1922-05-30

ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY-CORRESPONDENCE

Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) :: I beg to hand my hon. friend from West York (Sir Henry Drayton) the correspondence requested by him yesterday between the government of the United States and the Govenment of Canada respecting the St. Lawrence Waterway project.



&quot;GENERAL&quot; MACDONALD'S ARMY

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On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto) :: I wish to call the attention of the Prime Minister to telegrams and letters I have received from those in charge of "General" Macdonald's army which is marching from Toronto to Ottawa. The 200 men on the march are good citizens and they did their duty overseas. Their leader was disabled in the war, and his pension has since been cut off. Here is a newspaper containing a photograph of his wife and family of six children. These men-


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. Will the hon. member kindly put a question to the Government instead of continuing his argument.


Thomas Langton Church: I should like to ask the Prime Minister if any arrangements have been made to receive these men and to send them back to their homes, or to have a

committee meet them and go into each man's case? These men hope by a campaign of education to have something done for them.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Government will be pleased to receive the deputation to which my hon. friend has made reference as soon as they reach Ottawa. In the meantime I would ask my hon. friend to send me copies of the telegrams and letters to which he has just referred.



THE BUDGET


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The House resumed from Monday, May 29, the debate on the motion of Hon. W. S. Fielding (Minister of Finance), that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Hon. Sir Henry Drayton.
Mr. A. J. LEWIS (Swift Current) :: Mr. Speaker, I wish to associate myself wth those who have congratulated the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) on the long and faithful service that he has rendered to his country. It is a record which I think every young parliamentarian might with profit try to emulate, and I only hope that as long as I remain in this House it may be said of me that I have been as faithful as the hon. gentleman in the performance of my duty.
I notice that the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie) in the course of his speech last night mentioned the name of the hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston) about fifteen or sixteen times. The hon. member for New Westminster seemed to be in a very inquisitive mood in regard to where we stand m relation to the budget. Of course, he jumped to certain conclusions as to what we are going to do, and he said repeatedly that we as a Progressive party had always come to the rescue of the government. Indeed, he seemed to be very much concerned about the defeat of the Government. I do not know whether he is afraid that if he had to stand again in New Westminster he would not be returned. As, however, he seems to think that we always come to the rescue of the Government, I thought I would look up the record of the divisions that have taken place this session. There have been seven divisions so far, and this

The Budget-Mr. Lewis
is how the Progressive party voted on each occasion:
There was a division on March 28 in which we find that the Opposition was opposed by the Government and the Progressives. On the 10th of April another division took place in which the Conservatives and the Government, almost without exception, voted against the Progressives. On April 24, the Conservatives and the Government again voted against the Progressives; and on April 25 the Conservatives and the Government voted together against the Progressives. So that the evidence is ample to prove that every one believes he has the right to vote according to conviction. On the 5th of May there was a mixed vote; the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie) voted with the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) and the hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston). On May 8, there was another vote in which we find that the Conservatives were arrayed against the Government and the Progressives. On the 15th of May there was a mixed vote, but a preponderance of Conservatives voted with the Government. So that in the final analysis there have been seven divisions in the House, three in which the Conservatives and the Government voted against the Progressives, two in which the Progressives and the Government voted against the Conservatives, and two mixed votes in which the Conservatives in one of them voted in preponderant numbers with the Government. I think, Sir, that if any one is afraid that the Government is going to be defeated, it is the hon. members to my right.
Moreover, it was said that my leader, the horn member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), and the hon. member for Last Mountain, would feel more at home if they were sitting on the Liberal side. Well, every one has the right to his convictions, and the convictions of these hon. members are such that they sit on this side. I will not say there is not a worse side they could sit on than that which is occupied by members of the Government. Let us remember that we have come here not to play politics; we all have the best interests of the country at heart. I can conceive that hon. members to my right have the interests and wellbeing of the country at heart; but let them also remember that we on this side and those on the Government side also have those interests at heart, although we may view them from different angles.
Now, it was not my intention to enter into any argument with any member of this
House. What I wished to bring before the House is matter relating to the budget, with a view to seeing whether a fiscal policy could not be brought forward that would remedy a great many of the evils which exist in our country to-day.
In the first place let me say that it is the easiest thing in the world to attack a budget, involving, as it does, the taxation of the whole country with all its ramifications. We certainly can find weaknesses in any budget, no matter who brings it in. It seems to me, therefore, that the only fair basis upon which a man has a right to express criticism of the budget is to try to place himself in the position of the responsible minister of the Crown, the Minister of Finance, and to realize the great problems which confront him, including the duty of imposing taxation which will be adequate to meet the needs of the country. That is the basis of my criticism. The task of the Minister of Finance is not made one whit easier by the present state of our country, the condition of depression, the crises which are taking place, the unrest .which prevails, the lowering of wages which has been proceeding-all these things, in their cumulative effect, do not make the task of the Minister any easier. Moreover, it does not make the task of the Progressive party or any party in this House easier in its support or in its criticism of the budget of the day.
I would like to say a few words in regard to the fiscal policy of this country. Of course, I am a free trader out and out, and I am not ashamed to admit it. But, Sir, this is a democracy, and apparently the majority of the people of this country do not believe in free trade. They believe, perhaps in freer trade than is at present in existence. In a democracy the expressed will of the majority of the people has the right to prevail. When we who believe in free trade shall have educated and reformed the people of this country so far as their views on fiscal policy are concerned, then we shall be returned to power and have an opportunity of putting those principles into practice.
I have carefully gone over the budget speech, and 1 am unable to discern very much difference between the Liberal policy and the old National policy. I am not saying this merely for effect; that is as far as I am able to analyze it. I believe in a tariff for revenue purposes, and as the Liberal platform expressed approval of a tariff for revenue I was in hopes that the
The Budget-Mr. Lewis


Mr. HUGHES:: Will the hon. gentleman allow me an explanation? I find that the exemptions from the sales tax are very numerous, and include nearly all the necessaries of life purchased by a family of small or moderate means. I have the list here and will pass it over to my hon. friend, because it gives information that I think would be useful to the House, and I think it would remove about nine-tenths of the objections raised by the Progressives to the sales tax. I forgot to mention this when I spoke yesterday.


Arthur John Lewis: I understand that the sales tax last year brought in something like $60,000,000 of revenue, when there were already numerous articles exempted. As a result of the new Government coming into power, the additional exemptions include alfalfa meal, salt radium, and job printed matter, but that is all.


James Joseph Hughes: The exempted list is already very large.


Arthur John Lewis: Yes, but if the sales tax brought in last year $60,000,000, and it is

The Budget-Mr. Lewis
increased 50 per cent, it will bring in this year about $90,000,000, which bears out the argument I presented to the House a moment ago.


James Joseph Hughes: The tax does not weigh so heavily upon men of small means.


Arthur John Lewis: It may not seem so to my hon. friend, but if he had a large family he would think differently.
I am going to .speak for a few moments on economy. I think the hon. Minister of Finance in his own heart felt that the system of government book-keeping which has been in vogue for a number of years past was not altogether satisfactory. Through some method of fictitious valuing, every government that went out of power showed that they had a surplus-but anyone knows that if we are raising a revenue of something like $350,000,000, and are expending annually at the rate of $450,000,000, whether on capital account or any other account, that deficiency must be raised -some time the chickens are bound to come home to roost. I think the time must soon come when the approximate expected revenue of this country will exceed the expenditure, and thus in a measure overtake the large expenditure of the past.
We heard a good deal last night about optimism about our fair country. Well, the West is always optimistic; we are all an optimistic people, but an optimism which is based on a fallacy does not get us anywhere, and we have no right to be so optimistic that we take authority to place an undue burden on generations to come which will be very hard for them to bear. There are various ways, I think, in which we can decrease our expenditure at the present time. This year, for instance, we are asked to vote $9,000,000 for the Welland canal. I do not think that the vote has passed yet. Surely the time has not yet come when we, a people of less than nine millions, should take upon ourselves great national undertakings of this sort which, when completed, will be a competitor against our national railways.
I am glad to find that so far the Dominion Government has not replied to the United States in regard to the St. Lawrence deep waterway scheme, and I hope they will not for another twenty years. I think that so far as Canada is concerned, we have ample provision now for exporting and importing our goods. We are a people of less than nine millions, and we have no right to overburden the populace with taxes. We



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talk about people going to the United States or other countries to live, but is it any wonder when we place a sales tax on the family man which makes it almost impossible for him and his family to live? We had a discussion on immigration in this House some time ago. I believe that the best way to increase the population of this country is through the family, by increasing the number of children. But people will not raise large families unless they have the same conception as I have, unless they find it easier for them to live. So far as I am concerned, I believe that Canadian children are going to be the salvation of this country-far better than any immigrants we could bring in from any part of the world. I would advise my hon. friends from British Columbia, who are concerned over the Japanese problem, to look at the low birth rate of the white people in British Columbia, and to see to it that their birth rate becomes normal, and that they do not commit race suicide as the birth rate shows they are doing, and then there will not be the menace from oriental immigration. There ought to be a normal birth rate in Canada. It is a healthy sign when the birth rate is normal, and the Canadian race is one of the most vigorous on the globe. Neither the Italian nor the German nor any other nation should be allowed to make up the deficiencies in our own population.
I want to say just a few words in regard to the tariff for revenue, especially in regard to the new tax that has been imposed. Referring to the tax on cigars, in Schedule II, I find that in the year 1920 194,335,000 cigars were consumed in Canada valued at $14,102,399. Now, as regards the imports and exports it is practically negligible, and so for that reason I am not going to say anything about it. At the same time there were consumed, as we were told by the Finance Minister over 2,450,000,000 cigarettes valued at $24,000,000. The duty on those cigarettes was $15,000,000. This year the duty has been increased and the result is that the Finance Minister expects a decrease of 10 per cent in the revenue from this source. Now, I want hon. members to mark that fact: That when you increase the duty on an article, in the opinion of the Finance Minister, you decrease the consumption. That may be true in regard to cigarettes, but is it true in regard to the general commerce of the country? That is a point that my hon. friends to my right ought to consider

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The Budget-Mr. Lewis
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very seriously. Now, in regard to the cigars which were valued at $14,102,399, how much do you think we got in the shape of duty? Just a litle over one million dollars; the actual amount was $1,085,866.87. Now, Sir, I am not taking any exception to this, I think that is a duty for revenue purposes only, and the minister is quite justified in imposing it; hut I do not believe in the discrimination, that is all there is about it, and I will give you reasons for my belief. In my hand I now hold a cigar, and the value of that cigar is 20 cents.
An. hon. MEMBER: I will take it.
Arthur John Lewis: My hon. friend can take it if he likes; he probably smokes this kind of cigar. But this is a 20-cent cigar, and it costs $200 per thousand, and there is an " enormous " tax upon it of $10 per thousand. What does that mean? It means that when I buy this cigar I pay a duty of one cent. Very good. Now, here is a cigarette which costs 10 cents a package. What do I pay in duty on that? On cigarettes there is a duty ranging approximately from 90 cents to $1.10; but on the cigar the duty is less than 5 cents. Now, Sir, it has been argued by certain hon. members who spoke on the Government side that taxation was being brought in which would be levied on the rich man, who was able to pay, and removed from the poor man. Who are the men who can smoke cigars selling for 20 cents or higher? They are the men who are to be found in the Chateau Laurier, the Ritz Carleton, the Fort Garry or other hotels of like character. When these men buy a cigar for 20 cents they only pay a duty of one cent, whereas when I buy twenty cents worth of cigarettes I pay in duty 22 cents. If the Finance Minister really wants to bring in a tariff for revenue only let him remove this discrimination. I am not complaining about the duty on cigarettes, I am quite willing to pay duty of one cent on every cigarette I smoke; but I do say that the man who smokes a 20-cent cigar should also pay an equivalent rate of duty. If the Minister of Finance will remove this discrimination and put smokers on an equal footing in this regard I have not the least doubt but that he will increase his revenue from this source to $12,000,000 and that allows for the 10 per cent decrease in revenue which he anticipates as a result of the increased duty on cigarettes.
Now, I want to make a comparison with the duties levied on cigarettes and cigars
CMr. Lewis.]
in the United States. Over there, if I buy one dollar's worth of cigarettes I pay an excise duty of 71 per cent; if I buy one dollar's worth of cigars I pay a duty of 31 per cent. In Canada, on the other hand when I purchase a dollar's worth of cigarettes I am subjected to a duty of from 90 to 110 per cent; but when I buy a dollar's worth of cigars the duty only amounts to five cents. Now, I claim. Sir, that the men who smoke these cigars are just as well able to contribute towards the Dominion tax for revenue purposes as the ordinary individual-or the rich man for that matter-who smokes a cigarette. I commend the removal of this discrimination to the Minister of Finance; and if he only acts upon this suggestion he will increase his revenue by at least $12,000,000.
Now as to the matter of cars. Certain hon. members opposite have argued that a car was not a luxury. Well, a Ford car may not be a luxury; but it does seem to me that in the case of cars of a value which runs all the way up from $2,000 to $6,000 an excise tax is justifiable, but the tax should be graduated according to value. In the case of the cars of higher value, which are undoubtedly a luxury, a larger tax should be required in the interests of the revenue. In this way a tariff for revenue would operate beneficially.
I have carefully studied the income tax imposed in this country and compared it with the tax collected in other countries. I must admit that I am favourably disposed towards it because it exceeds the tax in vogue in a great many other countries. At the same time I want to say this: The man who enjoys an income of $10,000 up to $60,000 is almost missed. After the income gets to $60,000 the tax increases by leaps and bounds, until it is tremendous when it applies to incomes of a million. Very few people, however, receive that amount of income; and therefore the heavy tax applies to comparatively few. On the other hand there are thousands of our citizens with incomes between $10,000 and $60,000, and that is where the Finance Minister should apply his income tax and make hay while the sun shines. He can begin at an even earlier stage if he likes. I am quite willing to pay my share of the country's burdens; as long as I help to get Canada out of debt that is all I care about at the present time.
Let me say a word or two about the luxury tax. That tax was repealed some time ago, and why? Because from the very first it Was made obnoxious; it was

The Budget-Mr. Manion
obnoxious to the women folk and it was obnoxious to the men folk. When you went into a store and bought certain commodities which were considered luxuries, the shopman told you the price and to it he added the luxury tax. That was a thing that stared people in the face all the time and caused a great deal of bother. Politics intervened, I understand, and the thing was removed. Now, Sir, the people who buy luxuries ought to be taxed. If they are able to buy a $300 fur coat, or similar costly garments, I say they have a right to be taxed. There is no reason why the luxury tax should not be collected in the same way as the sales tax. In the case of the latter we do not know what we are paying. We go into a shop to buy a certain commodity and they tell us the price. We have a sort of unconscious feeling at the back of our heads that we are paying a tax, but we do not know how much. It should be the same with the luxury tax; it can be reimposed, I believe, with a great deal of profit.
In conclusion, let me say this: I understand that last year the revenue on imports from Great Britain realized $18,741,531, the value of those imports being $117,134,570. From the United States we imported goods to the value of $516,105,107 upon which duty to the amount of $72,254,714 was paid. Now there, I think, was a splendid opportunity for the minister to have put into effect his ideas with respect to freer trade. When I look at the average ad valorem duty going with the preferential tariff, I find it is 16.2 per cent from Great Britain and other places. When it comes in the general tariff from .United States it is 14 per cent. I think it would have been a master stroke of business if the minister had so reduced all these tariffs that it would have brought it down to an average all round of 10 per cent on the general and preferential tariff. As far as our reckoning goes, it would have decreased our revenue to a certain extent, but that could have been easily overcome by the increased revenue on cigars, luxury taxes, a more specific graduated tax on cars, and the income tax. There is no reason why we could not reduce these, because, I think, I have amply shown that, as far as our people are Concerned, the reduction in the taxation would have increased the consumption and given them the opportunity to buy, whereas, on the other hand, the people who delight in luxuries, and have the money to smoke expensive cigars and enjoy other things
144J
would have still retained that privilege, and they would have more than made up for the reduction of revenue by the decrease of tariff. I hope that before the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) removes the mantle from his shoulder, he will see the great ideal of his life consummated, reciprocity with United States, a 50 per cent reduction with Great Britain, and freer trade all round, with its accumulated prosperity and peace to this Dominion.


Hon. R. J. MANION (Fort William and Rainy River) :: Mr. Speaker, I can very
sincerely join in the congratulations to my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, (Mr. Fielding) on the fact that he has had the good health and strength to deliver, I think, his sixteenth budget in this House. I am sure that, irrespective of party affiliation, everybody will welcome the fact that he has yet health and strength and wish him a continuation of it. At the same time, I regret that I cannot congratulate him quite so sincerely upon his budget as upon his health.
I should like to deal with the statements which he made regarding the loan made by the present Government. He spoke of it as as a one-hundred-million-dollar loan made recently in New York and compared it with some of the loans made by the former government. I have nothing to say against the fact that recently, in New York city, the Minister of Finance succeeded in selling bonds to the value of one hundred million at 5 per cent, and that the bond issue was taken up in a few hours. That is all to the good, but I notice in the press that the same day on which my hon. friend succeeded in selling that loan, New Zealand, a country of a population of about one-seventh or one-eighth of the population of Canada, and with a debt three or four times as much per capita, floated a $25,000,000, 5 per cent loan, in London, and it was taken up in a few hours. I have no criticism to offer, except that I believe both loans were floated by reason of the fact that the money market has eased down throughout the world.
I do not wish to take up time discussing the Liberal or Progressive platforms and pointing out the discrepancies between them and the present budget. It is sufficient to say, as everybody in the House knows, that in no shape, manner, or form does the present budget carry out either the Liberal or the Progressive platform.
There is one question with which I wish to deal for a moment, and I deal with it


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River) :: If the statement has been made in this House that $500,000 is the amount of relief received under the customs tariff, why does my hon. friend raise it to $1,000,000?


Robert James Manion: I like the Government opposite, and I wish to give them the benefit of the doubt. Let us take it at $1,000,000, so that I cannot be criticised for underestimating the amount. As my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) beside me suggests, that takes in everything. But, supposing that relief amounting to $1,000,000 has been given to the farmers of this country, an amount of $35,000,000 has been added in taxation. Supposing the population of the prairie provinces amounts, as it does, to about 2,000,000, that is about one-quarter of the people of this country. Thus the Minister of Finance has added to the expenses of the people of the prairie provinces something like eight, or nine or ten million dollars for the million dollars which he has taken off the shoulders of the people of the country in general. Therefor, if there is anything in this budget that the farmers have any reason to cheer about, I for one, fail to see it.
In this budget there is no sign except one of free trade. There is, by virtue of the exchange situation, free trade with Germany. I am not a flag waver; I am not a German hater; and I am not one of those who believe in stirring up hatreds amongst nations; but at the same time, if I have any favours to give, I prefer to
give them to my friends. On an occasion like this, I would prefer to favour the people who fought with us, the British, Americans, French, Italians, or some other nations which fought with us.
Just to show conditions that exist in Germany at the present time, let me read three brief extracts from literature which I have read recently, and such instances can be multiplied indefinitely. Mr. J. M. Keynes, a short time ago, wrote a book called "A Revision of the Treaty", and in that book he pointed out that up to the end of 1920, Germany was supposed to send coal to the Allies at the rate of about two million tons per month, and upon this the Allies were to pay a small amount towards the cost of production, this amount to be in proportion to the cost of coal production in England and France. But, due to exchange, this small amount not only paid Germany for the production of the coal, but gave her a good profit upon it. That illustrates the condition of exchange at the present time in Germany.


