference to the fact that conferences have been arranged between the railway authorities respecting the revision of rates upon basic commodities. So far as the West is concerned, we understand that certain legislation with respect to the Crow's Nest Pass agreement will expire this year, and I have been wondering whether these conferences contemplate dealing in any way with the possibility of reducing the rates in the West below the standard set by the Crow's Nest Pass agreement. With the permission of the House I shall read part of an article appearing in a Western paper known as The U. F. A., with reference to this matter:
In order to understand the situation which wil arise at the coming session of our Dominion Parliament it is necessary to make a brief reference to the Crow's Nest Pass Agreement and the present Railway Act. The Crow's Nest Pass Agreement was entered into between the Canadian Pacific Railw'ay and the Dominion Government and was confirmed by the Dominion Parliament. Under terms of this Agreement the Canadian Pacific Railway undertook, in return for certain subsidies and concessions, to build certain lines and also agreed to a Schedule of maximum rates from Western points. The Railway Act in Sec. 3, Sub-Sec. B, provided that the Board of Railway Commissioners should not have power to authorize rates in excess of those provided for in any special agreement between the Dominion Parliament and the railway company. This means that the Railway Commission could not authorize rates in excess of those provided for under the Crow's Nest Pass Agreement. At the session of the Dominion Parliament in the summer of 1919 the Railway Act was amended in Sec. 325, SubSec. 5, so as to remove the above mentioned limitation on the power of the Railway Commissioners over freight rates, the result being to give them power to approve any increases in freight rates, irrespective of any agreements existing between the railway companies and the Dominion Parliament. This amendment passed in 1919, however, had a saving clause providing that it was only to be in effect for three years, and the situation now is that it will expire during the coming summer, and unless legislation is passed at the coming session of the House at Ottawa, this amendment will expire by limitation and rates will automatically revert to the 1917 basis.
Now I hope it is the intention of the Government not to renew this special legis-
TWr. D. M. Kennedy.]
lation setting aside the Crow's Nest Pass agreement, for the present rates are strangling business in Western Canada. To-day they are 50 to 70 per cent higher than in 1917. I quote further from the article in question:
The comparative rates on grain from representative points in the West as they existed in 1917, in September 1920, the highest point whirh rates reached, and as they exist now after two reductions have been made, are shown in the following table:
Comparative rates in cents per 100 lbs.
1917 Sept. 1920 Now
Winnipeg .... 10	19	17Calgary. .. .^ 24	40J	36
I hope the Government is ready to take some more vigorous action than merely inviting the railway authorities to hold conferences to agree among themselves as to what reductions in rates there should be. I represent a pioneer constituency, a constituency of almost 100,000 square miles, and the people, who are engaged in agriculture, feel extremely the long freight haul from Edmonton and northwest of Edmonton to the ports. I believe that if you go to the northern extremity of the railway development in that constituency and take the freight rates from that point to Fort William, you will find, taking the average price for the year of all grain raised in that locality, that after paying the threshing bill and the freight bill there is nothing left. On some of the higher grades of wheat the farmers are able to realize something, but practically nothing on the lower grades. I left Spirit River on the 10th of January, and I found the farmers hauling grain a distance of twenty-seven miles to that point and selling it for 40 cents, their threshing bill being 14 cents. Oats at that time were worth about a cent less than nothing on the farms.
Yet in view of the fact that they have been producing at a loss for the past two years, it is rather strange to understand the attitude taken by some of our railway authorities with regard to freight rates. Some of them take the stand that the great Canadian Pacific Railway- which we are told has done so much for this country, and which, as the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Church) has suggested, the country has done so much for-is under any and all circumstances entitled to 10 per cent and something over. Can you wonder that some bitter expressions have come from western farmers, in vievr of the fact that the value of their

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land has been cut 65 per cent during the last two years, that farms that a few years ago were worth $3,000 are on the market to-day at $800, and that practically nothing produced on the farm is yielding a profit? Some people tell us that we are not patriotic because we complain of these conditions. But I think the work that we have done in the West during the last two years in carrying on at a loss in order to facilitate the readjustment of business conditions is an example in loyalty to national needs that has not been surpassed by any other business or industry in this Dominion. Needless to say, agriculture cannot be continued in the West under these conditions-conditions which I am not exaggerating in the least. Last year a number of our farmers in the Grand Prairie district and in the Peace River district of my constituency shipped oats to Fort William at a loss. I think the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) yesterday said something about freight rates taking, in certain cases, half the price of the grain; we have numerous instances in that country where after our farmers have hauled their grain for twenty to twenty-five miles to the railway, loaded it, and shipped it to Fort William for sale, they have had a bill come back for part of the freight. Such instances have happened not only in the northern but in the southern part of my constituency as well.
I think we have been too long taking the position that certain interests must be protected and guaranteed profits while others must be allowed to take the losses. The sooner we get to the position where all the various interests of the country are willing to take profits and losses in something like their equal and just share, the sooner we will get back to prosperity and to happy conditions.
I do not wish hon. members to think that we are antagonistic to these favoured interests; but that does not imply that we are not antagonistic to those things that we believe are inflicting an unnecessary hardship on our people. We have very large settlements of returned soldiers in my constituency. What is their condition? They bought stock a few years ago, which to-day is worth about a third of what they paid for it; the grain they produce will hardly pay freight expenses; and they have been appealing to the provincial Government of Alberta for assistance. We have come to a strange pass when the men
who went overseas to fight for us have now to endure those conditions and pay tribute to large financial interests through the operation of tariffs, guaranteed railway rates and so on. Of course, it may be argued that our national railways have been losing money and require those increased freight rates. But after all, I do not know that rates would need to be so high if we had only to provide interest on the money that actually went into the building of our railways. It is hardly fair that we should be asked to pay freight rates to provide interest on money that was never invested in those railways but which, I fear, was looted during their construction.
Our soldier settlers in the Northwest are pretty much in the same, or in a worse, condition than the soldier settlers that you heard about the other day from my hon. friend the member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman), and I sincerely hope that the Government is prepared to do something substantial to enable those men to make good, because unless they are helped they are doomed to failure. Of course, if their goods are revalued it will mean that they have received a gift from the Government. In days gone by some returned soldiers refused to accept loans from the Soldiers' Settlement Board, and those men to-day are better off than their fellows who accepted loans. Possibly they will think they have some claim too if you make a gift through revaluation to some of those who did accept loans, but I believe, in view of the fact that they were wise in not accepting soldiers' settlement loans at the time, we ought to treat them the same as those who accepted loans.
I said a little while ago that we in my constituency were not antagonistic to the railways. I think my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior, will bear me out when I say that we are very anxious to have railways, and more railways, in that constituency. But the people demand an outlet to the Pacific coast, to the ports of Prince Rupert and Vancouver, and I hope we will be able to get that outlet and thus, reduce the present long rail haul eastward of two or three thousand miles to a short haul of only six or seven hundred miles to the Pacific coast.
I am glad to see a reference in the Speech from the Throne to the matter of the return to the three Western provinces of their natural resources. I do not think that this question should be mixed
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up in any way with any claims that other provinces have upon the Dominion. I do not think the Western provinces ought to be asked to assume the status of colonies toward the other provinces. A study of this question will show that it is a mistaken idea that the Hudson's Bay Company ever owned as large an area of that great Northwest as they have claimed. In fact, I think there is substantial evidence to show that when the Hudson's Bay Company received their charter in 1670 from King Charles II, most of this Northwest belonged to the King of France. In view of that condition; having regard to the fact that all the other provinces have control of their natural resources and that in all other cases the various sections of the countries making up the British Empire exercise a similar control, it is only fair and just that the Government hand over to those Western provinces their natural resources as soon as possible.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Eecess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, when the House rose at six o'clock I was talking on the question of the return of their natural resources to the Western provinces. I said that this question ought to be dealt with on its merits, and that it should not be entangled with the question of the rights of any other province. I believe there is evidence to show that the Hudson's Bay Company, when it ceded its charter, upon receiving payment of millions of acres of fertile lands in Western Canada in consideration of the surrender of that charter, received the first real title that it ever had to any part of what we know to-day as Western Canada.
I now wish to occupy the attention of the House for a short time in order to draw attention to another matter. This question is one that concerns a certain number of people in northern Alberta and probably in other parts of the country-I refer to the question of half-breed scrip. I think it is a matter in respect to which the late government is deserving of criticism. With the permission of the House I shall read a letter addressed to "All Canadians who believe that our national honour, our national integrity and our national good name should
-
at all times be kept sweet and clean to all the world and to ourselves," and which is worded as follows:
On May 27th, 1921, the Honourable Sir James Lougheed introduced in the Senate of Canada Bill No. 13S, being a Bill for the amendment of the Criminal Code. It had its first reading on that date as appears by Hansard reports No. 50, page 676. The second reading was had on May 30th. See Hansard reports No. 51, page 699. On June 1st, according to the Hansard reports of the Senate Debates, No. 53, first page, on motion of Sir James Lougheed the Senate went into Committee on Bill No. 138 :
"The Honourable the Chairman:
It is .moved that the following be inserted after Section 24 as 24a, paragraph 'a' of Section 1140 of the Act is amended by adding thereto the following sub-paragraph:
"(iv) any offence relating to or arising out of the location of land which was paid for in whole or in part by scrip, or was granted upon certificates issued to half-breeds in connection with the extinguishment of Indian titles.
Hon. Mr. LYNCH-STAUNTON: What does all that mean ?


Hon.   S@: The intention is that if a prosecution for an offence is not brought within three years of the date of its commission, then it is proscribed. There is no provision for that in the Code at present.


Hon. Mr. BOSTOCK:: From the reading of the clause I did not grasp what the offence really is.


Hon.   S@: This brings it into Section 1140 in the Code, which deals with the limitation of actions. There have been one or two cases brought, going back twenty years, claiming that fraud was committed. Of course, the evidence in connection with them would have disappeared long ago.
Section 24a was agi-eed to.
The enclosed correspondence will show that I first wrote to the Hon. Arthur Meighen. Prime Minister of Canada, on August 2, 1921. The Premier apparently was in ignorance of the amendment and the latter was forwarded to Sir James Lougheed. On August 22nd, I again wrote the Premier enclosing a copy of my former letter. In answer to a telegram from me of September 13th the Premier writes that he cannot do more than refer the matter to the Department of Justice, the Minister of which handled the legislation.
The fact of the matter is that while the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Mr. Doherty, did handle the Bill in the House of Commons, it originated in the Senate and was fathered by Sir James Lougheed. Notwithstanding this we find the Prime Minister letting out Mr. Doherty and making Sir James Lougheed Minister of the Interior and appointed as Minister of Justice Sir James Lougheed's law partner, Mr. R. B. Bennett. The Prime Minister being, as he says, ignorant of the Bill in its effect, must have been deceived by his present Minister of the Interior.
The enactment of this particular piece of iniquitous legislation has the effect of protecting a number of reputed millionaires, the foundation of whose present wealth was built upon scandalous frauds committed against the half-breeds to whom land scrip had been issued

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by a Government whose duty it was to guard and protect them.
As one particular Edmonton millionaire had already been committed for trial on a charge of uttering a forged document in procuring title to land under half-breed Scrip, and as the amendment prohibits the proceeding with the trial to ascertain his guilt or innocence upon a charge which has a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, one need not seek far for the motive behind the amendment.
A Government has deliberately stepped in and stayed the hand of justice for the protection of wealthy friends of that Government, who, if they be innocent, would have nothing to fear from our judges whose sense of personal and public honour is apparently infinitely higher than that of the Government which appoints them.
I believe it is the duty of the Government to bring in legislation wiping out this amendment and the effects of it while it remains on the statute books of this country.


