1922-06-13

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: I would like to ask the Government if its attention has been called to a despatch in the Morning Albertan, Calgary, of June 8, in which appears a report of the meeting by the unsuccessful Liberal candidates in the Alberta Dominion election. Criticism was levelled at this meeting by the Conservative press and it was stated, that it was held for the purpose of assisting in the distribution of patronage in that province. Subsequent to the meeting Mr. E. F. Ryan, defeated Liberal candidate in Calgary, gave an interview in the course of which he said:
"What the defeated Liberal candidates met for was to discuss redistribution in Alberta and to report to the Liberal Government. If the
	,	,
federal Liberal Government is not officially represented in Alberta it is up to the L/iberal candidates who were defeated to try and guide the Government in the coming redistribution.
I wish to ask the Government if they have had a report of that meeting, and whether or not they are in a position to state to the House the day upon which the question introduced by Mr. Shaw will be discussed.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) :: The speech of my hon. friend calls the attention of the Government for the first time to the article to which he has referred. I had not seen the report he speaks of. I have had a communication from one of the Liberals of Alberta about a meeting which was held, but that communication did not refer in any way to the subject of redistribution, which, I think, is the point my hon. friend has just raised. In regard to redistribution, the Government will naturally welcome advice from every source.


Edward Joseph Garland: Has the Government decided on the day on which redistribution will be discussed by this House?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We have not decided on the day, but there will be a chance before the session is over.



NATIONAL RAILWAY BOARD

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto) :: I desire to ask a question of the Government as to the appointment of directors to the National Railway Board. Will the Government consider the appointment on that board of representatives who are sympathetic with public ownership? Will they consider the views of the appointees on the question of public ownership?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Government will be glad to consider any names or representations an hon. member may wish to have considered.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Thomas Langton Church: I wish to ask another question. I notice a series of articles in the Montreal Herald. I will just read three lines as follows:
Mr. Hanna is not running the National Railways. Neither is the Government. The man who is running the Canadian National railways is not even a Canadian. He is a foreigner. His name is Mr. Carey. He lives in Indianapolis.

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean


Mr. SPEAKER:: That question is not in order, on the Orders of the Day.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, June 12, 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.
Hon. A. K. MACLEAN (Halifax) :: Mr. Speaker, I know it is a very doubtful adventure on the part of any hon. member to engage in the discussion of the budget at the present time. So much has been said concerning it, and so little has been left unsaid, that really it is difficult for one to justify himself in asking the attention of hon. members to a further consideration of that subject. However, I avail myself very gladly of the opportunity of presenting some remarks to the House this afternoon. I do not intend discussing the budget with any great particularity, I wish to address to the House some general observations regarding it. I desire to say a few words in connection with the changes in the taxation resolutions, as announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) last night. These taxation resolutions have been in force since May 23 or May 24, I believe. In the meanwhile, actual experience has demonstrated tha'. these taxation proposals were not in the interest of trade or of revenue, and the Minister of Finance, in his good judgment, has seen fit to vary them. I have no doubt that if, later on, he finds that experience does not justify the tax proposals in their amended form, he will exhibit that same good judgment in announcing to the country and to parliament his willingness to make ^further 'amendments if necessary, in the commercial interests of the country and of the public revenue. There is a lesson, perhaps, to be drawn from our experience of the operation of these tax proposals during the past two or three weeks. We see how quickly and markedly taxation affects trade. When taxation is carried beyond a certain point, not only does it diminish business and commerce, but also it does not bring into the treasury the revenue it was designed to bring. We see further, that the framing of taxation
schemes is not, after all, an easy matter; it is not as easy as some hon. gentlemen think. From the way in which taxation proposals are suggested in this country to-day by many people,-yes, and even in this Parliament-one would fancy that this question was accompanied with no difficulties or complexities whatever, that almost anybody could suggest a scheme of taxation that would be workable and practicable in Canada.
I do not wish to say anything in particular concerning the amended resolution in relation to the depreciated currency of European countries. I favour the widest trading between this country and the countries of Europe; but while giving my adhesion to that principle, I do not mean to say that, in certain circumstances due to disrupted international exchanges, certain results must not be corrected, as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) proposes correcting them by his amended resolution in relation to the depreciated currencies of Europe. The free trader likes fair trade. Fundamentally, he means that he believes in what we know as barter. But the depreciated currencies, of Europe to-day prevent what is or was usually heretofore known as barter. Not only are conditions abnormal in this respect; but they are unnatural, and however in theory we may view them, there is a practical side to these questions, they must be dealt with in a practical way. German exporters of goods are able to establish for themselves credits in foreign countries, and these credits are of great advantage to them in disposing of their productions. I am perfectly satisfied with the efforts of the Minister of Finance in seeking to control this in a practical way, and in some degree.
The statement of the Minister of Finance in his budget in reference to our debt and to our revenue necessities make very plain the serious financial obligations confronting us to-day. Our debt is alarmingly high; it cannot go very much higher without endangering everything in the country. Our actual revenue necessities are also very large; they may continue to grow higher, but I hope not. It will, however, be difficult, as the Minister of Finance has stated, to secure further revenues. We have reached almost the limit of taxation; we cannot proceed in this direction much further; and it is becoming more difficult day by day to discover new sources of revenue, or to ex-
2860	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
plore new avenues through and by which additional revenue may be secured. There is no ideal form of taxation known to us in Canada or to men in any other country. The income tax is regarded the world over, I think, generally speaking, as the fairest form of taxation; but it itself works many hardships. All revenues which come to the treasury of any country come only through taxation; all forms of taxation are more or less of a burden, and they come from earnings and savings of the people generally and from nowhere else. It has been remarked on two or three occasions by some hon. gentlemen that the British government have reduced their debt and that their income tax is declining. I think it was the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) who discussed this particular point, and, I think, with perfect accuracy. The reduction in the British income tax was not due to the fact that they were reducing their debt by taxation; because the truth is that the British debt has been reduced by war salvages and from no other source. The income tax was reduced in Great Britain because it was thought it was becoming a burden upon business, that it was destroying business initiative and enterprise. It was thought that in the end revenues would be encouraged and the economic security of Great Britain better maintained by a reduction of taxation. I refer to this only to impress this point upon hon. gentlemen, because we hear, too frequently I think, expression of the idea that there is no limit to the amount of taxation which this country can impose upon certain people and certain industries. We must all agree that it is morally wrong to impose excessive taxation upon people who cannot afford to pay any taxation whatever, upon poor people. In Great Britain, the idea behind the reduction of the income tax is that it is economically wrong to impose excessive taxation upon people who earn large incomes, and that we should not, in these days of confusion and problems, allow ourselves to be possessed of the idea that business can be indiscriminately taxed, or that men of a certain class can be excessively taxed. I agree with the general proposition that taxation must be imposed upon those who can best afford to pay it; but I wish to emphasize the idea that this can be carried too far, and by excessive taxation, we may destroy the very sources from which we obtain our revenues. Our debt is exceedingly high to-day; our [Mr. A. K. Maclean.)
revenue necessites are extremely burdensome upon the people, and the man who can devise a more suitable scheme of taxation than that which we have to-day will deserve the gratitude of the nation. The hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Irvine) a few days ago presented to the House some scheme which I understood to mean that, if put into operation, it would, within a year or two, wipe out the public debt and would practically avoid the necessity of further taxation. If the hon. gentleman can produce such a scheme and make it practicable, I am sure there is nothing this country would not do for him. Personally, I would favour withdrawing from the British Empire altogether and establishing a new kingdom here, and I would consent that he be placed upon the throne and the crown placed upon his head.


Mr. McMASTER:: Not a crown of gold.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: As I have stated, we have, in my judgment, pretty nearly reached the limit of taxation in this country, and if so, what is to be our relief in the future? I think, as has already been stated by many hon. gentlemen, it should come from a reduction of public expenditure. I know that the ideal of economy is popular, but the practice of it is not so popular. The Minister of Finance intimated this when delivering his budget on the 23rd day of May. I think it is a fact that the people of this country are naturally extravagant; and we might naturally expect that of the people of a new country as compared with the people of older countries. At any rate, I believe that this charge may be fairly levelled against us. But a very radical change must come over us all in that respect. As the Minister of Finance said, we are willing to be economical in so far as the constituency of any other hon. gentleman is concerned, but each of us is not so particular in regard to the constituency we represent. I very modestly suggested the other night that we might suspend the operation of the Rideau canal, particularly what looks to me like the business operation at this end. At the moment I did not know that the town of Perth was situated on the Rideau canal; I was not aware that there were those beautiful Rideau lakes beyond us here. But I never intended to destroy the town of Perth nor to impair the beauties of the Rideau lakes. I merely suggested that certain sections of that canal, which were apparently or outwardly, conducted

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
as a commercial operation might well be done away with. However, my suggestion, which was well intended, was not very well received. The hon. gentleman who sits immediately to my left, the member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan), offered the suggestion the other night that the salaries of civil servants, members of Parliament and judges, and all that class of people generally, should be reduced by 15 per cent.
I do not know that the Minister of Finance has received any cheque, implementing this suggestion, from the class of people designated by the member for Cumberland; nor am I sure whether he himself has tendered a cheque on his own account.
The Minister of Finance expressed doubt as to the permanence of his popularity if he endeavoured to curtail public expenditure. I wish to assure him that, in my judgment, the members of this Parliament, irrespective of their party allegiance or alignment, and the people of the country, regardless of party considerations, will be behind him in his efforts to reduce the public expenditures. And it is my judgment, further, that the supporters of the Government would rather go down upholding the Government in a genuine effort towards the reduction of those expenditures than upon any other public issue which might remove them from office.
Now, the economic conditions in this country are not very agreeable to our people. We have our problems here just as they have them in every other country in the world; and those problems are many and serious. The idea, however, too commonly prevails that we can rehabilitate ourselves economically by restoratives and palliatives that we ourselves suggest individually and sectionally. Formulas are proposed by hon. gentlemen in the House and by people outside of the House based upon local or class considerations, by which they hope to rid the country of the tremendous problems that confront us. Being in economic distress, it is only natural that we should seek the nearest harbour, and we find all forms of suggestions as to the causes of the conditions that obtain to-day, many of which suggestions are erroneous and should never ibe presented, but which nevertheless must be considered. . For our economic conditions to-day it is very common to hear charges made against organized capital, against banks, against railways, against public policy, against farmers, against wage-earners; and in the end hardly any organized human activity escapes the accusation of being responsible for the commercial and economic state of the country. A gentleman residing in one of the western provinces suggested during the last campaign that all classes of the community should be organized independently; that is to say, that all sections of human activity engaged in any particular line of work should be politically organized -and I have not in mind the Progressive party. It is quite clear to me, from my observation of their work in the House this session, that they are not an occupational group. It is true they may very largely belong to the agricultural classes; it is true that they represent to a large extent the agricultural sections of the country, and when they speak they must speak largely for the interests of their people, which are agricultural interests. But I do not think that in any respect they can be termed an occupational party, or a farmers' class party. It is another thing, however, to have it suggested that the whole of this country should be organized into classes politically, in the hope, thereby, of solving the problems that face the nation to-day. That would simply accentuate the differences that exist between the various peoples of our country, differences which we should always seek to minimize if not to obliterate. Such a system of organization would compose no differences. Economically, I should regard it as the purest nonsence-a system which should receive no support from any section of the country, or any individual thereof. It would prevent clear thinking and would make impossible a correct visualization of our own situation, or of the problems of the world at large.
Again, we find it suggested that there should be restricted output on the part of industries in order to ensure more employment and better wages. This has been put forward on more than one occasion in this country, and possibly in this Parliament, although I cannot recall any instances of the kind in the House. But at least it is suggested as a means of correcting the economic condition of the country to-day. Well, it is unsound economically, for you cannot have output restricted without first hurting the man who is a party to that restriction. It means, in the first instance, lessened production, and, in the second place, higher prices and consequently lessened consumption; and this would react quickly and surely upon those very people who believe in the false economic theory that restriction of output is a good thing
2862	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
for them or their country. All these proposals are tendered as cures for the economic diseases of the world to-day.
Now, there is a tendency to forget one of the great events of human history, namely, the fact that a great world war prevailed from the years 1914 to 1918.
We are apt to forget that that war shook the world to its very foundation and that it still trembles, and will, for years to come, and that probably a century will pass be-' fore its effects will have wholly passed away. We know further, the effect of that war upon Europe. We cannot understand cur own economic position or that of the world to-day if we forget the consequences of that war. Canada cannot return to normal business conditions until Europe has recovered her normal economic position. We may of course, do some things to improve our position, but we should always keep in mind that many of the problems confronting us to-day are due to the fact that the war has left Europe in the position which she to-day occupies. And that should bring home to all of us-it does to me at least- something which I never understood in the past as clearly as I do to-day, namely, that continents are dependent upon continents, countries upon countries, nations upon nations, for a sound trading and commercial position. The world to-day is very small; modern transportation has made intercommunication convenient and rapid. As a result the social and commercial conditions of the world are more complex today than they ever were in our history, and we are so inter-dependent, countries upon countries, and peoples upon peoples, that we cannot recover our lost position until the world as a whole has recovered from the disturbing effects of the war. And our own commercial position will not be normal so long as the commercial position of other important countries is abnormal.
This brings me to the idea-and it is merely a restatement of that which I have already expressed-that we are interested in international trade. The opinion has been expressed very frequently during this debate that we in Canada can get along very well without international trade, and that our commercial position can be improved by our trading wholly within ourselves. That, I think, is an economic fallacy. The war again has shown in many practical ways of late how dependent we are one nation upon another. Take the position of Russia, where is being enacted to-day the greatest tragedy of all the ages. Russia was a great cotton consuming coun-