Mr. FORKE:: Is Mr. J. M. Keynes not, at the present time, the foremost advocate of trading with the German people?


Robert James Manion: That has nothing whatever to do with my argument. I am not discussing him; 1 am giving this quotation from his remarks as a quotation on the exchange situation between Germany and other countries. I do not care what he advocates. He might be the Angel Gabriel or the reverse; that would not matter at all as regards my argument. In an article in the English Review for October, 1921, Mr. J. Austin Harrison, an Englishman who is not advocating trade with Germany, says:
Germany is doing a brisk trade, is industrially prosperous, has few unemployed and has a growing export which, to the consternation of the Allies, threatens to grow more real and valuable as the depreciation in the value of Germany's currency increases. This will still further close British markets, increase unemployment, because Britain is forced to buy food at a great loss to herself and cannot compete in Europe with countries [whose currency is depreciated.
The final quotation that I will give is from the Literary Digest for November 26, 1921, just six months ago. It says:
Returning travellers report Germany humming with industry, her workers well paid and well clothed and fed, with taxes the lowest in Europe and a promising export trade stimulated by her cheap money which permits her to under-bid England, France and America on foreign orders. Thus the cheap mark helps Germany and hits everyone else.
The Budget-Mr. Manion

That shows the condition of trade in Germany. It shows that Germany requires no favours; and yet, by virtue of the fact that the Minister of Finance has removed restrictions which have existed and which he says are not perfect-I admit probably they are not-he has, on account of the low value of the mark, virtually given free trade to Germany. The restrictions that existed on the foreign exchange did not apply to the French franc or to the British pound, because they had never decreased to a value of 50 per cent. I know the Minister of Finance had a difficult task to perform in making his budget ; but at any rate, to my mind, he should not have 4 p.m. removed those restrictions without in some manner attempting to put the Canadian producer on a par with the German producer. The Americans live in a country which is one of the richest and one of the most highly developed industrial countries jn the world; but they have found it necessary-or at all events they have performed the act-to put restrictions upon German trade. I have a synopsis of some acts which were brought in recently, one in March, 1922, only two months ago, with that purpose in view. This is a synopsis of what they have done in that regard:
If the President, upon investigation of the differences in conditions of competition in trade in the markets of the United States of articles wholly or in part the growth or product of the United States, and of like or similar articles wholly or in part the growth or product of competing foreign countries, shall find it thereby shown that an industry in the United States is being or is likely to be materially injured by reason of the importation into the United States of foreign merchandise, that in such cases and upon the proclamation by the President becoming effective, the advalorum duty, or duty based in whole or in part upon the value of the imported article in the country of exportation, shall thereafter be based upon the American selling price.
Further down in the same act, a regulation is given which permits the President to exclude any merchandise from the United States where extreme unfair competition exists, or he may assess such additional duties as he thinks fit.


Mr. FIELDING:: Will my hon. friend
add that that is not the law of the United States to-day, and that it may never become the law of the United States?


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend may be correct, and I should not like to cross swords with him on that point; but I am informed that that is the law in the United States at the present time.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend, I am
sure, is mistaken. I think it is part of the legislation which has been proposed, but which has not yet been adopted. That is my recollection.


Robert James Manion: I will accept the statement of the hon. gentleman. I do not know whether that is correct or not; but I have no doubt that he is as sincere in his statement as I am in mine. But supposing that this is proposed legislation, it bears out my argument just the same; it shows that the American people understand the necessity of bringing down legislation such as this.


William Stevens Fielding: That does not deal
with the question of depreciated currency, but with the question of American valuation, which is a different question.


Robert James Manion: That is true, but any
unfair competition on the part of foreign countries can be dealt with under that law. Germany is not mentioned at all; but I understand that Germany is aimed at and this legislation would apply to Germany just as to any other country. Before I go further, I had better say that I do not and would not for one moment think of implying that my hon. friend was any more pro-German than I am. Such a thought never entered my he^d, and I do not wish any misunderstanding in that regard. My hon. friend is as good a patriotic Canadian as I am, and, perhaps, better. I am simply saying that I think he made a mistake in permitting such restrictions to be removed. As I said before, if we have favours to give, we should not give them to the men who fought us recently in the war, to the men who invaded France and who took advantage of France as the Germans did; we should give them to our own friends. What is the use of barring out by our immigration law as it does, mechanics and artisans of other countries, if W3 permit their goods to enter Canada without any restrictions and to compete with goods of Canadian artisans?
I know some of my friends to my left will say that these are cheap goods, and that to remove restrictions is in accordance with their ideas. "We want cheap goods " will be the cry of a great many people. Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not agree that cheapness alone should be the absolute desire of any nation. I consider that it is much more important to have our people employed in earning good wages

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The Budget-Mr. Manion
than it is to merely ensure them cheap goods. For example, supposing to-day you could buy a suit of clothes or a pair of boots for a shilling, those cheap clothes and boots would be of no use to the army of returned men who are marching to Ottawa, and who were mentioned in the question which my hon. friend from North Toronto (Mr. Church) put to the Government this afternoon. Cheapness is not what those men want; they want employment. And if men are employed in making dear goods, it is better for them than that they should be idle although goods are cheap. That is my attitude upon the question. The real test of a country's social and economic standing is the average wages earned by its working people, not the cheapness of its goods. One can go to China, or India, or southern Italy, and get cheap goods, but I do not think we want reproduced in this country the conditions that obtain in those countries.
It is true that this tariff may be made to suit the names that have been given to it at various times. I notice that the last speaker (Mr. Lewis) used one of the names which were applied to the tariff in the last election. For example, my hon. friend the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) used various expressions throughout the country, his favorite expression being " a tariff for revenue "-repeated to-day by my hon. friend from Swift Current. But what is a tariff for revenue, anyhow? My hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Crerar) has on a number of occasions this session spoken of a tariff for revenue. I asked him once or twice to explain what he meant, but so far he has not given an explanation which I think is correct. A tariff for revenue is a tariff such as England has, or had, under free trade. Under a tariff for revenue you may have, first a tariff on luxuries-you may have that under any system. Secondly, you have a tariff upon non-competing articles, that is, upon articles which are not manufactured or produced in the country, and therefore not competing with those imported. Thirdly, you may have a tariff upon goods which are produced in the country, but you must then have a corresponding or equivalent excise tax to take away the protectionist feature. That is a tariff for revenue; in other words, a tariff under free trade system, a non-protective tariff. But that is not the way my hon. friend the Prime Minister used the term throughout the
country during the election. He spoke of a tariff for revenue-to attract votes 1 presume-implying thereby that he was in favour of bringing in something different in the way of a tariff. As one of my friends beside me remarks, although the Prime Minister spoke in that way, he was not in favour of anything of the sort.


Mr. CARROLL:: Will my hon. friend permit me a question? Does that quite exhaust my hon. friend's knowledge of a tariff for revenue purposes?


Robert James Manion: It may exhaust my hon. friend's knowledge, but I do not think it exhausts mine. I do not quite know what my hon. friend is aiming at. Perhaps he will enlighten the House with some of his brilliant knowledge when he takes part in this debate.
The Prime Minister also used to speak of " a tariff for producers and consumers"; that was another of his favorite phrases during the campaign. I think he is the only member of the Government who used that phrase. I know the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) never used that or similar phrases, even though he does laugh in his sleeve at the present time at the idea of a tariff for producers and consumers. Every one knows that producer^ and consumers are the same people. We are all producers and consumers in this country, with the exception of those unfortunates confined in our asylums and gaols. Perhaps they, and children, do not come within the description, but outside of them every man and woman in this country is a producer and a consumer. Therefore, I say that this budget may have been made with the thought of trying to suit it to some of those titles, but it is certainly not a free trade budget, and it is certainly not made with any thought of its appealing to the farmers-or rather the thought is there, but the budget contains nothing that will commend it to them.
In my opinion there is no possibility of our ever becoming a free trade country. I do not believe it is possible to have free trade here. The free trade cry, it seems to me, is entirely sectional, proceeding from certain interests in the Prairie provinces who are thinking only from their own standpoint-and quite rightly perhaps-believing that it will lower their cost of living, but they are not worrying if free trade injures our industrial sections. The demand for a compulsory wheat board is another sectional cry, for such a board

The Budget-Mr. Manion
would put the grain trade out of business. I am not saying whether a compulsory wheat hoard is good or bad; that matter will come up for discussion later. The demand for a continuation of the Crowsnest Pass agreement is another sectional cry along the same lines, that is, to benefit one section of the people possibly at the expense of the rest. The objection by the province of Quebec to the building of the St. Lawrence canal is also sectional. My hon. friend the Prime Minister mentioned yesterday that the Government are not going to take up this question with the American government at the present time. In fact, I take it that every piece of legislation will naturally appeal more to one section of the country than to another; but some of these measures-and free trade to my mind is one of them-appeal only to one section and would be ruinous to all other sections of this country. There is this to be pointed out, that it does not matter much what the Government does apparently m response to the demands of my hon. friends from the West, if we may judge with how little they are satisfied on the tariff question. In view of this satisfaction I presume there -is no necessity for the Government to worry what their views are on the Wheat Board and the Crowsnest Pass agreement.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: My hon. friend has referred several times to the cheers with which the members in this corner have received the budget and their satisfaction with it. He has even ventured to prognosticate how we of the Progressive party intend to vote. I wonder just how much knowledge he has of our intentions, and where he got his knowledge?


Robert James Manion: The only knowledge I could have, Mr. Speaker, is derived from the speeches that have been made by hon. members of the Progressive party. I did not say anything about their cheering the budget; my hon. friend is putting those words in my mouth. What I implied was that from the speeches which had been made by hon. members of the Progressive party no one could draw the conclusion that any of them have any intention of voting against the Government on this budget. That is what I said.


An Hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend opposite says "hear, hear." I suppose that is a sort of prelude to his hopes that the Progressives are going to vote that way. To my
mind a country cannot be governed sectionally; it must be governed in the interests of the greatest good to the greatest number. Let me point out to my hon. friends from the West what perhaps many of them already know, but at any rate it may be of interest to refresh their memory. The cotton growers of the southern states were, as my hon. friends know, among those who demanded a free trade policy in the United States in 1880. At that time they were growing 3,000,000,000 pounds of cotton and were very insistent in their demand. But to-day they are not so insistent, because, although they are producing twice as much cotton as in 1880, with that greater production must be coupled this important fact, that their home market is using more cotton to-day than was produced in 1880, and there is being exported nearly as much as was then produced. In other words, I am pointing out that the building up of a home market is the important policy in any country. All my hon. friends from the Prairie provinces know that in dealing with foreign countries for your grain and other productions you are dealing more or less with an unknown quantity as compared with the home market, such as it is; and the home market, while not being satisfactory, of course, to hon. gentlemen who grow wheat, because there is too much of that commodity for the home market to absorb, yet furnishes to tens of thousands of our farmers to-day a very satisfactory outlet for those products which they are able to sell in the industrial centres in their immediate neighbourhood. Therefore I consider the policy of the United States whereby the cotton growers of the south have to-day a greater market in their own country for their cotton than their whole production in 1880, is the policy which we should follow so as to create the same conditions. We should develop as far as we are able on broad national lines, and so provide a market for a greater proportion of the products of my hon. friends from the Prairie provinces. In the United States to-day 90 per cent of its wheat crop is sold in the home market.
Now, Mr. Speaker, another point in connection with the tariff proposals of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance is the fact that he has reduced the duties on a number of articles to the extent of 2i per cent-reduced the customs revenue, we will say, to the extent of $1,000,000-and he has increased the taxation by 30 or 35 times that amount, roughly speaking, in the sales tax, to make up for it. That

The Budget-Mr. Manion
is always the result of cutting down the tariff; if you reduce your revenue in one way in a country such as this, you have to raise it in some other way. I submit to my hon. friends who represent the farmers of this country that if you take away the tariff the farmers will pay in other taxes a greater proportion of the revenue than they are paying under the present tariff system.


Mr. SPENCER:: Is it not a fact that the hon. member voted for reciprocity in 1911?


Robert James Manion: Well, if it will please my hon. friend-yes, I voted for reciprocity in 1911. I do not see, however, what bearing that has on the present discussion. Reciprocity was not free trade.


Henry Elvins Spencer: May I ask my hon.
friend if he would vote for it now?


Robert James Manion: I do not expect I will have a chance to vote for it; the United States has attended to that. But let me tell my hon. friend this: I voted for reciprocity in 1911, and I have no apologies to make for doing so. Sometimes people change their minds; the man who in ten years never changes his mind on any subject has not any mind to change, in my opinion. The United States is raising its tariff against this country, on practically all articles and commodities, and she is not going to give the Minister of Finance or any other minister of finance in this country an opportunity to negotiate along reciprocal lines for some time to come. However, I will come to that again in a moment.


Mr. McMASTER:: Before the hon. gentleman passes from that phase of the subject, does he consider that the reduction of 21 per cent is likely to reduce the revenue from the classes of goods coming in under the lower rate?


Robert James Manion: I only take the suggestion made by the Minister of Finance that it probably will. The minister said it would probably reduce them by a million dollars.


William Stevens Fielding: No; my hon. friend is mistaken in that. My own impression is there will be very little if any reduction. It is even possible there will be an increase.


Robert James Manion: I admit all things are possible, but it seems to me that this change will be likely to bring about a reduction.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Oh, no.


Robert James Manion: I am sorry I misunderstood the minister; I thought he stated definitely that the result would be a loss of revenue. I remember his mentioning $1,000,000 in some way, and I thought he said that the taking off of the 2i per cent would reduce the revenue to that extent. My right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) suggests that if the revenue is to be obtained just the same, the minister might well have removed more of the duties and thus pleased to a much greater extent the hon. gentlemen to my left.
I was pointing out, Mr. Speaker, that you cannot take away revenue with one hand without raising new revenue with the other-that is, if we are to pay our debt; and unfortunately in this country to-day we have debts that are very large. The interest on the national debt is a very large item. The pensions bill, soldier settlement, soldiers' re-establishment, the general carrying on of the business of the country-these are all very large items, and we must raise sufficient revenue to cover them. If you take off the revenue which you are receiving by way of customs duties, then you must raise the necessary moneys in some other way. The minister has indicated that he finds it necessary to raise more revenue. I notice from the very mild complaints of my hon. friends to my left that they are not altogether pleased with the sales tax which, they think, is going to bear more or less heavily on them. The hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston), who spoke yesterday, stated that our increased national debt was one of the reasons why taxes are high in this country and that . this increase is our fault. Well, he might just as well have blamed us for beginning the war; to my mind, that would have been just as reasonable.
Even free trade England raises large amounts of money in the form of tariff revenue. I made it my business to look up the figures, and I found that in the fiscal year 1919-20-these were the latest I could obtain

free trade England raised by customs tariff $750,000,000, and, by excise, $675,000,000; these were the estimated figures. If you take that $750,000,000 and divide it by the population of England you get about $20 a head. If you take the amount raised by way of customs taxation in this country, I doubt if it would amount to as much as that. But free trade England raises her revenue on goods which the masses of the people use-sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, tobacco. I submit that the

The Budget-Mr. Manion
taxation of these commodities hits the ordinary masses of the people much harder than the present system which we follow in this country. Under a protective system you can raise your taxes upon luxuries to a greater extent, and you can lower your taxes to a greater extent upon the necessaries of life. The taxes in England under free trade-of which she raised the vast amount l have mentioned-are largely direct taxes upon the necessities of life.
I have said that, to my mind, free trade is impossible to this country-not impossible to put into effect, but impossible to carry out successfully. I wish to give a few reasons, in brief, why I hold this view. In the first place, there is the matter of revenue, with which I have dealt. We require a large revenue. I know some of my hon. friends say that you cannot have both protection and revenue. But you can have it and you are having it in this country; you have had it in the United States for many years. In the second place, the industries in this country cannot compete with those in the United States or with those in England, and in the future they will not be able to compete with the industries of Japan, unless you have protection of the working man of this country from the competition resulting from the lower standards of living in Japan and other countries. Even John Stuart Mill, who was a free trader, admitted on a number of occasions that the imposition of protective duties might be the very best way of building up young industries in a country.
Then, there is the standard of living, which I have mentioned. If you have not tariff protection, how are your working men to compete with those countries where the standard of living is very much lower than it is in your own? If you have free trade those working men must compete with working men in other countries where the standard of living is much lower, and that competition they are unable to meet. There is another argument which I look upon as a very strong one; and it is this: Truth usually prevails. Nearly eighty years ago, in 1846, England adopted free trade. At that time Cobden made the statement, which is very frequently quoted, that all the other countries of the world would have free trade within ten years. Well, neatly eighty years have gone by, and not one of the other countries of the world has adopted a free trade policy. Even England itself is to-day coming back more or less to the protectionist policy. England, even in her
TMr. Manion.]
palmiest days of free trade, imposed certain duties against imports. She had the cattle embargo, of Which we have heard a good deal on the floor of this House-that was the most stringent kind of protection, in fact, it was .prohibition of the importation of cattle. Then she had the ship subsidies, and in 1915 she applied a number of what they call key industry duties, amounting to 33 1-3 per cent on many lines of goods. These duties were designed to protect the English producer from the competition of the foreign producer. If you have free trade in Canada to-day or in any country it is a one-sided bargain which you are carrying out: you are giving free trade to your opponents and allowing them to impose a tariff against your goods.
Finally, there are two other arguments. One is that with regard to bargaining or negotiating power. The Minister of Finance in his speech said that so long as the United States held a high tariff against us, they could not expect any favours from us. In other words, he was using the bargaining or negotiating power which is possible only under a protective system. But under a free trade system you could not use that bargaining or negotiating power, because the other country concerned could laugh at you; their goods would come into your country free, without restriction, and they could do as they pleased with regard to yours. Why, what was the reciprocity agreement, concerning which my hon. friend (Mr. Spencer) asked me a question a few moments ago, based upon? My hon. friends to my left liked the reciprocity agreement; they would jump at it to-day if they had the chance. But that agreement was based upon a bargaining and negotiating power which would not exist under a free trade system. You cannot have any reciprocal agreements under free trade, because you have given away your weapons; you have placed yourself in such a position that the other fellow can do what he likes with regard to your trade.
My last argument-and I do not wish to go into the matter in detail-is this: under a protective system you build up the industrial life of your country and you get a broader national development. No class of young men in this country have profited more by that broader national life, the result of a protective system, than the sons of farmers. If they do not wish to stay on the farms or go into the mines or the lumber camps they can go into industrial life. They have gone into the cities and made good there.