Mr. ARTHUR JOHN LEWIS (Swift Current) :: Mr. Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity of associating myself with former speakers who have congratulated you upon your elevation to the highest place in the House of Commons. I wish also to extend to you, Sir, my sincere sympathy in the difficult task that you have been called upon to discharge in this Parliament. Your administration has so far been marked with patience, kindness and firmness, and I trust that you will not during this session suffer in the discharge of your onerous duties.
It is unnecessary for me, Sir, to compliment preceding speakers, more particularly those who moved or seconded the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. They have already been complimented upon the excellent speeches they have made and I think they thoroughly deserved the encomiums bestowed upon them. Let me say that at this time I feel it a very great honour to be a member of the House of Commons; it is one of the highest gifts the Canadian people can bestow upon any man or any woman. But with election to the House of Commons comes a great responsibility; and although it is a pleasure for me to sit in this Chamber, listen to the excellent debates and watch the legislation as it passes through, I can scarcely say that it is an equal pleasure for me to rise to my feet and address this assembly. But it is in the discharge of this great responsibility that I rise to continue the debate in regard to the Speech from the Throne. Reference, Sir, has already been
made to the electioneering campaign which took place prior to December 6th. Insinuations have been made that certain people did not conduct the campaign along lines that were fair. I wish to state, in regard to myself, that I did not attempt any mud-slinging. I endeavoured to place the principles of the Progressives before the electors, and I endeavoured to show, Sir, with all the power at my command, that the Progressive platform was not only superioi to the Conservative platform, but alsc superior to the platform of the Libera' party. Although I was able to persuade my electors in that respect, judging frorr the number who voted for me and considered I was right, I may have just a little more difficulty in convincing the members of the Government and our friends to the right. At the same time I am firmly convinced, after hearing the different speeches that have been made, and what has been said in regard to both parties, that what the Canadian people require at this time is that elections shall be fought on certain principles, and not on personalities. I believe that the time has come when the Canadian people, the most highly educated people of our time, shall declare that only the best men and the men of principle shall stand in these halls to legislate for the masses. I believe there are good men on both sides. We are not all professional politicians, but I believe, Sir, that all parties have the country's welfare at heart and that they will legislate as they think proper. In regard to the Liberal party, I believe that if they stand on their platform, and legislate in accordance with what the people expect, they will not go very far wrong. For that reason I am willing, individually, to support them in all sound legislation that will be for the well-being of our people. In a country as large as Canada, geographically speaking, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and almost from the North Pole to the border of the United States, you will readily understand that there are problems that are peculiar to each province, and that members coming from one province cannot expect that those coming from other provinces will see eye to eye with them. If we waited until that time the millenium would be at hand. I believe it is possible, Sir, that men and women who are wise and sane can stand upon a common platform where they can unite and legislate for the good of the whole of Canada and for its unity.
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Certain things were said this afternoon in the speech of the hon. Minister of Justice (Sir. Lomer Gouin) that I did not altogether agree with, but there was one statement with which I was heartily in accord. I think the end of his speech was ideal. It reached a high plane. He said that, as far as he was concerned, he was going to support the Liberal party in the interests of, not one province, but the whole of Canada. I believe that is the plane we ought to endeavour to reach, in order to solve the great problems that confront us. I share with the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr.McMurray) the splendid optimism that he manifested in his speech. He expressed the belief that the Liberal party was going to put into effect the policy which they have proclaimed. I believe and I intend to believe it until I find it otherwise.
Before dealing with the Speech from the Throne, I wish to say a few words in regard to my own constituency and the western part of Canada. I have noticed that hon. gentlemen from the Maritime provinces have spoken of justice and what is demanded by those provinces. We have heard similar statements in regard to On. tario, its wonderful powers, its electrical forces, and its ability to pay such a large amount in federal taxes. I want to say a few words in regard to Saskatchewan, although I know that what I am about to say will not meet with the approval of all the people in that province. I heard of a certain person who spoke in Ontario some time ago, and some of the western papers said that her statements make excellent anti-immigration literature. Be that as it may, I believe that the truth will make you free, and for that reason if I can impress upon these eastern people the real conditions of the West, I feel that my speech will not be in vain. It was stated by the hon. gentleman from North Winnipeg (Mr. McMurray) that to-day farming is not a paying occupation. The same sentiment has been expressed by a great many members in this House. I can only corroborate what has already been made. As far as my personal experience is concerned, I am intimately associated with at least 500 families of farmers, and I want to say without any exaggeration, that not 5 per cent of those people during the last two years have been running their farms on a paying basis. Just before I came to Ottawa a gentleman got on the train with me, and we were talking about

conditions. He said to me " I actually paid out last year, or the year before, $11,000 more than I received. This year I have done almost the same thing, having paid out nearly $10,000." Then when you take into consideration the fact that he has an equipment valued in the neighbourhood of $140,000, on which no interest has been paid, and that he did not receive a cent in wages for managing that great business, you can begin to realize the appalling conditions that exist in Western Canada. With regard to a great majority of those 500 families, almost without exception the half-section farmers have each lost in the neighbourhood of $800 to $2,000. I am not going to say, Sir, that these men are failures. We have the finest people that can be found in the country. They are intellectual, industrious and persevering. Their patriotism has been manifested without any reserve, and for that reason we cannot say anything against them. As regards the land there, I believe it will make good; but it will make good only when conditions surrounding agriculture and those elements that enter into the production of agricultural commodities are made satisfactory to the western people. I might go on along those lines and point out some of the appalling conditions. I do not wish to dwell very long on this matter; but, in my experience, I have been in homes where there are families of five and seven living in two rooms eking out a bare existence, having merely a little flour and a little coal to keep body and soul together. 1 can say honestly, without fear of contradiction, that within a radius of eight miles of my home, at least twelve to twenty families would have absolutely perished had it not been for the charitable associations around them. That is not good literature to induce immigrants to come to this country, and it is up to us, as a Parliament, to legislate as far as possible to remove those conditions and to make the basic industry of Canada profitable to the masses. That is all we are asking at the present time.
I notice further, Sir, in the Speech from the Throne, that it was mentioned that we had not escaped suffering as a result of the Great War. We did not expect to escape that suffering. We know our Canadian people were willing to bear the burden and to enter into that Great War, and they have sacrificed manfully with the end in view of bringing victory to the world. At the same time, it is also said that the keen observers of this land have spoken with

The Address
optimism and that, in the near future, we may expect to have a return to prosperity,
I wonder whether the Government has placed its hand upon the pulse of the nation, and whether, in diagnosing the case, it is going to legislate for the return of this vitality and prosperity that is so desirable. That is a question, of course, that we have to consider; but prosperity, happiness, contentment, is not some will-o-the-wisp that can be caught in times of enthusiasm; it is due to sound fudamental economic laws, and when those economic laws are put into force, prosperity will return to us in exactly the same measure as when you put two and two together and it makes four, and not otherwise. I was wondering whether the Government, when they were preparing this paragraph, had taken into consideration, not only the great industries and great manufacturing centres in the East, but the farming interests of Canada as a whole.
I wish to continue the debate, Sir, in regard also to the unemployed. The unemployed question is a very serious one, and I did not altogether agree with the paragraph upon that subject in the Speech from the Throne.
I believe the federal government is equally responsible with the provincial governments and also with the municipalities in which those unemployed are found, and I have reason to believe that, because I find that the immigration policy of this Dominion is a Dominion one and does not rest alone on the provinces. We, as a nation, as a whole, are responsible for bringing these people into our midst; and although I would not for one moment say that these men who are unemployed to-day are all to be found in the ranks of the immigrants to this country, at the same time, a large percentage of immigrants is to be found amongst the unemployed, and the responsibility rests with the Canadian people. I hope that some measure will be forthcoming that will not savour too much of charity, but that we shall be able to evolve a measure that will enable the individual to retain his dignity and citizenship.
I pass now to another paragraph, that which deals with agriculture. It is the largest paragraph in the Speech from the Throne, and believing it to be the most important one, I am going to deal a little more fully with this question. It is said that certain conditions are maintained today and that, as a result of those conditions, agriculture is not on a proper basis. People have spoken of various things; they have told us that we must have
wider markets. I believe this is a desirable thing; it will encourage greater productivity on the part of the people, but the difficulty to-day is to get these larger markets. All the great nations of the world are endeavouring to do the same thing; and the only solution that I can see to this larger market problem is that the time must come when the people can continue to produce things that are natural to the country in which they live, and must cease to produce things which are artificial. For that reason, if it can be found that we in Western. Canada are able to produce grain of all kinds, cattle, hogs and other agricultural commodities, we have a right to take these to the markets of the world and, in return, to receive from them the things that are manufactured in other countries, things which are not artificial but natural to the countries from which they come.
Boundary lines must not present artificial barriers to restrain free trade amongst the peoples of the world.
Something has been said about the cost of production. I am one of those who believe when economic conditions are righted, the cost of production will automatically right itself. We can readily see that, if there are lower freight rates, if there is a lowering of the cost of tariff, if other things are equal, the cost of production will naturally at once come down, and that is our only salvation. It has been said that the question of marketing the wheat has been designedly left out of the Speech. This, to us, is one of the most important matters. It has already been spoken of by the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Johnson), and I want to say just a few words in regard to it. As regards the need, we have already been told that seven-tenths of the wheat grown in Canada by the western farmer immediately finds its way to the market. As a result, the market is flooded, and then the European buyer, taking advantage of the situation, will immediately buy the grain at the lowest ebb. The reason why the Canadian farmer is forced to sell seven-tenths of his grain during three months of the year is because of his financial position. He is rightly called upon to pay the store bills, to pay the wages of the hired men, to pay the threshing expenses and so on, and I do not think the Canadian farmer would be justified in speculating with that wheat while he owed money to other people. So in an honest effort to pay his debts, he places his wheat on the market, and the
The Address