try, and when she collapsed financially and economically the United States lost a great market for its cotton goods; that loss immediately reacted upon the production of raw cotton in the southern States; which in turn reacted upon the whole of the United States, and finally we became affected.
Take another instance. Russia consumed about twenty-five per cent of the tea production of India. When Russia collapsed India lost that market, and her purchasing power to that extent was lessened. India was a great consumer of cotton goods manufactured in England. So the loss of her tea trade with Russia and her resultant restricted purchasing power meant that she bought less cotton goods from England, and that consequently less of these goods were manufactured; which in turn reacted upon Canada, because it lessened the purchasing power of the British people and they bought less of our products.
A further illustration of how utterly dependent one country is upon another is afforded by what occurred in England quite recently. Large importations of a certain kind of gloves were made from Germany into a certain town in the northern part of England. That town sent representatives to the British Board of Trade asking that these importations be prohibited or restricted. Immediately the workingmen of another town close by met together and protested against any such prohibition, pointing out that these gloves were made from wool which they themselves produced, and that consequently their work would be taken away if the manufactured gloves were not allowed to be imported. So after all, Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult in these days to follow cause and effect in trading transactions, but everything clearly indicates, if I may be permitted to repeat, that we are very much dependent upon and easily affected by the condition which prevails in the other countries of the world.
While I am talking about these matters which are outside Canada, and which perhaps are not interesting, may I refer to another matter? I have already said that we in this country are interested in international politics and international trade and have tried to give a few facts in support of that statement. We are interested in every country of the world, and we can never revert to a purely Canadian viewpoint of trade, except to our own disadvantage and detriment.

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean


Mr. IRVINE:: Does that apply to tariffs? If our commercial life is very largely conditioned by our commercial relations with other countries, would not our tariff have to be conditioned by the tariffs of other countries?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I think the tariff would play a very important part in that way.


William Irvine: Is not that exactly the same as the right hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) said a couple of years ago?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I forget
what the right hon. leader of the Opposition said a couple of years ago. But I was remarking, Mr. Speaker, that though we are citizens of a new and undeveloped country, not ranking as one of the first nations of the world by any means, still we are interested in international trade and international questions, and the condition of European countries, should appeal to us just as much as the condition of the people of one of our provinces should appeal to the people of the other provinces. We hear a great deal about Germany these days; she is the subject of much discussion and conference in Europe and of much discussion in this country. I think it is apparent to every reflecting person that unless Germany is put on the road to commercial activities every country in Europe will be adversely affected. It is a commonplace saying, and should not require repetition, that Europe can never be right until Germany is right-that is, in the economic sense. I think it is also a commonplace saying that we are intensely interested in the economic recovery of Germany, or any other country of Europe which is politically and economically disrupted. But, strange to say, the tendency the world over is to enact legislation of one kind or another with the object of preventing her recovery. As was suggested the other day by some hon. members, the war is over, and that part of it had better be forgotten. We can never forgive the guilt of Germany in forcing the world into the greatest tragedy known to all history; nevertheless for our own good and for the good of all the peoples of the world, it is necessary that she be restored, economically at least. Notwithstanding the necessity of this, there is a tendency the world over to do everything to prevent her from resuming her commercial processes. It is expected that she can pay the reparations assessed against her, while
at the same time she is prevented from trading with other countries. Obviously that is an unsound position to take. Germany can pay the reparations only by the exporting of goods. She has no money; there is not enough gold in all the world, by two-thirds, to pay the amount of reparations assessed against Germany by the allied powers. There is no other means known to the human intellect by which she can pay one dollar of the reparations except by the export of goods. Yet in many countries of Europe that procedure is being not facilitated, but rather retarded by restrictions of various kinds. Now, the effect of this was made clear just recently. It would appear from the report of the International Bankers' Association that they have decided that they cannot recommend an international loan to Germany until such questions as the reparations are settled. We are interested in that question; if we as Canadians are interested in our own country, we must of necessity be interested in this matter. And we have a right to speak about it, because we are interested in the restoration of international trading and in international politics. Great world events have brought us into that position, and whenever we have an opportunity to do so we should express what we believe to be the wish and the judgment of this country in that respect.
The member for St. John (Mr. Baxter), much to my surprise, gave expression to the view a few days ago that he would be perfectly content to see the German people dropped out of the universe altogether and become extinct. I was surprised, I say, to hear my hon. friend make that statement. I am dealing with the case of Germany merely from the economic point of view; I am not particularly discussing it with the view to presenting Germany in any more favourable light than she deserves. Well, what would this world be like if in the twinkling of an eye you took out of its economic system sixty millions of people? Disaster would overcome all the European countries. There would be a complete breakup of the present commercial fabric and of commercial institutions. We in this country would suffer tremendously. Any economic doctrine of that kind should find no support in this country any more than it should find support in any European country.
The member for Centre Toronto (Mr. Bristol), speaking on the budget a few days ago, left the impression with me that he
2864	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
thought it undesirable for this country to trade with Germany, but he admitted in the same speech that a company in Nova Scotia in which he is interested is exporting ore to that same Country. Well, how could Germany pay for that ore if we did not buy any goods from her? After all, Mr. Speaker, we get back to this position: that no country can sell unless it buys; it must import just as much as it exports; the moment it ceases to import it will cease to export, and that is true of all countries. What we want more than anything else is a resumption of normal trading among all the countries of the world, and it is the duty of all countries to do what they can to bring about that condition.
I fancy that it has been hardly profitable or interesting to the House that I should have taken so much time in a discussion of trade matters which are, perhaps, more of international than domestic importance. My only excuse for doing so is to impress upon the House that , we cannot eliminate consideration of the commercial condition of the various countries of the world when we are discussing economic matters relating to Canada.
I was very glad, Mr. Speaker, that the Government saw fit to have Canadian representatives at the Genoa Conference. We
have earned the right to be represented at these international conferences and we should always be found there. Perhaps we cannot exert the same influence that can be exerted by many other countries of the world. Though politically we may not be a nation, economically we are, and we have a right to 'be heard in the councils of the world as loudly and persistently as our rights and interests demand.
The Minister of Finance, in his budget, referred to the question of reciprocity with the United States. I speak of the matter only for the purpose of making one suggestion. I am sure that this Parliament, or the people of this country, did not and will not object to the visit of the Minister of Finance to Washington very shortly after his accession to office. Any efforts made by the Government to facilitate trade relations between Canada and the United States, particularly at the present moment, cannot but meet with commendation from all reflecting people in this country. It is true we cannot criticise the actions of the legislation of the United States in respect to commercial matters, tariffs, and things of that kind, but we cannot be prevented from expressing our surprise that in that

regard that country does legislate in the way that it does. We cannot help expressing our surprise that they take the view that they do, particularly at the present time, of international trade. I say it is commendable that public men should de everything they can, when opportunity offers, to encourage closer and freer trading relations between Canada and the country to the south of us. Possibly we in this country hesitate to express as freely as we should our opinion of tariff legislation and other enactments of that kind enacted foy the United States Congress. That may be due to the fact that we have not any instrument to vocalize Canadian thought and ideas in regard to such matters, and I feel like suggesting that Canada should have a representative in the United States somewhat after the form of our High Commissioner in London, there to gfve expression to Canadian ideas and views with regard to the commercial relations between the two countries. Perhaps this might be a very much better and a more practical thing than having, as was suggested a year or two ago, a representative at Washington closely associated with the British Embassy and more in the nature of a diplomatic than a commercial representative. Any trade that is done between this country and the United States is done between the people of this country and the people of the United States-trading is not carried on by countries-and I would think there would be a splendid opportunity in the United States for such a representative of this country to represent our commercial interests, and in my judgment it might bring about very beneficial results. It was only a year or two ago that a delegation from Sheffield, England, appeared before one of the congressional committees on finance and brought to their attention the fact that a certain section of the American tariff then under consideration, if put into effect, would prevent Sheffield manufacturers from selling their wares in the United States. The delegation was well received by the committee, and with very practical results, because, my recollection is, the proposed tariff upon the particular articles in which the delegation were interested, never became operative, but was abandoned by reason of the representations then made.
Now, a few words as to business conditions in this country. Conditions here are not good, as has been stated time and again by other speakers. But our future

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
is not without hope. There is one great distinction we should keep in mind as between this country and the European countries which are in distress to-day, and it is this. We are a very large country with a very small population. We have the capacity to expand. There is the opportunity to develop latent resources. There is room for millions and millions of people yet in this country. These two facts alone should give us great hope. Our problems are great, but they can be overcome, and they will be overcome, and that brings me to say just a word about immigration, which has been discussed by a number of speakers during this debate.
We generally agree that we require immigration into Canada. .Some desire a restricted and selected immigration. I merely refer to this for the purpose of expressing my own personal view, and it is this:	We must not be too particular
about the class of people who come to this country. I want to be understood: we cannot be too discriminatory. There is work to be done in this country and it would be impossible, unwise, and not in the interest of the country, present and future, to say that all of our immigrants should be handpicked. The degree of our growth will very largely depend upon the numbers in which immigrants come to this country in the next few years, and it is the next few years which are the very important and serious ones for us. I want to express my personal opinion only, that any immigration policy that is adopted should not be too restrictive or selective. We must take the longer view. This country will take decades and centuries to fully develop. It took many thousands of years for the British Isles to develop the stock of people who inhabit it to-day, and it would be very difficult indeed to trace their origin through all the ages that are gone. Time in its ceaseless flight works many ethnic changes in the different races which inhabit any country, and so I say we must always have the longer, rather than the shorter view in such great questions.
We have other problems in this country, Mr. Speaker, and one which must always be present to the minds of hon. gentlemen is that^ Canada is a very difficult country to govern. My friend the member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) referred to this the other night. We have a very extensive country, extending from coast to coast, with adverse interests, or rather with a lack of community of interests, at least
in a great many respects. We must endeavour to reconcile these adverse and opposing interests by public policy which is fair and just to the whole country. I wish as briefly as I can to refer to the different sections of the country which constitute Canada, and to point out as I pass along, the difficulties and disadvantages under which some of them live.
Starting in the East, I might well take my native province as being typical of the maritime provinces. There I find that the commercial relations of the maritime provinces with the rest of Canada are not very intimate. There is not a close commercial connection. Economically we are apart. Nova Scotia produces fish, lumber, and some surplus agricultural products. It finds no market in Canada for that surplus. It cannot and never will. That surplus is produced for export and sale in foreign countries. In the line of minerals, we find a market in the province of Quebec for a considerable portion of our coal, but it reaches that market only under a very severe competition, and not by reason of any tariff. True, there is a market in portions of Canada for some of our steel products, but it is also a fact, in my judgment, that that industry will never develop to its true and proper proportions from what might be called a purely Canadian trade. Therefore, I say that our interests are not bound up wholly with Canadian trade. In fact, our true destiny is involved in trade relations with the world; in other words, with international trade. It can be said, therefore, that the maritime provinces are little interested, as compared with other sections of Canada, in the policy of tariff protection. We have not the same possible advantages from that policy as have other provinces of Canada, and this must be kept in mind more in the future than it has been in the past. The maritime provinces have practically not grown at all in population
4 p.m. in the last quarter of a century, and they are rapidly becoming conscious of that fact. They are giving expression to the idea that economically their position is not what it should be, and I would say to those who shall be identified with public affairs in this country in the future that they will 'have to take cognizance of the fact, that in the maritime provinces our development will depend altogether upon international trade. Our traditions are all that way, and our destiny points in that direction. At the same time, it
2866	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
is only fair that I should say for the people of my province that they are not objecting to the federation of the provinces, and they are willing to hear some of the commercial disadvantages of the union,. But I say also that they will insist more and more in the future, as years go by, that a more careful consideration be extended to them, by reason of their commercial isolation from the great populous centres of the rest of the country, a condition which, I think can never be changed by any fiscal policy or programme which this country can adopt.
We come then to the larger and more populous provinces of Ontario and Quebete, where we find, I think, more than half of the population of the country to-day. We have in those provinces greater industrial development; practically the whole of the industrial development of this country is to be found in those provinces. I do not think that it has been brought about by tariff policy only. Usually, the expansion of one district more than another is due to conditions which that district inherently possesses. One would expect to see the commercial metropolis of Canada just where it is. I hope I am not offensive to any other city in Canada in saying that. The city of Montreal is to-day situated where lake meets river and river meets lake. Her geographical position is a commanding one, and her future is assured, regardless of economic policy and1 any other consideration. She is also indebted for her development to her splendid people. Even at this day, and even at this present moment, that province seems to attract industry which might be located elsewhere, but, for somle reason they prefer location in that province in preference to another. At any rate, Mr. Speaker, it is true that, in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, we find a community of interests. The public policy, and the taxation policy, which might suit one very probably would suit the other, and, in so far as these two provinces are concerned, constituting a very large portion of this country as they do, and having more than half of its population, they have not the same commercial disadvantages that other provinces have. There are no differences between these provinces caused by existing public policy to compose, such as we find in other sections of Canada. Yet, these two provinces must remember that they have not themselves alone developed their provinces. The maritime provinces are the markets of the provinces of Ontario an'l

Quebec. Goods are distributed from that section of the country to the maritime provinces. We are their consumers, just as much as the people living in those provinces, and, by reason of that fact, I say that, while they have done very much for themselves, and while public policy may favour them very much, still much of their progress is due to the fact that conditions give them good markets in the sections of Canada east and west of them.
Next we come to the prairie provinces, so miuch talked of these days, largely because there are, in this House, many men to talk for them, and by reason of the conditions which prevail there. That section of the country is of great interest to Canada. They are a large exporting country, and that is of great importance to the people of the other sections of Canada. The exports of the prairie provinces assist to a considerable extent the imports of the industrial sections of Ontario and Quebec, which sections must import, in large quantities, raw materials from other countries-their cotton factories must, of necessity, import the raw cotton, their woollen factories must import wool from abroad, the rubber industries must imfport raw rubber, and so on; and there would be no way of paying for these importations, if there were not exports from these provinces or some other parts of the country. In that respect, we are interested in the West. There is a peculiar situation there. It may be over-accentuated by its citizens. The conditions there, which are very seriously adverse to-day, may possibly be exaggerated.