The Budget-Mr. Manion
At the same time, while we have a tariff system, we should endeavour to make our tariff as fair as possible to all classes. We should have a tariff that will 'build up so far as we can the industrial life of the country in all lines of production, but it should be, so far as possible, a tariff fair and square to all classes of the people. Today I admit we have a tariff which perhaps is not fair in many of its aspects. If is more or less of a hodge-podge. I presume that the Finance Minister when he was making the changes in this budget did not look at the scientific side of the tariff, if there is such a side, but rather at the political side, and changed a few items that might look good to the farmers of the West. If we had a proper body to make a thorough investigation of the tariff, an advisory tariff board or commission who would make it their life study, we would get the facts. It should be a non-partisan board, able, efficient, and well paid, who would get the facts upon which a proper tariff could be based. Such a board, of course, would be advisory only, because you cannot remove from a government responsibility for making a tariff. You cannot take the tariff out of politics. It is the duty of the Minister of Finance and the Government, and lastly of members of Parliament to decide what the tariff policy of the country shall be; but at the same time such a board as I have suggested could get the necessary information, on foreign manufacturing costs, for instance, on methods, labour conditions, production, and so forth. You could get information from such a board upon the exchange situation and its bearing upon present conditions, for example; information as to transportation costs both exterior to the country and internal, as well as comparisons of prices at home and abroad. That board could give advice to the Minister of Finance himself, to the Government, and to members of Parliament, better than we can possibly get under present conditions. A board of that kind would give us information based upon facts. What does the ordinary member of Parliament know about the details of the tariff that is in existence in this country to-day? What do I know about them? I admit frankly I know nothing of the details as to whether a certain article should have fifteen, twenty, or thirty per cent protection, and the ordinary member of Parliament will frankly admit his ignorance on that point. I would even go so far as to assert that the Finance
Minister himself, cannot have knowledge of these details. But if you had a proper advisory board to tell you that a certain industry needed 20 per cent protection, giving the reasons for it, you would be able to base your law-making upon actual facts, and not upon theories or imagination. I submit that if an industry requires 20 per cent protection, it should not get 40 per cent. That is what I call a moderate tariff, a tariff sufficient to put our industries on a basis where they can compete fairly with similar industries in other parts of the world. At the same time, there should be something in the shape of a dumping clause. Foreign manufacturers may in certain years over-produce, and in consequence be left with large stocks of goods on their hands, and rather than carry them, they dump them here, if we have no dumping clause, and thus put out of business our manufacturers producing those goods. Then the following year, or a year or two afterwards, when they have put our manufacturers out of business, they raise the price to suit themselves. That is why a dumping clause is necessary. In speaking of the tariff board, I wish to make it plain that I am speaking for myself. It is an opinion I have had for many years, but which I do not think I have ever stated before in this House. It is my personal opinion that we should have an advisory tariff board to make, as far as possible, a scientific tariff. A scientific tariff is really an impossibility, but you can make a tariff sensible in all its details, and I doubt if we have ever had such in this country.
There are two items to which I would draw the attention of the Minister of Finance before I close. I do not suppose he will pay any attention to my advice, but at any rate I am going to offer it with the best intentions in the world. The cheque taxes which this budget imposes, I think are unfair for larger cheques. I believe the tax should be graduated, not because I write many large cheques myself, but because there are in this country large corporations which pay their wages by cheque at the end of the month. The day afteT this budget was brought down I was in a bank in Ottawa and I was informed by the accountant that he has a number of cheques of $25,000 and $30,000 to pay every month when wages are being paid. I think that the stamp taxes should be graduated for the larger cheques, and I hope that when the resolutions are considered in committee the Minister of Finance will take that into consideration.
The Budget-Mr. Lovett

There is a tax which I think might be imposed to replace the loss. We are sometimes accused of not offering anything constructive. I am going to suggest the imposition of a tax which I think the Minister of Finance has forgotten to include in his budget, and which could make up for what might be lost on the cheque taxes, and that is a receipt tax. Anyone who has travelled in Europe knows that you cannot pay an hotel bill and get a receipt unless it is stamped. The man who receives the money is the man who should pay the tax, and that is the man who does pay it in the case of a receipt tax, but in the case of the cheque taxes, the man who pays the money pays the fax also. Most of us when we receive an amount of money that is owing to us would be quite willing, I think, to put a stamp on the receipt. I think it would be a very good tax and would bring in a fairly large amount of money. It is in vogue in practically every country in Europe, and was before the war.
In closing, I just wish to say I shall have no hesitation in supporting the amendment of the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). The amendment is not an amendment demanding free trade. It is not an amendment that hon. gentlemen opposite shall carry out their pledges, but it is an amendment condemning the practice which has been followed too much in this country in the past, and certainly followed by hon. gentlemen opposite during the last election, of making promises that they had no intention of ever carrying out That is the amendment, and so far as I am concerned, in the interest of honesty in public life, I have no hesitation in supporting it.


Mr. L. J. LOVETT (Digby-Annapolis) :: Mr. Speaker, I am going to trespass on the good nature of hon. members for a very brief time in the few remarks I propose to make. I am a new member of this House, and as such, have felt I had much to learn of the proper method of conducting parliamentary business. I must say I have been bitterly disappointed at the way in which up to the present much of the time of this House has been wasted, costing the taxpayers of this country thousands and thousands of dollars. Wasted by the Government? No, but by the many members who have taken hours to express opinions which, presented in concrete form, would have taken only minutes, and been far more forceful in effect.
[Mr. Marion.J
Are we, a collection of business men entrusted with the serious business of this country, to waste the time of this House in useless discussion merely for the sake of some little personal advantage or of venting some sectional grievance? Is it not our duty to devote our time and energy to assist in passing such legislation as is in the best interests of the country as a whole, in the shortest possible time consistent with its importance?
. Yet, Mr. Speaker, while holding this opinion I would feel I was not performing my duty if I did not at some time during this session, place before this House some of the needs and aspirations of the people I have the honour to serve. I am well aware, Sir, that the House has had the opportunity of hearing members from the eastern part of my province who have outlined the views of the people regarding the Intercolonial railway and the restoration of its management to the Maritime provinces. Let me say right here I am heartily in accord with much that has been said by the hon. gentlemen in this respect, but they have largely, if not entirely, urged the claims of the eastern part of the province. So I am determined hon. members of this House shall not get the impression that the important counties of the province of Nova Scotia are all east of the county of Hants, and that we in western Nova Scotia are merely the tail end, as it were, without any special rights and privileges of our own. Let me say to hon. members that no finer part of this Dominion exists than that section of the beautiful and fertile Annapolis valley which lies in my own constituency, which constituency also embraces a part of Digby county famed for its fishing, lumbering and beautiful tourist resorts,-a combination I believe, Sir, unrivalled in importance, because of its diversity of interests, either by the agricultural districts of the west, or the mining and manufacturing sections of the eastern and central provinces.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in what I am going to say I do not want to be misconstrued or regarded as disloyal, but no one who considers the prosperity of Nova Scotia before Confederation, and her present standing, can dispute my statement, that this province has not benefited commercially from her union with the other provinces. For instance, to give you some intelligent idea of just how slowly Nova Scotia has made progress, the census figures show us that during the last 50 years her population

The Budget-Mr. Lovett
has only increased by 136,000 in round numbers. Surely with Nova Scotia's great natural resources there must be something radically wrong, and I am asking this Government to devise a policy that will remove trade barriers, open wider and more profitable markets, lessen freight rates, and remove all those forces which are at present throttling and strangling our industrial life and by so doing restore to her the same prosperity that characterized her before Confederation. It is a fact, an unpleasant fact, that Nova Scotia has not expanded commercially nor has her population increased in the proportion that her great natural resources would warrant. There must be, and there is, some reason for this lack of progress. We men of the Maritime provinces believe that one of the chief forces which has a strangle hold on our commercial expansion is the exorbitant freight rates that prevent shippers and producers placing their products on the markets of Canada, and elsewhere, at a reasonable profit. There can be no incentive to production if the producer cannot sell, and sell at a reasonable profit. The natural market for Nova Scotia products as far as lumbering, fishing and agriculture are concerned, is undoubtedly the United States, and to our sorrow we know that market was closed to us by the defeat of reciprocity in 1911. I do not believe, Sir, that any province of this Dominion suffered so severely from the defeat of reciprocity as did the province of Nova Scotia. Again, I do not believe that this province has had the advantages of a proper immigration policy; and I would say to the present Government that we are looking to it to give greater publicity to our natural advantages, and greater inducements to prospective settlers in this extreme eastern part of the Dominion. There is no reason why Nova Scotia, with her mines, forests, fisheries, and agricultural, fruit producing and grazing lands, should not attract and support five times, yes ten times her present population. Remove trade barriers, open wider and more profitable markets, lower freight rates, grant inducements to settlers, give publicity to her natural resources, and I do not hesitate to state that Nova Scotia would become one of the most prosperous provinces in the whole of this Dominion.
Mr. Speaker, I am not, however, one who is sectional in his views, nor do I claim concessions for my province that would be detrimental to any of the provinces of this Dominion. For, Sir, I believe if we are to have a prosperous Canada it can only come about by a policy of fair play and justice to each and every province, and not by special advantages to any one of them. I am broad enough in my views when making a plea for my own province to likewise make a plea for Canada as a whole, for it is only by the prosperity of every province that we can ever hope to place this great Dominion of ours in the forefront of the great nations of the world. I believe we have in this country of ours-rich beyond measure in her vast natural resources, with a people frugal and industrious-the opportunity, if sanely and wisely governed, to make her one of the greatest countries in the world. Therefore we must in this parliament sink our sectionalism and unite on the broad principle of using every effort to promote the welfare of our country, so near and dear to the heart of every true and loyal Canadian.
We have listened to our Progressive friends, one after another, place before this House the deplorable conditions prevalent in western Canada, and asking that relief of some kind be given to tide the people over their period of depression. We should, and do, deplore the condition that exists, and should be glad to join with them in measures that would alleviate present conditions and place the farmers of the West on a prosperous basis, providing they do not ask for those things which would be detrimental to the other provinces of the Dominion. One can quite understand that in a country such as Canada, with its many complex problems and the many different interests that are demanding recognition, it is rather difficult for any government to satisfy the people as a whole. So I say, let us be reasonable in our demands; let us foster a spirit of give and take; let us put Canada as a whole above sectional interests. When we reach this broad viewpoint-and the sooner it is reached the better-we will justify our existence here as a parliament, elected by the people of Canada-a parliament trying to do things from a national and not a selfish standpoint. The solid delegation sent from Nova Scotia to support the present Government is evidence that the people of this province have faith that the Liberal party policy is best fitted to stimulate our commercial life, and right the wrongs she has been suffering through the policy of the late administration. Like Quebec and Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia has
The Budget-Mr. Lovett

given a strong rebuke to the arrogant and extravagant administration that has cursed Canada for the last ten years. The people of eastern Canada thoroughly understand who is responsible for the crushing load of debt under which our Dominion is staggering to-day, and has been one of the strongest factors in establishing a government whose object we believe is to restore some sort of order out of the present financial chaos, mitigate the crushing load of taxation, and again place Canada on a sound economical basis. Nova Scotia has done more than this. We are unique in the gift we have contributed to this Parliament, for is not the present Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. S. Fielding, a Nova Scotian? -the man to whom all Canada is looking to extricate us by his ability and integrity from our present financial difficulties; and that we have not looked in vain is evidenced by the remarkable budget which was presented to this House a few days ago-a budget the provisions of which, I believe, will be recognized by the people of Canada as the nearest approach possible under our present financial situation to lessen burdensome taxation. Now, here is our opportunity to show to the people of Canada that, as their representatives, we will give our support to the efforts the Minister of Finance has made, to raise the necessary funds to meet our gigantic obligations by a tariff that will bear as lightly as possible on the bread winners of this country commensurate with raising the necessary revenue. Taxes there must be, we all acknowledge it, with the incubus of debt placed upon us by our extravagant predecessors.
We have been accused by the hon. members of the official Opposition of broken promises in the proposed budget taxation. I maintain we have not broken faith with the Canadian electors. There has been an honest effort on the part of this Government to lessen expenditure shown in the reduced estimates of the different departments. If the tariff reductions are not as far reaching as some had hoped, our hon. Minister of Finance has given a lucid explanation of the reason for this, and it ill becomes those whose mismanagement and extravagances heaped up financial obligations and left this Government to pay the piper, to criticise, accuse and object to every honest effort made to mitigate our present financial difficulties. I would ask the hon. members of the official Opposition if they do not think the attitude they have assumed of great anxiety for

economy, and anything that would look like not carrying out election platform pledges, must make them seem the wolf in sheep's clothing to the Canadian people whom they, for so many years, misgoverned and who plainly showed them at the polls what they thought of their brand of government. I would say to these hon. members that the people of Canada take their remonstrances and fervid protestations for economy as a huge joke, and have no faith in their sincerity. It is said comparisons are odious, but Mr. Speaker, there is a handsome little animal well known in all parts of Canada good to look at and innocent in appearance, and do you think those who have once suffered from its hidden and obnoxious all prevailing odour would readily turn to it again because of its innocent look and actions? No. They would know they were liable to get the same dose repeated. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada have not had time to forget what they suffered under Tory rule, and could the hon. members directly opposite by hook or crook force the amendment moved by the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) through this House and face the country again at an early election, there would not be enough fragments left to call itself a party. Let them beware and try to regain some measure of confidence from the people of this country by giving support to those who are honestly trying to govern Canada well, and who have back of them a record for honest administration.
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I wish to reiterate my belief that if this Government is given a fair and reasonable time it will again restore to Canada the same commercial prosperity and national harmony that characterized her during the golden era between 1896 and 1911.


Mr. J. D. DRUMMOND (West Middlesex) :: I do not know that I would have anything to say in this debate, if it were not to endeavour to bring before the House one thing in connection with the budget which more especially affects some of the people in my constituency. Before proceeding with that question pertmit me to say a few words about one or two other matters that have been brought to the attention of the House. Some hon. members to my right seem to be very much concerned about how the Progressives are going to vote. If it is any satisfaction for them to know, I am quite willing to tell them that I am not any too anxious to vote for either the

The Budget-Mr. Drummond
(budget or the amendment, but, if they will content thetmselves, their curiosity will be gratified when the time comes, and they will find out how the Progressives will vote.	,
I wish to refer for a moment or two to some statements made yesterday by the hon. member from King's (P.E.I.) (Mr. Hughes) in regard to our national debt. The Finance Minister in his budget speech does not give us very much encouragement as to what is going to happen in the near future in connection with paying any part of our national debt. He says we must soon begin to consider the question of reduction of our public debt, rather than the increase of it. According to the last report that I have been able to obtain from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, the national wealth of the Dominion of Canada is estimated at $19,002,778,000. The national debt of the country is about two billion and a half. That is the federal debt; if we take into consideration the provincial, the municipal and the private debts in the Dominion of Canada in addition, I think I am safe in saying that the total debt of the Dominioin of Canada will reach four and a half or five billion dollars, or, in other words, the total debt of the Dominion of Canada will reach about one quarter of our national wealth. I ask hon. members of this House if they consider that is a good position financially for the Dominion of Canada to be in, or, without even looking to the near future, if the time has not already arrived when we should provide some means to retire, at least a portion of our national debt. There re those of us who have been identified with municipal work for many years, and we have found it impossible for a municipality to increase its debenture debt over and above a certain amount, unless by consent of some higher authority than its own. If a municipality increases its debenture debt past a certain amount, restrictions are put upon it by the province or some other authority, which restrictions will immediately bring it to time. If it is right that a municipality should have to make provision for retiring its debenture debt, either by a sinking fund or by making provision in those debentures that, at the end of a certain number of years, the debentures should be retired with an added amount of interest and principal, is it not equally true that in the Dominion some means should be taken, before the time
comes when we are upon the verge of financial disaster, to provide for the payment of at least a part of our national debt?
I wish to approve the words that were spoken by the hon. member for King's, P.E.I., (Mr. Hughes) and to go considerably further. I wish to ask hon. members if they consider that we are carrying out the provisions of the heritage that has been given to us by our pioneer fathers, when we are drifting continually year after year into eighty or ninety million dollars more of debt. I am well aware that, according to the manner in which the finances of the Dominion of Canada are-I was going to say, juggled, if, Sir, you will permit the word without calling me to order-an apparent surplus is shown in some way of $73,000,000, in one year, and in other years of a somewhat larger amount. I feel that I cannot for one moment take that into consideration when the ultimate end of the year's work is an addition to our nation's debt of eighty or ninety million dollars. That is the only standpoint from which it is proper to judge, if it is right to judge at all.
The main reason which prompted me to rise to my feet is that I might protest against the excise duty that has been placed upon the beet sugar factories. It has been inferred by the Minister of Finance that that excise tax of 49 cents per 100 pounds will be met by the sugar factories. I do not at the present time recollect a single instance in which a tax has been placed against any industrial incorporation where that industrial corporation has not by some means transferred that tax to the producer or the consumer. We are told that this tax of one per cent that is imposed upon bank circulation will be met entirely by the banks. I mistake very much the influence or the intelligence of those who comprise the bankers' association, if they do not find some means of transferring this tax to the people with whom they are doing business. If it be possible for the Minister of Finance or for this Government to prevent that from being done, I should certainly be very glad. But as regards this tax of 49 cents per 100 pounds that has been placed upon the sugar refineries, there is no question that that tax will revert to the beet grower. I am not a sugar beet grower myself, so that I have no individual interest to speak about; but m the southern part of the riding which I represent, there is a considerable number of sugar beet growers. I should like to

The Budget-Mr. Fortier
ask why an excise tax is imposed in such a manner that it places a burden upon sugar beet growers, and not upon any other agricultural production. Is this only a start towards imposing an ex-
5 p.m. cise tax upon the whole of agricultural production; or are the sugar beet growers especially marked out for this particular tax? I think if the Minister of Finance would consider that the application of this excise tax is a direct blow at the sugar beet growers, he would reconsider this tax; or if it is going to be continued, then I think we have every reason to ask that every other line of agricultural industry and every other line of industry in general shall also be subjected to an excise tax. I believe this country would be better off to-day with an excise tax than with a protective tariff. I go further than that; I believe that if upon every commodity that could be taxed, a reasonable excise tax were placed, it would be a very few years before the whole of our national debt would be paid. Allow me to say, in conclusion, that I do not consider that any great bouquets are handed out to the farmers by the 2i per cent reduction in the duty on agricultural implements. Mention has been made that this 21 per cent reduction is going to reduce our revenue. I cannot see that. A reduction in any tariff that affects the protected industries in this country does not reduce the revenue, for the simple reason that that revenue does not go into the coffers of the Dominion. I am not making any special plea for the beet growers; I am not making any special plea for the farmers; I stand before you to-day and I say on my behalf and, I hope, on behalf of the whole of the farmers amongst whom I am sitting, that we are not asking for any special privileges, but that we are asking for the right to stand upon the one broad platform of equality with every industry in the Dominion of Canada.