buyers of the world take advantage of the situation.
We believe, Sir, that a voluntary pool is not sufficient to overcome these conditions, and it is a very strong man who would attempt to attack the old conditions as they have existed during the past three or four hundred years. But when these conditions, under the stress and strain following a great war, have broken down, then it is time for us to come forward with a scheme that has proved itself satisfactory to the men who grow grain; I have reference to the re-constitution of the Canada Wheat Board. I can only emphasize this fact, that so far as the western farmer is concerned he desires it. The western farmers are almost unanimous upon that question. We believe that the board is a vital necessity and that the Government, doubting nothing and without any procrastination, should act immediately, because the prosperity of the Dominion depends upon the farmers as a whole. We need to inspire the farmer with confidence and give him fresh courage to go forward once again into that great country, to delve in the soil and bring out the wealth that lies there so that he may get for himself that return that will enable him to live in the state of life which he desires.
Do you know, Sir, that in Western Canada to-day, as a result of the drop in the prices of the commodities which the farmer produces, we are expecting in a great many sections to close the schools?-a thing that would be a national calamity. When we have to economize in such a way that even the children, owing to the lack of money, are not able to secure an education, things have certainly come to a pitiable pass. And yet we pride ourselves in being a democracy, although education is the salvation of democracy to-day. If the eastern people are wise, if the great manufacturing interests are wise, they will realize that it is to their advantage and to the advantage of the whole of Canada that the Wheat Board be immediately reinstated, prior to the farmer putting any seed into the ground, so that he may feel that he has the support of the Canadian people in his demand to get what is coming to him. In the past the Canadian farmer has been the butt of profiteers and other people who have made money, not from the soil but because they have-shall I say?- taxed the farmer, or taken his commodities and speculated with them on the world's markets. Any one who has observed the [Mr. Lewis.!
conditions of the market during the last four or five months will see that the demand for the Canada Wheat Board is based upon an economic fact. There was no reason in the wide world why the farmer should get $1.64 at Fort William as soon as the grain was threshed, and then, immediately following Christmas, $1.06. To-day, the price has gone up to $1.40. We do not believe that the Wheat Board is a panacea for all the ills that afflict the Canadian farmer, but we are convinced that it is a step in the right direction towards restoring prosperity to that western land.
I desire, of course, to deal with the tariff. This is a subject upon which I could speak for a long time to-night, but I do not wish to tire the House with my address. I remember hearing the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) giving expression to feelings which almost depressed the hon. gentlemen in this assembly, when he said that my hon. friend from Winnipeg (Mr. Mc-Murray) was too optimistic, and that before this session was over he would possibly share the feelings of the right hon. gentleman himself. My right hon. friend then went on to accuse the Liberal party of enunciating almost the same doctrine as he had propounded himself. If that were true, then, instead of being depressed, he should have rejoiced, because that was the very thing he advocated as the harbinger of prosperity in Canada. But I was wondering in my own mind whether he believed that the Liberal party were going to enact legislation founded upon the manifesto in their platform of 1919, and show to the world that by lowering the tariff they would once more usher in prosperity and demonstrate the fallacy of the right hon. gentleman's arguments regarding protection.
I do not wish to go very deeply into the question of protection to-night, but I heard one hon. member-I think my hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Baxter)-twitting the Government in a certain respect. He read an extract from the Prime Minister's speech and went on in a humorous vein. He said that if there were a tariff for revenue, shoes that cost $5.50 would be reduced to $5.20, and he treated this reduction as a light matter, declaring that it was only a difference of 30 cents. Well, it may seem a light matter when you buy only one pair of shoes, but if you have a family like mine and have to buy shoes for a family of nine, 30 cents of a difference on

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each pair of shoes does not strike me as being a matter that can be easily dismissed. And when you have to reckon on four pairs of shoes per person per year it becomes quite a serious problem in the domestic budget. And, then, in the matter of underclothing and other articles of apparel, when you have to pay an aggregate of $300 as a result of protection, I do not think that a difference of 30 cents on a pair of shoes is one that can be pooh-poohed. It is a consideration for every family-loving man in Canada.
It has been stated that we must have protection to safeguard our infant industries. Now, I can readily understand that protection was justifiable in the time of Sir John A. Macdonald, in the seventies, if ever it could be justified in the history of Canada. The industrial arts of the United States were in an advanced state, and there was a danger of flooding from Europe. It was, therefore, possibly necessary in that early period of our existence to protect these manufacturers. But as the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Motherwell) said in a speech in Swift Current, and as I also said, these infants have now become fathers with whiskers and they are amongst the dominant powers in Canadian life. I therefore do not believe that the argument in favour of protecting infant industries holds good to-day. Even in Great Britain, where they have had free trade, some of the greatest industries have been built up, yea, even in competition with the wnole world.
Another argument that has been advanced by our friends in support of protection is the necessity for a home market. Of course, the home market is a splendid thing. We have no fault to find with Eastern Canada and the men that work in the factories; nor have we anything to say against the manufacturers. We do believe, however, that the home market is only a drop in the bucket so far as the great agricultural interests are concerned, especially in regard to wheat. For the next fifty years the Canadian farmer will have to grow wheat and other grains of all kinds, and raise cattle for the markets of . the world. For that reason, therefore, the home market does not enter into the price that we are receiving at the present time.
We as Canadian farmers can grow wheat at 80 cents a bushel and place it on the world's market in competition with the farmers of all other countries. But in return, Sir, we claim the privilege in regard to the commodities that enter into the production of our wheat, that we shall have the same opportunities of buying them in the world's market.
Of course, the argument is still being advanced: Where are you going to get revenue to run this great country? We need revenue and it is very difficult to get. The only question I should like to ask hon. members is: Who pays that revenue? Why, we are told by the greatest economic authorities in the world that 90 per cent at least of this tariff revenue is paid by the domestic consumers. So, Sir, we pay the revenue any way; but not only do we pay the revenue-we also make handsome gifts to those manufacturers who are protected as a result of that revenue being collected. Now, in regard to the economic factors that enter into world production, taking into consideration the demoralized exchange of most of the countries of Europe, and bearing in mind our domestic conditions, I can readily understand that it would not be advisable to have free trade at the present time; but I believe that it would be sound policy to have an all round reduction of the tariff for the good of our people generally.
I should like to deal for a moment or two with the tariff platform of the Liberal party. I believe that the Liberal party is more nearly in accord with us than is any other party-and yet I have my doubts. I have debated before this subject of tariff for revenue purposes only, and after carefully looking into the matter I find it very difficult to have such a tariff as will not in some measure protect the Canadian manufacturers. Yet we do not wish to revolutionize our trade practices, we do not wish to put our manufacturers out of business, as some people tell us is our intention. I do not believe that that is either possible or feasible. I believe that our manufacturers have just as much business acumen and ability as any of their competitors in Europe or the United States. Indeed it has been proved that the same men that enjoy this protection here can compete in the markets of the world. Therefore it seems to me fallacious to argue that it is absolutely essential to the prosperity of this country that we have high protection, and I hope that the historic Liberal party will live up to its ideals-ideals that have been manifested in the life of men of the stamp of Gladstone and Laurier, and that that party will give to our people legislation for the good of the people of Canada as a whole rather than for the advantage of the few.
The Address

that direction were even more pronounced. I am particularly pleased to be in this corner of the Chamber-this Progessive corner. We are the second largest group in the House. It is true that we have, so to speak, sat back and let the smallest group sit nearer to you, Mr. Speaker,-we have done that for their mutual encouragement. They were pretty badly dilapidated on December 6th last, and if their opponents in other constituencies had done as much to bring them to a state of dilapidation as I did in mine, there would be none of them here to tell the tale. The electors of my constituency gave me over 82 per cent of the votes cast. My opponent was a Conservative; he got the rest of the votes.
I am particularly pleased, too, that we, the Progressive group, have the first lady commoner sitting amongst us. I am well aware that some of the hon. members on the opposite side of the House have not fully learned that it is not well that man should live alone, and I think that the Progressives will have to pay particular heed to the hon. member of the gentler sex and see that she is not induced to cross the floor to form a stronger Liberal Government.
As you are possibly aware, Mr. Speaker, I am from the West, that country with the reputation of being wild and woolly; but I assure you that the wildness has fairly well all vanished and the woolliness as well. Even the wild buffalo that used to roam the prairies are now behind fences, and the former wild Indians are pretty well pacified and living on the reserves. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that we who are here representing the West are fair specimens of that country, and just as tame and as docile as the average human being. Of course in the recent election we were classified as Bolshevists, Seditionists, Annexationists and several other kinds of "ists." Well, we do not merit all these designations, but I must say that I am an annexationist myself, a very strong annexationist-I believe that we should annex the United States right away.
I was pleased to hear our Premier remark in his speech that he wished to hear the western opinion-wished to have it expressed in the councils of the nation. I think you will agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that it is being expressed in no uncertain tones and I think it is right that it should be.
There is one part of the Speech from the Throne that appeals to me, and I wish

to consider it, perhaps, from an angle of vision somewhat different from what has been emphasized before. A paragraph in the Speech states that it has been decided to hold in Genoa a conference with the object of securing a concerted effort to repair the grave dislocations in the economic and financial field that have everywhere followed the war. That is the point, Mr. Speaker, I wish to stress in the few remarks that I shall make to-night. As the hon. member (Mr. Lewis) who preceded me intimated, it perhaps is not good policy for a westerner to say anything derogatory about the province in which he resides. I felt somewhat loath to do so, but picking up a copy of Saturday Night, published in the city of Toronto, dated March 11, 1922, I found in the first column on the first page an editorial the reading of which caused me to throw aside my reluctance to speak about conditions in the province of Saskatchewan. Here is what the editorial says:
A situation has arisen in Saskatchewan that will bear close watching. As is well known, quite a number of western towns have, owing to the absurd land boom of years ago, been obliged to default on their bond interest. Among these places are Swift Current, Prince Albert, Sutherland, Watrous, Battleford, Scott, Canora, Melville and Humbolt.
That looks pretty bad, Mr. Speaker, for Saskatchewan. I think if I bring to your attention, and to the attention of the House, some of the conditions as they actually are in that province I shall not be publishing much more than has already been given out to the public. I also have before me a letter from the secretary-treasurer of a rural municipality in the constituency which I represent. As you are aware the rural municipality is our small, local sub-division out there for governmental purposes. In part here is what the official referred to says:
Past Fall those who were indebted to the banks for advances-which was practically everybody-were induced to repay wherever possible their notes before the end of the year and assurance was given verbally that those who did so would be financed during 1922. Now the banks are closing down on credits altogether. The municipality is in the same boat as the individuals.
Mr. Speaker, that gives us an idea of the conditions that the municipality I refer to is up against. Here is another extract from a letter written by the reeve of another municipality in the constituency I represent:

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I wonder do those men at Ottawa fully realize what we are struggling against in here? Is it possible for you to make it plain to them that horses and cattle are dying in here by the dozens, simply starving, and we have nothing to put in the crop with.
Those are very dark conditions to have to lay before you. Here is a further suggestion, a rather novel one; I wish you would pay attention to what it says:
We are completely out of funds and require money for actual necessities and to alleviate our temporary pecuniary embarrassment.
We would ask you to take up the matter on the floor of the House if necessary.
Our request is, that we be given a cash grant sufficient to give each signer from fifty to one hundred dollars apiece.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any department in connection with the Dominion Government that would be very willing to carry out the suggestion made by this indivdual, and even if there should be there would be plenty of hon. members here ready to overrun that department without very much delay. I have simply read these extracts from letters to give you an idea of financial conditions in the part of the province that I have the honour to represent, and knowing these conditions I will make a few deductions therefrom. One is the need for absolute economy.
I was pleased to hear that note struck by several hon. members in this House-the need for absolute economy. Some hon. members have made suggestions as to how we should economize, and possibly there is some virtue in them. We have a tremendous public debt, running as it does to some two billion three hundred and forty odd million dollars. That is a tremendous debt to rest upon Canada, and it is necessary that it should be met and that the money should * ccme from somewhere to meet our obligations when they fall due.
Now some doubtless will think, especially hon. members sitting to my right who compose what is called the official Opposition, that is very good and sufficient reason why we should continue to have a tariff in Canada. Very well; let us look at that point for a moment. If we have a tariff in the country for raising money and that money is raised in a good and economical way all well and good; if not, it is not so well nor so good. I would like to give an illustration to show that the method of raising money for paying off our public debt by a customs tariff is not an economical method. If hon. members are good at arithmetic let them please follow these figures. I used to follow the school teaching profession and I only wish I had a
blackboard here and a piece of chalk to more effectively demonstrate my point. We will suppose that a suit is bought from Great Britain costing over there the sum of $10. The tariff duty on fabrics entering Canada is 30 per cent, which means that when that suit enters Canada its cost is $13. It goes into the wholesaler's hands and he adds one-fourth to the cost of $13 to him, which is an addition of $3.25 to the $13, making the charge to him for selling $16.25. That suit goes into the retailer's hands. He adds 50 per cent to the cost price to him, which is $8.15 added to $16.25 making $24.40. Now if a person went into the store and bought this suit of clothes he would have to pay $24.40 at the present time.
Let us suppose there was no tariff. The original cost would be $10. It would go into the wholesaler's hands, and he would add one-quarter, $2.50, making $12.50. It would then go to the retailer, and he would add 50 percent or $6.25, bringing the cost up to $18.75. Notice the difference. In the one case, it is $24.40 and in the other case $18.75. That means that the consumer pays out $5.65 for a tariff of $3. But does that $3 tariff all go into the Dominion coffer? I think not. It is estimated, on very good authority, that to keep up all the expenses in connection with the collection of the customs tariff, it takes fully one-half, so that out of the $3 not more than $1.50 in cash actually goes into the Dominion coffers for the payment of the public indebtedness. That means, Mr. Speaker, that it takes $5.65 to put $1.50 into the Dominion treasury. It costs almost $4 to collect $1. Is that economy? I think not. Several hon. members have dealt with the tariff, and much can be said in regard to it. I do not know as it would be advisable to prolong the discussion. As intimated before, we have plenty of arguments to put forth, to show that the old, antiquated method of collecting revenue by tariff is too costly for this country at the present time to tolerate.
Besides the need for absolute economy there is the need for remedial farm legislation. This applies particularly to our western country. It is absolutely necessary, owing to the difficult conditions of the western country, that we should have this remedial legislation to enable the farmer to continue. Of course we know that the great need out there is rain, and it is beyond the pale of this honourable body to produce rain. Some of our western citizens last year endeavoured to have
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rain manufactured, or drawn down in some mysterious manner, but I believe it was more or less a failure; at any rate the gentleman who was responsible for bringing the rain has not been re-engaged this year, as I understand.
There are several other problems that have been touched on that are necessary for the prosperity of Western Canada, such as lowering of freight rates, the decrease in, or the complete elimination of, the tariff on farm implements, as well as the elimination of the speculation in grain, which is perhaps the most vital question with the western farmer to-day. I am well acquainted with a gentleman in our western country, who was a citizen until recently of the town in which I live, but who took a liking for southern California. He was immensely rich, and has gone to southern California to live at ease, having made large profits out of speculation in buying Canadian wheat. I was advised some few years ago that he had cleaned up $70,000 in one transaction, and that he had several such transactions. The western farmer looks for remedial legislation to overcome that speculative tendency in regard to Canadian wheat, and not only to overcome that speculation, but to extend the period of our wheat entering the world's market from a two months' period to a twelve months' period. This we believe can best be attained by the re-establishment of the Canadian Wheat Board. I am quite convinced that the Wheat Board will not solve all the ills of Western Canada, but it will solve a great many of them, and we who represent western farming communities are decided in our opinion that it will go a long way towards remedying the evils in that western country.
In addition to this, there is, the question of the financial condition of the country with particular reference to banking. We have in Canada 18 chartered banks, with approximately 5,000 branches. Now, I am venturing on a subject upon which possibly there is no unanimity of opinion, but I have read to this House a statement of some of the financial conditions as they are actually encountered in Western Canada. We find that rural municipalities, with assets of between three and four million dollars, are unable to borrow money to carry on current expenditures. There are individuals out there who keep good faith with the bank and pay what they owe them, and yet are refused credit to finance their operations during 1922. The Government of Saskatchewan, some couple

of years ago, started a system of taking in money from people who had a surplus, paying them, I believe 5J per cent, and reloaning that money to farmers who need it at 6 J per cent. Some few million dollars have been borrowed and loaned in this way. We find that quite recently the Ontario Government started a system of taking in money from those who had a surplus, paying them 4 per cent, and reloaning the money at 6 per cent. A resolution was passed recently by the United Farmers of Alberta, calling upon the Dominion Government to enter into some system of extended credit to assist those who needed money. A few months ago there was a bank scandal in Eastern Canada. The Merchants Bank on December 17th, 1921, was absorbed by the Bank of Montreal. Previous to the absorption that bank loaned money recklessly, and the outcome was that some $8,000,000 of the people's money was squandered. Under these conditions, I am not prepared to venture an opinion as to what the remedy should be, but I wish to bring these facts to the attention of the Committee on Banking and Commerce and ask that they inquire very carefully into our present banking system, and especially into the Merchants Bank scandal. In addition to that the committee might take up the matter of the nationalization of the banks and report as to the merits and demerits of our present system, and a system of bank nationalization. I am not expressing any opinion on the matter but would like to have a report from our banking committee on the subject.
I am grateful to you, Sir, for your indulgence in perm'tting me to say a few words on this, my first appearance on the floor of this House. I assure you that I share the feelings that have already been expressed by my fellow-members from the West. We are not here particularly in the interests of party. I fear that we have already seen too much of the spirit of trying to put party before country, and even since the opening of this Parliament, we have listened to many wordy arguments, many denunciations and declarations, but we have not listened to as much discussion of the real, vital matters before the country as we should. I think you will agree with me, Sir, that the attitude of the Progressive party is not so much to advance party or to try to gain the ascendency over some other party, as it is to tackle the real problems that are confronting Canada at the present time. I am with the other

The Address
members of this Progressive group in going up against the real problems, tackling them like men-and women, by the way-and endeavouring to bring about the solution of our real problems.
Mr. JOHN A. MacKELVIE (Yale): Mr. Speaker, I do not know that I would have intruded in this debate, had it not been that I rather consider it of importance that a representative of a large agricultural section of the West-of the westernmost province of the Dominion, indeed-should lay before this House his views of the fiscal policy of the country, more especially as related to the tariff question, in order that our Progressive friends to my left may have some indication that all the agriculturists of Canada do not hold the same opinions regarding the tariff as those which have been so freely expressed since the opening of this House.
Before I proceed with my remarks along those lines, I desire, very heartily and sincerely, to unite myself with those who have expressed congratulations to you, Sir, on your elevation to your most important position. Those of us who have been privileged to sit with you in this House before, need no assurance that you will bring to that high position both grace and dignity, and that you will always conduct affairs under your control with absolute impartiality.
I should like also to add my measure of congratulation to the mover and the seconder of the Address, and, in this instance, perhaps, I can speak with more feeling than the ordinary member, as only a year or so ago it fell to my lot to second the Address and to make my maiden speech in this House. I can well recall the feeling of trepidation and diffidence with which I approached that task. I only wish that I could flatter myself that I succeeded in accomplishing the duty laid upon me on that occasion half so well as the hon. gentlemen who undertook the same performance a few days ago.
I also, perhaps, may be permitted to express very hearty congratulations to the new Prime Minister of this.country upon having attained, at such an early period of his life, to the highest position in the gift of the Canadian people. I may, however, frankly add that I do not suppose that I, or some of my associates in this section of the House, would be in danger of collapsing from heart trouble or dying of grief, did the exigencies of the occasion require that,
at a sooner or later period.-and we all here trust it may be sooner-he might be required to cross the floor again and take up a position, Sir, at your left.
Along with other members who have very heartily and, I know, very sincerely, congratulated this House upon the addition to it of a lady member, I desire to add my voice in giving expression to the very great pleasure it affords me to see the hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss Mac-phail) occupying a seat in this Chamber.
I would not say that any individual member around me would be so self-sacrificing as to wish that, in the next approaching contest, his seat might be filled by a lady representative; but I think I might venture to say that many of us would probably not be very sorry if our near neighbours should suffer from a fate such as that.
I am aware that a speaker in this debate on the Address is afforded a good deal of latitude and can, if it so suits him, discuss a great variety of subjects without being held too closely to the Speech from the Throne; but I suppose, in order to maintain some semblance of debate, it would be wise, at least, and advisable that a little attention be given to the remarks of those who have immediately preceded me to-day. I have been impressed-and I think the impression has been conveyed very strongly to other members of this House-that among our new associates to our left, is numbered a very considerable proportion of speakers who would grace any large assembly in the land. I have listened with marked satisfaction to some speeches which have come from that quarter of this assembly and which, for clearness, gracefulness of diction and comprehensive grasp, from their point of view, of the subjects to which they have given consideration, have reached a very high level.
I cannot, however, with an equal degree of sincerity, congratulate them upon some of the principles which they have set so vigorously before this House. I am tempted to draw attention to an illustration used by the hon. and very eloquent member for Swift Current (Mr. Lewis) who dwelt rather humourously on a remark made by the hon. member for St. John and Albert (Mr. Baxter) yesterday regarding a pamphlet issued as campaign literature by the party on the other side of the House, in which pamphlet attention was drawn to a promise that, if they came into power, a reduction would be effected in
The Address

the duty on boots and shoes. I was rather surprised, I must confess, to And that the hon. member for Swift Current, who had such a large family, was able to supply their wants so lavishly. I think, indeed, that his income tax must have formed a very considerable accretion to the funds of this country last year, if he carried into effect the scheme of provision he there outlined, for I And that reduction in the cost of boots and shoes contemplated in that pamphlet and mentioned by the hon. member for St. John and Albert amounted to about 5 per cent. The hon. member for Swift Current informed the House that the saving which would be effected in buying for his household under those conditions would amount to something in the neighbourhood of $300 per annum. That would mean that he was buying, for the use of his family, imported goods in the way of clothing alone to the extent of about $6,000 per annum, which, I imagine, from a country where, according to his own dictum, conditions Anancially and otherwise are so stringent, does not very forcibly bear out his argument.
I wish also to make a very brief reference to the remarks which fell this afternoon from the lips of the hon. Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin). I wish to say, at the outset, that I am approaching the consideration of this debate absolutely devoid of any feeling of resentment on account of the overturn which has taken place as a result of the election that was held on December 6. I am absolutely devoid of any feeling of bitterness in the criticism which I shall be compelled, I think, to make regarding some of the hon. gentleman's statements. I do not believe that it would be of any possible utility for me to attempt to re-thresh old straw. The country has spoken in a very decisive way and given expression to a verdict which we cannot gainsay, and which we on this side of the House are prepared to accept, I think, with very good grace indeed. But I do say that in the remarks of the Minister of Justice this afternoon there was an indication that he was not endeavouring to approch the subject, which he had under discussion, in an entirely disingenuous manner, and I am putting it as mildly as I feel it is possible for me to do.
He made a complaint that my leader (Mr. Meighen), in his opening remarks, had endeavoured to force upon the attention of this House certain theories of his own regarding, in the Arst place, the man-

ner in which the Government of the day might be expected to handle the revision of the tariff, and, in the second place, the manner in which they might be expected to approach the very great task of handling the railway situation in this Dominion. Now, what the right hon. the leader of the Opposition said in both of these connections is a matter of record and is fresh in the memory of every person who heard him only two or three nights ago, and I desire to call to your memory, Sir, this fact, that any assertion he made regarding the statements in Montreal or elsewhere of the Minister of Justice was repeated word for word from the printed page. There was no conjecture on his part; he was not seeking to make any insinuation or innuendo. If that statement had not been correct, if the press had been guilty of misreporting the Minister of Justice on that occasion, we should certainly have heard of it before now.
But in another and, I think, even more reprehensible manner, the hon. gentleman, in the Arst speech which he has delivered in this Parliament, took occasion to twist a statement given by the leader of the Opposition in such a manner as to give him ground, as he thought, to enter the accusation against him that he had been guilty of utterances calculated to inAame the passions of the people of Quebec against other sections of this country, and to widen the breach, if any such existed, between the two great races of Canada. Now, I venture this assertion, from a perfect knowledge of the sentiments, the convictions, and the utterances of my leader, that no man in this House, or elsewhere in this country, is more thoroughly convinced that it is a duty of the public men of the country to give as much sympathetic consideration to the people of the province of Quebec as, so far from antagonizing them in any way, will draw the two races, if possible, into closer harmony; and I do not know upon what ground the allegation of the Minister of Justice could rest. I do not know that there could be traced to any public utterance of the right hon. leader of the Opposition any single sentence that would indicate that in his mind there rankled any suspicion of a sentiment of that kind. I am aware, Mr. Speaker, that certain public journals of the country have so distorted and twisted the utterances of my leader that they have spread abroad that impression, and I speak of this matter with a certain degree of feeling and of