Mr. GOULD:: No chance!


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Well, there is a chance. There is always a chance for anything. I am rather preparing myself for a consideration of that particular matter. That section of the country is engaged in producing things which find a sale in international markets, and the price which they receive for their production is the price fixed in the international markets. The things they buy, as hon. members opposite assert, are bought largely in this country under the protective tariff, which, in some degree, at least, adds to the cost. They are far from the seaboard. Hon. members opposite who belong to these provinces frequently protest against this condition of affairs. There is much in their contention, I admit-a great deal, perhaps- and that, doubtless, has been accentuated by reason of the unusual commercial de-

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
pression existing throughout Canada today and even the whole world. We are all much interested in the development of the prairies provinces. Our hope, for the near future, at least, lies in the degree of development which takes place in that section of Canada. From 1900 to 1910 was the period in which the whole of Canada developed. There is no other decade comparable to it in our history, and I was very much impressed with this a few hours ago, when I was looking at the census returns for those four provinces. I found that in 1891 there were only 152,000 people in Manitoba; in 1911 there were 455,000, and in 1921, 610,000. There was no census taken of Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1891- they were then organized territories-but in 1901 Saskatchewan had 91,000, in 1911 she had 492,000 and in 1921 she had 757,000. Alberta had but 73,000 in 1901, 374,000 in 1911, and 568,000 in 1921. British Columbia had but 98,000 in 1891, 178,000 in 1901, 392,000 in 1911, and 521,000 in 1921. Now this represents a great development and growth.
Perhaps only an exposure of these figures would bring home to us this very important fact. During that period when immigration was coming into this country, there was, as 1 said before, a great expansion of business throughout Canada. It was that immigration which developed Ontario and Quebec industrially so much, because we were practically adding every year to the population of 'Canada, a number almost equal to our smaller provinces. That incoming population had to be transported, clothed, fed; it was that which led to the extension of our railroad system; it was that which gave impetus to the industrial life of Canada. The industrial development did not bring into the country the new population, but the immigration brought the development. Therefore, it follows that anything that can bring about a return of a corresponding development in those three prairie provinces, or in the four western provinces, is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Any public policy which can do that will command the 'support of the intelligent and reflecting people of this country, and our problem is to find that policy. Business in the West is unfortunately depressed to-day; but our western friends must remember that the same conditions prevail in other sections of Canada. The agriculturists faced deflation first of all the producers on this continent. In 1920, their productions fell to pre-war prices, while the
things they had to buy remained inflated. That produced the condition and the result which we have to-day in the West. The same thing occurred in the United States; it occurred in some countries of Europe, and I do not know of any public policy that could be enunciated by public men or governments that could have prevented it.
It has been said by someone, I forget whom, that the West will never become a manufacturing country. I can hardly concur in that idea. I do not know that it is very important to determine the fact one way or the other; but to some extent there is manufacturing there at the present time. It is almost impossible to conceive of a province, having the great resources say, of Alberta, not becoming more or less industrialised sometime in the future,-perhaps it may be said, in the remote future. I was sorry to hear a very excellent speech delivered by the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey) a few days ago, detracted from, I thought, just in its last moments, by a painting of the future of those provinces. He was reading from a survey made of Manitoba by somebody, in which survey the writer intimated that the wheat yield per acre in Manitoba was falling; and the future was painted in dark colours. It is not necessary for anybody to make a survey in order to come to that conclusion. That is a fact known to the ancients as well as to moderns. You cannot have an omelet without breaking an egg, you cannot grow anything from the soil without extracting the fertility; and the only way of perpetuating production is by returning to the soil, by artificial means, if you will, the fertility which has been taken from it. The West will grow no matter what government is in office in this country, and no matter what be the nature of the public policy that may prevail. Immigration has ceased; but it will not be long before we hear the West crying to send them men to "match their mountains and men to match their plains" as in years gone by. Nevertheless I have sympathy, and I 'believe every one in this country has sympathy for the agriculturists who reside in the prairie provinces over the conditions now prevailing there. The point, however, which I wish to place before hon. gentlemen for their serious consideration is the fact, that in that section of Canada you have a tremendous area and a very large population, engaged largely in one industry, whose interests are not identical with the interests of the

2868	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
rest of Canada, and it is not unnatural that from time to time we hear well considered and persistent complaints against public policy prevailing-perhaps with success-in other sections of the country, but which policy they ibelieve is unsuitable for their conditions. I mention that only again to present the thought that this is a /ery difficult country to govern.
In the province of British Columbia, the last province of the Dominion, we find the situation much as it prevails in my province. It is far removed from populous centres, and is separated from the prairie provinces by mountain ranges. The people of British Columbia naturally expect a market for their productions in the prairie provinces, but the value of that market to them depends very largely upon the success which the people of the prairies have each year in their agricultural pursuits. That market is variable and transportation charges, they allege, are unfavourable for the development of that market. That market besides is shared in by the East. The major portion of the productions of British Columbia find a market in foreign countries. If British Columbia develops to any great extent-and I believe it will in the future-it will be because it has become an exporting country. Its destiny to a very large degree is out upon the seas, and the future interests of the people of British Columbia are closely connected with the countries of the Orient and the Antipodes. If the harbours of British Columbia are to develop as great shipping ports-and I believe they will-that will depend entirely upon international trade, because a port will never develop unless there are imports and exports for ships to carry as inward and outward cargoes.
That is a rough picture of this country, and it shows how much in conflict are the interests of the various sections of this wide-flung young nation. Little wonder is it that it is difficult to govern. Little wonder is it that we find it difficult to compose the inevitable differences of these different sections of Canada. But, at any rate, these differences call for the best attention and consideration of Parliament and of the public men of this country, and only in a spirit of compromise is it possible to pursue our national career with success, so that provinces shall march side by side in the development of the nation as a whole, and we may thus achieve our true destiny. Only in this manner is it possible for each province to secure the development which each deserves and to which each na-

turally aspires. It is only by a just consideration of the interest of each, that the whole confederation can work out its destiny and purpose.
Just a word or two more upon one phase which I have already discussed. What is one of the chief factors contributing to the depression of trade in this country to-day? It is desirable in discussing the present adverse conditions of the country, to understand, if we can, the actual causes of those conditions. If we do not know those causes and have not them clearly in our minds, we cannot intelligently discuss the effects. One of the causes contributing to the depression in domestic trade today, is the fact that the true equilibrium in the exchange values of commodities with commodities is wanting. Some hon. gentleman opposite remarked the other evening to the fact that he could not get more, I think, than a dollar for a hide, although he had to pay $12 for a pair of shoes; and after making that statement he asked the question:	Where is the
nigger? Well, that question left the impression in my mind that that hon. gentleman was suspicious as to the existence of some sinister public policy and believed the whole cause of this particular condition to be easily ascertained, and to be capable of immediate remedy by public policy. One of the difficulties of trading in the world to-day is that goods do not exchange the one with the other upon a fair basis. That is true. The prices of some commodities are too high altogether in relation to other commodities. It prevents exchange, it destroys business. Now, you cannot long have wheat selling at $1 a bushel and flour at $10 a barrel; nor can you have leather or hides selling at low prices and boots and shoes at high prices. You cannot have cotton and wool almost unsaleable, or barely saleable, and cotton and woollen manufactured goods selling at high prices. One must go up and the other down or there will be disaster. It is impossible to have any sound commercial conditions when the primary products are low in price, and manufactured products abnormally high in price, and that is one of the present difficulties that confront agriculturists and producers of raw materials to-day. Wheat will not, for instance, buy for its producer a fair quantity of the goods of another producer. If this continues production will fall and prices will rise. The proper balance or equilibrium in the exchange values of goods with goods has been lost, and that it what we want to restore. But

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
how to restore it is the question and the problem. Now, there is only one suggestion that one can make, and that is that in the industries which have not yet deflated, the controllers or managers should do all they possibly can to bring about that deflation. We cannot have prosperity in this country with a deflation in primary products and continued inflated prices in manufactured goods. The true prices of commodities are the prices that will permit them to freely exchange with other commodities. The right level of wages, the economic level, is that standard which will give men employment, and which will permit wage to exchange with wage or commodity with commodity, which is the same thing, on a fair exchange basis. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) in his budget speech, in referring to the conditions between labour and capital, had in mind, I think, this idea -if he had not, then I wish to make the suggestion myself

that there is a great opportunity for the leaders of industry and the employees of industry to render a service to their country and to their fellow-citizens at the present time In coming to a proper understanding as to wages, labour conditions and production. I think they owe to the public and their fellow-countrymen the duty of doing everything they possibly can towards bringing about a deflation in the prices of manufactured and semi-manufactured goods, so that they may exchange on an economic basis with the primary products of the country. If they fail to bring about that condition, the present commercial depression will continue. And no absolute power rests in governments or in Parliament to bring about that condition; it can be facilitated at least in the way I have suggested.


Mr. GOOD:: The hon. member has expressed the desire that the prices of manufactured products should go down, but he does not seem to understand how this Government can have any control over deflation. I want to ask him if it is not reasonable to suppose that by a reduction in the tariff on, say, shoes, we can force the Canadian manufacturer of shoes to deflate his prices, just as well as we can-and perhaps better-by asking him to deflate them of his own free will.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I had not in mind merely the manufacturers, but of course my remarks, perforce, must apply to that line of production. What I say, however, is this, that in all lines of indus-
182|
try where there has not been deflation it should be brought about, and I urge that those engaged in industry, or large labour employing concerns, should do everything possible to secure that end. Now, as my hon. friend from Brant (Mr. Good) suggests, it is possible that the tariff might be utilized as a factor in that directon. There might, however, be difficulties at the present time in using the tariff as a lever in the way suggested. Take free trade in England to-day, where practically no tariff exists, and you find the same conditions prevailing there, or at least they did in a very marked degree a few months ago. I have though in mind the factors which enter into the situation outside of tariffs. I am appealing to individuals and not to governments. Perhaps the situation is less acute to-day, but a few months ago in England there was an abnormal disparity between commodity prices, and the problem that had been engaging the thought of public men and business men of England more than tariffs or anything else, was how to re-establish a true equilibrium in prices as between commodities and the true relation between commodities and prices.


Mr. FORKE:: Would the hon. member for Halifax assert that there is any comparison whatever between the spread in England and in Canada to-day as between the price of wool and the prices of woollen goods? Does he contend that the two countries can be compared at all in this respect?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I am not in a position to give an intelligent answer to my hon. friend offhand, but if the spread is not so great in England I am glad to know it, and perhaps I shall satisfy the hon. member by expressing the hope that the spread will diminish gradually in this country.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I must hasten to a close, as my remarks have extended far beyond the length I had intended. Before I resume my seat, however, I just wish to refer briefly to the amendment before the House. The amendment moved by the hon. member for York (Sir Henry Drayton) suggests failure on the part of the Government to implement its pledges; and the Progressive amendment, which was ruled out of order, contained a suggestion of the very same nature, and also stated that the principle of protection as a basis for a fiscal policy is not in the best interests of the country. I have been unable to see any practical good or any useful public purpose
2870	COMMONS
The Budget

Mr. A. K. Maclean
to be served by the amendment of the member for York. He seeks to enact a new political decalogue by moving his amendment to the budget.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I was not at the Liberal convention of 1919, for very good reasons-


Andrew Ross McMaster: And to our great regret.
Mr. MACLEAN (Halifax) and had I presented myself there in the flesh I might have had some doubt as to the cordiality of my reception.