Mr. H. A. FORTIER (Labelle) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, my first words on
this all important question of the budget will be that of congratulations to the distinguished statesman, who for the sixteenth time has delivered, in this House, the Liberal Government's budget. The whole country applauds the Prime Minister's achievement in having gathered within his cabinet, such eminent colleagues from all the provinces of the Dominion. No epoch can be compared to this present one, if we may except that memorable time of 1896,

when Laurier surrounded himself with so many illustrious statesmen. At that time, the province of Nova Scotia was possessed of one of these eminent men, in the person of its Prime Minister. After fifteen years of judicious and faithful services to his country as Minister of Finance, this distinguished statesman, highly respected by all members in this House, once more returns, notwithstanding his advanced age, to take up his share of work and his post of honour. At a time when the country is greatly in need of its very best brains, he comes forth to place his intellectual powers, his experience and his patriotism - at the disposal of his beloved Canada. In reviewing our present political history, I cannot find a more noble example than that which ;is given to the present and rising generation, by this veteran in political life, by this unrivalled parliamentarian, by this distinguished statesman, the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding).
Mr. Speaker, I approve the Government's policy. In this budget speech, I see the fulfilment, as near as circumstances will permit, of the liberal party's programme; this policy is for the welfare of the country and its beneficient effects are already being felt. I shall just add a word touching the amendment moved by the official opposition. The country is but little interested in the object aimed at by the Conservative party. This attempt to embarrass the Government by taunts for not accomplishing that in which one has no faith or takes objection to, is but to seek party advantage against the country's own interests. In my opinion, it is poor strategy and the Progressive party soon discovered the weak point. Is the Conservative opposition sincere when they reproach the Government for not having sufficiently cut down the tariff?
If so, what has become of their platform, their Vaunted national policy, so called? What has become of their recent political declaration which the country has just heard and which was spurned by the people at the last general elections?
We must acknowledge facts and meet the necessity of the moment. The revenue demands the maintenance of adequate taxation; the lowering of the tariff must be accomplished by degrees and the first step taken as shown by the budget is in the right direction. The increase in taxes is justified by the duty we are under of clearing our national debt. These taxes have

The Budget-Mr. Fortier
become necessary to meet our obligations. War has gobbled everything. Our fate, for generations to come, is to pay war pensions and to shelter under our guardianship the returned soldiers.
WTe, of the Liberal party and especially those who were opposed to certain measures which have dragged the country into expenditures far too great for a young nation, did not wish to overstep the just limits which our obligations called for; however, the majority demanded it, the debt has been incurred, it would be dishonourable to repudiate it: and if we are not permitted to disavow the obligations that Canada has contracted, it is absolutely necessary that the taxes be increased.
There is, Mr. Speaker, one tax in particular that I wish to refer briefly to. It is the income tax. If there is an assessment which may be looked upon as loathsome, it is certainly this one. It is a heavy burden carried by the ratepayer, and what is most depressing is that we cannot entertain any hope of relief in the near future. We have perhaps, within these last years, lost the opportunity of throwing the whole burden on the profiteers who amassed wealth during the war. However, we should endeavour to relieve the workman and the small trader and to make up for such losses by imposing a higher tax on luxuries. It seems to me that the people we should spare, should be the heads of families. I therefore beg of the Government to reduce the tax which the heads of families have to pay. In my opinion, a father having five children should not be called upon to pay income tax until his revenue reaches $5,000, and if he happens to be the father of eight children he should not pay income tax until his revenue reaches $10,000.
Our vast country, abounding in natural resources of all kinds, has not the necessary population for the so much desired development of our commercial, farming and mining industries. What we are in need of, is a greater increase in population. Not being able to obtain the desired increase from oui countrymen, we are forced to seek it in immigration. What can we expect from immigration? The European countries have been desolated by war. France, whose population has been decimated by this awful war is encouraging repopulation by granting a bonus to parents of numerous children. Parents under 30 years of age, having five children, receive from the state a grant of 10,000 francs, and those who have eight children receive 25,000 francs. It is true, we are not in a position to make such gifts owing to our present financial state of affairs. Nevertheless one of the statesmen of my province, who played an important part in the progress of old Quebec, and whose memory the people still cherish-Mercier- had legislation passed, granting 100 acres of land to the father of twelve living children. It is by giving a better interpretation to the benevolent laws of that province and of this country which is dear to us, that we should, it seems to me, consider the possibility of reducing as much as we can the income tax, taking also into consideration the obligations which devolve on the heads of families. The present expenditures are not all an outcome of the war, for the budget has also to reckon with the yearly deficit of the railways acquired by the state. It is a sad legacy inherited by the Government which the people chose in December last. Let us hope that these statesmen will not fail in their duty and that under their able administration, the present sad plight of our railways will be followed by a new era of prosperity. To my judgment, one may discuss the question of nationalization of railways indefinitely and never come to a lasting solution. I shall therefore not undertake to discuss this subject. France itself has administered five industries with more or less success. To-day its economists are still discussing without any satisfactory solution, the expediency of the management of railways by the state. For my part, without leaning one way or the other in the controversy in which those pro and con are thus engaged, I cannot help thinking that the greatest objection to state ownership is that, while a private company has always the profits in view, the state very unfortunately has at its disposal a tax to cover the deficits; however, I rather think that in a new country like ours, colonization is of primary national importance and for the success of which, we must uphold our railway policy. A private company has no interest in investing its capital in uninhabited regions or of investing such capital without being certain of an immediate return. We must not depend on private companies to further our policy of settling this country. History teaches us that privately owned companies have never answered to the needs of colonization. It was the provincial governments that built the railways


The Budget-Mr. Fortier
across the desert prairies or through the virgin forests when the Dominion government failed to do so or did not furnish all the means of accomplishing such a task by its grants in money or land. When the railway had paved the way into those regions and had become a paying proposition, it was eagerly sought by some large private concern that very readily annexed it to its system as a source of profit. I am pleased to see that, owing perhaps to unforeseen circumstances, most of our railways are now managed by the state. Perhaps the time has come for us to press our just demands, so as to forward the settlement of our newly opened districts, as I intend to do for the county of Labelle which I have the honour to represent in this House. Private companies have already built lines up to the borders of the county, but on account of financial difficulties-which are the cause of failure in operating a railway in these new settlements

the work of construction was discontinued. I am pleased to see that the Canadian National Railway is now the property of the state. This railway extends from the metropolis of Canada into the Laurentians, reaches the borders of the county of Labelle, at a place called Huberdean, and I still hope, for the sake of the people of the county, that this railway will penetrate to its very centre. Natural resources abound in that part of Canada. The settlers, not without great sacrifices, have cleared the land and have established parishes which are at a great distance from the railway. They appeal to the present Government to further extend this railway into the county, not only to the benefit of the railway system itself but also in the hope of settling these parts. I insist again on the necessity of extending these lines to the centre of the county of Labelle.
My -last word will be one of well deserved praise to the Government. The present Government is carrying out a good and sound economical policy. The decrease in the expenditure of the state is laudable and necessary during this present period. From the outset of this session we have witnessed a considerable reduction in all the departments of the Government. This may have perhaps shocked some of the heralds of imperialism and militarism, but it has brought joy to the great majority in this country and I may add that it has specially pleased the people in the county of Labelle. However, where this decrease is most in evidence, to the satisfaction of
[Mr. Fortier. 1
everybody, it is in the militia expenditures. I hail with pleasure this new policy which will second the efforts of the country in reducing to its right proportion its standing army.
Let us return to peace pursuits. Let us economize and pay our debts. Such must be the motto of the Liberal party which the people have called upon to administer the affairs of the country, such must be the all designated goal towards which all our statesmen should tend, so as to save us from ruin and lead us on to great and nobler destinies.


Mr. L. J. LADNER (Vancouver South) :: Mr. Speaker, some sixteen years ago I happened to be a student of the University of Toronto, and I remember picking up the evening paper of the 30th November, 1906, and reading the budget speech of the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). All will remember in those days the dominant figures of the Liberal party were their distinguished leader, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and the then and present Minister of Finance. It is interesting to observe in this newspaper, which I hold in my hand, that in that budget speech certain changes not of a substantial nature, but, on the contrary, of comparatively minor importance, were made. In place of the general S&V3 discount on British goods, there was substituted a special discount on each article, with some increases. Duties were slightly reduced, chiefly on agricultural implements, such as reapers, mowers and binders, and also on confectionery, gasoline, oranges, and lemons; duties were increased on hats, canned meats, beans, peas, and other vegetables-and it is wonderful to behold in those days the duties were also increased on horses and cattle.
Before proceeding further, I desire to tender my sincere wishes for the long-continued health and happiness of the Minister of Finance. We younger members look with respect and admiration on his distinguished career. Sixteen years ago his ideas were advantageous to me as a young man studying our fiscal policy, and they are equally advantageous to me to->day when he has become in fact the anchor of his party. Of course, now and again we see the ship of state blown hither and thither by the gentle winds from the West which, zephyr-like, blow upon the nervous brows of many hon. members of the Government. We may find some day that those zephyrs will develop hurricane force, which will again divide this country on those great

The Budget-Mr. Ladner
economic principles of free trade and protection. If I were a prophet, I would suggest that the political thought of Canada to-day is moving in that direction and that the present partnership of the Liberal and Progressive parties is not destined to be permanent, that sooner or later the economic questions which differentiate them will rise up and overthrow all those unimportant considerations which now hold them together. In this newspaper of 1906 it is interesting to note the headlines in respect to the estimates. For instance, we find the following:
Estimates are $105,000,000. Reach stupendous figure.
It is an interesting observation in psychology to see what really is in men's minds in considering the relative importance of the great questions confronting the country. Our friends on the prairies are making a great fuss for the reduction of duties on agricultural implements, but when you come to examine the effect of that reduction upon business and upon the operations of our commercial enterprises, you find that it really comes to practically nothing. In 1906 it was considered that $105,000,000 was a stupendous figure for the estimates; what would the same people think of to-day's estimate, which is really stupendous, reaching a figure of $425,000,000 or more? It shows that the people are capable of doing more than they sometimes believe they can do.


Mr. McKENZIE:: Does the hon. member mean 1896 or 1906?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I mean 1906. It is the Mail and Empire, I must confess, but the date of publication would hardly be wrong, though many other things in it might be.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: If it is the hon. minister's (Mr. Fielding's) first budget speech, it would be in 1896.


Leon Johnson Ladner: No, it is not the minister's first budget speech; it is the speech of 1906. As I hold the paper up the hon. member may see the headlines of the article from where he sits. But the point I am anxious to make in that connection is that the proposals brought forward in these various budget speeches are very different from the promises made in the preceding elections. In 1893 it was free trade just as they had it in England. In 1896 more mature judgment prevailed-I do not doubt but that the soundness of the judgment of the pre'sent Minister of Finance was the cause-and the national policy of Sir John A. Macdonald and the Conservative party was adhered to, as was obviously necessary in the best interests of the country. Then we come again to 1906, and notwithstanding all the preachings with respect to free trade, the straight and narrow path in the best interests of the country was followed; the national policy was continued, with some slight deviations, to which I referred a moment ago. Then, coming to 1919, we find another splurge for free trade-a promise of reduction on nineteen specific articles and a substantial reduction on all others. But in 1922, with the present Minister of Finance at the helm, the good old Conservative policy is adhered to, because the minister knows, and responsible men charged with the administration of the affairs of the country know, that they cannot safely depart from that policy. I venture a prediction that my hon. friends of the Progressive party would not, if they were called upon to form a government, deviate from the policy which the Minister of Finance announced to the House a few days ago. The change from opportunity to criticise freely to responsibility for government brings about also a change of attitude at the last moment with respect to these matters. Now, these doctrines have been enunciated not only in political platforms, but in campaign speeches and literature up to the very moment of the election. I have before me the speech of the hon. Prime Minister delivered in Vancouver, in which he lays down the same Liberal platform, viz, substantial downward revision of the tariff which had been long overdue.
I propose to give to the House a few words uttered by the Minister of Finance at the great Liberal convention in August, 1919. These are golden words, and I hope the Minister of Finance is listening with one ear as I repeat them. I quote from the Globe of August 8, 1919:
Sincerity is a great thing in politics. It should be. Politics is not a mere game and should not be a game; and it is a poor, miserable game when they do things merely to win power.
Now, I say that these are golden words, and they should be inscribed over every entrance to this chamber. I am not suggesting for a moment that the minister himself has deviated from the principle enunciated in these words, but I fear there are forces about him which have swayed

The Budget-Mr. Ladner
the ship of state from [DOT]the course which might otherwise have been followed. I say, Sir, that these words should be treasured in our memory and written in our hearts. But it is not only the Minister of Finance who discusses this doctrine of sincerity and who utters these philosophic words. There were other persons at this convention, some of whom are now members of the Government, while some have been passed on to the Senate. Senator Pardee said to the convention:
If we are to succeed; if Canada is to succeed, it will not be enough to enunciate policies. They must be brought into operation. They must be rightly administered with earnestness, sincerity, efficiency and honesty.
The same theme, Mr. Speaker, was the subject of the remarks of the present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). This is what he says:
Whatever the decisions arrived at here in regard to platform, we should go forth to our respective homes prepared to stand by them to the last ditch.
I might observe, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Agriculture lately got into a ditch himself on the oleomargarine question-and it was a chilly day among Cabinet ministers on that occasion. We have also an editorial from the Toronto Globe. Before passing to that, let me say that these ideals were put forward with a view to convincing the people that the policies formulated would be carried out. They were preached from pulpit and platform; they were embodied in philosophic utterances; they were stated with apparent sincerity and earnestness. It is, therefore, the course of consistency on the part of hon. members on this side to move the amendment which they have proposed in connection with the budget. The Globe newspaper on the 8th of August, 1919, carried the following editorial under the heading " The Promise of Liberalism ".
Liberalism has made a covenant with the people of Canada. The delegates to the national convention have pledged the Liberal party to certain specific reforms should the electorate entrust the government of the Dominion to the Parliamentary representatives of the party under its new leader, the Hon. Mackenzie King, who will doubtless be provided at once with a seat so that he may again take a place in the House after an absence of almost eight years from the political arena.
The article continues:
The pledges concerning tariff reform and the efforts to be made to reduce the cost of living are much more specific than political conven-
\Mr. Ladner.]
ventions usually make. The country will expect that the promises now made shall be implemented if after the next general election a Liberal ministry is formed. There was no truer word spoken at the convention than the statement of Premier Norris of Manitoba that the time has arrived in the history of Canada when the people will make the politicians keep their promises.
Here in this chamber are the people's representatives from the Prairie provinces possessed of those high ideals; and to-day we on this side of the House have moved an amendment. Here is the opportunity of my hon. friends to my left to make these politicians keep their promises. I have stressed that feature considerably because it is pertinent and relevant to the amendment which we are moving, and because I believe that as a young member of this Parliament, I should proclaim my own opposition to a species of election campaign extending from one end of the country to the other in which promises were given that are not fulfilled, and in regard to which no explanations are forthcoming. Instead of the Government making a frank admission that they could not do these things, but had to take some other course, we find evasions and the digging up of long-forgotten speeches, and we are told that after all there were " charts " which will lead the Government forces from the promises they have made. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that these same charts are minus a compass, because they do not enable a straight course to be steered.
There is not a great deal of change in the tariff under the present budget. There is a reduction of from 21 to 5 per cent, but little tendency shown to carry out the policies enunciated at the Liberal convention of 1919. There is no substantial reduction at all, and I am glad that no important changes have been made. For the benefit of my friends to my left and some of our eastern friends sitting opposite, I should like to give the situation in the city of Vancouver. There is a city which has developed very rapidly in the past few years, and its outlook is one of industrial and maritime expansion. We have in the city of Greater Vancouver, 687 factories, employing nearly 19,000 employees, and there are some 60,000 souls dependent on these industries. If the protective tariff were taken away, it would be a death blow to - the development of that city and to British Columbia, because their outlook must be on-e of industrial and commercial development. Nearby we have the great

The Budget-Mr. Ladner
nation of Japan. With its cheap labour and low standards of living, Japan can send its goods to Canada manufactured at one-fifth the labour cost prevailing in this country, and how is it possible for,the industries and the workmen of this country to compete with those goods, or with the goods that are made by cheap German labour? It cannot be done. I say again that once our friends on my left became charged with the responsibilities of office, they themselves would not advocate many of the ideas which they advocate to-day. The hon. member for Swift Current (Mr. Lewis) said that our national policy was based on a fallacy and experience had proven this to be so. I would like to put to him and to others what the real objects of protection are. In my opinion, they are to diminish as far as possible the importation from foreign countries of goods which can be produced at approximately the same cost at home; to facilitate the importation of raw material which cannot be produced at home; to encourage the manufacture of Canadian materials into the finished product, and their exportation; to make Canada self-contained by encouraging and developing within her borders all the legitimate activities that will give occupation to her people; and lastly, to secure revenue.
What have been the results of this policy? When you compare what this country was in 1878, or even at Confederation, with conditions now, you will see the great development that has taken place in this country under the protective policy, under a policy of reasonable protection such as sixty-three of the civilized countries of the world have retained since the war-and many of them have increased their tariff. In the light of their experience we can hardly pursue a different policy. In the year 1867 we had a population of 3,000,000 people; to-day we have a population of 9,000,000. Then we had a railway mileage of 2,280; to-day we have a mileage of about 39,000. In 1867 we had 123 branch banks; to-day we have 4,500. We have now 800,000 farms comprising over 53,000,000 acres of land, according to recent statistics. We had in 1867 3,800,000 head of live stock; in 1921 we had 15,500,000 head. There was invested in manufacturing business in this country in 1867, $78,000,000; to-day there is invested over $3,000,000,000. The public revenue at Confederation was $90,000,000; to-day it is in the neighbourhood of $425,000,000 or $450,000,000. Our exports at the time of Confederation were $52,000,000 worth of goods; our exports
to-day amount to about $1,250,000,000. These are the results of the policy of reasonable protection which as been followed in this country. It is all right to stand up in this Chamber and say: Oh, it is a bad policy; you should not follow a policy of that kind; if we had free trade, we would get cheaper agricultural machinery, and this, that, and the other thing cheaper; but I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the test of a policy is its results, and the results of protection in this country cannot be denied. They may be argued, tout they cannot be denied. The other course has not been followed in this country, but we have the experience of a number of other nations to determine whether or not it would have 'been a wise policy for this country to follow.
In concluding my remarks I would like to point out what I consider to be the two chief weaknesses of this budget. The first is that provision which enables German goods to come to Canada in large quantities with practically no restriction. In my opinion that is an unsound policy. It is unsound because of the cheapness of labour over there, and 'because of their lower standards of living forced upon them by their own iniquities in their outrage on civilization. To-day they are in the position of having committed these iniquities against'civilization, and now we are putting them in a position to ship their goods here. I submit that that principle is unsound. I say that you cannot by logic eliminate sentiment in this country. I maintain that men who will look with real perspective across the Atlantic will not raise their eyes from the thousands of crosses in Flanders fields across over to the Rhine where the Hun holds out his bloody hand. I ibelieve the people of this country do not want us to grasp his hand just because we could make a good deal with him. The people of this country do not want to save the last cent by the complete abnegation of all sentiment and sympathy and regard for the 56,000 men who lie over there, and who gave their lives for other things than trade. It is repugnant to the finer sense of the people of this country, and the Government will find that out before they have followed this policy very long. What will the men in the military hospitals, who are incapacitated for life, think of it? Picture them picking up their newspapers and reading that the Government of Canada have, a little over three years after the war, broken down the barriers against German goods, and that their baskets and toys and their