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shame. For over thirty years I have been engaged in newspaper work in this country, and I have the honour of the craft very deeply at heart; and if any vestige of reason has been given to the hon. Minister for the attack he made upon the leader of the Opposition this afternoon it must rest solely with such distorted utterances as have gone forth from a section of the press of this country.
The hon. gentleman also gave expression to the opinion-and I assure him that it is an opinion not very deeply shared in either by hon. members surrounding me here or by the people of the country as a whole-that while the right hon. the leader of the Opposition might rightly be termed a good fighter he was a bad loser. Now, I should like to appeal to the members of the- House, more particularly those who are new, whether they found anything in the utterance of the right hon. gentleman the other day to substantiate the assertion that he was a bad loser. Did they notice anything in the nature of a whine that fell from his lips as he detailed-and he had a perfect right to detail-some of the difficulties which met him during his recent campaign? Surely he was justified, and amply justified, in placing before, the House and the country, on the first opportunity that arose, some of those difficulties and some of the tortuous paths which the then Opposition on certain occasions pursued in their endeavour to discredit him in the eyes of a certain class of people. In his speech there was nothing in the nature of a whine; it was a manly, straightforward statement of facts, and did not in any sense indicate that he was a bad loser. I will tell the hon. minister one thing that my right hon. friend has not lost, and is not in danger of losing: he has not lost one particle of the respect, and admiration, and enthusiastic devotion, and I think I am right in saying, the affection of the members who stand behind him in this part of the Chamber.


Mr. VIEN:: They are only a few at
that,-the remnant.


Mr. MacKELVIE:: Well, there have been some saving remnants. There has been such a thing as the little leaven that leavened the whole; and in time, I predict,-and in my opinion that time is not very far distant-that remnant will have grown to such proportions that those who are inclined to jeer and taunt us regarding our size at the present time may be very fortunate indeed if they can escape the same fate. The hon. gentleman who leads the House (Mr. Mackenzie King), in his remarks the other night, was good enough to refer to our party. He congratulated us, if I remember rightly, upon the slight change that has been recently effected in our designation. He commented, at any rate, upon the fact that the Opposition in this end of the Chamber was now to be known as the Liberal-IConservative party. He went a little further, if I recall the circumstances correctly, and said that we Were, in fact, Tories. Well, I for one did not feel any cold shiver running down my back at being so designated.
I know of course that the name "Tory", if applied in the sense in which it was at one time applied in Great Britain and in this country, is now nothing more than a joke. The crusted old Tory, the upholder, rightly or wrongly, of class privilege, is to-day as extinct as the dodo. But there has been a good deal of loose talking, loose thinking and loose press comment during the last few months since the election regarding that historic name Liberal-Conservative, which I for one shall never, I suppose, be able to express how proud I am to bear. It has been said that the name originated in 1867 when the unification of the various provinces was brought about and a government composed of Liberals and Conservatives, headed by Sir John A. Macdonald, consummated Confederation. That is only true in a measure. Considerably further back than that is to be found the genesis of the name. I think it was in 1854 that in this section of Canada, when the forces of the Liberals and Conservatives, known as the Baldwin-Lafontaine party were united in a government headed by MacNab, the name Liberal-Conservative was first used. Since that day I need not draw the attention of even the newest member of this House to the fact that a great deal of Canadian history has been made by that party.
Now, I said a moment ago that the honoured leader of our party had not lost the affection, esteem and respect of those who follow him here or of those who were ranged under his banner in the country, and the principal reason in my opinion why that devotion to him as a leader still exists is the fact that nobody ever has been in doubt, more particularly during the recent campaign, as to his being entirely worthy to bear the name Liberal-Conservative, for he has upheld through thick and thin in every section of this great

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country where he appeared before the public the outstanding principles which have characterized that party from the time of its birth, namely, adequate protection of our industries.
After what I said in introduction I suppose it is not necessary for me to inform my Progressive friends that I am a protectionist. It indeed is the fundamental principle of my political belief. If I were asked to define that fundamental principal, I would say that first and foremost I believe in a measure of adequate protection to the industrial interests of this country; to the farming interests; and, following out that system of adequate protection to those two great industries, I believe the labouring classes of this country have their conditions infinitely bettered and are afforded far greater opportunities of obtaining remunerative pay for their toil than they would be under any other system that could be introduced. If that means to be a Liberal-Conservative, if that even means to be a Tory, I confess that so far from being ashamed of the designation I feel rather proud that it should be applied to myself or to any other member in this section of the House.
I do not propose to take up in detail consideration of all the clauses of this somewhat remarkable speech which has been put into the mouth of His Excellency. The only thing that I can really congratulate those responsible for its introduction upon is that it is couched in remarkably graceful, if at the same time remarkably ambiguous, language. The practiced hand of its originator is apparent in every line, and with finely rounded periods and very graceful sentences indeed he endeavours to lay before the country a pronouncement of policy which is entirely innocuous, which leaves scarcely anything tangible to grasp in the way of criticism, and which after all means precious little. I join here in the view expressed by my leader on Monday night. I feel quite certain that before this session closes my friends of the Progressive party, who are so thoroughly and absolutely wedded to the principle of free trade in foodstuffs- of reciprocity in natural products-will not take home with them any very great consolation when the final meaning of this paragraph relative to the revision of the tariff is disclosed to their view by such legislation as may be brought down during the course of this session. I, of course, am not complaining about that. The more my friends on the other side of the
[Mr. MacKelvie.l
House refrain from tinkering with the tariff the more pleased I shall be, but I am quite well aware that it will bring disappointment of a very bitter kind indeed to many an hon. member, more especially to hon. members from the Prairie provinces, who had anchored their faith upon the fact that at a representative convention assembled in Ottawa only two years ago a great party had given to the public a pronouncement of policy which led to the belief that a very considerable revision in the tariff would be effected when that party attained power-that many articles would be placed on the free list, and that a very determined effort would be made to bring about reciprocity in natural products with the United States. I venture to predict that very, very little indeed along those lines will be accomplished this session.
I promised my Progressive friends to give them some reasons for my political belief that protection afforded the best possible system under which a large section of our farmers could pursue their avocations. I suppose that had I been brought up under other circumstances, say, in an industrial centre, where the benefits of protection as related to industries are very apparent, I might have become a firm believer in protection from that point of view. But for the last thirty years my life has been spent in one of the agricultural sections of British Columbia where we have no manufactures, and the same conclusion has been indelibly impressed upon my mind as would be the case if my associations had been entirely with a manufacturing centre. I have not on this occasion to discuss the subject in any academic manner. I am in a position to place before you a concrete example where demonstration is made up to the hilt of the benefits of protection to a great agricultural section of British Columbia. I represent the county of Yale in that province. That is one of the largest constituencies in Canada; its area is about as extensive as that comprised in the provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island combined. Certain sections of that constituency are devoted almost exclusively to fruit growing-a large section surrounding Okanagan lake, a body of water 75 miles in extent, the shores of which are dotted with orchards; Grand Forks and Similkameen, provincial ridings are also orchard sections. In British Columbia there is now invested upwards of $40,000,000 in the orchard business. The Minister of Justice, who spoke

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this afternoon, referred to the fact that in his province the amount invested in the boot and shoe business was no less a sum than $32,000,000, and that protection was necessary to keep that business alive. I want to impress upon you members of the Progressive party that in his address this afternoon, which was delivered in a very impressive manner indeed, the Minister of Justice, while he did not mention the word "protection," so far as I can recall it, from start to finish, did say frankly and freely that for twenty-five years or more he had been firmly convinced that the tariff policy pursued by Sir Wilfrid Laurier's government, with the present Minister of Finance in charge of the exchequer, was the correct one for Canada to hold to to-day. None of you who have given any consideration to this subject can fail to be aware of the fact that the customs tariff from 1896 to 1911 was absolutely a protective tariff; just such a protective tariff-for it was almost unchanged during that period-as that which prevailed while the predecessors of the Laurier government were in office. It is true that at the very end of that period they made an appeal to the country on a policy of reciprocity in natural products with the United States, and the verdict of the people was so overwhelmingly against the proposal that they went down to almost complete collapse. In no part of Canada was reciprocity a more vital issue than it was in the constituency that I represent. In no part of Canada was the danger so freely seen to the great industries, which, indeed, are our basic industries there, and the result was that the then Conservative candidate, Hon. Martin Burrell, was returned by one of the largest majorities ever received by a candidate in the West. The people of that constituency, whose bread and butter were at stake on that occasion, were fully seized of the gravity of the situation as it affected them.
Now, let us look for a few moments at this fruit-growing industry. We have heard to-day a very distressful tale indeed from several speakers in the group to my left, and I am only too fully aware that what they said was true. The conditions which have confronted the farmer of the western plains during the last two or three years are all quite as depicted by my hon. friends. But I venture to suggest that some of those difficulties and distresses were due to conditions relating to climate and soil; not all of them, surely, were

directly or indirectly traceable to the tariff policy of the country. However that may be, here is the condition of affairs in my constituency.
We have, as I say, invested in the orchard business about $40,000,000, and our natural' market is the prairie country of the West. In 1912, 1913, 1914 and 1915, when the orchard business was just beginning to get upon its feet, we were met by this condition of affairs: we were trying to ship apples across the mountains for sale to you people on the plains. Our
10 p.m. cost of production in those days was between ninety cents and one dollar per box; to-day it has risen to $1.50 per box. We found that the great apple-producing sections of the two states lying to our south-Washington and Oregon, and, to some extent Idaho and Montana-were producing one hundred boxes of apples to our one; had established trade in a large chain of populous cities stretching at least to the Mississippi river and in a great many instances further east, where they could sell their "Fancy" and "Extra Fancy" brands of fruit at a profitable figure. They were anxious to dispose of what they call their "C" variety at almost any price they could get for it; accordingly they began sending this fruit into the Prairie provinces in such quantities and at such prices that stark ruin-no other word can properly designate it-stark ruin stared the or-chardists of Okanagan and other sections of Yale in the face. Apples were sent on consignment from Washington and Oregon to the prairie markets and sold at forty cents a box when the cost of production in those states was about ninety cents. Was there any possibility under those circumstances for our orchardists to compete? Gould they, indeed, continue in existence in the face of that condition? Well, we speedily saw that we had either to give up the, business or get some measure of protection, that would save us from disaster and ruin, Mind you, the orchard business is not like any other. When a man starts an orchard he has to buy expensive land in the first place; he has to make a large annual outlay for water to irrigate it, and he has to wait anywhere from five to eight years for the, trees to attain maturity before he can look for any return. And if he has an unprofitable season he cannot go into some other line of agriculture; he cannot change his crop; he has to depend upon the product of his apple or plum or peach or cherry trees.
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We found, as I said, that in those years we were facing absolute ruin, and the only thing that could save us was relief from this Parliament. We came here with deputations; we presented the case to the government then in office, of which Sir Robert Borden was the head, and we hacked up our plea by statistics of so convincing a nature that the Governemnt, in spite of a good deal of determined opposition from the other side of the House, gave us the relief that we sought in the form of an increase in the duty on apples to 30 cents a, box. A box contains about forty pounds; there are about three boxes to a barrel. From that moment the industry began to flourish; people took new heart, and from British Columbia there will be exported this year some 6,000 cars of apples valued at, between $8,000,000 and $9,000,000. Is that not am industry that is worth conserving? You gentlemen from the prairies are very enthusiastic supporters of the principle of co-operation, and rightly so. Now, we have built up in the Okanagan and other apple-producing valleys of British Columbia a splendid system of co-operation in the handling and marketing of our fruit. If you want to deliver it a deadly blow; if you want to bring co-operation in that country to its knees-indeed, to extinction-you cannot do it more effectively than by taking off this protection from our fruit.