Andrew Ross McMaster: No, no, not the slightest.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: But at any rate the convention proceeded without me and my absence mattered nothing. I agree with the general statement that political parties should live up to their public professions and their commitments as to policy. At the same time I think political parties should exercise very great care in giving pledges to the public but we must be practical in these matters. I have been in public life long enough to realize that it is better to be practical than theoretical about such matters. Party government is inevitable, but after all, though it is not the reign of saints, there is just as much morality and courage and adherence to principle in the world of parliament as in the world outside.
Not having been present when the Liberal platform of 1919 was being constructed, I may perhaps be allowed to stand off at a little distance and with no impropriety make some remarks concerning that platform. In my judgment political conventions-and they are a necessity at times- should only commit themselves to principles. Had I been present at that convention I would have protested, although perhaps without effect, against the designation of specific articles to be put upon the free list; the fixing exactly of rates of duties, in other words, I would have objected to a party convention attempting to do what should be left to the people's representatives in Parliament, that is, to carry out public policy in detail. I think everyone will agree with me in that. The Progressive party adopted a policy after the same fashion. I think that they also made a mistake, and I have not the slightest doubt that if I could take hon. gentlemen opposite beyond the green doors yon-

der one by one and put the question to them, they would say that it was a mistake for a political party in convention to commit itself to the details of public policy. I do not say that some of the articles mentioned in the Liberal platform or in the Progressive platform might not without disadvantage to any section of the community be placed upon the free list; but I do say that it is better for party conventions to declare themselves upon general principles, and leave to the people's representatives in Parliament the duty of saying how principles are to be worked out in their details.
I have never yet been able to understand why some people think it is so easy to revise a tariff vertically. I can understand its treatment horizontally, because then the action taken relates to whole classes of commodities and proper relationships are not destroyed. I am not saying that specific articles cannot be treated by themselves; I merely wish to suggest for the consideration of hon. gentlemen that once a country commits itself to the principle of protective tariffs, you rear a tariff structure of considerable complexity, and it is not as easy to take some timbers out of that structure as certain hon. gentlemen think. Further, you cannot always be sure that you get the best results in that way for the public generally. However, these remarks do not do away with the Liberal platform.
The present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), when addressing the Liberal convention which nominated him as leader of his party, expressed the view that he would take the adopted platform as the chart and compass of the Liberal party. He was just putting out on the political sea, and I suppose it was only natural that he should employ nautical terms to express his ideas. I think he showed a good deal of pre-vision and political sagacity in making that statement. He is not in the position that he can be charged with having sought a variation of the party policy at a time subsequent to the convention, because his statement synchronized practically with his nomination as leader, and therefore I do not think he is open to criticism on that account. He expressed the thought and his adherents had in mind the idea that the tariff resolution contained within it a principle which was the essential matter and not the details of it nor the complexities of working it out.
And, during the campaign, I think, the Prime Minister's public utterances were consistent with the view which he ex-<

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
pressed at the convention. The tariff changes which the Minister of Finance has brought down are not inconsistent in the vital principles with the Liberal platform of 1919. At least no one can argue that the compass is not pointing in the direction indicated by that convention.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is only a flicker.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: At any rate the reductions made in the tariff indicate that the compass is pointing in the right direction. Had there been increases there might have been some justification for the criticism of the Liberal party and its leader, which has been made by hon. gentlemen directly opposite me. It must be remembered that the revision of a tariff which has in it the elements of protection is not a very easy task to accomplish, particularly at this time. If hon. gentlemen of the Progressive party were placed upon the ministerial benches to-morrow, they have admitted collectively, and many of them individually, that they could not abandon the tariff at once. So far all the differences in opinion is one of degree. The Government has been in office barely five months, and it does not seem to me quite fair to demand that in that short time they give full expression to what some sections of the country or certain individuals think should be done in the way of tariff revision. That would be too much to expect of any government, and particularly of any Minister of Finance, considering the short time which has elapsed since he and his colleagues came into office. I do not think that the practical people of this country can in justice claim that any extensive revision of the tariff could be expected at the present session. It is not a very easy matter to-day, considering the great confusion in trade and commerce the world over, to revise our tariff and know exactly what the effect of that revision will be. As I said at the opening of my remarks, it is difficult to see the incidence of taxation as proposed by the resolutions of the Minister of Finance. To-day, to-morrow, or the next day, he may ascertain that the effects of his amended resolutions are not what he expected them to be, and it is difficult to approximate or estimate the effects of fiscal policy or of public policy generally upon the world activities to-day, largely because of the political and economic confusion which prevails the world over.
The discussion of the amendments has brought forth the usual amount of talk about protection and free trade. I am inclined to think that too many people make a fetish of each of these theories of trade. For myself, I do not regard one as a virtue and the other as a sin. The hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) remarks that he does think that one is a virtue and the other a vice. In principle one may be sound and the other unsound; I will go that far with my hon. friend. It is true that a protective tariff may help some people and hurt others. It is also true that there is a difference of opinion in this country upon the effect of tariffs. As I pointed out in the earlier part of my remarks, in some sections of this country you will find public opinion strongly in favour of protection. In my province you will find some support for the principle of protection, but on the other hand the majority I believe do not look for any great development that province in the future as a result of the adoption of the principle of protection. In fact, I will go so far as to say that I do not think it can be hoped that my province can be developed under a protective policy. At the same time as a part of the Confederation we must submit to the law in this regard as established by the majority. The minority cannot get just what they want in respect of tariffs or in respect of anything else; neither can the majority for that matter, because their demands are reduced as the result of opposition, and in the end, by compromise. I appreciate the fact that there is something to be said in some countries for the policy of protection, though I would not concur in it as a principle. Whether one believes in it or not, it is nevertheless a fact that in a young country which is without capital, large population, industrial experience or foreign markets, there is a desire to have diversity of industry so as to give scope to the imagination, the intelligence and the enterprise of its people. Whether right or wrong, that idea will exist in any new country, and it exists in this country, even in our western provinces. After all, protection is state aid; it is the doing of something to help some people at the expense of others, there is no doubt about that. If it did not do that, it would not be protection and nobody would want it. Very few protectionists to-day deny that. In my earlier days in political life every exponent of protection denied that the tariff exaction meant any increase in the price of commodities to consumers, but that is admitted to-day. Now,
2872	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
if the people of a country, in order to bring about diversification of industry or for any other reason, adopt tariffs as a national policy, it is there, and once adopted it cannot be got rid of in a moment. We all agree to that,

Progressives, Liberals and Conservatives alike. We all agree also, I think, that free trade is not a possible public policy in this country to-day. Not a single hon. member of this House, so far as I know, has given expression to that view. In fact, many members of the party directly opposite me, the chief exponents of low tariff in this Parliament, have stated time and time again during the past few weeks that we cannot now have free trade in this country. So therefore that is not in issue. The war has settled the matter; this country cannot for many years to come have free trade as they have it in England. We will require a tariff for revenue purposes at least, because it will not be possible for the Government to get in any other way the revenues which it requires. We have not accumulated reserves of wealth in this country from which we can get the needed revenue. We are young in development; there has been no great national saving as yet which could be the source of sufficient revenue for the nation's needs through an income tax.
I confess that one reason why I have not been antagonistic to the idea of a tariff in this country is the fact that the great nation to the south of us have always put up against us exceedingly high tariffs, frequently to prevent fair trade between Canada and the United States, -at least, I have got that impression. I am not going so far as to say that it is economically sound for us to give heed to the tariff legislation of the United States. If free trade theoretically is right, I suppose in the end we might disregard the actions of that country from time to time in respect of tariffs. But every practical man must admit that to take down the Canadian tariff and leave this country open to the American producer would bring about so sudden a change in the economic life of Canada that consequences would ensue which might be quite disastrous in their character. As to that, one cannot tell; but I think I express the view of this country as a whole-of protectionists, free traders, and fair traders-that in the circumstances, in view of our geographical relation to the United States, in view of the tariff policy of that country, frequent-

ly designed against us, we cannot embark upon a policy of free trade here. I doubt if in the ranks of hon. gentlemen opposite or in any other section of this country you could find a very substantial body of opinion to the effect that we should go so far in that direction as to leave the Canadian market absolutely open to American productions, and to place this country in such a position that she would have at her disposal no economic weapon to employ in dealing with a country whose tariff legislation is not, we feel, always wise from their own standpoint, or fair and favourable to us from the viewpoint of our material interests. I should, however, like to see freer trade relations between the two countries.
Now, I have taken some time to give to the House a rough idea of the varying economic interests of the different sections of Canada. I think it is fair to say that in the circumstances a compromise upon fiscal policy as between those different sections of the country is inevitable. I trust that some common ground can be worked out, fairly acceptable to all.
I have inot the slightest doubt, Mr. Speaker, as the leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Crerar) intimated when speaking in this debate, that the thought of the world to-day is in the direction of lower tariffs. I think that is true of the United States. You cannot read the utterances of their princes of commerce, their leading merchants, bankers and economists, their boards of trade and chambers of commerce, during the last few months in the eastern part of the United States, where the Republican party has always been strong, without reaching the conclusion that the leaders of thought in the United States believe in the reduction of tariffs in that country, and that hereafter she must give more liberty and freedom to the importation of foreign products.


Mr. HANSON:: Is the hon. member able
to point his finger to one single leader of public opinion in the political world of the United States who has come out and avowed himself in favour of a lower tariff?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I do not
know that I could mention the name of a political leader in the United States whose views upon the tariff issue I could quote to my hon. friend. I am sure that I would be very much impressed one way or the other with the opinions of political leaders in the United States, because, the actions

The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean
of a majority of them at least in recent days would not indicate to me that their viewpoint was sound. I can say this, however, that the dominant note in the industrial, commercial and financial life of the eastern section of the United States to-day is in the direction of lower tariffs. And of necessity that must he. The commerce of the United States is depressed to-day. Why? Because she is not exporting the surpluses which she is producing. How does that happen? Because she is not importing goods. She cannot expect other countries to buy goods of her unless she buys goods of them; there is no other way, which human beir js know of to pay for goods except by goods. Money is not a factor in it at all. Gold may be used, it is true, in the settlement of small international balances, but large international balances as a rule cannot be settled in gold, and then you have a depreciation in currency. We could not settle one hundred dollars worth of international adverse trade in gold, because we haven't got it. What little we have cannot be exported. The United States is a great creditor nation, and they cannot export unless they import, and they cannot live, economically, in the future unless they import very much more largely than they have been doing in the past.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Is Canada a great
creditor nation as the hon. member has described the United States to be?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: No.


Arthur Meighen: Then does not the
hon. member's argument apply in the reverse ?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Before the
war the balance of trade was rather against the United States, but it was made up by her borrowings from abroad, because even in 1914 she was a heavy borrower from other countries of the world. The United States government did not borrow but the people of the United States borrowed from the people of other countries. To-day the United States is making investments abroad, placin0 heavy loans in almost every country in the world, and how can she receive payment of interest except in goods? There is no other way to receive payment of heavy amounts of interest. She must import.


Arthur Meighen: 1 The hon. member knows so well, that is the reason I am asking. Will he not admit that C~nada
ii in precisely the opposite position to that in which the United States has been since 1892? Canada is a debtor nation with large payments of interest to make, and consequently not requiring to import on an equality with her exports.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: In one
sense Canada's position is different from that of the United States, because she is not a loaning nation, but, nevertheless, it is just as true of us that we must grow as an exporting country if we are going to take care of our great public debt and continue to be able to raise the necessary annual revenue for our public requirements. It is also true that we cannot export unless we import. Our 5 p..m. exports, as I have said, must pay for our imports, of raw cotton for instance, rubber, wood, and many other things. I know what is in the hon. gentleman's mind. We perhaps cannot travel as fast, as the United States can, but, nevertheless, it can be said truthfully of this country as of all other countries, that if by mutual arrangement our commodities could be exchanged freely for those of other countries, it would be better for the countries concerned.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. member permit one or two questions 'more, because I think it is worth while? Will he say that with Canada having to pay annually over $2,000,000 of interest to the outside world, we require in order to pay our debts to import as much as we export, or that we even can import as much as we export?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Canada's
exports, of course, should exceed her imports in commodities as much as possible, because we must remit abroad for services and for interest and we can only do this by exports.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: But, after all, it matters little whether your imports are commodities, money or securities; they must balance your exports. International transactions are no different from private transactions in that respect; they must balance. It is either money or commodities which people deal in. That is all that business consists of; that is all that international commerce means, and all that domestic commerce means; and in the end the whole thing ultimately means merely exchange of commodities. I fail to see the distinction my right hon. friend has in mind. I think he is wrong, entirely wrong.
2874	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. A. K. Maclean


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman
has argued that I was right.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: I was saying, when interrupted, that in this country the tariif question twill be an issue for years to come. There will be exponents of high tariffs and of moderate tariffs, and there will be those who believe in the application of the principle of free trade in our fiscal life; but one thing is clear, that with the diversified interests which we have, with the lack of community of interest which we have in the extremities of this country and as between different sections of the country, it is necessary that in working out the true policy to be applied to the whole country there must be a spirit of compromise on the part of all the provinces. I would say to hon. members of the Progressive party that the present budget presented by the Minister of Finance, whilst not presenting any radical reductions in the tariff, still moves in the direction in which they desire and would have him move. In my judgment, it is a little unreasonable to have expected any greater variations in the tariff at the present time. I do not think that they are justified in reaching the conclusion that the opinions, or principles of the Minister of Finance in the direction of lower tariffs have been absolutely exhausted upon this occasion, and that there is nothing more to be hoped from him in the future. I believe the tendency the world over is in the direction of lower tariffs. Certainly, Europe will never recover her economic strength unless the countries there cease their foolish policies of the last year or two in their efforts to prevent international trading, and the economic recuperation of the most of Europe. If I am correct in my judgment of the future of other countries, namely that the tendency is in the direction of lower tariffs, and greater freedom of trade, as between the peoples of different countries, then I am justified in saying that in this country the people who believe in 'lower taxation upon commodities will look to the future with hope that public policy will continue to move in that direction in the future, regardless of what government is in office in this country.
I did not intend that my remarks should run to such a length. I feel that I am in the position of a man who said he did not have time to write a short letter. Unfortunately, I did not have much time to make preparation for my remarks this afternoon, and I offer that as an apology for

the undue length of time I occupied addressing hon. members of this House.


Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (South Wellington) :: Mr. Speaker, I rise at this late hour of the debate for the purpose of addressing the House for a few moments on some of the new features of the debate which have been placed before the House since last evening, by the amendments, or new proposals, which my hon. friend the Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding) has now laid on the Table of the House. The question, as originally presented to Parliament by the Finance Minister, has already been pretty fully discussed, and I will not attempt to add anything to that discussion, but will content myself with a few brief references to the matters which have arisen out of the remarks of my hon. friend last evening. The views of the official Opposition, who sit on your left, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the question of the budget in general, have been very fully and very ably placed before the House, and the line of action which it was proposed to take by those who constitute the official Opposition was clearly laid before the House in the speech of my right hon. friend and leader, the hon. member from Grenville (Mr. Meighen). The pronouncement of the leader of the Opposition that the Opposition felt it was its duty to oppose the budget was made after full consideration, after due deliberation, and after consultation with the members of the party sitting upon your left. However, I think we all realize that since the pronouncement was made some new and radical proposals have been made by my hon friend the Minister of Finance; and while my hon friend received many well-meant and well-deserved congratulations on the fact that he presented to this House his sixteenth budget, ![DOT] think, now, perhaps, he is entitled to ibe congratulated on having brought down his seventeenth budget. I do not say that the course of the Finance Minister in this respect is unprecedented. I cannot speak as to that, but I do say that it is very unusual, and never before do I remember a single occasion when a Finance Minister, in the course of the budget debate, has revised practically his whole tariff proposals, or a very large proportion of them, and some of the most imlportant questions which he originally submitted to Parliament by way of fresh resolutions.
I believe the House will agree with me that the chief criticism which has heretofore been levelled against the budget, as

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
originally introduced, by the official Opposition, -was in respect of three particular items. Certainly there has been much general criticism and much detailed criticism, but the most pointed criticism and the main objections have been directed towards three particular items in the proposals of my hon. friend the Finance Minister. First, we criticised his proposal in regard to what is known as the question of depreciated currency of foreign nations. Secondly, we criticised the proposal of the minister in regard to the question which has been referred to as the " anti-dumping " clause. Thirdly, we criticised the proposal dealing with the question known as the " marking " clause, or the regulation which requires the marking of goods imported into Canada with the name of the country of origin. These formed the main subjects of discussion, of criticism, and of opposition by those who constitute the official Opposition of this House. In regard to one of those subjects the Finance Minister has made a further pronouncement of a novel and important nature. It will be remembered that this session opened on the 8th March last, and from that date till the 23rd May, when the Finance Minister made his budget speech in this House, he had abundant time fully to consider and weigh the whole situation before presenting his proposals to Parliament. I assume he did so. I assume he was advised by his friends, and by experts competent to advise him, as to what course should be adopted in each particular instance, and he came down to Parliament on the 23rd of May, and boldly announced, amidst the acclamation of his own supporters and the very strongest manifestations of approval by hon. members of the Progressive group in this House, that the Government had decided to wipe out the provisions of the act which was passed during the last session of this House, in 1921, viz., section 8 of the Customs and Excise Act, which provided against the admission into this country of goods from countries where there was a depreciated currency, except upon a special valuation as prescribed by that section. That announcement by the Finance Minister was, I think, ill-considered. I doubt if he had made himself fully familiar with the trade situation throughout European countries when he made the announcement. It was evident that the announcement pleased a great many hon. members on his own side of the House. It was more than evident that it also pleased the Progressive party
on this side of the House, indeed, I think, the hon. leader of the Progressive party, the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), took special pains to congratulate the Finance Minister upon that aspect of his budget speech. Just how did he announce it? His language will be found at page 2188 of unrevised Hansard. He highly condemned the proposal of the former Government, contained in the statute of 1921, and then went on to say:
So, while you keep up the pretence of a duty of 35 per cent, you are actually taxing those goods 1,000 per cent. If you want to say that German goods shall be prohibited, say so; if you shrink from saying that in such a direct way, then put on the 1,000 per cent duty; but do not humbug the world at large by pretending that we have a duty of 35 per cent when the real duty is about 1,000 per cent.
What does the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) propose to do now? Does he propose to humbug the world by letting the world believe that we have a duty of only 35 per cent, when his own proposal, as I hope to show in a moment, is that we impose a duty of about 200 per cent? Why, he asks, did the former government a year ago seek to humbug the world? Why, he says, did the government in 1921 not impose a duty of 1,000 per cent? To-day I put the same question to my hon. friend the Finance Minister; I ask him: Why seek to humbug the world? Why not impose a duty of 200 per cent? Because that is practically what the Finance Minister's new proposal means. The provision of last year to which I refer is section 8 of the Customs Act of 1921, which reads:
Notwithstanding any of the provisions of this section, in computing the value for duty of the currency of an invoice, no reduction shall be allowed in excess of 50 per cent of the value of the standard or proclaimed currency of the country from whence the goods are invoiced to Canada, irrespective of the rate of exchange existing between such country and Canada on date of the shipment of the goods; and in respect of goods shipped to Canada from a country where the rate of exchange is adverse to Canada, the value for duty of the currency of the invoice shall be computed at the rate of exchange existing between such country and Canada at the date of the shipment of the goods.
Such was the provision which Parliament passed last year. Such is the provision which the Minister of Finance in his budget of this year, proposes to annul and to repeal, and for which he last evening proposed to substitute the following- this is the resolution of which my hon. friend gave notice last night:
1. Resolved, That it is expedient to amend section forty of the Customs Act by providing

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
that in the ease of importations from a foreign country, the value for duty shall not be less than the value that would be placed on similar goods produced in the United Kingdom and imported from that country, if such similar goods are produced there. If similar goods are not produced in the United Kingdom, the value for duty shall not be less than the value of similar goods imported from any European country in which the currency is not substantially depreciated.
The minister may determine the value for duty of isuch goods, and the value so determined shall, until otherwise provided, be the value upon which the duty on such goods shall be computed and levied under regulation prescribed by the minister.
I am reading from the resolution as printed on page 2955 of unrevised Hansard. If the resolution has been correctly-printed in Hansard, it goes much further than any one supposed, because it applies to every country in the world, whether the currency is depreciated or not. I fancy there is an omission or a clerical error in the print, or the resolution will have to be amended. The question is: How would this proposal work out, if adopted? We are agreed, I believe, in this House that, at the present time, currency conditions in Germany are such that the mark which, in normal times, is worth 23 cents, is today worth approximately only one-third of one cent. Last year, when Parliament passed the amendment to the Customs Act which I have quoted to the House, it provided that, under conditions such as these, the value of foreign currency for customs purposes upon goods imported into Canada should be not less than 50 per cent of the normal value of such foreign currency. The normal value of the mark is about 23 cents, the 50 per cent value imposed by the statute would make the mark equal to Hi cents, whereas, to-day the mark, as I said, is actually of a value of about one-third of one cent. In order to give an illustration to the House of how the act of last session operates in regard to the duty upon imports from countries where the currency is depreciated and also how the proposal now made by the Minister of Finance will operate in regard to such duty, I am going to cite the case already cited so ably and so thoroughly by the hon. member for Centre Vancouver (Mr. Stevens) in regard to imported pocket-knives, and which will be found on the pages of Hansard. The facts given and the prices stated by the hon. member for Centre Vancouver are from reliable sources, and they represent actual transactions in the sale and purchase of pocket cutlery. I take the case of the pocket-

knife merely as a single example. The same principles and the same reasoning will apply with equal force to all the other hundreds, yes thousands, of articles which Germany is now exporting and will continue to export to the Dominion of Canada if the act of 1921 be repealed. The instance of the pocket-knife will serve my purpose. Pocket-knives are manufactured and sold in Germany to-'day, or they were six weeks ago, at 55 cents per dozen in Canadian money or 165 marks in German money, because 165 marks is equal to 55 cents at the present rate of exchange. The duty on such knives, before the act of 1921 came into operation, was 30 per cent. Thirty per cent on 55 cents is 16 cents, so that the duty and the cost added together would make the price of these knives 71 cents per dozen landed in the Dominion of Canada. This was the condition which Parliament had to face a year ago when it amended the Customs Act. What effect had the amendment, you ask? The amendment established a value of the German mark for customs purposes of 11 i cents. 165 German marks valued at lli cents are equal to $18.98 in Canadian money, and on that amount duty was calculated at the rate of SO per cent, so that the duty in that case would be $5.69. The price of the knives in Germany was 55 cents, so that if we add the duty, the total cost laid down in Canada, duty paid, would be $6.24 per dozen, and generally speaking, the Minister of Finance was about right when he said that this would prove to be a duty of about 1,000 per cent. Such is the law as it stands to-day. It was enacted to afford protection to the workmen and the industries of Canada. The minister proposes to repeal that law and to substitute the resolution which I have just read, whereby German goods shall be valued, not according to German values or standards, but according to the value of such goods in Great Britain. Let us proceed a step further in our inquiry. The value of that identical pocket knife in Great Britain at that date was $3.65 per dozen in Canadian money. If the present resolution passes, that price, the British price, will be the established value for customs purposes of German knives. Upon that valuation duty will be computed at the rate of 30 per cent amounting to about $1.09. The cost of the dozen knives is 55 cents and the duty $1.09, so that the total cost of the knives, with the duty added, would be but $1.64 per dozen, as against

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
the former price, including cost and duty, of $6.24 per dozen. The cost of production alone in Great Britain is $3.65 per dozen. The cost of production in Germany is only 55 cents, and with duty the whole price of the German article will be only $1.65 per dozen, or less than one-half of the actual cost of producing the knife in Great Britain. What a tremendous advantage such a measure will give Germany over Great Britain! The cost of producing the knife in Canada, I am told by gentlemen who, I believe, are good authorities, is about $4 per dozen, and the knife is sold to wholesalers at $4.75 or thereabouts per dozen. If the proposal of the Finance Minister be adopted, the result will be that Germany can sell and deliver in Canada, duty paid, not only pocket knives, but almost every other line of manufacture at prices below half the actual cost of manufacture in Canada.


Mr. CRERAR:: The House will be interested to have an explanation from my hon. friend, if he can give it, as to how the Germans can produce knives at 55 cents per dozen that can be produced in Great Britain only at as low as $3.60 a dozen.


Hugh Guthrie: I am afraid I must ask my hon. friend to put that question to the Germans themselves, but I think it is by reason of the fact that the German mark is depreciated to the extent I mentioned,- and I got the figure which I have given from the Minister of Finance's statement *-of one-third of one cent per mark; and the German mark has been stabilized within Germany by artificial means through legislation of their own. But I am not so much concerned about the causes; I am concerned now with the result. I believe, in regard to this question, in the force of the statement of the late Grover Cleveland in another connection, namely that it is a condition which confronts us and not a theory. There is an abnormal condition and we know it; and must deal with. Britain knows it; Australia knows it. They are dealing with it. How are we to meet it, or are we to meet it at all? That is the question we have to solve in this House. The former government applied a remedy by the act of 1921. But under this proposed amendment these knives will be landed here at $1.64 or $1.65 a dozen, duty paid, British knives being $3.65 without the duty added. You must add two-thirds of the duty in the case of British knives to the price I have just quoted. The British knives are identically the same. And in Canada the
very same knives are manufactured at $4. They also come in from the United States at about $4.75, duty paid, as I am informed. It is the standard pocket-knife and precisely the same principle as applied to knives will apply to all other goods.
Now, how can we expect goods to be made in Canada if Germany is permitted to utilize our market under abnormal and ruinous conditions? We realized this condition as it existed last year and we promptly provided against it. It was pointed out at that time more forcibly and completely than I can point it out, and Parliament took prompt action, with little discussion. There was some objection, but I do not think the House even divided upon the question. We are still confronted with this abnormal condition, and how are we to remedy it? My hon. friend, the Finance Minister, proposes to wipe out the act of 1921 and substitute merely a half measure which will not stop the inroads of these German goods. In his first budget speech when he made the announcement that he was going to repeal the act of 1921, an announcement that was received with so much acclaim by his supporters and also by the Progressives, the Finance Minister said that these goods will come to Canada through Holland, through the United States, through Great Britain and other places. That may be; but we must try, if we can, to find the real country of origin and stop them in the way provided by the act of 1921 and by the Marking Act both of which it is proposed to repeal. As an auxiliary to our depreciated currency legislation we passed the Marking Act, the one to help the other, so that we might successfully keep track of these goods if we possibly could. Examine for a moment the effect the repeal of these acts will have upon the workmen of Canada. A telegram was shown me a short while ago in connection with the importation of aluminium goods. Germany is turning out and shipping to Canada to-day aluminium goods produced in that country at one-tenth of the cost of production in Canada. Can our factories go on in the face of such facts? What will become of our workmen? My hon. friend from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) in his able address this afternoon intimated that even free traders were generally fair traders, and that in cases of abnormal trade conditions he would see that such conditions were remedied. Well, if we are to remedy the present adverse condition which faces us we shall do it not by any half measure such as that proposed