The Budget-Mr. Ladner
things of that kind that they are making will have to compete with German toys and other goods sent over here. You may say it is all sentiment. Of course it is sentiment. But it was sentiment that brought about a successful issue of the war, and it is sentiment that will keep Canada united and will preserve our Empire. The Government should think carefully before it enters upon this course and should not allow itself to be swayed by the words of the Minister of Finance when he says it is humbugging the world to pretend that we are protecting ourselves against Germany. Those are high sounding words but they do not constitute an argument sufficient to override the policy which was adopted in the past of keeping German goods out; and if you ask the people of this country whether they would admit those goods or keep them out ninety-nine out of every hundred will express themselves in favour of a policy of exclusion.
Another objection I have to the budget is in connection with the sales tax. We have here the introduction of a principle of direct taxation which appeals strongly to our Progressive friends. The indirect taxation which was found in the former protective tariff has been eliminated, but the substitution of direct for indirect taxation will*not only prove unpopular with the mass of working people of this country but will be a positive injury to them. It would have been far better to have secured revenue by the old-time method, than to raise it by a form of taxation which imposes a burden upon many of the people who are less able than others to pay it.
Before concluding, I would like to say that in my opinion the fruit industry of British Columbia and Ontario is going to be seriously affected by eliminating the anti-dumping regulation enforced in the past. The hon. member for Yale (Mr. MacKelvie) went into this question in considerable detail and there is no necessity for me to speak upon it at any length. I would, however, like to say this: The condition of the markets in the United States, the big production there, the early crops they raise-and from which they derive their profits-enable them to dump subsequent crops in competition with our growers. This undoubtedly works against the best interests of the Canadian fruit industry; and practical common sense would convince one of the necessity of having an anti-dumping regulation for the protection of our own fruit growers. The tariff legislation of the United States prol Mr. Ladner. 1
tects the fruit growers there to the fullest extent, but there is no hindrance to their dumping in Canada, and our fruit industry accordingly suffers. To allow the United States growers to pursue such a policy is both unsound and unwise.
To-day I received a letter from a little storekeeper in the suburbs of Vancouver. The writer is a returned man, and he deals in his letter with the sales tax. I shall quote briefly from the communication because the writer expresses the idea in a . far better way than I could myself. He says:
I did not complain at the luxury tax during war time, hut I do now strongly protest at a 5 per cent tax on what is the children's delight, the poor man's meal-a five cent hox of chocolate. Why tax candy and leave jewellery free?
I do not know whether jewellery is left free, but if such is the case I think this man's objection is well founded. There is no reason why confectionery, which is used to a greater extent by the majority of people than articles of luxury, should be taxed while jewellery is left untouched.
I conclude my remarks by reminding our friends on the Government side that we must judge the future by the events of the past. The history of Canada is before us. It rises like an immense column on which we may see inscribed the soundest maxims of political experience. We must take wisdom from the examples of others; we must derive encouragement from their success and learn caution from their misfortunes. We must look back upon the history of the nations that have gone before, we can look back upon the history of our own country, and from the lessons we learn we may be guided for the future in such a way as to avoid pitfalls and make the people of this country a happy, prosperous and contented nation.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. D. F. KELLNER (East Edmonton) :: The Budget-Mr. Kellner
credit side you were to place the sale of every bushel of grain that was grown out there last year and on the debit side you should put down the cost of growing, harvesting, threshing and delivering the grain to the elevator, having no regard to the time the farmer spent in the work and forgetting entirely any money which he might have invested and on which he might expect some dividends, and if you were simply to deduct your cost price from your selling price, I do not believe you would have enough money left to buy one Massey-Harris binder.
If the people throughout the country are in a more or less feverish state of mind and if, during the last year, we have had labour troubles and numbers of unemployed men, many of whom no doubt have known what it was to suffer the pangs of want, we have also a large mercantile class who are feeling the pinch of poverty just the same as the farming and labouring classes, by reason of the fact that their business is depressed, and I think they were justified in expecting some relief when we had this new Government elected. I am a little afraid that that relief is not forthcoming in this 2i per cent reduction in the tariff and the 50 per cent increase in the sales tax. The budget can, to my mind, give them little encouragement.
I should like briefly to allude to the final appeal of the Minister of Finance, who in his concluding words called upon labour and capital to get together. I could not help thinking that probably there was, on the part of the Government, a desire which they found it impossible for them to implement and that probably the unseen hand which controls governments and the destinies of nations was at work when the budget was being drafted. Our need today is a government that is big enough, strong enough, and fearless enough to try to lessen the gulf that exists between our social classes. We have on the one hand a display of social exclusiveness and on the other a display of want and suffering. Our people are fast being divided into two classes, one paying interest and the other collecting it. Having in mind these things, the condition that our people are in and what they might naturally expect, I cannot recommend this budget, as brought down by the Government, as being worthy of their best attempts.
The other evening the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart), when speaking in the House, laid stress on the fact that 
in 1892 this country was in a similar or worse condition in comparison with that of to-day. I believe he sought to argue that because we had got out of that depression all right, there was no reason to think we should not get out of this one. The hon. gentleman is on very dangerous ground. Surely it is not well to argue that because we have got into deep water and come out all safe, we are safe in bobbing up and down in deep water perpetually and at will. Conditions at that time were altogether different from what they are to-day At that time we had little or no national debt. Now we have a federal debt of about $2,500,000,000, and added to that we have our various provincial and municipal d;bts. Therefore, every citizen in Canada can feel that on him devolves the necessity of paying interest on three separate debts, outside of what he may owe himself, and unfortunately many of us owe money. I maintain that the interest on these debts and the cost of civil government-and by the way that is another cost which is rapidly mounting up; I think probably at the present time our bootlegging industry is costing the country as much as our entire civil government did twenty years ago-must all be charged up against our production and against what we can develop from our natural resources. I believe the time is very near at hand when we shall find that it will take our entire production to pay the interest on our debts, and when that time comes we shall be facing absolute bankruptcy as a nation.
This Government, if it hopes to avoid such a catastrophe, will have to evolve something that is more fitting to relieve our depression than the present budget. I might say further that I am thoroughly convinced that before we can hope to re-establish our national standing and to get our country back to a prosperous condition, we shall have to change our credit system. I am thoroughly convinced that it is absolutely unworkable for any length of time, and unless we change our credit system, I cannot see where we have any possibility of lessening this huge debt.
Mr. HAROLD PUTNAM (Colchester) i Mr. Speaker, this afternoon the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner) gave me and, I believe, the House, to understand that the country in its last verdict had voted that the tenets of the Liberal platform, upon which he harped so much and so carefully, should have been

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carried out literally, fully, promptly, perhaps instantly and even with this budget. If he be correct in that conclusion, he was evidently obeying the behest of the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen), who pronounced that the tariff should be the prime issue in the late election. I have heard the right hon. member dispute that he ever said it should be the sole issue-but there is no doubt at all that he said over and over again that it should be the chief issue, or he used words to such effect. If the hon. member for Vancouver South is right in reading the recent verdict, then we must conclude that it spells very bad in its omen for the disciples of high protection, whose disciples the group of hon. members to the Speaker's left continue very frankly to be. If he be right, the only regret I have, as a believer in the two-party system of Government, is that it spells almost the complete extermination of the historic Conservative party in this Canada of ours.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I think the question as to who or what won the last election is almost as futile as the classic poser, "Who won the war". There did come a time when all the respectable nations of the earth became possessed of the will to win, and thencefrom the doom of Germany was fully assured; and long before the formal counting of the ballots in the last campaign there diid come a time when the opponents of the late administration had the will to win, and thencefrom its doom was assured. Perhaps now it is rather a useless effort to analyze the different causes that compassed its defeat. There is this, however, to be said, that when, elected as a union government, our friends began to take upon themselves functions for which they were not elected, the people rose in their might and in their unity said :t Democracy must be restored and the head of the serpent of autocracy must be crushed beneath our heel. That is what happened.
The hon. gentleman from Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner) is entirely welcome to say that it was a pronouncement sealing the doom of high protection. He reminds me of the story of an old gentleman, a clergyman apparently from his dress, who was riding in a London bus when a rather bumptious young man thus accosted him,
" Sir, do you know that I can prove to you there is no such place as Heaven?" The old clergyman took no notice and continued reading his newspaper. Again he
was interrupted by the young man who exclaimed: "Sir, you appear to be a clergyman and therefore a Christian. I challenge you that I can prove there is no such place as the Kingdon of Heaven." Still the old gentleman read on, and the impudent challenge was repeated in almost the same words. Finally he laid down his newspaper with a slight expression of disgust and said, " Well, well, young man; if you must go to Hell why make such a fuss about it?" And if the hon. gentleman from Vancouver South is convinced that the result of the verdict of the last election was the doom of the doctrine of high protection, my only sorrow is that he is making such a fuss about it.
I was in some doubt, Mr. Speaker, whether it would be worth my while to try to add anything to this discussion, but as a Nova Scotian I would not think of letting the opportunity go by without associating myself with all the kindly things that have been said of the author of this budget, the Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding). Those congratulations have come from every member who has spoken, irrespective of his political affiliations. Perhaps it is an example of the lingering death of party spirit that the budget itself has not been received with the same unanimous acclaim and enthusiasm, but we on this side of the House are in hopes that with the presentation of a few more consecutive "budgets by our distinguished Minister of Finance we may have that happy consummation.
Down in Nova Scotia the people perceived, long before the declaration of the polls, that the late administration was doomed to defeat, and I may tell the House that we formed a little plan to celebrate this occasion. We knew that the hopes of the people were centred on the man who in years gone by had turned the chronic Foster deficits into the chronic Fielding surpluses, and recognizing him as the one and only outstanding choice for the position of Minister of Finance in the new Liberal administration, the .people of Nova Scotia decided to celebrate his sixteenth budget by sending here one Liberal representative, including his distinguished self, for every budget that he had presented to this House and to the country. We carried out that scheme, and our only regret is that we could not do more, because our efforts entailed no self-sacrifice; on the morning of the 7th December the men who had tried to stand in the road of that tremendously popular movement woke up to find that

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they had lost their deposits. And, Sir, [DOT]we congratulate the country that for the sixteenth time the man whose budgets were such a pronounced success for fifteen consecutive times is to-day the man who has been chosen to bring down this budget to Parliament and the country at a time of the most critical financial stress that we have ever experienced.
There is no doubt in the world that some hon. members are disappointed that the tariff reductions are not greater. One thing we on the Liberal side promised the country, and I think our Progressive friends also made the same promise, that whatever our ultimate views as to the tariff, whether it should be high or low, in this time of recovery from the staggering blow of the war, from the amazing deficits that the railway policy of the late government had imposed upon our young country, this was not the time to attempt any drastic tariff changes that would dislocate the business of the country. Therefore when some of us are disappointed that the tariff reductions are not greater, I would ask them to remember that promise.
Our hon. friends opposite would have us believe that the country was looking for the full and literal translation of the Liberal tariff platform of 1919. Well, I was struck with the remark which fell from the right hon. leader of the Opposition the other day, when he pointed out that freight rates which might be relevant and useful two or three weeks ago might be entirely useless and irrelevant two or three weeks after. I would remind every reasonable man in this House that the Liberal platform of 1919 was laid down a few years before the general election, and those were years of crowding events, those were years when the financial situation of the country was becoming worse at a faster ratio even than we had feared. Consequently there is every reason to believe that the people took a sensible view of the issue's that were addressed to them in that long campaign which preceded December 6th last, when it is to be remembered the Liberal platform was two or three years old, which is a long time as events move these days. But to say, as did the hon. member for Vancouver South, that the people were deceived by the Liberal platform, when the right hon. leader of the Opposition himself avowed that he was going to have a long campaign for the express purpose of permitting a propaganda of education of the electorate, is a trifling with the plain facts of the case and with the intelligence of the people. In

that long campaign it so happened that the three parties presented the issues to the people fully and fairly, and the verdict shows that the people did not expect any sudden change in the tariff at this critical juncture. Therefore I believe the tariff as a whole is eminently satisfactory to the country, even though perforce private interests here and there fed the pinch of taxation that perhaps they think cannot be justified as entirely equitable.
It is common ground that we have a very hard country to govern. We look to Canada's north, and we have the plains of the eternal winter. Our Lady of the Snows will cast her smiles in vain in that direction if she expects to find her true destiny or her true affinity there. We look to the West, and almost in the extreme portion of it we find the barrier of the Rocky mountains-beauteous as God ever made; so beauteous that the tourist goes in there and gladly pays liberally for his enjoyment of them, incidentally affording us a small fraction of our revenue, something for which we are truly thankful. But those mountain ranges, unfortunately, are a barrier to traffic, and when we go to the Pacific coast and find the glittering waters of the Pacific ocean leaning against those mountain ranges we realize that the Pacific ocean herself is a jealous mistress, because she says to the inland Canadian: You may not bring your steaming trains westward to load freight on the ships that float upon my bosom. You may not send your steaming engines eastward, hauling trains with freight from those ships-this you cannot do until you have passed my outer guards, which are comprised in the sharp grades in those very mountains. Mr. Speaker, those grades are austere; they are hostile to traffic, as every man knows who tries to bring about complete interprovincial trade between East and the extreme West.


Mr. STEVENS:: Will my hon. friend permit me a question? Is he aware that the grades on the Canadian National from Edmonton to the Coast are better than from Edmonton to Winnipeg?


Mr. PUTNAM:: I suppose there is a large body of traffic which is dependent upon the Canadian Pacific Railway.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I asked the hon. member if he was aware that the grades on the Canadian National from Edmonton to the Coast were less than the grades from Edmonton to Winnipeg?

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Harold Putnam: I will answer my hon. friend's question fairly, for I think he meant it fairly. I did know that, but for the moment I had forgotten it. I suggest to my hon. friend, however, that that is only a partial disposition of my objection in view of the grades of the Canadian Pacific to which only I alluded. Mr. Speaker, we look away to the east and we have the Atlantic ocean. But it so happens that the Atlantic coast of Canada is a very irregular coast, and it is immediately rivalled by a more regular Atlantic seaboard stretching at once to the south and coming soon to bays and harbours and great cities whose names are on the lips of all the world and which are so situated, climatically and otherwise, that the major part of the traffic of the ocean is directed through them. When the St. Lawrence is an ice-field, St. John and Halifax, instead of getting the share of the traffic which one might expect, have it abstracted from them and passed through the American ports. But, Mr. Speaker, when we look to the south we may well exclaim: What a South it is! There is a nation easily conceded to be one of the very greatest nations of the earth. With them we have enjoyed for one hundred years the blessings of happy peace. It is a country stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a country whose people are largely of our own blood, of our language, of our own traditions, of our own national ideals. If am impartial observer came to look the situation over, would he not say: You have your difficulties on your north and your west and your east; why as people of common sense are you not trading in a free and unhampered way with your great kinsmen to the south?
I do not wish to detain the House by going into history which is just as well known to every hon. member as it is to myself. But we know that there was reciprocity in the old days, and that it was entirely profitable. We know that it was revoked as a result of the international jealousies, misgivings and distrust which unfortunately followed the Civil War. We know that efforts were made to revive that reciprocity agreement, and that there came a time in 1911 when we heard news so good that we could scarcely believe it. That news was in line with the historic tradition of the Liberal party. The present Minister of Finance was able to say: The bigger nation has come to the smaller nation and has offered us this large measure of
reciprocity just for the taking. We know the negotiations that went on and we know the tragedy of the defeat of that measure. Now, the other night the hon. member for New Westminister (Mr. McQuarrie) told us that we must not suppose for a moment that any hon. member from British Columbia was favourable to the Reciprocity pact, and he challenged any member from that province to stand up and say so, if he were. Well, that was not a very bold challenge, it was a very harmless one. It was a very easy challenge. I am glad to see the hon. member now in his seat; we have met as neighbours, one from the far West and the other from the far East, and I have found him a splendid neighbour. But if he became aware that every province except British Columbia was in favour of reciprocity, I wonder what his attitude would then be. That, Mr. Speaker, was just the logical and final step he did not take in his altercation the other day with the hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston). He said: Oh, you people on the prairies need not think that you are the only pebbles on the beach-as the phrase goes; British Columbia is all opposed to you on this question. I take it that the hon. member is convinced that we in this country are trying to make a success of Confederation, that we are trying to accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number. If he were convinced that all the rest of Canada wanted reciprocity and that only British Columbia was opposed to it, it would be interesting to know whether the members from British Columbia would consider it their duty to bow to the wish of the majority and say: Yes, even at that local cost we shall have the greatest good for the greatest number. But that is the step the hon. member did not take. I do noo think the most ardent advocate of reciprocity ever contended that it would be universally for the good of the whole people. I believe there were interests-the hon. member from Toronto (Mr. Hocken) laughs. I do not know what he is laughing at, unless it is his own misconception of the whole question. But, Mr. Speaker, Toronto would be the last place to which I would go to look for any carrying out of that motto-the greatest good for the greatest number in this Canada of ours.


Mr. HOCKEN:: Oh, you had better keep away from Toronto.
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Harold Putnam: Well, that is pretty
nearly an indication of the true spirit prevailing there, especially if a man hails from Nova Scotia.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: We do not want your class up there at all.


Mr. MARTELL:: He is too broad-minded.


Harold Putnam: I am willing to leave to the judgment of the House what your own class is, in view of that remark. I have frequently 'been there, and have seen no superior class. Now, I was pointing out-and I do not know whether the bon. gentleman wakes up to the fact for the first time-that it was never contended that reciprocity would literally be popular in the minds of and 'beneficial to all Canadians. What measure under Heaven could be propounded that would have that happy result? Here is the stand the Liberal party took with respect to reciprocity. They said: Inasmuch as we believe that it will be good for the far greater majority of the people of this country, it is our duty to sink whatever differences of opinion there may be in our own party, and to bring down such a measure, not as the consummation of the perfect good of all, but as getting as near as we can to the greatest good for the greatest number.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Is the hon member in favour of reciprocity himself? I cannot gather from his remarks.


Harold Putnam: Are there snakes in Ireland? Am I in favour of something we cannot now get?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Is the hon. member in favour of reciprocity?


Harold Putnam: Does the hon. gentleman mean, if reciprocity were again offered to us as in 1911 would I favour it?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I could not gather from the hon. gentleman's remarks whether he was in favour of reciprocity or opposed to it. He is wandering around in such a desultory manner that I cannot gather his attitude, and I am asking him the straight question. Does he approve of the reciprocity treaty between the United States and Canada?


Harold Putnam: It is really complimentary to have the hon. member come back and seek information from a humble Nova Scotian after his recent remark. If the hon. member means, if reciprocity were obtainable on the same terms as it was offered in 1911, should we accept it? I would

say a thousand times yes. We know the campaign that defeated reciprocity at that time. We were told, and told especially by Toronto, from which city the hon. member hails, that to trade with our good neighbours to the south would be prejudicing our loyalty to the flag of old England, and they told us to have no truck or trade with the Yankees. It was a flag-waving campaign, entirely apart from the merits of the question. If the hon. gentlemen on the othei side would just take the converse case, 1 would have no complaint. Does not the hon. member remember that when in 1897 the present Minister of Finance brought down his budget proposing very drastic reductions in the duties on goods coming from England, every member on his side of the House voted against it? If we were disloyal to want a lower tariff with the United States, surely the converse -holds true, and it would be loyal to give a lower tariff to Old England. Yet none of the gentlemen now sitting in that corner of the House, nor any of their predecessors, ever gave us any credit for loyalty on that score, when the case was exactly the converse of what happened in 1911 on the reciprocity issue.
Some of these reductions in the tariff may be disappointing in that they are not more drastic, but we on this side of the House promised over and over again that we would not disturb the existing business of this country, and in view of the terrible debt left by the war, and the enormous deficits produced by the railway policy of the late government, we would have been to blame in every sense of the word had we brought about any drastic dislocation of the business of the country at this particular time.
I have not followed all the things that have been said in favour of this budget, but I have tried to follow everything that has been said against it, on its merits. As one hon. gentleman put it, the Minister of Finance has access to avenues of information that are not open to the ordinary member, and for myself I am willing again to trust the old financial pilot who brought us through those former fifteen budgets so successfully. Reasoning from analogy, I would expect the best possible results from this his sixteenth budget. I have heard very little in this debate in criticism of the budget on its merits. The ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), who I am sorry is not in his seat to-night, in what seemed to me a rather cheap sneer at the expense of Germany, beaten and

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stricken as she is, said that to him this budget appeared as free trade with Germany and a 21 per cent reduction in favour of the United Kingdom. That statement was made for only one purpose, and a very demagogic purpose, a purpose, I submit, unworthy of any man who so recently occupied a seat as minister of the Crown in this country. The leading statesmen of England are saying that one of the greatest hopes for the restoration of international trade is that Germany shall be brought as quickly as possible into the trade orbit in which she moved before the war. When we come to South Africa, our sister state in that self-governing galaxy of nations that stands around the British throne like strong sons around a mother, South Africa, which came into this family of nations long after we did, and is therefore a member to whom we might rather be giving lessons in all that is judicial and proper, has actually sent a man to Germany to promote trade between the two countries. It remained for the ex-Minister of Finance to throw an unworthy sneer at trade with Germany, and he exaggerated unworthily the step which the Minister of Finance is proposing, which is simply that in importing goods from Germany we should be able to base the duty on approximately the real value of the goods.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Does the hon. member suggest that it is in the interests of this country and of fair competition to permit the entry of free goods from Germany, where the men work for $3 a month, the same as they do in Japan? That is the figure which comes from authoritative sources, and it is a well known fact. The Minister of Finance himself showed how the mark had depreciated something like thirty-six times.