Thomas Vien: Will the hon. member permit me a question? What is the duty on Canadian apples entering the United States?


John Armstrong MacKelvie: It is just about the same, since the Fordney Bill came into effect, as our own duty.


Thomas Vien: But what was the duty prior to that?


John Armstrong MacKelvie: Prior to that apples were free.


Thomas Vien: Well then in so far as the
argument of my hon. friend goes, what was to prevent him or the apple growers from shipping apples to the United States and competing with the American fruit growers.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: The reason that prevented us from taking advantage of a situation of that kind-which by the way never existed-was just the same reason that prevents our manufacturers of goods in Canada from competing against highly specialized firms in the United States they can turn out their products in such vast quantities that their overhead expenses are

very low compared to ours; they can afford to sell their products-I know your point

I will come to it in a minute-very much cheaper than we can. But the real reason was this: they produce a hundred times more apples in those two states to the south of us than we produce in British Columbia, and their market is crowded with their home products, for that reason they seek to dump their surplus product in our natural markets on the prairies.


Thomas Vien: But their market was just
as open to you.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: Providing there was
a market there; but there was no market; they were overstocked; they themselves had overproduced.


Thomas Vien: Will my hon. friend allow
me a further question?


John Armstrong MacKelvie: Yes.


Thomas Vien: I would ask him why the
British Columbia fruit growers went into such an unprofitable business?


John Armstrong MacKelvie: Oh. Well, I think
I can possibly explain that too.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: At the time we
entered largely upon the commercial production of apples in British Columbia the prospect did seem to be a pretty alluring one. We had not then perhaps, taken into consideration the fact that there were very much larger areas of land suitable for the iQultivation of orchards in the states to the south of us. We had not, perhaps, been fully seized of the fact that already the existing orchards there far outnumbered our own, but the principal reason was this:	at that time there was
pouring into the plains, into the three provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, immigrants from the United States at the rate of at least a couple of hundred thousand a year and it looked to us who were planting orchards there that by the time our orchards came into full production, by the time they came to maturity, the natural increase of the population of the Prairie provinces would be such-and we hoped too their prosperity would grow in the same measure as their immigration-that we would have provided for us just over the mountains that lie to our east a vast market that would absorb all that we could offer it.


Thomas Vien: Providing it was protected by a high tariff wall.

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John Armstrong MacKelvie: No. We thought then that the American product would not seek entrance in the manner in which it did. We did not understand the situation; I am free to confess none of us are so well acquainted with facts before they happen as when we are able to look back upon them in retrospect.
Now, as to the measure of protection that is afforded us, we not only have a specific duty on apples but we had inserted in our Customs Act last year what is known as the dumping clause. We have had the dumping clause in connection with our Customs Act in Canada for many years, in fact, I think it goes back to probably 1903 or 1904. But that dumping clause of the Customs Act we found was lacking in teeth; it did not grip the situation; it did not give the relief to us that we thought we were entitled to because of this fact: It was based upon the selling price of the article at the point of production, and that selling price might be manipulated, might be rigged, might fluctuate so much in places a few miles apart that it was a matter of impossibility ever to determine it with any degree of exactitude, and it was a very easy clause to avoid. So, last year, finding that other countries who were alert and alive to the situation, were introducing clauses into their customs acts based upon another principle, namely, that the cost of production-not the selling price or the market price-but the cost of production at the point where the article originated-should be the basis of that clause, we had our act changed, or we had it amended, and now we have in the Customs Act a dumping clause which does give us protection in that respect. If an American firm, for instance, ships into Calgary, as they attempted to do last year, pears which they offered on the market there for a dollar a box we could invoke-as indeed we did invoke last year-this dumping clause in the Customs law. We can prove that it cost them so much to produce that box of pears in the Yakima valley, the Wenatchee valley, Hood River district, or wherever they originated; that the transportation charges from that point to the point where they were offered for sale was so much; and then the Minister of Customs is authorized to increase the duty above the normal duty to such a figure as will bring about a fair market value for those articles in the market where they are presented; and by that means, invoking that clause, I dare
say the orchardists of the Okanagan valley were last year saved many thousand dollars.


Mr. SALES:: Will not that dumping clause increase the tariff?	.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: I will tell the House this fact-it may not be easy to believe it but it is nevertheless a fact-that in spite of the protection afforded us by the Customs tariff and by the dumping clause, the market price of apples-no, not the retail marketing price of apples for that may be anything according to different localities or according to how much the retailer will get-but the market price of apples as disposed of by the producer and put on the prairie market by the wholesaler, was no larger in Manitoba, Saskatchewan or in Alberta than it was on the other side of the line a corresponding distance from the Washington orchard. For instance the price in Dakota last year and the year before was practically the same for American apples produced in Washington as it was in Manitoba for apples produced in the Okanagan valley. Now under a system such as that we have some chance of maintaining the British Columbia industries in a very prosperous condition, although I want to tell you that it is by no means as rosy in the fruit growing country as some people seem to think they have reason to believe. This year our orchardists, despite the existing protection, are almost in as bad a position as some of you graingrowers from the prairies. When I left the Okanagan valley at the end of last month the fruit growers there, selling through the co-operative institutions, had not received the money for their crop, and further, a lot of that crop was not sold. You know how conditions were on the prairies this year; you know what proportion of the crop they were capable of absorbing.


Hewitt Bostock: Order. The hon.
member is very conversant with the rules of the House. I would ask him to address hon. members in the third person instead of addressing them directly.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: Thank you very much for your correction, Mr. Speaker. I will endeavour to adhere to the rule.


Hewitt Bostock: Not a correction but a direction.	.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: I was about to remark, Mr. Speaker, that so far from being entirely prosperous this year the condition was not altogether rosy as regards fruit
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growing in my district. We were able this year, though for the first time in our history, to break into the American market; and this will probably answer the ques-. tion in some degree of my hon. friend who made a query a few minutes ago. We were able this year for the first time, owing to a set of circumstances which perhaps may never occur again, to dispose of some portion of our .crop in the state of New York. The reasons for that were these:	In the
first place New York, which the previous year had produced more than double the amount of apples that was grown in the combined states of Washington and Oregon, this last season found itself, comparatively speaking, without a crop at all. The second reason was that while Washington and Oregon had large crops they were unable, owing to lack of transportation facilities,	to	place their	appleson the market	at	the	proper	season;and the third	reason	was the	difference in exchange which was sufficient to offset the duty levied upon our apples when exported	to	the	United	States.
But despite that fact, although we were able to dispose of some of our apples just as soon as the car shortage was overcome in Washington (and Oregon, the United States market was flooded with apples from those states, and when I left I think there were two or three hundred cars of apples stored in New York, waiting for sale and the returns came in very slowly indeed. Under those circumstances, I think I am justified in directing the attention of my Progressive friends to a section of the country where the people cannot, by any stretch of imagination, give countenance to the desire which seems to animate our friends for a sweeping revision of the tariff downward. In regard to the reciprocity agreement with the United States of America, admitting foodstuffs from that country free, or in regard to the removal of the dumping clause, which gives us another measure of protection, we have rather an example of the irony of fate.
Of course during my election campaign I naturally made as strong a point as I was able, speaking to the fruit-growing section, of the advantages which they received under this protective tariff and under the provisions of the dumping clause.
I endeavoured to point out how fatal it would be to their interests if any party who would sweep away these measures of protection were to come into power. My opponent, a person whom I held in high esteem, pooh-poohed such an idea, and said

it was a bug-bear. He said "If our party come into office, iwe never will remove the dumping clause or reduce the tariff on fruit." Here is where the irony of fate comes in. As soon as the Liberal party was returned to power, and the danger became apparent to my opponent and his friends that this tariff would be reduced or the dumping clause removed, my Liberal opponent and his chief executive, the president of the association in Yale, came down to Ottawa and used all their power to keep in effect and in force the very policy introduced and maintained by the present leader of the Opposition when he was Prime Minister of this country. I do not intend to pursue the discussion of this portion of the tariff at any length at present. We will, no doubt, have a full-dress discussion on it later on in the session when the Budget is presented.
I desire to make reference to another section of the Speech from the Throne, and in this connection (I prophesy, the members surrounding me here will find themselves very much in accord with the views expressed by my friends to my left. That is in connection with the railway situation in this country. I was particularly impressed, in fact I was rather delighted, with the very frank manner in which that question was dealt with by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. McMurray) who presented the resolution for the adoption of the Address. He designated the railway situation in these terms: "It is an emaciated foundling left on the doorstep of the Government which preceded this one." And I thought that characterization was a true one. Time has developed certain changes, but not very many, with regard to the railway situation since that foundling was laid on the doorstep of the Government. It has, perhaps, not developed into a very sturdy stripling so far, but it gives signs of growth, and healthy growth. Its future development, of course, is now in other hands, and the orphan has passed under new guardianship. Its future development (will depend, of course, very largely upon the treatment which it receives from this guardian during its term of adolescence. If it be given a reasonable measure of assistance and subsistence, such as it requires, I, for one, have not any great doubt or apprehension that in time it will develop into a very healthy and flourishing offspring of this country. If, on the other hand, it is denied subsistence, if it is given