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
last night by the Finance Minister. A half measure is utterly worthless in such a case. The stream is flowing, these goods are coming in in great volume, and the volume will increase day by day. Last year we tried to stop it by damming the stream and raising the dam to a certain height. My hon. friend, however, proposes to destroy the dam which we erected and to build a dam only half way across the stream. What good will that do? You cannot stop the stream by building the dam half way across the channel; you must go all the way across as we did by the act of 1921. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) in his speech the other day suggested that if the 50 per cent valuation of foreign currency was too high it might be reduced to 85 per cent, and I thought that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) would favourably receive that suggestion. And, indeed, twice last night he rather commended the idea. But he did not adopt it. Instead, he has adopted a measure which 1 am afraid will give no relief at all, but which will allow German goods to come into Canada in the future at these ridiculously low prices, and Canadian factories Which now manufacture any one of the thousand and one lines that will pour into this country from Germany at these absurd rates will eventually have to close down. Take the textile trades; the encroachment of the German goods in this line is increasing. Take the metal trades, in these also there is strong evidence that Germany is making a most determined effort. Last week a deputation of cigar manufacturers were in the city and interviewed my hon. friend the Finance Minister with regard to the cigar duties. Incidentally, I may remark, they saw me and some friends. They told me that many German agents are in Canada to-day seeking orders in almost every trade. They approached the cigar men and said: "Tell us the lowest prices, you pay for labels, bands, etc., and we will cut those prices by at least 25 per cent if you will give us your order."


Mr. JOHNSON (Moosejaw) :: Has the hon. member any information as to whether the German manufacturers import their raw material, or is it produced in Germany?


Hugh Guthrie: I suppose that some of the raw material they use must be imported, but I think a large part of it is produced in Germany.


Robert Milton Johnson: For the
raw material they import, would they not

have to pay prices comparable with the valuation of the mark in the country from which they get that material?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes, I think they would have to, in the case of articles imported. I am free to confess that I cannot fathom their methods but the fact is that they are doing it, and I know what Australia did to meet the unfair competition. My hon. friend from Vancouver gave instances of goods, made in Germany, selling in Australia at ridiculously low prices, and the Australian government took prompt steps, deciding to admit those goods but to value them for customs purposes according to the Australian standard of values. Why should we not adopt the Canadian valuation in this instance? I ask my hon. friend that question. Why take the British standard? Why not take the Canadian standard? There is a bill now before Congress st Washington- it has not yet passed, but it is a part of the tariff proposals, or at least it is proposed by somebody-to adopt the American valuation for customs purposes in the United States. I repeat, why should we take the English valuation in this case and not the Canadian? Or why not simply readjust, if you like, the act of last session, which was absolutely fair in principle? It might possibly have been too high, but if 50 per cent is considered unreasonable it might be reduced to 35 or 30 per cent, or whatever might be thought proper. Why not amend the Act of 1921. By doing so you would absolutely control abnormal trade conditions and give industries of this country a fair chance to compete. This danger is only incipient. The tide has only just started to flow. The year before last our imports from Germany were about $1,500,000, and last year up to the 31st of March last, I see by the trade reports, they passed the $2,000,000 mark. This is the year they are expected to climb, and I believe that under the halfway measure proposed by the Minister of Finance they certainly will climb to a very large amount. I douibt very much whether German goods are coming in to Canada from Holland. The most recent trade figures would not warrant that assumption. The year before the Act of 1921 came into operation our importations from Holland were larger than they were last year. I am informed that German goods may and do come into Canada from Great Britain, and they come also from the United States. Let us consider for a moment the exceptionally favourable position the German mnaufacturer is in. If my hon.

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
friend's proposal should pass this House, these pocket-knives to which I have referred can be landed in Canada, in round figures, at $1.65 a dozen, as against $3.65 a dozen, with duty added, for British knives, and $4 a dozen for Canadian-made knives. Why, the German can undersell us by $1 or $1.50 a dozen and still make 100 per cent to 200 per cent profit clear and aboveboard for himself.


Mr. CANNON:: Is the value of the German mark fixed by any Canadian authority? If not, by whom is it fixed at one-third of one-cent?


Hugh Guthrie: I believe that is the international scale, but I have taken the values which I have given from the statement given to the House by the Minister of Finance, and it is the value accepted by all banks. Now, I have enlarged somewhat upon this point, in the hope that I might explain it as fully as possible, and I leave the House to deal with a feeling in my own mind that a very grave trade situation may arise in the near future in Canada if the Government persists in repealing the Act of 1921 without providing other adequate means for dealing with the situation. The resolution proposed by the Finance Minister last night in my judgment utterly fails to meet the situation. It is not even a partial remedy. Under its operation German goods will flow into Canada, Canadian industry will suffer, and Canadian workmen will be thrown more and more out of employment. I have indicated as clearly as I can a way out of the trouble. The way suggested by my hon. friend in his amended resolution does not meet the difficulty. Certain it is that the Finance Minister was entirely wrong when he came to the House on the 23rd May last with his original proposal. Certain it is that when he announced with so much acclaim that the late government were humbugging the people by the legislation of 1921 and suggested that we should have put on a duty of 1000 per cent if we had been candid, surely at that time he did not understand the situation himself. The Finance Minister now proposes what is equivalent to a duty of about 200 per cent against German goods. I would not ask him if in so doing he merely intends to humbug the people, but I do ask him most sincerely to adopt the present law as the best method of dealing with the situation and, if 50 per cent is too high, reduce it and put on what percentage is considerd proper.
Let me pass to the next point namely the anti-dumping clause. That particular law was originally introduced by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance in the year 1907. I well remember the occasion. I thought at the time, and I still think, that the principle embodied therein was a wise' one; but the difficulty was to apply the law. It is the same difficulty which confronts my hon. friend in regard to Germany's depreciated currency. He admits that the principle of last year's legislation was good; that he realizes that a difficult and abnormal trade condition exists but he fails to apply a proper remedy. That was the trouble with the anti-dumping clause of 1907. The object of the law was good but the machinery for its enforcement was defective. The act provided that goods entering Canada were to be valued at the fair market value in the country of origin; but the difficulty was to get at that fair market value. I do not know how many cases were actually traced and tested of goods imported from the United States or any other country into Canada but I am informed that they were very few and very far between, and the reason given was the difficulty of ascertaining the correct value of the goods in the foreign markets. Men would make a few wash or fictitious sales of their goods, one, two, or three sales at ridiculously low prices, and by such means establish the market value. Then they would ship tremendous quantities of the goods into Canada invoiced at those ridiculous and fictitious prices and ask to pay duty on such prices, and when investigators were sent out to ascertain the fair market value, those fictitious sales would be pointed to as establishing it. That was where the law was defective.
A critical situation arose in Canada last year, more critical, I think, in regard to the fruit trade than to any other industry. It was found by the fruit men and the vegetable men all along the shores of lake Ontario and lake Erie from Toronto to Windsor-probably also by the fruit men of British Columbia, although I do not know very much about the situation out there- that by reason of the fact that the American crop ripens two or three weeks ahead of the Canadian crop tremendous quantities of fruit and vegetables became piled up at the peak load period in the United States markets-at Buffalo and other fruit points the express company's stations, sheds and warehouses were full and overflowing, and the question was to find a market. The price had dropped to next to nothing, there

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
was a great slump, and the fruit was shipped into Canada just at a period when the Canadian crop was at its best and should command the highest price. As it. was in fruit, so it was in vegetables. Under all the circumstances the government thought well to introduce an amendment, which is known as Section 7 of the Customs Act of 1921, and which provides as follows:
Provided that the value for duty of used or unused goods shall in no case he less than the actual cost of production of similar goods at the date of shipment direct to Canada, plus a reasonable profit thereon; and the Minister of Customs and Excise shall be the sole judge of what shall constitute a reasonable profit in the circumstances.
Instead of the anti-dumping clause contained in the act of 1907, which provided that the value for customs purposes should be the fair market value, the new act of 1921 provided that it should be the cost of production plus a fair margin of profit. I had never heard any complaint as to the efficacy of that act until the Minister of Finance on the 23rd May last complained that it was unworkable. I had never heard it charged that the act was unworkable or not working; in fact, I had always heard it commended by fruit men as having been of enormous benefit to them, for it stopped the shipment of fruit into this country from the United States at slump prices at a time when the market in the United States was glutted. When the United States growers find themselves with large quantities of fruit on hand at the middle or end of their season and prices have gone down to rock bottom, they ship it over to Canada just when our new fruit is coming on to the market. Is it a great hardship that such fruit shall be valued at its real cost of production in the United States rather than at slump prices? Is not that a reasonable basis for customs valuation in this country? That is all which the law of last session provided. That is all we ask to have maintained in the present law. But my hon. friend the Finance Minister has disregarded our plea; he has 'brushed it aside merely stating that the enactment was unworkable and that the Minister of Customs cannot apply it. I feel sure that the Customs officials will find a satisfactory way to apply this law if they are permitted to do so. Therefore we ask that this act be not repealed. But in his amended resolutions given to the House last night I am sorry to see that the Finance Minister has given no indication that the anti-dumping clause is to be continued.

My third point is practically in conjunction with the first point. The law of 1921 which provides for the marking of goods with the country of origin must be read and taken in connection with the other questions of importation from countries where a depreciated currency prevails. I do not contend, neither did the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) contend last year, nor will anyone else on this side of the House contend that all goods imported can be so marked. It is impossible to do so in some instances. But in the vast majority of cases these goods can be marked with the country of origin. This was just an additional safeguard to the workmen and to the industries of this country. Now my hon. friend the Minister of Finance seeks with a wave of the hand to remove this safeguard. I thought he was going to reconsider his decision on this point after the matter had been so ably discussed during the debate, but evidently he is not inclined to do so. We look upon the Marking Act as a most important factor in regard to the regulation of trade from these countries of Central Europe where on account of depreciation of currency ruinous competition can be set up against the Dominion. It would help Canada very much if all our citizens could know the country of origin of the goods which they buy. Who objects? Only the importer, only the wholesaler, only the jobber, only the shopkeeper. The purchaser does not object; he would like to know. Why not let him know in all cases where it is practicable? But my hon. friend brushes this provision aside also. It would not perhaps be so bad if he proposed to repeal the whole enactment. But what has he done? Virtually he says, " No, this is not a matter upon which Parliament should deliberate. The Government will keep a string on this marking requirement, and do it by Order in Council. The Government will retain power to act by Order in Council and require the marking of goods as the government may see fit. The Government will now do the very thing which we have condemned during the last five years in Parliament and out of Parliament on the part of the former government. The government will govern by Order in Council. Why should not Parliament decide that, and not the Government? Parliament is perfectly competent to do so-the only competent body, in fact. Look at the opportunity which the Order in Council method offers for wrong-doing

The Budget-Mr. Speakman
No one suggests that the Government would do wrong. Far it be from me to make such a suggestion. But governments and members of governments are only human; under the proposed Order in Council system there will be an opportunity to favour your friends and to penalize your opponents. Should any government have that power, that privilege, or that right? I submit that is a matter upon which Parliament alone should exercise control, and it would be far better and far more in the interests of the country, if my hon. friend is determined to repeal the Marking Act, to wipe out the whole of it and not to retain in the hands of the Government the power to put the provisions of the act into operation by Order in Council.
These are the only three points which I desire to discuss. Having given these three proposals the very best consideration which I can give to them, and having discussed them and considered them with my friends, and particularly with my leader, I can only say-and I think I can speak for those who sit in the official Opposition in this House- that these budget proposals are not satisfactory; that they are thoroughly unsatisfactory, and also unbusinesslike. In my judgment the Government proposals cannot be viewed as measures either for the general or particular advantage of Canada, if carried into effect these proposals will result in a direct discrimination against the trade of Canada, against the workingmen in the shops of Canada and likewise against the established industries of Canada. For these and other reasons, I cannot support the budget.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. ALFRED SPEAKMAN (Red Deer) :: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether it is altogether incumbent upon me or any other member of the House to speak now on the budget as the subject has been so thoroughly covered, and viewed from almost every angle; yet there is always some point which may have escaped notice, perhaps always some slightly different slant which may be taken at some of the proposals presented.
I come here, as you all know, a man from the prairies. I am not ashamed of that fact. In fact, I am rather proud to say that I come from the province known as Sunny Alberta. It is natural that I should
to a large extent express the sentiments of the people of that province and of the people living in the constituency which sent me here, but, Sir, since coming here , I have endeavoured to learn a little more of the country in which I live. I have endeavoured to take as broad a view as possible of the country, so that I may not only serve the interests of my own constituents, those whose interests I know, but that I may as far as I can take part in the government of a great and united Canada. I have endeavoured in my own mind to understand the problems of other sections of the country, so that I might take a comprehensive view of the country as a whole and speak or work, or both, for the interests of the country as a whole.
For some time, from different sides of the House, we have heard the accusation hurled at us that the prairies are somewhat selfish. I am frank to admit that perhaps that accusation has some foundation in truth. I am less ashamed of that fact because I have not found an absolutely unselfish feeling pervading the rest of the House from other parts of Canada. I have not noticed when matters relating, say, to the maritime provinces, are under discussion, that members from that part of the country are inclined to take an absolutely unprejudiced view of those things, and so with British Columbia and the other provinces. As a matter of right, hon. members think in the terms of the country which they understand. Why, on hearing from the city of Toronto, you might almost say that the atmosphere was slightly Torontonian. So I am beginning to think it is not a matter to be ashamed of, not a matter for regret, that any one should express first, and perhaps most firmly, the opinions and the attitude of the people whom he represents. He can, besides, I think, speak with more authority, with more knowledge, and with more intelligence, when he confines himself to some extent to the interests of the country in which he lives and the pursuit which he follows.
I must, of course, discuss this budget somewhat from the point of view of how it affects the prairie provinces. I shall try, however, not to confine my ideas entirely to the prairie provinces, and shall do my best to be fair in my own mind to the interests of other parts of Canada. In the prairie provinces we feel that any budget which is based upon the principle of protection, or which largely involves that principle, is bad for us. Perhaps that is a selfish view, but it is an absolute fact.