Harold Putnam: I am not averse to answering specific questions relating to specific facts, but I am averse to answering academic questions. Does the hon. member suggest that under this budget German goods will come in free? That seems to be his implication.


William Stevens Fielding: They said it was free trade with Germany.


Leon Johnson Ladner: My question is this: In view of the fact that German workmen manufacture these goods for $3 a month, and have a lower standard of living than we have in this country, does the hon. member consider it fair that the industries of this country should be brought into free competition with German goods, as they will be under the present budget proposals?


Harold Putnam: I do not accept the hon. gentleman's premises. We have a tariff against Germany, and no German goods will come in free. I am not going to waste time in answering academic questions.
I listened to the thoughtful address of the Progressive member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston), who made some criticism of the sales tax. I confess that several of his observations have impressed me. There is an important industry in my own town and those identified with it have written to me along the line that they consider that the sales tax on certain of their finished products is unfair. I have laid their representations before the Minister of Finance, and he has promised the matter careful reconsideration. If there are possible inequalities in this tax it will be the duty of hon. members here to point them out-I had almost said to follow my example, but I will not say anything so egotistical. I presume there are features of the budget which affect their own industries, and of course it is our duty to lay all such matters before the Minister of Finance. Even this budget, with all its details and its figures, is not necessarily a finality, and in respect of the worthy institution in my own town-the condensed milk factory, a branch of the Borden Company-I only hope that the sales tax may be to some extent ameliorated. But after supplying what data we can we shall have to leave that once again to the serious consideration of the Minister of Finance and his associates.
Now I think it was the duty of the leader of the Opposition to have discovered, if he could, what, on its merits, was wrong with this tariff. Perhaps I should not anticipate him, I have no doubt he will speak yet; but I will say this: There is nothing in the amendment itself which mentions anything whatsoever as wrong with the merits of this budget. The leader of the Opposition and those surrounding him are supposed to be the critics in this chamber. In addition to his regular indemnity the leader of the Opposition gets a substantial, and some would think a handsome, allowance for the purpose of being a sort of attorney to watch all the legislation that is brought down by the government. We all know the weakness to which the attorney
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for the defence is prone whose only resource, during the progress of the trial, is to abuse the attorney for the plaintiff; and it does seem to me very much as though the attorney for the defence, in the person of the leader of the Opposition, by setting up in the amendment this empty cry about lowering the standards of public life-by hurling that general accusation at those who have propounded this tariff-has resorted to the old device of merely abusing the attorney for the plaintiff.
Now is there anything so terrible about the violation of this platform for 1919 even to the extent which hon. gentlemen opposite have suggested? As I have pointed out, that platform was laid down in other times and under conditions not nearly so bad as they are revealed today. Why, Mr. Speaker, it is not unknown that the full intent and purpose of a promise may sometimes be very honourably modified, or the execution of the promise may sometimes be very honourably deferred, or sometimes the promise may very honourably be dropped out of sight and out of recollection altogether. Do you remember the last general election in England-and I suppose we are British enough to admit that the leaders of the political thought over there are men of honour-do you remember that that great leader of thought, Lloyd George, and his great associate in the Union government, Mr. Bonar Law, and all who surrounded them in that campaign, promised categorically and in specific terms that it was part of their platform that the Kaiser would be pulled out of Germany altogether and given a trial before the courts of England? As a matter of illustration, and just to show how specific that promise was, let me read the actual words of Lloyd George at that time:
We have decided that the man who undoubtedly had the prime responsibility for the war, in the judgment, at any rate, of the allied countries, should be tried for the offence he committed in breaking Treaties which he was bound in honour to respect, to which he was a party, and by that means bringing such horrors upon the world. The allied countries have decided quite unanimously that the tribunal shall be an Inter-Allied one, and that it shall sit in London for the trial of the person supremely responsible for this war.
I suppose that if the little group to your left, Mr. Speaker, were over in England to-night, and elected to the great legislative body there, they would have some amendment denouncing the honour of the public men of England for not having tried the Kaiser before this. But, Mr. Speaker, is

there any complaint on the part of the best public spirit and the best public opinion in England because that promise was dropped? I have never heard of any; it simply faded away in the light of second thought and of subsequent events. It is a promise which can never be kept. The Kaiser is growing old; it becomes more and more inhumane to think of carrying out that promise now. But the citadel of protection is still arrogant, is still impudent; and when we get out of the financial stress of this war, as we hope to some day; when we get through these dark hours of the railway deficits, as we are still hoping to do; there will come a time when all the promises of the 1919 Liberal platform can be revived; and if the hon. gentleman to whom I allude is right that the verdict of a few months ago was a verdict against high protection, a verdict in favour of the 1919 Liberal platform, it will not be a very courageous course one will have to take to try to implement all those promises.
Now referring once more to promises: Hon. gentlemen opposite have called themselves, within recent times, by several different names; and I heard the genial member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) the other night stand up and say that he declined to be called a Tory any longer. Now I have not had much experience in the art, the delight and the exhiliaration of playing cards, but I do believe that among the devotees of the games of the card table- especially among some of the more standard games-it is a rule that a good loser should stop while he is still losing. The man who quits while he is still losing is supposed to be a good sport, and on that principal I congratulate the hon. member for Fort William upon having the proclivities of a real good sport. But whatever the name-and perhaps it is none of my business-by which that group should be called, there is this about it that in years gone by they did seriously set themselves up as having the major part of the political wisdom of this country, and they persisted in that claim until the great Laurier came on the horizon in 1896 and gave Canada her fifteen golden years. Then that same group-whatever their name then or now-persisted very seriously in the claim that they had a monopoly of the loyalty and of the imperialistic spirit in this country; I am sorry to say they persisted in that claim right down until the time of the war when the Liberal blood was mixed in equal volume with the Tory blood which flowed into those horrible

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trenches in Flanders fields. Since then they have been driven from that absurd position, and I wish to prophesy that they will never take up that position again. Well, they are now looking for a new position. They are fresh from defeat under a government which was the most conspicuous failure that Canada ever knew and, Mr. Speaker, they say "Oh, we found our new province; we are going to be the guardians and the wardens of the honour of the public life in this country"; and that view is embodied in their amendment.
Now, I think, that even in present times, and without waiting for any sequel or any of the verdicts of history, we can say that they are i*n a very poor and very inconsistent position, to say the least of it, when they pose as the defenders of the citadel of public honour. These are the guardians of the honour of the nation! These are the men who tell us by their amendment that they are the guardians of the public life of Canada. Does that not sound fine from the authors of the Wartime Elections Act? Does that not sound fine from the party under whose recent premier a commission on the tariff was set afloat at enormous expense to this country, with the specific promise, made from almost every platform from which he addressed an audience-and I refer now to the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) in the late campaign-that the people could depend upon a scientific study of this tariff, that, taking all the particular items one by one, the people, as the result of the scientific study, would be told just the digit, just the figure, to which the protection would be raised for the common good, in regard to each article, and that, having regard to the common good, they would be told just the figure and the digit to which that tariff would be lowered on every and any article? That is the categorical, the specific and the ambitious promise of the leader of the Opposition with respect to that question. When it was known the campaign would be a long one, we were told, with all the show of frankness, that it was to permit that drastic and searching campaign of education to impress itself upon the people, and to produce its proper fruits, before a vote could be taken under any spirit of hysteria, or under any spirit of ill-considered judgment in a matter of such importance. We all remember that. Did we ever hear from that scientific commission? ft was promised. It was dearly paid for. Was that promise ever carried out? These are the men who tell us to-night that, by their amendment,
life of Canada.
I could tell you certain promises I had to put up with down in my own county from no less a person than the ex-Minister of Public Works, the then colleague of the present leader of the Opposition. He told us in his literature, which I have under my hand, and from nearly every platform from which he spoke, particularly in or near Truro, that when the Meighen administration was returned we would get back the Intercolonial with headquarters at Moncton. When I came to this House, and before I had scarcely got settled in my seat, I was amazed to find that the leader of the Opposition not only repudiated that promise-and there is your collective cabinet responsibility-but sought to throw the dart of his sarcasm at the futility and absurdity of any such promise. He sought *to pillory the hon. member from Pictou (Mr. Macdonald), the hon. member from Cumberland (Mr. Logan) and my humble self in terms of derision', for ever having held it out to the people. It was a Specific promise given by his own ex-Minister of Public Works in the cabinet of the present leader of the Opposition, and these are the [DOT]men who are setting themselves up on a pedestal to-night, as the guardians of the honour of the public life of this country. Moreover, another promise from the then hon. Minister of Public Works was circulated in printed form by the thousands, if not by the tens of thousands, in my county, and the little document was headed with the word "danger" in big black letters. But the people fully appreciated the value of the document, and appraised it with reference to the source from which it came. They knew there was great danger in allowing these gentlemen to trifle any longer with the affairs of the country, and they voted against them. But look at this nugget, in this particular piece of campaign literature issued, and taken advantage of, by the hon. ex-Minister of Public Works. One paragraph reads as follows:
Should Meighen fail to obtain a clear working majority Crerar and King will combine to destroy the fiscal policy that has made Canada industrially great, business stagnation would be sure to follow, and the country would be set back twenty years.
Whatever may be the ultimate aim of the leader of the Progressives as to the doctrine of a low tariff for Canada and whatever the aim of my honored leader the Prime Minister as to the ultimate efficacy and benefit of a far lower tariff,

The Budget-Mr. Putman
those two gentlemen told the country over and over again that,	for the
immediate present, it could not expect any drastic reduction in the tariff as it now stands;	yet the
ex-Minister of Public Works, setting at defiance the pledges and words of those "two honoured leaders, declares that if Mr, Meighen should find himself without a clear majority over both other groups in the House, the tariff would be submarined without warning and all fiscal policy destroyed. It happened that, instead of the right honourable the leader of the Opposition having a majority over both groups, he failed to get a majority over any single group in the House. Have hon. members seen anything to justify that sort of promise of the ex-Minister of Public Works? For my own part, I have not.
In addition to reading the lesson of political morality to us, speaker after speaker on the side of the official Opposition has been giving to our good friends the Progressives many a little side lesson, many a little moral quip, much gratuitous advice, upon the duty which rests upon them of making the Grits keep their promise. I am not going to tender any advice. My opinion of the Progressives is that they are abundantly able to be the guardians of their own intelligence and their own consciences in this House.
I intend, Mr. Speaker, to vote against this amendment, because it does not deal with the merits of the case. The hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston) very properly stated in very mild language, that it was a political manoeuvre. I can well understand the Progressives, young in their career in this House-and I represent hundreds of them in my own county-who came out out from the Conservative party, who elected two men to the local legislature there, who unsuccessfully ran a man against the Minister of Public Woi'ks fourteen months before the general election, who said to me "We think your views and policy as a Liberal so nearly approximate the Progressive viewpoint in Colchester that we are going to throw our lot in with you", I have the honour to represent hundreds of them as well as the straight Liberals of the county of Colchester. I can well understand the Progressives in this House refusing to be a party to the political manoeuvre of the Tories embodied in this academic amendment. I say that the hon. member from Last Mountain was right, and he could have gone further

when he said this amendment was a political manoeuvre designed to catch the Progressives off their guard, but was not successful. The Progressives are young in their career here. They are entirely honourable, and I do not know how they are going to vote, it is none of my business, but I appreciate the stand they have taken whereby they are not going to be caught with the empty chaff of any such amendment as has been proposed to the House. I cannot help characterizing it as a piece of political pedantry, not without a large admixture of hypocrisy.


Mr. J. L. STANSELL (East Elgin) :: Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker (Mr. Putnam) , in common with a few others on that side of the House, evidently thinks one of the most effective means of criticism of hon. members who form the official Opposition is to hurl the word "Tory" across the floor of the House. It surely has been apparent to many hon. members that, although this has happened on many occasions, not once, so far as I have been able to observe, has any hon. member on this side of the House stood up and yelled "Grit".


Lewis Herbert Martell: We are not ashamed of that.


John Lawrence Stansell: Certainly not, and
neither are we of the word "Tory". I can remember some years ago when I was a boy at school we always recognized that, in a time of dispute, the boy who got on top of the fence and proceeded to call names, did so because he lacked the necessary material to get down and put up a real argument. As long as hon. members opposite think criticism consists in throwing this word across the floor of the House, we in this corner may feel comparatively safe. But if the time should come, in the dim and distant future, when it is necessary for us to get up and apply epithets across the floor for lack of criticism, then they may well consider that they have reached a height of statesmanship that puts them above criticism. I am not a prophet, nor yet the son of a prophet, but I have grave doubts whether the ship of state will, with its well known chart, ride sufficiently long until they attain that high position.
The previous speaker also in his closing remarks addressed himself to the Progressive party, and he called attention to the fact that he owed his election to hundreds, I think he said, of Progressives who supported him, for the very simple reason

The Budget-Mr. Stansell
that the Liberal platform and the Progressive platform were so nearly identical. I believe that is a fairly correct statement. So far as I was able to observe in the last campaign, the statement was made repeatedly that there was practically no difference between the two platforms, and that the Liberal party, if entrusted with the Government of the country, would prove equally the friend of the farmer and the labouring man as the Progressive party. I am sorry to say, however, that speeches so far contributed by members of the Progressive party show that in the present budget, they are not able to see the close resemblance.
Many complimentary things have been said in connection with the presentation of this budget by the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I am sure they are well deserved; and it certainly is a distinction to be able to present in this House one's sixteenth budget. Possibly, however, this budget has presented greater difficulties than any of the preceding fifteen, so that, in attempting criticism of it, I, and I believe other hon. members as well, realize the difficulties confronting the Minister of Finance in the production of this budget and in our criticism we shall endeavour to be fair and courteous. I once heard a remarkable compliment paid the Minister of Finance by an old admirer of his, a gentleman who has been a life-long supporter of his party and who is an intense admirer of the minister personally. In discussing old times, this gentleman, who is well past the allotted span of life, said: "I consider that the present Minister of Finance is one of the most capable men in Canada."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John Lawrence Stansell: Hon. members opposite say " hear, hear ", but let me tell the House the rest of it, please. He said: " Actually in 1896 his party was elected on a free-trade platform, and he was able after that to maintain and even increase the duties in some respects and get away with it." For that reason he considered him a great man of great ability. The same speaker said to me:	"On platform after platform at that time I preached the free-trade doctrine and, though I never believed a word of it myself, it was a great thing as a vote catcher." Now in my opinion, the minister to-day has a more difficult task than he had in 1896 to clear himself entirely in this regard.
I must, in passing, refer to a speech made this afternoon, and as it is in cornmon with a number of similar expressions made in this House, I think it is worthy of reference. The hon. member for Digby and Annapolis (Mr. Lovett) referred to a great waste of time from which this House had suffered. He deplored the fact that practical business methods were not adopted in the performance of our duties here as representatives of the people. What kind of a practical demonstration did he give us? He proceeded to give us a practical demonstration of sound business principles by delivering a treatise on the Annapolis valley and skunks. I do not know just how these two are related, but as I am not as high an authority as the hon. member on these two important national subjects, I shall 'have to waste the time of the House in my own way by endeavouring to direct a few remarks to the budget.
It was said by a former speaker that we in this corner have offered a considerable amount of gratuitous advice to hon. members to our left. I presume I shall have to live up to his description of our course, and therefore I should like to direct just a few words in that direction. As a new member of this House, I have been intensely interested in the problems that have been brought forward by hon. members from the Western provinces. I believe they will give me credit for sincerity when I say that I sympathise to a great extent with some of the difficulties that they have, and to a great extent also I am willing to contribute my share to the solution of those difficulties. The extent, however, to which we contribute to that worthy cause might be influenced a little by the attitude of a few members who, no matter what the occasion or what subject is under discussion, feel it is necessary to direct a few shafts at what they call their " friends on the right." This, I believe, was expressed by one hon. member in the following words: " Should we at any time get into trouble, or want any help, we will never go to our friends on the right."
I noticed also a few remarks by the hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston). Apparently, he was not entirely pleased with the budget in its present form; but he did not think that it was sufficiently clear to his " friends on his right " where his former allegiance had been, and he found it necessary to show by the tenor of his remarks that there was a slight hankering after the flesh pots of Egypt. I think he stated by way of comparison, that the Liberal platform was like a beau-



The Budget-Mr. Stansell
tiful menu card. He might have said that he had tasted the fare and were it not for the price, he would still he willing to shove his feet under that table. He said that it was a beautiful menu card, and that when you had tasted, you felt like going back to the same place. He did not say, however, that though the menu card was beautiful, very little was put on the table through the budget to correspond with it. I am quite in accord with the hon. member when he criticises increased sales tax and also when he lauds the income tax.
With regard to the income tax, if there are reasons for congratulation as to its advantages, I would point out that it was originated and put in practice by his much-criticised "friends on the right". Apparently he might have exclaimed:	Oh,
Liberals, with all thy faults I love thee still.
We in this corner of the House have been told that our criticism is not constructive, and that we should offer an amendment of real constructive value. Well, we are not in authority, but I venture to say on behalf of my esteemed leader and of my associates that if the Government will say they are in need of, and will accept our advice we will tender it with the very best intentions. While possibly we may not feel free to offer advice on every occasion, I would remind my hon. friends opposite that we in this corner have, even this afternoon and on other occasions offered constructive criticism of the Government's proposals. Especially was that true in connection with the militia and naval estimates. But what was the result? One of the most influential members of the House, my hon. friend from St. James (Mr. Rinfret) in referring to our criticism and the plans we suggested in relation to those estimates said, "May I be permitted to add that the criticism and suggestions of the official Opposition only strengthens my purpose in asking for a reduction in the vote." Surely, Sir, in the face of such discouragement we have the interests of this country too much at heart to prejudice them by offering suggestions to such unsympathetic ears.
In the last election if there was one thing more than another the Liberal party claimed was nearest to their heart it was the welfare of the great masses, the common people. In looking up the debate on the budget last year I find that in a speech occupying about two hours and a half the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie
[Mr. Stansell. I
King) stated in effect that while the Conservative party might be thinking of the big interests and the specially privileged classes who were benefited by a protective tariff, he and his party were thinking of the welfare of the common people. I have not his speech at hand, but it may be found in Hansard of last year, commencing at page 3607.
Well, let us see how this budget bears out his professions. The effect of a protective tariff upon the public was never better described than in the words of one who at least was noted for his sympathy with the common people and his ability as a statesman; I refer to Abraham Lincoln. He said: When we purchase goods in a foreign country we get the goods and the foreigner gets the money; when we purchase goods made at home we get both the goods and the money. No one has yet put the matter in a more practical form; no one yet has ever offered any conclusive argument against the truth of his view. But, Sir, it is claimed that under a protective tariff abuses will grow up. This may be so, but we also know that abuses creep into many of the good things of this life. I am perfectly frank in saying that I believe in a protective policy, and I also believe that that policy is best adapted to the needs of this country to-day, although sufficient care should be exercised in tariff revision from time to time to see that it is closely adjusted to the needs of the day, for in five or ten years' time conditions may alter and therefore necessitate a revision.
Some hon. members in the course of this debate have complained that where our revenue is raised by a tariff the full benefit does not accrue to the treasury, a considerable portion of the duties going into the pockets of the manufacturers or protectionists as they are termed. I am quite willing to grant that, but I think hon. members will also agree with me that it is in the best interest of this country to as far as possible purchase commodities that are produced at home. I am sure those who are familiar with farming will not dispute me when I say-and this applies especially to mixed farming with which I am familiar-that the successful farmer does not purchase what he is able to produce on his own farm; but -as far as may be practical produces his own requirements. The contrary policy leads to one result- bankruptcy. Of course, we cannot produce everything we require, but the country as a whole might be compared to a great big

The Budget-Mr. Stansell
farm, and surely what is good for the unit is good for the whole. We should have a policy that encourages as far as possible the production of goods at home, and in so far as that is practical and compatible with good judgment we should support such a policy.
In this connection it is obvious that we should encourage the maximum production of goods at home to meet the wants of our people, and this can only be accomplished in a practical way by a customs tariff. I am not a particular friend of any manufacturing industry, but surely it is a good policy to do something in a national way to encourage the investment of capital for the development of our own country, because then we have the opportunity to tax that capital to meet our national expenses; but it is absolutely impossible to obtain revenue in this way from foreign corporations who export their goods to this country. In this way the operation of the tariff accomplishes both purposes: it encourages the investment of capital in domestic enterprises, and it also increases our national revenue.
But the budget is wrong in this respect that while it reduces the tariff, thereby of course making a bid for the support of the working men and the farmers, at the same time it increases the sales tax by 50 per cent, which tax applies to practically everything the people require. The great masses of the consumers are the working men and the farmers-the common people, and they are compelled to contribute more than their share to the revenue of the country, although they are less able to do that than those classes who by reason of their smaller consumption of the necessaries of life are able to escape with a lighter share of the burden. Therefore this Government which professed to have so much at heart the interests of the masses have failed to live up to their professions, for undoubtedly working people with large families and small incomes are compelled by this increased sales tax to pay more for the necessaries of life, and in that respect in my judgment the budget is a serious mistake. Those who studied carefully the Liberal platform-the farmer, the labouring many or any other class of the electorate who hoped for relief from taxation from that source-will derive little comfort from a budget of this character. In replying to a question this afternoon the Minister of Finance said he expected that notwithstanding the reduction of the tariff he would get an increased revenue. Now, we
146i
know that if there is an increased revenue it can only come by increased purchases in a foreign country. If we are to deal with the problems which face the farmer and the workingman by building up the big interests in foreign countries, increasing our purchases there and thus adding to the unemployment in our own country; if we are to do that and then offset the reductions in the tariff by the operation of a sales tax to secure the money from the pockets of our own people, I say it is a serious mistake and one not in keeping with the promises and platform of the Liberal party before they attained power.