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ill-treatment, as some members on this side of this House and some of the Progressive members say will be its fate, it will not be very long until the undertaker is called in, and should that contingency occur, there are those who apparently believe that there are influences across the House which would rather cheerfully, and with a great deal of alacrity, furnish the hearse and the plumes.
Be that as it may, with that railway situation, as has frequently been said during this debate, is tied up another very great and important question. That is the question of immigration. As has been very truthfully said, we must have immigration; we have to fill up the vacant land and obtain people to give business to the road before there is much hope of placing it on a paying basis. I am free to confess that we are rather up against a very perplexing proposition. We are almost, I think, forced upon the horns of a dilemma. If, in order to get immigration to give business to our railways, we take down the barriers which have restricted immigration into this country, if we permit an influx of people from all portions of the globe, who are only too anxious to flood into this country of opportunity, if we permit, for instance, such countries as the Balkans, Southern Europe and other sections of that distressed land, devastated by war, to pour their population into Canada, our second condition will be worse than our first.
We have in my own constituency an example of what has occured through loose systems of immigration in the past. I am not going to attach any particular blame to any party for the immigration policy which prevailed in the early years of this century, but I know there are hundreds and thousands of people in my own constituency who wish very ardently that, at least, the colony of Doukhobors had never been allowed to come into Canada, for, without doubt, they cannot be termed anything less than a pest and a nuisance. They will not conform to the laws of the land, nor to our provincial regulations. They will not register their births nor their deaths, or send their children to school, and when any attempt is made to enforce this law, a number of them of the extreme sect, resent it to this extent: both sexes will divest themselves of all clothing, and make a parade, dressed in the suits which Adam and Eve wore before the fig leaves were introduced in the garden of Eden.
We have also in British Columbia another immigration problem which is even more serious, indeed, vastly more serious than that, and to which I would refer. I have not time to develop its consideration to any length tonight, but I will simply say that I think a great deal of education will be necessary before the people in the eastern section of the Dominion will have anything like an adequate conception of what Oriental immigration into British Columbia has meant for our province. One out of every ten or twelve adult males in British Columbia to-day is an oriental. The whole of the industries are under their control. Down the lower Fraser river there is a town called Steveston, a fishing development, where the fishing and canning of salmon is the great industry. That community is now a community almost exclusively of Japanese. I have no dislike for the Japanese nation; I am an admirer, as everybody who has considered their growth and history during the last half century must be, of the many admirable qualities which they possess; but the hon. member for North Winnipeg, in moving the Address, employed in some connection this line from Kipling: "There is no East, no West, border nor breed nor birth'''. There is a couplet better known which applies more closely in this connection to our land, and that is:
For East is East and West is West,
And never the twain shall meet.
And they cannot meet as regards the assimilation of an oriental population amongst the people of British Columbia. Our schools are to-day crowded with oriental children, and the natural increase of the Japanese already settled in that province, is such as to warrant us in the belief that, even if the bars were put up so rigidly that not a single one of their race could enter Canada for the next decade, their natural increase would be such as to give us more by far in that province than we could ever begin to absorb profitably. There is the situation connected with immigration, and I hope those of us who come from that Pacific province will have the sympathetic assistance of some of the other members who come from further East, in guarding our western portals against any further influx of a class of people who cannot be considered as anything but detrimental and dangerous to our national life. In this connection, at the outset of my remarks 1 gave some reasons why, behind our leader, stood a

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united party, holding him in such a high measure of respect, esteem, and loyal devotion. If there was one reason more than another that served to endear that man to the people of British Columbia, and that, I think and believe, should have endeared him to the people of this whole country if they had understood the situation as we understood it, it was the spirited, energetic, courageous and patriotic course which he assumed at the conference of Prime Ministers in London last year, when, to use the vernacular, he threw a monkey-wrench into the machinery and prevented the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese treaty. I am one of those who believe that the assertion frequently made at that time or very shortly afterwards, that it was largely due to the action of Canada's representative there that the Disarmament Conference at Washington was called, was an absolutely true statement of fact. As a result of that conference, we know that the Anglo-Japanese Treaty is now a thing of the past, and we have in its stead a Pour Nations' Treaty, which we are, I think, all thoroughly convinced will, for a long time to come, ensure safety on our Pacific coast.
I find that I have several other points noted on which I had intended to make some remarks, but I think I shall pass them up. We have been treated to-day to some rather lengthy orations, and I do not want to add mine to that number. I had noted something about revision of terms in connection with the Prairie provinces, but I do not think I shall dwell upon that subject. I have tried to understand as fully as possible, from the remarks which have fallen from the lips of the members of the Progressive party who have spoken, their objection to the position taken by the hon. member for St. John and Albert (Mr. Baxter) yesterday, and I have yet failed to grasp why they should have any objection to permitting a province, which feels it has a grievance, to enter upon a discussion of any matter precedent to any change in the terms in connection with the three western provinces. In British Columbia, we all expect to interject ourselves into that conference or board of arbitration or whatever it may be, if it is held, and to have our views presented there, and, I hope, very forcibly presented. We, in British Columbia, have never believed that we have received exactly just and fair treatment in the distribution of subsidies. We have physical disabilities there which 
make, for instance, road-building such a tremendous expense as compared with the same sort of construction in the other provinces, and we have other cases which lead us to believe that, if any reconstruction of terms is effected, we should be entitled to present our case and to make a claim for better terms before that deal is consummated.
I also had noted something regarding Soldiers' re-establishment, and I had intended to enlarge in some slight extent upon that. But I shall pass it by, contenting myself with saying only this, that, as time goes by, as one year succeeds another, we find that even the generous intention of the past Government and what was thought to be very ample provision for the needs and necessities of our returned men and their dependents gradually worked itself out in a way which shows that ever continuing and increasing assistance must be given if this country shall, in any way at all, begin to liquidate the tremendous debt which, of course, will never by any material means be liquidated, which we owe to the men who went overseas and fought on our behalf for the preservation of civilization. I hope such generous provision will be made from time to time for men and women^of that class that, sooner or later, the last vestige of just complaint may vanish from amongst our returned men or their dependents in this country.
Just one word in conclusion regarding a subject which was introduced on more than one occasion during this debate, and which I have always held very close to my heart. In the early part of my remarks I had occasion to refer to it from one angle, when I had reason, I think, to criticise the language used by the Minister of Justice in an altogether unjustifiable attempt to swing the members of this House and more particularly of his own province behind the idea that, in some unexplained way, they had an enemy in the leader of the Opposition sitting on this side. I, with as strong language as I could bring to bear on the subject, expressed my opinion then. I wish now to view the matter in another way.
I was born on one ocean seaboard and I have spent most of my life on another.
I was brought up as a child in a county of New Brunswick which contained a large proportion of French-Canadian people, and some of the dearest friends of my boyhood days and some of my closely associated school mates were boys of that race. I grew to hold them in very high esteem, and I have always entertained the same feelings

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towards them as were engendered during those youthful days. I conceive it to be the prime duty of any man, to whom the people of this country have entrusted their representation in this House, to endeavour at all times so to conduct and comport himself, so to speak on occasions of public importance which affect these two races, as to assist, if possible, in healing any hard feeling that exists and, if possible to bring about a greater measure of unity and harmony between the two races, so that the time will not be very far distant when, in Canada, speaking two languages, holding possibly largely two creeds, we shall have one united Canadianism, having, as its first and foremost purpose, the common betterment of our common country.


Mr. ALAN WEBSTER NEILL (Comox-Alberni) :: Mr. Speaker, we have had various expressions of compliment paid to yourself, to the leaders of the three parties in the House, to the mover and seconder of the Address, and to the lady member; and for the sake of brevity I will simply say that they have each and all my hearty concurrence. As regards the lady member, while I am heartily in sympathy with the remarks that have been made I think that, as time goes on, we shall be led to adopt a somewhat different attitude towards her. It is natural, perhaps, that coming into the House for the. first time she should receive a peculiar welcome as the first member of her sex to be elected to this Parliament. As time goes on, however, the attitude which we shall assume in regard to her, and the attitude she herself will desire that we should bear towards her, will, I think, be to treat her as the member for Southeast Grey (Miss Mac-phail). We shall come to respect her ability, her keenness, her common sense, her energy and the persistence with which she will no doubt work to further the ambitions and the ideals which she entertains. That we shall do rather than pay deference merely to her femininity.
In looking over the House I have been struck by the peculiar, although natural, fact that the age and the appearance of the three parties are reflected in the individual members who respectively constitute them. Here on my right we have the men of substance, both as regards mentality and physique, of the Conservative party, men of gray hairs, the grave' and reverend signors, whom we may regard for the moment at least as the statesmen of the past. Opposite, directly
behind the leader of the Government (Mr. Mackenzie King), we find identically the same type of men in that party * they may be regarded as the statesmen of to-day. But when we come to the third party, the gentlemen who sit on my left, we find that it is composed of, and very largely dominated by, young men. That party is a new one; it is young in the political life of the country, and perhaps it is natural to find that the men who constitute it are also young. To finish the simile, I may refer to them as the statesmen of the future. I do not suggest that it is a demerit in a man or a woman to be young. I was young once myself and wish I were again in my youth. We older men must remember that if we do not give way, at least we should make room for the younger generation. The youth of to-day constitute the driving force and the energy of to-morrow; they are the history makers of the future. I do not say for a moment that we should depreciate the respect we ought to show to hon. gentlemen whose hair is gray or, as in the case of some of us, whose hair is not only gray, but getting scant. We must realize, however, that the coming generation is forging ahead into our places, and we must make way for them or they will make way for themselves. I have great faith in youth,-youth in politics, youth in business and youth in everything. This is the day of the young man. The young men have faults; they are headstrong, impetuous, hasty, perhaps, in action, and impulsive; but they have that energy and driving power that make for progress and action, and it is progress and action we need more than anything else to-day in Canada.
I therefore look with confidence upon the party to the left of me. I would rather see the ship of state manned by young men, inexperienced though they may be, starting out boldly on the sea of life. The weather may be rough, and storms may arise, but they will make headway and get somewhere. At any rate, better that by far than trust our destinies to the ship of state lying in the stagnant waters of the harbour and moldering away with the dry rot of policies of hesitation, vacillation and over-timid caution. For my part, give me men of action who will go into the middle of the stream and try to get somewhere. At all events, they will gain experience in time. I have noted with pleasure the ability shown by these young men on my left as speakers. With-

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out considering the fact that they are here for the first time, we can congratulate them upon the way in which they have acquitted themselves, and in days to come we shall be able slightly to parody the words of Samson and say that out of the producers hath come forth meat and out of the strong hath come forth sweetness. Perhaps the lady member will furnish the sweetness.
Now, it better becomes me to make complimentary remarks about this party, because I am not attached to it. I do not attend its caucus, but I have received kindness from its whip in the matter of arranging my seat in the House. I desire therefore to thank the Progressive party and express my appreciation of the courtesy it has shown me, a political stranger in a political strange land. But while I am not attached to the party, I find myself heartily in accord with a great part of its policies, except, unfortunately, in regard to the tariff. It is perhaps a matter of regret that the leader of the Progressive party ' was not able to visit British Columbia during the election. Had he done so it is more than probable he would have received greater support than he did. When speaking on the tariff the other day he was at some pains to modify somewhat the impression we had in British Columbia, during the election, that he was an absolutely out and out devotee of free trade. He was at some pains, I say, to modify that view; but I could not help observing, as I listened to the speeches of his lieutenants, more particularly the able one made by the hon. member for Moosejaw (Mr. Johnson) and that of the member for Bed Deer (Mr. Speakman), that they, on the other hand, were not at all equivocal in expressing themselves as advocates of free trade first, last and all the time. While that is a natural attitude for them to take, as coming from the prairies-if I were a representative of the prairies I would also be a free trader-but coming as I do from British Columbia, I cannot, I am afraid, follow them in that regard.
British Columbia wants protection. That remark, I notice, gets some little applause from the members from Vancouver. Well, I am glad to establish a point of contact with my Conservative fellow members from British Columbia, but in this case it will be only temporary, because the kind of protection which is wanted in the district from which I come is not the kind of protection my hon. friends want, which is that of the policy advocated and worked for by

the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. In that regard, if I may be allowed to digress for a moment, I might mention an incident that is typical and indicative of much. Shortly after I was nominated I received a letter from Vancouver, I may mention that Vancouver is not in the district I represent, being probably 150 miles away from it, except for one small portion of the district that runs a little in that direction. I got a letter from a gentleman who represents the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and was resident in Vancouver. The first paragraph of the letter warmly congratulated me upon my nomination. I thought that was all right, and said to myself : "Here is a man, at least, after my own heart." I very soon found, however, that it was not my heart he was after. The second paragraph expressed the hope that I would not misunderstand him when he said that he trusted I should not get in. That was somewhat of a shock. It was rather like Isaac of old, but Isaac, when he blessed Jacob, did not in the next breath revoke the blessing. But I was compelled to acept the dictum- the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away, and I managed to swallow that. But when I went on to his next paragraph I got a further shock. He said he felt sure that I would have no trouble in signing a couple of pledges which he enclosed for me-"put your name on the dotted line" sort of business. I am sorry I have not that letter with me, but I have left it at home. I intend to have it framed, Mr. Speaker, as a concrete presentment of the sublimity of human assurance. That is expressing myself in a somewhat classic form. In -the West we use more rugged language than you gentlemen in the East, and there we would describe it in two words, each of four letters, with a preposition in between. We would say, It was a something of a something. But as we must try to conform to the culture of the East, I will repeat that I regard it as a concrete presentment of the sublimity of human assurance. I think hon. members will agree with me in that description when I tell them what was in the letter. The first pledge required me entirely and absolutely to vote for high protection for the benefit of the eastern manufacturers. That was not the exact way in which it was worded, for, as you know, these things are put more discreetly. I do not know whether the word "high" was used; probably it was the