The Budget-Mr. Speakman
More than that, I think this House recognizes that it is a fact which should be taken into consideration, because I believe that on the development and prosperity of those prairie provinces depends to quite an extent the future of this fair Dominion. I think that is a fact which will bear repetition. It is a fact which has not been contradicted. It is a fact which has been stated from all parts of the House that at some time in the future the majority of the population of this country will lie in the West, and that the future of this country will lie in the hands of the West. That being the case, there are two aspects which must be considered in dealing with the West.
The first is that, compatible with the interests of Canada as a whole, the prairie provinces should be given the opportunity of the fullest possible development. They should be given the opportunity of becoming prosperous, of attracting the best class of population, and of securing so far as possible the success and prosperity of that population when it gets there. Secondly, I believe that in the interests of Canada it would be a fatal mistake in any way to antagonize that western country by unthinking, unfair treatment.
How does the protective tariff affect the province in which I live? In the first place -I am not going into this argument at any length, but shall only give a resume-the protective tariff does without a doubt, even in the opinion of those who most favour that policy, increase to some extent the cost of living. It increases, also, to a large extent the cost of production. Now, that is an undoubted fact. The only question is whether that is balanced by benefits accruing to the country from that system. Why does it increase the cost of living? Simply because, whenever a tariff is put on any article entering into any country, it is put on for the purpose of allowing the manufacturers of the same article within that country to increase their price. It seems to me that is the object of protection. I was somewhat interested by a statement made by an hon. member on the opposite side of the House, that in one branch of the textile industry, I think it was, the manufacturers of the particular article did not take advantage of the tariff: that is, they sold on an average, due to internal competition, at about the same level of prices as obtained in the great country to the south of us. That statement interested me very much. I am not going to challenge the truth of it, because, no doubt, he is in a position to

know much better than I whether it is true or not, and, in all likelihood, he made the statement in good faith. But, if the manufacturers of those articles at the present time are not taking advantage of the tariff, are not raising their prices to the level of the tariff, and are not depending upon that protection, why, in the name of common sense, do they raise this cry that the removal of a part of the protection which they are not using, according to their statement, would ruin their industry? I cannot understand that. Looking at it from the point of view of common sense and ordinary logic, if the one statement is correct, the other cannot he; and if the statement that it would ruin their industry is correct, then they must be taking advantage of it, in order to get high prices. As a matter of fact, I believe that great apostle of protection, that fine man and eminent public statesman-although I do not agree with all his opinions-Sir George Foster, made that statement in the House. When the statement that the manufacturers raised the prices of their goods because the tariff was discussed, he said "Why, of course, they do. The protective tariff is for the purpose of raising the price, and that is what they have it there for." It goes without saying that that protection raises the cost of living.
What corresponding benefit accrues to us, to offset these disadvantages? It is well known the price of everything we sell is set by the export market. It is not assisted, or altered in any form whatever, by that tariff. Therefore it follows-and I think it has been admitted by some of the previous speakers-that, in the prairie provinces, at least, protection is practically an unmixed evil-that we suffer under the disadvantages of protection, and also under the disadvantages of free trade. That, Mr. Speaker, is our point of view. But since coming here-and I will say to some extent before coming here-I have recognized that, in a country of this great extent, containing as it does, such a diversity of interests and such a diversity of opinions, any government must be a government of compromise. I do not mean a compromise of principle. I do not suggest that any individual must compromise his principles, or his feelings of what is right or wrong, but I say if people come together from all parts, with different opinions, the only way they can get on any common ground, and the only way they can arrive at any sane method of government, is by

The Budget-Mr. Speakman
softie policy of give and take-some compromise. I intend to go into that a little further a little later on.
I want to speak, for a moment, upon the principle of the tariff, as a means of taxation. I have begun to think that 1 must be one of those cranks who believe that a tariff, as a means of raising taxes any further than is necessary-for instance, the sales tax as a means of raising revenue, if you carry it further than absolutely necessary,-is a wrong system. T believe a commodity taxation of any kind is founded essentially and fundamentally upon a wrong conception of taxation altogether. I know that that is a very broad statement to be made by a man as inexperienced as I am, but I have looked upon it from, perhaps, only one point of view,-the point of view of the poor man in this country. I have looked upon it, not only from the point of view of the struggling farmer, but, since coming east, I have been in some of the great factories of the country, and have seen the women and girls working steadily in the factories on a very uninteresting job-for what? The means of a poor living. That is what it amounts to, and it is because of having seen those people, and the fact that the protection of, the commodity means that they are compelled to pay more for the means of subsistence, more for their clothing and boots and shoes to keep the wet from their feet, that I have come to the conclusion it is wrong. I believe I touched once before upon the commodity tax, as it affected the population of this country-the immigration to this country, if you like to call it that. I believe I said that, in my opinion, and in the opinion of most people in the House, the most desirable class of population in this country, or in any country, was the native born population; that, in fact, we should follow, as far as we could, our friends of the fair province of Quebec, and build up a vigorous and numerous population by our own efforts, and any fiscal policy to my mind should be framed with the idea of encouraging the creation of such population.
But does a commodity tax do that? Why, Mr. Speaker, the commodity tax acts as a great deterrent against such increase of population.	It places an absolute
premium upon bachelors and old maids, for the very obvious reason that people are taxed as a penalty for having children. That sounds like a strong statement, but I believe it is absolutely true. I
do not think it is intentional, but it is absolutely incidental to any commodity tax. As I said before, the father and mother of a family know that from the moment the baby is born they have to buy boots and shoes, clothes and everything else for it. Under our system of commodity taxation they are taxed on those articles, and that, simply, means that, for every additional child in the family, they have to pay an additional tax, and, if that is not a baby tax, what is it? I am not a protectionist, and, I think, perhaps hon. members have gathered that fact already; but there is one industry in this country that deserves protection and should receive it, and that is our own infant industry. I shall stand-and I hope I always shall-for the protection of that industry, and for the encouragement of large families.
There is another point of view from which the farmers at least look upon the tariff as possibly an unmixed evil. The hon. member from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) made one of the finest and most statesmanlike speeches for three quarters of the time during which he spoke that has been heard since the House met, and in the course of his remarks he made the absolutely true statement that, in regard to international commerce between countries, goods must be paid for with goods; in other words, we must import in order that we can export. We, in our market, depend absolutely upon our export market. We know that a protective tariff, by restricting the importation of goods from the countries to which we would sell our produce, restricts our possibility of selling. So, not only does a protective tariff increase the cost of our production, but it restricts our market and reduces our price for what we have produced. That is another reason why we object to it from the point of view of the prairie. I have noticed with some interest, a disposition from different parts of this House to look upon the West as a market placed there by Divine Providence for their goods. We are willing to buy their goods; we need their goods; the mutual trade and commerce between provinces is just as beneficial as that between nations; but we cannot see that that is the only reason Why we were placed in the world. We cannot see that our only object in life is to provide a carefully conserved market for any of our friends, however pleasant gentlemen they may be and however unselfish may be their views,



The Budget-Mr. Speakman
and we rather protest against being looked upon from that point of view.


An hon. MEMBER:: Louder.


Alfred Speakman: I will speak louder
presently. We have been accused of selfishness-and speaking of their unselfishness has reminded me of this-and why? Because we object to having to live indefinitely under a policy from which we receive no benefit and for which we have to pay the price. That is why we ape looked upon as being selfish. May I ask those other hon. gentlemen: Is it any more selfish to wish that as we have to stand on our feet, they should have to stand on their feet, than to wish that any particular interest should be bonused in order that it might be able to carry on successfully? I am not accusing them of selfishness; but if there was a question between the selfishness of free and fair trade and the selfishness of those who prefer a protective policy, I think any honest, impartial jury would say that, if there was any choice, those who favoured a protective policy would be a little the more selfish of the two. As I say, however, I do not intend to throw any slurs at any one else; I am simply answering what we consider to be rather an unfair insinuation or assertion against ourselves.
Since I have come here and during this debate, I have been endeavouring, in order to be fair, to imagine myself for a moment in the place of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I am quite aware that this is rather a presumptuous flight of imagination; but if we are going to try to get anything at all, we must endeavour to put ourselves into the other fellow's place and to look at things for a little while through his eyes. I considered what I would do, were I by some peculiar freak, placed in a position where I would have to carry a policy into effect and to impose that most unpopular thing, taxation, upon the people. I quite agree with the Minister of Finance that any one who taxes other people is a most unpopular gentleman, and more than that I quite agree that, in the opinion of most people, there is only one fair method of taxation in the world, and that is the method that leaves us alone and makes the other fellow pay it all. This makes me more moderate in my statements. Looking at this matter from the point of view of revenue alone, if I believed that protection was not a right principle, as the present Minister of Finance has stated in his

opinion, and if I were endeavouring to raise revenue and at the same time endeavouring to go against the principle of protection, I would see if I could not balance these two things, and my suggestion would be that instead of a sales tax, an excise duty be placed upon those articles within our country that were protected by too high a tariff. That is not a very popular sentiment; but I believe it is absolutely just. We have heard it stated that, had it not been for the attitude of the United States, in all probability our tariff against the United States would be lower. Thai means that it could be lower without damaging our own interests. If it could be lower and if the present attitude of the United States makes it unprofitable or unwise to lower the tariff, why not, to some extent, do away with some of that protection on the Canadian side by imposing an excise tax and thus take off some of the surplus profits that may accrue? I believe that is sound. Although I am a free trader in principle, I am not one of those who believe that we can step in at a moment's notice and change the fiscal policy of this country right around. I believe, however, that we could make a very material advance in that direction and that we could serve notice upon those interests that are protected at the present time, that they must put their house in order, because, bit by bit, inevitably, just as sure as death and taxation, the tariff is going gradually to come down and they are going to be thrown on their feet to fight out their own salvation.
In connection with that and in connection with another matter, I was very much interested in following the debate regarding depreciated currency in other countries. I am not an expert in depreciated currency, and I am not going to discuss the matter from that aspect. But one thing struck me very forcibly during the debate and during the remarks of some of our speakers to the right, and that was this. According to their statements, manufactures in Germany, which was singled out as the shining example, were apparently able to manufacture and deliver goods at from one-quarter to one-tenth of the cost of manufacture in this country. I cannot quite understand that, when we consider that a large quantity of their raw material must be imported. But if that be a fact, I have this suggestion to throw out to hon. gentlemen to my right, in return for many suggestions that we have received in the past as regards better meth-