Mr. BIRD:: How does the hon. member suggest that the farmer, especially the western farmer, could sell his products abroad without buying abroad?


John Lawrence Stansell: How do you sell your wheat, may I ask? I have understood from the discussion arising out of the application for a wheat board that the market for wheat was largely in Great Britain. We have never had any trouble in getting a market for our wheat there. It is true we are shut out of the American market, but that is due to the action of our neighbours to the south and not to tariff barriers on our part. Now, I did anticipate the asking of this question: How do we get the revenue from the protected interests, if we must call them such?


Thomas William Bird: Would the hon. gentleman permit me another question? He says that our market for wheat is in Great Britain. Now, if he could prevent Britain from exporting manufactured articles, would our market in Britain for our wheat continue ?


John Lawrence Stansell: I would answer that question if I had ever suggested anything of the kind, but I have not, and so far as I know, the suggestion has not been made by anybody in this part of the House.


Thomas William Bird: Did the hon. member not suggest a few moments ago that it would be to the advantage of this country to buy cur goods in Canada and not abroad?


John Lawrence Stansell: So far as practicable, yes. Does the hon. member not believe that that is a good policy? I was saying that the question I thought that might be asked was this: How will we obtain the necessary money, if we do not obtain it through the increased sales tax? By the very plan I spoke of a while ago,-a plan that was first put into operation by this party iwhen
The Budget-Mr. Millar

m power, and one that I believe to be the best system yet devised; a system that I hope will be continued by whatever party is in power-that of income taxation. By that method alone can we compel the man who gets more than his share of this world's goods to contribute a proper share to the . revenues of the country. My policy, Mr. Speaker, would be one that would encourage the investment of capital in this country and the taxation of wealth where it is found rather than one that would encourage the building up of industries in a foreign country where we have no power to impose taxation. Under the latter condition we must obtain our revenue largely from the pockets of the poor man, of the labouring man and the farmer. In this respect the present budget fails. I offer that criticism, and I believe it can safely be called constructive criticism.
The question may be asked, why has the sales tax been increased? I think I can safely say that in a time like this, when revenue is so necessary, there is sure to be some objection to almost any form of taxation. But there is one large section of our people who have no means of audibly speaking for themselves, no method by which they can present their case in this House. I refer to the great mass of the consumers. This sales tax, no matter on what it is applied, is handed on from one to another until it reaches that class of the people, and for the reason that they are less able to offer objection, it is the special form of taxation which is easy to enforce, and easy to collect. But it is pernicious in its form and effect and utterly fails to provide a solution of the pressing problem presented by our numbers of unemployed and because it does not fulfil the pre-election pledges of its party I propose to vote for the amendment.


Mr. JOHN MILLAR (Qu'Appelle):: Mr. -Speaker, before addressing myself to the budget, I would like to offer a word of congratulation to the Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding). I feel a pride in realizing that we have a finance minister who is able at the age of seventy-three to perform such a difficult task with such signal success.
In discussing the budget, I think it is recognized by every one in this House and out of it, that vast sums of money are necessary in the administration of the country's affairs. We ran into heavy debt during *the war. I have one criticism to offer of my hon. friends to my right, and it is that during the war years more of the cost of the

war should have been raised. I have seen the statement-and I -believe it is correct- that only six per cent of the cost of the war was raised by Canada during the war years, while Great Britain and the United States raised upwards of thirty per cent- in fact, I am not sure it was not over forty per cent. Those were years when money was fairly plentiful in Canada. Those were years in which the farmer was receiving good prices for his products, in which contracts were being let for war supplies. As I say, money was plentiful, and I believe money could have been raised more easily then than it can now. I see no reason why thirty or forty per cent of the cost of the war could not have been raised by Canada during those years. I do not think many of our people were benefited by the easy *money they received. We fell into expensive personal habits; these habits still cling to our people, and that is one obstacle that stands in the way of our getting back to normal conditions. Once we acquire these expensive habits, both business and personal, we come to believe we cannot get along without them. If the late government had levied quite a stiff tax at that time and had taken in a considerable quantity of the ready money then available, they would have stabilized income and conferred benefit all round, and we would not now have the enormous national debt under which we are labouring.
I think we all realize that the time should soon come when our receipts should equal our outgo, when we should be paying our own way and bringing a stop to the increase of our national debt. I have, therefore, no abjection to make to the vast amount which is proposed to be raised by the Finance Minister. A budget should be so framed as to encourage 'basic industries. It may be otherwise in industrial Great Britain, but in Canada I am sure that the money that is lavished on the cities will not have the effect of making the agricultural interests or classes prosperous. But the reverse is true. If you make the agricultural interest, the mining and lumbering and fishing interests prosperous, you bring prosperity to the urban centres as well; it cannot be otherwise. During the years that have passed I think all will realize that the agricultural industry has been bled white. That is the condition now, whether we realize it or not. How has that been accomplished? Let me go back for a moment. I can remember the time many years ago when some industries believed that cut-throat competition was

The Budget-Mr. Millar
not in their interest, and wanting to get rid of it, they got together and held meetings and made agreements, which sometimes held and sometimes not, but there was the first attempt to form a monopoly. As the years went by, they succeeded better, and now the time has come when from the barber to the banker we have monopolies, small and large, in every industry. If you go to the barber he has his price list, and he must not charge less, though he may charge more. It is the same in other industries, even in the noble profession of medicine, and if I were picking out one profession as a noble one I would pick out the doctors, yet even they have their price list, below which they must not go, although they may charge more.


Mr. ANDERSON:: Is that done in the West?


John Millar: It is certainly done in the West.


Robert King Anderson: It is not done in Ontario. I belong to that profession.


John Millar: As it is now, when we purchase goods we purchase from small monopolies. The agricultural interest has progressed in the same direction for the reason that a large part of our product must be sold on the world's market. We must compete against Russia, the Argentine, India and other wheat-growing countries of the world, and no act of this Parliament can raise the price of wheat more than perhaps a fraction of a cent. That being the case, when overhead charges are piled up on the agriculturists they must either go out of growing grain for export-in fact, they are forced to go out of grain growing so far as export is concerned. I believe that during the past ten or fifteen years if Russia had been as proficient as we are in our methods of agriculture, and had had the same efficient transportation system as we have in this country, Canada could not have exported one bushel of wheat; we could not have competed with her. It is only because of their crude methods that we are able to export wheat. However, that is another matter.
I have spoken of small monopolies, and while it seems to me that Parliament should have done something to check the small monopolies, it has really done something to encourage them. But our greatest monopoly is caused by the customs tariff. Before
coming to that, let me say that I make no objection whatever to the various industries of the country forming their unions. I believe it is well that Labour should have its unions. They have done much to advance the welfare of the labouring classes and to win for them greater consideration, but when they arbitrarily fix the remuneration they shall receive from the rest of society for the contribution they are making to society, I believe it is wrong. I believe it is wrong for other industries to have that privilege. I have been struck by this during the discussions on the Wheat Board. Some strong advocates of protection have been greatly alarmed lest the establishment of the Wheat Board should lead to co-operation between the various nations so that they would be able arbitrarily to fix the price of wheat. That is, they are very much alarmed lest the policy they themselves advocate should be carried to its logical conclusion. We know what would happen if that should ever come to pass. Those who were able to control foodstuffs would starve the rest of the world, and in a small way that is what is being done by small monopolies at the present time.
I had hoped that this new Government when formed would be able to match its ingenuity against the ingenuity of man. During past years various corporations and individuals have found a way of circumventing legislation and of extracting large profits from the consumer. They have found a way of getting around the law, and our Parliament has not kept pace. I had hoped that when the new budget came down we should have had some evidence that the present Government had the initiative and the ability to cope with those who have been thus evading the law and extracting profits from the consumer to which they have no right, and I am sure that undue profits (are being taken. A financial expert speaking to the Manufacturers' Association in Toronto a short time ago said, in effect: Quit breaking the Ten Commandments, and then you will have prosperity. I believe that when the various interests in Canada give a little more consideration to other interests, show a little more sympathy, and are willing to help not merely their own constituencies first but all parts of Canada that need help, we shall be taking a step towards prosperity. We have been following too much in the past the rule of give and take- give as little as possible, and take all you can get.

The Budget-Mr. Millar
I had hoped that the reduction in the customs tariff-it is not the whole remedy for the depression that is burdening Canada at the present time, but still it is one of the remedies-would have been much greater than it is. A reduction of 21 per cent is not sufficient to place agriculture on its feet. On an article where the duty is 30 or 35 per cent, a small cut of 21 per cent means very little. It is some relief certainly; it is a step in the right direction, and if it had been twice as large and was to be followed up next session by another similar cut, I would have had no complaint to make, because I think it was understood all through the country-I know it was in the constituency I represent-that it would not be wise to make drastic changes all at once, and that industry should be allowed to adjust itself to the changed condition.
Just one word more about the conditions in agriculture. I look upon the law of the survival of the fittest as quite sound. Under normal conditions, if an occasional man engaged in farming or any other business is a misfit, not the most capable, and is compelled to make an assignment and drop out and find some other occupation, it keeps that industry in a fairly healthy condition. I have no complaint with that, but it is quite a different matter when a whole class is being crushed, and I assure you that that is the condition at the present time with agriculture in most, I will not say all, parts of Canada. In some parts of Canada where mixed farming and fruit growing are carried on the markets are fairly satisfactory. Some parts of Canada may be said to be fairly prosperous but throughout the greater part of the Dominion agriculture is languishing. In the case of small monopolies the remedy, I believe, is largely in the hands of the people themselves; and so long, and so far, as the people can themselves, by co-operation, remedy the grievances under which they are suffering, they have no right to come to any government and ask for assistance, and as far as possible governments should not interfere. But there are times when it is necessary for governments to do so. In the case of such national monopolies as the Imperial Oil Company, for instance, what can the people of Canada do if they are not given some support and assistance by their legislators either in the Dominion or provincial House? Many people have asked during the last few years why it is that gasoline, to give a concrete example, should be retailing in Canada for 50 cents a gallon, when the retail' charge on the 
other side of the line is only 25 cents a gallon. True the American gallon is not quite as large as the Canadian gallon, but the difference is very trifling. We have a country very rich in oil, immensely rich, to be accurate; and yet during the month of March last, and I suppose the same con-' dition exists to-day, we were paying at the retail stations twice the price for gasoline that they were paying on the American side of the boundary. In the case of such monopolies as these, the aim of a budget should be, as far as possible, to so direct industry as to prevent such abuses.
I am now going to read extracts from the utterances of three of our public men on the tariff. Two of these statesmen have passed from this life; the other, I am very pleased to say, is still with us. The late Sir Richard Cartwright said in speaking of the tariff:
The moment you introduce the protective system you create a class whose interests are essentially different from those of the people at large and who become ready contributors to corruption funds sharing with their masters the plunder which they have been able to take from the people.
In 1893 the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier said:
One of the evils of the National Policy has been here as everywhere else, to lower the morale of public life.
And again he said:
If you want to purify the political atmosphere not a cent must be levied except what is necessary to carry on the legitimate expenses of the government economically administered.
Now I think perhaps hon. members to the right will listen to the next extract quite attentively. Speaking before parliament ,on January 18, 1922, the right hon. gentleman who now leads the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) said:
It is that restraining, guiding principle, I claim, that this Government has entirely overlooked, and as a consequence they have allowed, in the respect which I am discussing this afternoon, protection to run rampant, and they have, for reasons that are only too obvious, become the slaves of those who helped them into power and who now maintain themselves behind ramparts of gold.


Mr. KING (Huron) :: Do I understand the hon. member to say that the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) made that statement in January, 1922?


John Millar: That is my understanding.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: The date is
wrong.


John Millar: I am told I have given the wrong date. I suppose no one will raise any particular objection to that, but I

The Budget-Mr. Millar
would like to have the correct date inserted in Hansard. I would therefore like to ask my hon. friends to the right to state the correct date.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I think my hon. friend will find that speech was delivered in 1912.


John Millar: 1912? I accept the hon. member's statement.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Somewhere about that date.


Henry Herbert Stevens: In the absence of the right hon. gentleman whose remarks are being quoted with such uncertainty, I think it should be stated, before the record goes on Hansard from what my hon. friend is reading-what speech he is referring to, where it was delivered and the subject to which it had reference; whether to protection of the tariff or protection in some other form?


John Millar: Unfortunately, I cannot state all the circumstances under which the speech, from which this extract was taken, was delivered.
Another objection to the customs tariff- the National Policy as we have known it- is that it leads to mergers. Here is an instance; it is an example, I suppose, that has been cited many times but there are some things that will bear repetition, "lest we forget". The Canada Cement Company, organized in 1909, swallowed up eleven concerns having a total capitalization of $17,750,000. It was itself organized with a capitalization of $38,000,000. In July, 1909, the city of Winnipeg purchased 25 thousand barrels of cement at $1.77. Five months later, after the merger had -taken place, the best offer they could get from three tenders from different agents of the Canada Cement Company was $2.24, an increase of 47 cents per barrel. In 1917 the total domestic production of cement in Canada was $7,007,000 and the importation was $26,000. This means that, at the retail rate of $2.50 per cwt. as a unit there were 3,000,000 units locally produced and about 10,000 units imported, so that the -sum of $300,000 was paid as a bonus to the Canada Cement Company. Not only this but only a thousand dollars went into the public treasury as duty on $26,000 worth of cement. An examination of the facts in regard to other articles would lead to a similar conclusion.
Now let -me say a word in regard to the tariff of 1906-1907. Within a week after they were afforded protection, the -three
companies who manufactured print cloth in Canada advanced their prices, and while the Customs Act was still awaiting the Royal Assent a statement appeared in the Globe of Toronto which showed the conditions prevailing at the time when the increase was made. The article in question stated:
With regard to the ability of the mills to keep u-p to the demand, wholesalers declare that in the case of Canadian prints and domestic cottons, the situation is growing worse instead of improving, and that with prices steadily advancing it is becoming harder than ever to get deliveries.
In 1905 when the duties on white lead were increased from 5 to 30 and 35 per cent, the manufacturers were so eager to take toll from the Canadian people that telegrams were sent to their commercial travellers to add these percentages immediately to their price lists.
Now I would like to say a word in regard to the sales tax. I was very sorry indeed to see the sales tax increased because it certainly hits the poor man. Taxes that are imposed should be in proportion to -people's ability to pay. In the eleven months up to end of April, 1921, during which it was in operation, the sales tax brought in $40,898,383. As a producer of revenue it failed most when money was most needed. In October 1920, when business was good and retail prices were still high, the collections were $5,020,476, but in April they fell to $2,873,219, and were -still falling when the tax was increased. In the six months that the luxury taxes were in operation they brought in $2,000,000 more than the sales tax realized in the whole eleven months. I do not know just why the luxury tax was taken off. There may have been good reasons, but I think it would have been much better policy to tax luxuries than to tax those things that are necessary for the poor people, which all poor people must have, if they are going to live. The sales tax is not equitable, for no other reason than that the poor man, who must spend practically all he earns, pays the tax out of what should go for necessaries, whereas the rich man pays it out of surplus. The rich man who spends several months out of Canada escapes this tax, whereas the poor man, who cannot have any holiday, must pay it all the time.
In regard to the free food plank, the official statement of the Customs Department for 1917 shows 205 separate classifications of dutiable goods, and that 20 classes paid four-fifths of the customs, or $89,000.

The Budget-Mr. Millar
000	out of $109,000,000. These twenty classes contain four food items, the revenue from which was $16,000,000. If food were placed on the free list, the $16,000,000 could easily be produced by lowering the tariff on other articles, because lowering the tariff will greatly increase the buying power of the public. Our domestic consumption in 1917 in boots and shoes was $49,000,000, while the importation was $2,709,000, or about one-eighteenth of the consumption, and the revenue produced was less than $1,000,000. Enormous toll was paid to the manufacturers for having those institutions located in Canada. If the total amount of the customs duty on the homemade article went into the manufacturers' pockets, the sum would be $17,000,000. Take one million dollars off that, and the amount would still be about equal to the amount I referred to above, that would be lost on the free food articles.
During the campaign that is past, as in every campaign in which a discussion of the national policy takes place, we heard considerable about the high wages that would be obtained by the working classes.
1	will give some figures in regard to those wages. The situation in respect to agricultural implements shows that, in one year alone, the protection of this industry cost the people of Canada $7,000,000. The average earnings of the men employed in the agricultural implement industry, including executive heads, according to a survey of ninety establishments in 1917, was only $838. The figures were lower in those days than now, but hon. members can readily see that the men were not receiving high pay when they consider the fact that the heads of the departments are included in the lisit. If the home market provided for our product is gauged by the ability to buy, those statistics add little to our confidence in it. The 1920 income tax returns show where the profits of industry have been going. The following is the average income tax paid into the treasury, in that year by the following classes cjf persons:
Agrarians	$3674
Professionals	 136 45


Mr. RYCKMAN:: On what basis is this?