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word "adequate" or something of that kind, but if the English language means anything at all it meant that I was to pledge myself -why I do not know-to vote for high protection for the benefit of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. That was bad enough and I swallowed that more or less with a choke, but when I came to the next pledge it was more exacting still. I was asked to pledge myself absolutely and entirely, then, now and forever, to have no part or lot, in thought, word, deed, or action, with a man whom they designated, and whom I have since ascertained is the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar). Had I signed that pledge of so absolutely comprehensive a character, I do not think it would have become me as an honourable man to be buried in the same cemetery with the hon. member, and certainly not in proximity to him. Being of a trusting disposition I naturally believed what the writer said about the hon. member for Marquette. You may have remarked the other day that he himself said-and he should know better than anyone else-that after his experience of his opponents during the campaign he came to the conclusion that he was a very bad man. Is it then any subject for remark that I, not knowing him as well as he knows himself, should have been under the conviction that he was not a man at all, but more or less what our Methodist friends would call "of the devil" -that his human form was merely camouflage and that when I came down here I would find horns growing out of his forehead! When I came down here and my desk-mate told me who the hon. member for Marqette was, I was disappointed to see no horns. I say disappointed advisedly, because when you have made up your mind to the worst it is a disappointment to find your predictions do not come true. But later I noticed two things-that he kept his hat on except on certain occasions, and that he wore h'is hair very long. I know that he comes from a farming community, and having been a farmer myself I know the custom of farmers to anoint the budding horns of their calves with caustic soda, the result being that a small callous is formed where the horns would otherwise grow. Consequently, the next time the hon. member for Marquette goes to the barber shop I shall keep a keen eye on him to see that there is no development on his head along that line.
Now, Sir, it is not the protection I have alluded to that we want in British
Columbia; it is protection for fruit. I agree with a great deal of what the last speaker (Mr. MacKelvie) said with regard to protection of the fruit industry, and I could go further than he went in some oi his remarks. We want protection for oui coal industry, we want protection for oui lumber industry, we want protection foi our farm products, and, Sir, the greatest protection of all we want is protection against Asiatic encroachments. I can endorse every word that the hon. member for Yale said in that regard; in fact, I could go a great deal further. I will be conservative in words, if not in party, and say that half our white population have their backs against the wall to-day industrially. The Asiatics in British Columbia have got a throttle hold upon our fishing industry, they are encroaching on the lumber industry, and large sections of the country devoted to fruits and market garden produce are entirely in their grip. The situation is getting so intense that something will have to be done or there will be a development that will astonish the people in the east. Those Asiatics are also going into the store business as well as encroaching on the hotel business. I know the spirit of the East is all right on any subject upon which the people are properly informed, and I am sure they do not understand the seriousness of the Asiatic proposition in the west. Perhaps that is the fault of representatives from British Columbia in the past, and we thirteen members from that province will be sadly lacking in our duty to our constituents, if we do not keep the East, in season and out of season, fully informed on this subject.
It is not my custom to boost,-without being paid for it at any rate,-the wares of somebody else, but I have a book here that I would commend to the attention of this House. I have asked the Librarian to stock half a dozen copies for the use of hon. members. This is my own copy that I have in my hand and I intend to send it over to the leader of the Government with a request that he read it, or at least that he begin to read it, because when he once begins I know he will not stop until he finishes its perusal. I will not send it over to him until I have finished speaking because I know he would be so engrossed in it that I would not continue to have his attention. It is in fictional form, but it is a book of truth dealing with the Asiatic question, particularly with the Japanese phase of it, on our coast to-day. So true is it that the authoress thought fit, on the
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advice of her lawyers, to insert a clause that the characters in the book are not drawn to life. It is called " The Handwriting on the Wall ", and any one can see a very close resemblance to a lot of matters prominent in public affairs in British Columbia in the last few year$. It depicts conditions in British Columbia ten years ago, it depicts conditions as they are to-day, and it depicts conditions as they will be ten years hence provided, she says, a government can be found in British Columbia venal and corrupt enough to give the Japanese the vote. That may seem like a scare line, but, Sir, I tell you Japanese voted in the last general election in British Columbia, and we do not know how soon some party seeking for campaign funds will not grant them the franchise. I earnestly commend to the leader of the Government and to the leader of the Opposition and to every other member of this House, especially the western ones, a perusal of this book.
If you will bear with me for a moment I will speak a word on my own position in the House, I trust for the first and last time. In some respects I hold a rather unique position inasmuch as I believe I am the only Independent elected to this House. Other Independents are either Progressive Independents or Liberal Independents, and they have more or less, I think, dropped into their respective parties. I do not blame them for doing so, that is their natural course, but I happened to be elected by an entirely independent convention of those opposed to the late Meighen Government. At that convention were represented Liberals, Socialists, soldiers, farmers, labour men, and, I blush not to say, Conservatives,-they were all represented at that convention and they all supported me. Therefore, while I owe no obedience to any party, yet I am much indebted to the representatives of every party individually'for my election, and that puts me in a somewhat different position to that occupied by other hon. members. I think Scott, speaking of the French courtiers of his day, used the lines:
Who walk ambition's diamond ridge,
Where stoutest hearts have failed;
indicating that the ridge was so fine, so diamond-pointed, that they had to be exceedingly careful lest they fell to one side or the other. And that is the trouble that confronts me: lest I be led astray,-being, as I have said, of a simple and confiding disposition-into supporting one party as a party rather than as a principle.

The only way I can get out of that difficulty is to confront it when any question comes up and to ask myself:	Is this
measure in the interests of the constituency I represent or the province I come from? If the answer is in the affirmative, then I think I can say it will also be for the benefit of Canada and that I can safely vote for it.
From my seat here I occupy a rather strategic position. I have my friends the Conservatives on one side of me and the Progressives on the other; with one ear I can listen to the counsels and obtain the benefit of the wisdom and experience of these Conservative statesmen, and with the other I can draw inspiration from the youth and virility of the Progressive party. But I must confess that I am slightly deaf in one of my ears, and it happens to be the ear next to my Conservative friends. The deafness, however, is only slight, Sir. As for my Liberal friends opposite, I shall judge them not by their speeches and not by their programme but simply and entirely by their actions. The right hon. leader of the Opposition, (Mr. Meighen) in his speech the other day, to which I listened with a great deal of pleasure, because it was to me an intellectual treat-the caustic humour and keen analysis which characterize his remarks interested me quite a little-spent a good deal of his time in trying to prove that hon. members on the other side, especially those in the ministry, were acting or were likely to act in a manner inconsistent with their utterances of some months or years ago. That may or may not be so, but I am prepared at this stage to let the dead past bury its dead and act upon the scriptural maxim: "By their fruits ye shall know them." It is upon what the Liberals do, not upon what they say, that I shall judge them.
Now the convention that nominated me gave me a free hand. I was to be opposed to the Meighen Government, and I knew that that first pledge would be easily fulfilled. After the Meighen Government was disposed of, I was to be given a free hand to support any government or any coalition, -it appearing to us at that time that there might be a coalition. But there is always a string, 'you know; I did have a string tied to me, in the shape of a platform drawn up by the convention, to which I am committed to give my support. When I came down here and began to compare notes with my fellow-members I found I was not in such a position of political isolation as I

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had expected: I found that the planks of the platform I was pledged to were very much in common with those of members on the Liberal as well as on the Progressive side. I believe also that I am in absolute sympathy with every Conservative member for British Columbia as well on one point at least. Now, if you will excuse me, Sir, I will quote the platform: to do so will not be an onerous business, and not many hon. gentlemen have had the courage to produce their platforms in the House. I am so simple-minded that I carry this platform about with me and in leisure moments I take it out and gauge how much progress I have made toward its achievement. I always get hope and encouragement when I notice that the first clause is: "Opposition to the Meighen Government." The success on that point gives me courage to go on to the other planks: "Abolition of purse seine and trap licenses." This applies to the fishing industry, a very vital question in British Columbia. The next is: "Licenses"-that is, fishing licenses-"to be granted only to white British subjects." Then the platform proceeds:
3.	Immigration. Absolute exclusion of Asiatics.
4.	Dominion enactment of the British Columbia eight hour law.
5.	The passing of an old age pension Act.
6.	(a) Extension of time on payments due under the Dominion Soldier Settlement Act.
(b) More considerate treatment of disabled soldiers, their widows and dependents.
7.	The elimination of overlapping of areas covered by federal and provincial police.
That last means that we want the Royal Canadian Mounted Police removed from British Columbia in order to save expense: they are no longer needed. The last plank is:	"A federal inheritance tax on large
estates." I commend that suggestion to the hon. Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding); it cannot now be said that no one has suggested a method by which we can get increased revenue.
Now this is a simple platform and not unreasonable, I think, in many respects. The important planks are those with reference to the restriction of Japanese control of the fishing industry, the immigration of Asiatics, the eight hour law, old age pensions. The others are more or less minor matters. If the Government can see their way clear to bring down legislation of this kind-if the Government will do it; I should say, for I know they can,-they will have my support. And when I suggest that the Government take action in these matters, I mean exactly that-the
putting of legislation on the statute books. We do not want to have somebody standing up here and proposing an academic resolution or flourishing a flag and saying: We stand for a white British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, we in British Columbia are sick to death of seeing and hearing people who "stand for a white British Columbia." The time for that has passed; we want them to stop standing, pick up their feet, move ahead, make some progress toward bringing about a white British Columbia. Therefore I stress the point that if the Government will put legislation covering these points into concrete form and pass it, they can count on my hearty support; and they will get not only my vote and what small influence I possess, but the influence and the goodwill and the support in the future of eighty per cent of the people of British Columbia. There can be no question about that; the matters I have touched upon are of vital importance to the people of our province. It is eleven o'clock, Mr. Speaker, and I am willing to move the adjournment of the debate.


Hewitt Bostock: I understand that there is an agreement between the whips that the House shall adjourn at eleven o'clock whenever possible. If the hon. member intends to make more extensive remarks, he may wish to adjourn the debate, but it is a matter entirely for him.
On the motion of Mr. Neill the debate was adjourned.
On the motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 11 p.m.
Friday, March 17, 1922