John Millar: It is the average of those agrarians who paid income tax.


Mr. ARTHURS:: How many paid?


John Millar: I have not those figures here, but it really makes little difference, because of all those who paid income tax,

that is the average amount that each man paid. This is not the average number that pay.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Can the hon. member give the figures upon which he bases that statement? Tell us how many paid, and how he arrives at the figures?


John Millar: They were arrived at from figures in a statement given out by the income tax office, showing the number of agrarians, the number of professionals, and the number of salaried employees who had paid the income tax, and the total amount they had paid.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Could the hon. member give us the number, so that we could compare it?


John Millar: I could not at this
moment. I believe hon. members will find these figures are correct.
The next classification is:
Salaried employees	$ 101 25
Merchants	
34	08Manufacturers*	
2,517	70others	
627	00
Manufacturers, I suppose, would include companies and would not necessarily be individuals. Another comment I have to make on the national policy is that it confuses two functions of government that should he entirely separate and distinct. Without making any personal application either to the present Finance Minister or any past Finance Minister, I wish to say that when we find a man in Canada who is so highly trained along the lines of finance and most capable to handle the financial affairs of our country, we will seldom find that that same man is most highly trained along the line necessary to develop and foster industry, and yet we have combined the two. The same individual is expected to perform the two functions. Then, again, at present it is impossible for the people of Canada to know how much it costs them to foster those industries. Is that sound business? Would you find any business man following such a policy in his own business? He wants to know what part of his business is paying, and what part is not paying? In this case we cannot tell. We can only make a guess. The question arises, if this protection is swept away, what are the manufacturers to do? I believe there are a few that should be swept away, but not very many. We want the manufacturers, as far as we can have them, but the people of Canada should know what it

The Budget-Mr. Millar
is costing them to have those manufacturers. If it cost the country $10,000,000 to have a certain article manufactured in Canada and it is worth only $3,000,000 to Canada-if Canada is reaping only $3,000,000 because it is here-it is about time that such a manufacture should cease.
The hon. member who preceded me (Mr. Stansell) said that he thought it was a good thing for a farmer to grow all he could and not to have to buy. When a farmer can buy from his neighbour for $5 an article that it costs him $10 to produce, it is a far wiser thing for him to buy. His neighbour, on the other hand, may want to buy from him an article that the first farmer referred to can produce much more cheaply than the other. I think we will agree that what has made the United States prosperous has been the free interchange of commodities or free trade amongst the different states.


John Lawrence Stansell: I am well aware that, owing to the nature of some soils, one farmer can produce what another cannot. I said that, so far as was practicable, it was good policy for a farmer to produce as much as he could on his own farm.


John Millar: Following that argument, let me state that other nations, because of their different climates and conditions, can produce some articles very much more cheaply than we can. A few days ago I noticed in the paper where a cutlery firm in the city of Kingston stated that Germany could place in Canada for 69 cents a dozen knives that it cost this firm $4 to produce. I would like- very much to know just what it is costing Canada to keep that industry going. I am inclined to think where there is such a difference as that, if the people of Canada knew what it was costing them to keep that industry going, they would cease paying, ' and that industry would have to go out of business. I agree with my hon. friend to my right that, so far as possible, we should give some consideration to the different conditions, and to cheaper labour in the Old Country market. But I would far rather see Canada resort to the principle, objectionable as it may be, of paying bonuses, so that the people of Canada might know exactly what they were paying, than have the present system of protection.
The last speaker claimed credit, and I think rightly so, for the late government for the introduction of the income tax. Let me add that I believe that income tax was
introduced by the late government under considerable pressure from the organized farmers. I believe it is correct that the then Minister of Finance, Sir Thomas White, rather objected when the suggestion was first made; but at a later date he acceded to the request. I may be wrong in this, but I believe not.


John Lawrence Stansell: By whom was the
request presented?


John Millar: I believe, if my memory serves me aright, the request came from the Council of Agriculture. One suggestion I would like to make to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) is this. I do not know what control this Government has over the loan companies, nor to what extent they fall within the jurisdiction of this Parliament; but there is a place where there is a large amount of money that should pay a considerable tax to the provincial government or the Dominion Government. It would be hard to estimate the amount of money loaned on farm lands even in the three Prairie provinces of which I know much more than I do of the other provinces, but I would estimate it, at least, at half a billion dollars loaned at 8 or 9 per cent. I do not know to what extent the income tax touches those people that are advancing money on loans. Those who are lending the money may be small monied men in some cases, and in such cases the income tax would not be very severe on them; but it might be possible to reap some profit from that -source. During the last few years they have had a regular harvest in the West. The crops failed; loans were maturing which could not be met, and I know of some cases where they were renewed at 9 per cent. [DOT]
I am not going to detain the House longer than to make this suggestion. The present Government has been criticised somewhat for listening too much to suggestions; -but that is one thing that has made me somewhat hopeful of the future. When a government is ready to listen to suggestions that are good, no matter where they come from, then we are getting nearer to democratic government than we have been in the past, and I hope that in the future we shall be able to get closer together. The Golden Rule is very good in business, just as it is in religion. If we practice more of that; if we have greater sympathies, one part of Canada for the other, and if we put forth a united effort to solve the difficult problems that confront this country, I am sure that we shall make
2300	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. W. F. Garland
some headway. The task is very great, but it is not hopeless..


Mr. W. P. GARLAND (Carleton) :: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to take up the time of the House to any great extent; but I must first offer my congratulations to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) upon being able to bring down his sixteenth budget. I have nothing further upon which I can congratulate him than on being in that position.
Before dealing with the budget, I wish to make a few remarks in regard to what has been said by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Millar). I know he does not want in any way whatever to create any false impression in this House. He first said that six per cent of the war expenditure was paid out of the revenue of this country. The late government, in the last year of its existence, paid $553,000,000 of the war expenditure, or a little over 20 per cent, or roughly, about 22 per cent. There is quite a difference between that and six per cent. The hon. member also referred to the Canada Cement Company. This was a merger which was effected under the regime of the Liberal government in 1909, and the duty was reduced by the Conservative government in 1912. He also said that the income tax was adopted at the suggestion, or on the advice, of the United Farmers or the Council of Agriculture, which did not happen to be in existence at that time, but for argument's sake, we will say that it was. The party, however, to which he refers, if they were able to gain anything at that time from the Conservative government, have not so far been able to gain very much from the present administration.
The hon. member for Swift Current (Mr. Lewis) this afternoon dwelt at some length on the 21 per cent reduction in the tariff on agricultural implements. He compared the cost of an agricultural implement costing $100, plus duty under the old budget of 121 per cent and sales tax of $4.50, making a total cost of $117, with the cost of that same implement under the present budget, which reduces the duty to 10 per cent and increases the sales tax to $6.60, making a total cost of $116.60, or a saving of 40 cents. But we might reduce that saving by the four cents which the purchaser will have to pay on his cheque, leaving him a net advantage of 36 cents.
The increase in the British preference is to my mind a step in the right direction as it will encourage trade with the Old

Country. In this connection I noticed that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) was not very successful in his trip to Washington to secure closer trade relations with the United States. Since that occasion the Fordney bill has been before Congress, and as hon. members are aware it practically prohibits the sale of our products to the United States. For instance, American wheat can come in here free of duty, while we have to pay 35 cents a bushel on our wheat entering the United States. On American eggs we impose a duty of three cents a dozen, as against a duty of eight cents a dozen on our eggs entering the States. Various other commodities might be instanced on which there is a similar disparity in the respective duties. If any sane person would continue to do business with any one who treated him in that way I should be inclined to question his sanity.
We have been advised through the press of the various measures of economy which this Government from time to time was supposed to be introducing. But I believe that the economy effected will not in the long run save the country any money, on the contrary it will prove to be false economy. For instance, according to the estimates we find there is an increase of $51,256.18 for civil government. At the same time we know that there have been about five hundred dismissals from various branches of the civil service. That is an instance of the kind of economy the Government is practising.
And along with these dismissals comes a reduction in the bonus to civil servants. To my mind the bonus should have been left as it was or if altered at all it should have been in an upward direction. Civil servants without dependents are practically stripped of the bonus. It seems to me appropriate to remind the Government that a little while ago the sessional indemnity was increased from $2,500 to $4,000, and I suppose that it will foe the policy of the Government to see that all private members and Cabinet ministers without dependents shall revert to the old indemnity. I think that is only fair if the Government are to be consistent in the policy they have adopted towards the civil service.
I am sorry that neither of the members for the city of Ottawa is in his seat tonight. I do not want to take an unfair advantage of them, but I fully expected that they would have expressed their views on the bonus long before this. The Citizen of November 8th, 1921, reports the senior

The Budget-Mr. W. F. Garland
mem'ber for Ottawa (Mr. McGiverin) as follows.
With respect to the Civiil Service, whose battles he had always fought, Mr. McGiverin stated he stood for salary revision; for the bonus being replaced by a permanent increase ; for the establishment of superannuation and for the establishment of Whitley, or more properly, King councils, because it was Mr. King who had introduced the system in America.
He referred in a complimentary way to his colleague, Mr. Chevrier, and concluded amid cheers, by saying that the Liberals were coming in, that they have an honest policy and an honest leader and would bring contentment and prosperity to the country.
The junior member (Mr. Chevrier) is quoted in the Citizen of November 29th as follows:
Mr. Chevrier, who did not speak long on account of the lateness of the hour, retorted to Mr. Fripp's claim that there had been no scandals during the regime of the government, by unearthing a number of land deals which took place before the war, he said.
He confirmed Mr. McGiverin in his Civil Service attitude and said that he himself had been in the service before he entered the legal profession.
He promised a superannuation system which would be instituted in collaboration with the service itself and revised salary schedules rather than the present cost of living bonus.
He promised power to the employees to name their own	representatives	on	Civil	Service
Counoils to be established for dealing with matters pertaining to the service.
He complained they were not privileged to have newspapers spread out at great length reports of	their meetings.	He	claimed thatcontrary to	Mr. Fripp, who	had said	he wasnot looking	for votes from	the	Civtil	Service,
or Mr. Meighen, who said he was not looking for Civil Service cheers, that they did want Civil Service votes as a mark of confidence in the party for which they stood.
He said their hearts were in the right place anyway when people charged them with suffering from enlargement of the heart as regards the Civil Service.
It seems to me that the hon. gentlemen must have taken some other disease besides enlargement of the heart since they were elected to office.
With regard to the Liberal policy, I find that the Journal of December 3, 1921, has the following report in regard to the Ottawa Reform Association:
Here is the Liberal Civil Service policy to which Mr. King and his candidates are publicly pledged:
"As to the Civil Service, Mr. McGiverin stated that on three main questions now before the service his stand and that of his party were:
1.	Salary Revision: Present bonus system to be replaced by a permanent salary increase based on a just estimate of the cost of living since 1909.
2.	Superannuation: A superannuation system to be prepared in collaboration with representatives of the Civil Service.
3.	Civil Service Councils: The establishment of Councils to deal with matters pertaining to the service and the observance of the merit system in appointments and promotions, with power to the employees of naming their own representatives in such Councils.
Mr. McGiverin pointed out that in the past when member for Ottawa, he had done much for the service. He obtained the $150 flat increase and also shorter hours in summer.
Any promise made by other candidates have little significance because they cannot supplement them with the support of their leaders, even which they cannot get in the very unlikely event of these leaders being anywhere but in the cold shades of opposition, Civil servants wall do well to vote the straight Liberal ticket, and thus ensure for themselves full and effective representation under the Liberal Government, which it is now generally conceded will be formed after Dec. 6.
This is a sample of the promises that were made by the Liberal party to make sure of the election of their candidates, especially in this city, and before this debate is closed I should like the Government to declare how they intend to carry out this pledge. I trust they do not intend to redeem it in the same way as they have redeemed their other pledges. The only way in which they have fulfilled those pledges so far has been by advocating them when in opposition and failing to implement them when in office.
With regard to the budget itself, I do not see anything in it that can in any way be considered an improvement upon the legislation put into effect by the late government. The sales tax has been increased fifty per cent, and it is bound in every way to make the cost of living higher. Therefore, taking this stand, I have much pleasure in voting for the amendment.


John Warwick King: Mr. Speaker, in rising to add my quota to this [DOT]debate on the budget, I would like in the first place to pass some more bouquets to the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I have been pleased in the past to read a great many of his 'budget addresses, and, Sir, I am certain of one thing: that he is possessed of the art of making figures pleasant. The hon. minister has delivered *more budget speeches than any other man in the British dominions-two more, even, than the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone.
Before I start to talk about the budget I would like to say to the hon. gentlemen on my right, as well as those on the other side, that I object to their referring to hon. members in this part of the House as westerners. We are not westerners; there were more Progressive members elected in

The Budget-Mr. J. W. King
the old banner province of Ontario than in any other province. If the province of New Brunswick had elected twenty-three more, they would have elected as many as Ontario did.
Now, in referring to the budget, I shall not discuss it item by item. I am a new parliamentarian, Ibut I understand that the items will be taken up later. In a broad sense, Sir, I want to say that in my view the fiscal policy of Canada up to the present time has been a wrong policy. Canada's present population is 8,746,872 souls. Canada's land area, exclusive of the Northwest Territories, and1 the Yukon, and exclusive also of swamp lands which at the present time are nonproductive, but which may at some future time become productive, comprises 1,401,100,000 acres. Of these, 31 per cent, or 440,000,000 acres are fit for cultivation; only 101,000,000 acres are occupied and only 60,000,000 acres, or less than 16 per cent, are under cultivation. Now, Canada is over 200 years of age, and why is this the case? It is because, Sir, her fiscal policy has been such that her people have been congregating in the cities. The result of the fiscal policy which has been carried out in Canada, since Confederation at all events, has been a tendency on the part of the people to drift into the cities. We hope that the present Government, if they are in power, will continue in the direction they have faced. They have made a very short step in the right direction, and we hope they will continue in it, so that ultimately they may adopt a different fiscal policy.
I may say to my friends on my right that I have no objection to fostering infant industries to a certain extent, though I do object to supporting them too long. I heard Sir John A. Macdonald in the early eighties-and I heard him personally in my own county; I am not giving any hearsay evidence-declare before an audience made up largely of farmers: "You farmers have hewn out homes for yourselves in the bush in the county of Huron; you are in comparatively easy circumstances, and I wish to lay a burden on your backs for the purpose of helping infant industries1, for the purpose of starting high smokestacks all over the Dominion of Canada." But tie said also that he would not allow that burden to remain upon the people longer than a period of fifteen or twenty years. Now, *Sir John A. Macdonald died in 1891, and1 I believe if he had lived the party to my right would be heading in a different direction fiscally. I do not believe that he in-

tended for one moment to continue that tariff policy indefinitely. Moreover, he said on that same occasion that at such time as the home manufacturer got such a grip on his infant industry that he began to export, at that moment the tariff would be cut.
Now, without going into minutise, I want to say that if there is any chance of our having reciprocity with the United States we should1 try to get it. There is no doubt that all wealth in this country has to emanate from four sources-from agriculture, from the mine, from the forest and from the sea. If you make the agriculturists in this country prosperous, you will make everybody prosperous. The Mas-sey-Harris Company a year ago, when they found that the purchasing power of the farmer was at an end, stopped production, and that is the idea that is carried out by all the manufacturers. I will mention no names, but I heard one hon. member to my right say that, having some land, he thought he would engage in the dairying industry; accordingly he bought 30 or 40 cows, but when he found they did not pay, he stopped production. Now, we farmers are made of sterner stuff; we do not stop production. I am reminded of a story I once read of Napoleon Bonaparte at the battle of Waterloo, when his soldiers captured a small British drummer boy. The boy was brought before the great general, who said to him: "Play the march". The boy played the march, whereupon the general said: "Very good; now play the charge." So the boy played the charge, and the general said: "You have done very well, my boy; now play the retreat." The boy replied: "Monsieur, I never learned to play the retreat; the British soldiers never retreat." Now, the Canadian farmer never retreats; he is made of sterner stuff. Even if he does not make ends meet; even if he has no profits at the end of the year, he still continues.
With regard to the possibilities of arranging a reciprocity treaty with the United States, I would say in the first place that nearly all the newspapers of the United States are thoroughly opposed to the present tariff proposals which are being discussed by the United States Senate. More than that, the Republican papers which represent the high protectionists of the United States are saying to the people: We cannot go to the country at the next presidential election on these grounds. If we do, President Harding is

The Budget-Mr. J. W. King
defeated. I do not think for one moment that it will be longer than four or five years before there will be a completely different fiscal policy in the United States. I wish to read a few extracts from American journals in that regard. The New York Journal of Commerce calls the Senate high tariff, "a bill to raise living costs and hamper trade."
The New York Tribune warns the Republican party that this is no time to go tariff mad, and that if President Harding stands for reelection it will be unfair to hamper him with this tariff as President Taft was hampered in 1912 by the Payne-Aldrich Act.
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat says that the new tariff applies protection without regard to new conditions of world trade and the change of the United States from a debtor to a creditor nation.
The Boston Transcript declares that the manufacturers are nearly paralyzed by war expenses and lack of markets, and are to some extent prepared to regard strikes as a blessing.
The New York Herald sees the United States shut out of foreign markets except in raw materials, notably cotton and copper.
The New York Post regards the tariff as making a present to Europe of eleven billion dollars owed to the United States. Europe cannot pay in gold and her goods will be excluded.
The United States has to import in order to get her debts paid, for she is no longer a debtor nation, hut a creditor nation. The New York World and the New York Times are virtually in opposition to the measure. Even the farm papers are not all favourable. I quote:
The Southland Farmer of Houston, Texas, regards the Bill as a betrayal of agriculture, bring the West and South under still greater bondage to the industrial sections of the East and North.
The New York American Agriculturalist favours the duties on certain farm products but wants fertilizing salts and other things needed on the farm to come in duty free so as to cheapen production.
Even the farmer bloc are not all in agreement on this measure, and they will find out that their prices are set at Liverpool, where they have to compete with our wheat.
Commenting on the changes made by the Fielding tariff the New York Commercial says:
But what is to be our attitude toward "protection" of those commodities which we normally import from Canada? Nothing has been gained by excluding Canadian wheat, for instance, from our markets only to force it to Liverpool, there to compete with ours just as effectively as it would in Chicago. The same or closely similar situations exist with regard to a good many other Canadian products. Can we gain our own consent to take a leaf from Canada's note book and adopt a more reasonable policy in such matters?
I could go on reading extracts to show the trend of opinion in the United States at the present time, but 1 shall not further weary the House. Any one who watches the trend of events to-day in the United States knows that it is towards freer trade relations with the whole world, and with Canada in particular. We and the United States are the same kith and kin. We are of the same blood. We speak practically the same language, and therefore on all these grounds there should be friendly relations between the two countries. I believe the present is a very opportune time to establish better relations, and I think we can depend upon the present Minister of Finance more than any other man in Canada to get along with the United States.
One gentleman on my right came along a moment ago and asked how long I was going to speak. I said, " Ten or fifteen minutes," so he tapped me on the back and said, " That is right." Mr. Speaker, I shall not make a motion, but I believe during this debate the speakers should confine themselves to speeches of fifteen or at the most twenty minutes. I do not believe that anything that is said in this debate will change one vote, for every man has al-already made up his mind. I shall not take up the time of the House further.
On the motion of Mr. Neill the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King, the House adjourned at 10.47 p.m.
Wednesday, May 31, 1922.