The Budget-Mr. Speakman
ods of farming, that the Government should send a commission to Germany to find out how they do those things, or that the Government should establish a school of manufacturing in this country and bring over a German professor or two to instruct our manufacturers. If the Germans can produce manufactured articles at so much less than the cost of manufacture in Canada, and live happily, cheaply and apparently comfortably while they are doing that, their methods are well worth studying; some of our manufacturers might well take advice from them, might study their methods, and then they would not need a protective tariff at all. That is only a suggestion, because I always hesitate to advise another man how to conduct his business, although I notice other men are not always so reticent about advising us.
There are two other matters I want to touch on very briefly, not so much in connection with the tariff itself, as in connection with other matters which come up under the budget. In the Speech from the Throne, part of which I admired very much, whatever I may have thought of it since, in referring to agriculture, His Excellency, speaking, I presume, as the mouthpiece of the Government, said that in order to encourage agriculture, they must necessarily proceed along three lines: better marketing facilities; lower transportation costs and lower costs of production. In our opinion, lower costs of production, to a large extent, lie in the hands of the fiscal policy. We may, to some extent, be wrong in that view; but I believe lower costs of production can only be brought about by permitting us to buy our means of production more cheaply. The subject of transportation has been so thoroughly touched upon that I do not intend to go into it at any length at all. I can only say this, that I wish all success to the efforts of the Government in that respect. I believe, not only is their policy sound, but it will eventually prove to be the right policy. I am speaking of the official policy of the Government, that is the policy of absolutely co-ordinating their lines, of cutting out unnecessary competing lines, of cutting down expenditure as far as possible and of making the shortest haul with the heaviest tonnage possible. I think that can be done; and when the time comes-as I trust it will be soon-I hope they will have branch lines built as active feeders so that the products of the West may foe carried to this end of Canada. As the matter
183i
of marketing is one that is of great significance in view of some work that is going on in this House at the present time, we most sincerely hope that when the proper time comes the Government will be prepared to implement that suggestion in the Speech from the Throne and support us in our efforts to bring about a better system of collective marketing.
Now, I think I have covered all I intended to say to-night. I had no intention of speaking for more than twenty minutes, but I shall say a word or two as to the manner in which the budget meets my views, personally, at least. I have said that I believe the government of this country can only be a government of compromise. That is my opinion. But what is compromise? Compromise is a matter of give and take, is it not? It is a matter of one man going part of the way and the other man going the other part to meet him. It is the balance of opinions between two adverse views, meeting on common ground somewhere near the centre. And in that respect I very-much regret to say that the budget does not constitute, to my mind, one of fair compromise; because I believe that it calls upon us who are opposed to the principle of protection to take about ten minutes' walk to meet what has been aptly termed a mere footstep or a shuffle in our direction. I do not feel that that can fairly be called a compromise. I am well aware that what steps have been taken have been taken in the right direction. I am well aware of that. But I do not think for one moment that it can properly be said that these reductions have changed the previous budget from a protectionist budget into one for revenue only. In other respects, I found myself in perfect harmony and agreement with the statement of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). With his efforts towards reciprocity, I had, and I think we all had, the fullest and most complete sympathy, and I can tell hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House that the one outstanding, saving grace in the history of the Liberal party in the last twenty years, at any rate in my opinion, was the fact that they went down honourably to defeat in what was the greatest move that had been made up to that time towards free trade. During our campaign in the West, where we fought about as hard with the Liberals as we did with Conservatives, and where practically every contest was a three-cornered fight, I was asked what I thought of the Liberal party. That is

The Budget-Mr. Speakman
a hard question to ask me, especially as asked by a Conservative. However, I said that as far as I could judge, taking their past record into account, the only difference between that party and the Conservative party consisted in their stand in the 1911 election; and that, as a matter of fact, the worst thing I had ever heard said against them-and I have heard some mighty hard things-was that they were nearly as bad as the Conservatives.


Mr. GRAHAM:: That was going far enough.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Not guilty.


Alfred Speakman: That, at all events, was the point of view of those whose opinions I had learned; and whether it will be greatly altered for the better by the present budget I cannot say. But from my own feelings in the matter, and from the messages I have received from the West, I should judge it has not altered greatly. No one, of course, is wholly black or wholly white, and there were varying shades of opinion with regard to the Liberal party. Some thought that it was a little lighter shade of grey than the Conservative party.


An hon. MEMBER:: Muddier.
Mr. iSPEAKMAN:	;Perhaps muddier.
And speaking of mud, that reminds me of something that happened a few days ago. An hon. member to our right made an attack on our organization as a whole, and on our leader (Mr. Crerar) in particular. I was sorry the hon. member for Marquette was not present at the time to answer for himself. The attack had reference to the fact that when in private life he was engaged in the commercial pursuit of handling a large grain company, a most heinous offence indeed. I thought at the time that the statements that were made in the House bore a strange similarity to the contents of a number of pamphlets that used to flood the western country during the election. Why, we waded knee deep in them. Of course, they were anonymous pamphlets; like illegitimate children, whom no man would own, they were laid at our doorsteps. But there was a strange similarity between the utterances of one or two hon. gentlemen on our right and the contents of these pamphlets, which invariably wound up with the entreaty to "Vote for Meighen and save the country". And I began to wonder whether those hon. gentlemen had anyri'Ir. Speakman.]
thing to do with those pamphlets. There is a homely adage that when you see shells you suspect the presence of eggs. Perhaps my suspicions are unfounded, and I hope they are; but I have suspicions. Well, there was one answer to those pamphlets that flooded the West, and that answer was emphatic. From the whole West, which was interested particularly in the grain trade, and which knew more exactly the untruth of the assertions contained in those pamphlets, not one single member of the party supposed to be responsible for those pamphlets was returned to this Parliament. On the other hand, almost a solid delegation of men came in support of the leader whom hon. gentlemen have attempted to malign. That was the answer given by the prairie provinces to those allegations, and it shall continue to be the answer which those provinces shall give in the future to allegations of that nature, from whatsoever source they come.
Now, I have stated rather briefly that I do not altogether admire the budget, and I may say even more briefly that I have absolutely no use for the amendment that has been offered. It is all very well for any party to climb to the mountain tops of morality and therefrom deliver sermons directed towards their political opponents, and to offer advice on public morality to members of this group. I can say quite safely that I am not particularly seeking inspiration on questions of political morals from hon. gentlemen to my right. Mind you, I do not say that they are much worse than other gentlemen, but we are not seeking advice there. An hon. gentleman suggests that we are not seeking it at all. Well, perhaps we are not; we have not been in, public life long enough to have lost our own morality. However, that is simply a passing jest; it is merely by the way. I have no intention, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, to oast any slurs on men in this House, because there is one thing that I have learned, if nothing else, that will be useful to me since coming to this Parliament, and that is that the average decency, morality and common sense in this House is at least equal to the average decency, morality and commonsense outside. And that remark I mean to apply to all three corners of this House. As I have got more acquainted with the men who compose this Parliament, I have come to the conclusion that even the devil is not as black as he is painted; and you will find a sense of public duty and a desire to do what is right all

The Budget-Mr. J. J. Denis
over the House. But I also think that that sense and that desire have become somewhat perverted and distorted by the unfamiliarity of some hon. gentlemen with the whole of Canada. At least, they are not as familiar with Canada as they would lead us to think they are. I believe that half of the trouble and the differences of opinion in this House could be adjusted if we could only know one another better; and that is one reason why I enjoyed my trip to Montreal and Quebec city, because I believe that if we could get to know one another better and understand our problems better we would have more sympathy one for the other, and I believe that with greater sympathy would come closer co-operation, and in that closer cooperation of honest, decent-thinking men lies the salvation of the country.
Since coming here I have been working somewhat intensively on the soldier's special committee, and I am going to speak of that committee from one standpoint only. Over the door of our committee room is the inscription, "Abandon politics all ye who enter here."-metaphorically speaking of course. And we have abandoned politics absolutely. Conservatives, Liberals and Progressives-we all mix with one another there. No man is regarded from the party standpoint, but we all meet there on common ground, each anxious to distinguish between right and wrong, to contribute his quota to the common stock of knowledge, and so reach a conclusion as to what is best to do under all the circumstances. My experience on that committee has often made me think that what has happened there is very much like a fulfilment of my dream of Parliament in the days gone by.
. Now, Mr. Speaker, you will say that that is the dream of an idealist, and although I know I shall be looked down upon by some gentlemen here, I will admit that I am an idealist. And I will go a step further than that: I believe that no man has much business in our public life who is not to some extent at least an idealist. Because when all is said and done, what is an idealist? Is not he the man who has an ideal of conditions which shall be a little better, a little fairer, a little cleaner, a little juster than existing conditions? I say, God help the man who has no such ideal, who thinks that everything in this world is right just exactly as it is at the present momentt, because that man is past all human help.
I am sorry in more ways than one not to be able to approve or to support the budget of the hon. Minister of Finance. As I sit here in my place and look across the floor at that honourable gray head, and think of the years of honest, clean public service which he has given to his country-as many years as I have numbered during my whole life-I can assure you, Mr. iSpeaker, that it is very difficult for me to criticize the owner of that head. And I am not now criticizing that man, at least I try not to speak unfairly or harshly. I cannot approve of his ideas or of the budget he has brought down, but so far as he himself is concerned, I respect and honour him.
Mr. JEAN J. DENIS (Joliette) :	Mr. Speaker, at the outset of my remarks it is a duty as well as a pleasure for me to join those who have preceded me in offering my tribute of homage to the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). Perhaps all hon. members are not aware that the hon. gentleman has been a Minister of the Crown for. about thirty years either in the province of Nova Scotia or in the Dominion. I am told that this record is unequalled in the British Empire to-day.
Coming down to the budget, in my opinion it is, generally speaking, satisfactory. We must not forget that the good old days have passed, and I am sure the hon. Minister of Finance has had more worry and more labour preparing this budget than perhaps he had in preparing the fifteen other budgets which he has had the distinction and honour of presenting to this House. In 1911, a new government came into power, the government of our Conservative friends, and later this country joined the Allied powers in that worldwide war which cost so much in life and treasure. The expenses of that war increased our national debt eight times beyond what it amounted to when the Liberal party left office in 1911, and unfortunately our successors did not take the care they should have taken in looking after our national expenditure so that to-day our financial burden is very heavy indeed.
The old Liberal chieftain of 1911 is no more, but the man who was his right arm, who was his Finance Minister for fifteen years, is still with us, and representing in himself the genius of the man who is gone as well as his own, and he is to-day presenting the most satisfactory budget that can be presented under the circumstances.

The Budget-Mr. J. J. Denis
I have every sympathy for my hon. friends obliquely opposite. Unfortunately they are not satisfied with the budget. But, Mr. Speaker, after listening to various speeches from that quarter of the House I have asked myself several times: What is it that would satisfy them? These hon. gentlemen have come here with theories; they do not grasp the facts-at least, they do not as far as national events are concerned. They are interested in whatever may concern their own respective provinces, but in my humble opinion they have failed to comprehend the situation from a national standpoint.
Coming back to the old Tory party, it was unfortunate for the country that the unavoidable increase of our national debt should have been aggravated by the extravagance, I might even say the foolishness, which characterized their administration of the affairs of the Dominion. Of course, we all acknowledge, as I have just said, that a great proportion of our expenses incurred during the war was unavoidable. But could they not have avoided buying the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk and placing on the shoulders of the people annual deficits of from $70,000,000 to $100,000,000? I assert that they could have avoided that course, and they must bear the responsibility of their action. Could they not have avoided building the Canadian Government Merchant Marine that they are so proud of? And they are the only ones that are proud of it, for I have never known any one outside the late government and their followers to take any pride in that exhibition of government folly. They gave contracts to the amount of $70,000,000, without tenders, for the construction of the ships comprised in the merchant marine. It looks suspicious, Mr. Speaker, to see a government build a merchant marine at a cost double the amount at which the ships comprising it could be bought in England or in other countries. We all know that the Canadian merchant marine is hardly worth fifty cents on the dollar, if it is worth that. The Canadian people, after all the sacrifices they have made in blood and money, could not reasonably be expected under the circumstances to bear the burden involved in this project; so I say on that score again the late administration was faulty.
Then, the late government lent money to the Balkan States. I will not go into the details, but as hon. gentlemen know, this transaction also was a disastrous one. For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, and

many others which I will not now mention, the old Tory party, which for so many years had the confidence of the people, has fallen to a depth never experienced by any other party in this Dominion since Confederation. For a party which in the last Parliament had about one hundred and fifty followers it has, since the last electior fallen into very great depths indeed. It is unfortunate for the party; it is unfortunate, to a certain extent,
9 p.m for the country itself, because if the people lose faith in politics; if they lose faith in those who represent them and those who administer the country's affairs, we come to a very serious condition indeed. Here was a party that was in power for ten years, and during that time they ruined the country; they lost all that had been accumulated during generations by the old Tory party, all that had remained in the way of tradition. This, Sir, should be a lesson to the Conservative party and should serve as an example to any other party in this country.
The Liberals are now in power, and they have to face the music; they have to impose taxes to meet the necessary expenses of the country. Last session and the session before, the Tory party had to acknowledge to the House a deficit of some $70,000,000-in reality it was a deficit of over $100,000,000. From the way matters were going at that time, it is evident that if the Tory party had remained in power these deficits of $100,000,000 or more each year would have been continued. But the people awakened to the seriousness of the situation, they placed the control of the country's affairs in the hands of a new administration, and they expect it to make both ends meet. No matter what government is in power, whether it be Liberal, Progressive or Tory, it must at least make an earnest effort to meet the expenses of the country. We cannot indefinitely go on borrowing money; we cannot indefinitely add to our debt. There must come a time, and that very soon, when receipts will meet expenditures. Look at England; though she was so sorely tried by the war, she has during the last three years been paying off annually a considerable amount of her public debt. She has had a surplus every year. We in Canada, a young country with vast natural resources, have done nothing in that respect. I hope we shall be able to do something in the future. I can hardly hope that this year the expenditures will

The Budget-Mr. J. J. Denis
be met by the revenue, but I am confident that very soon the Liberal party will be able to accomplish that end. If it does nothing else, I am sure that on that score it will deserve credit and will meet the commendation of the people of this country.
This is the first time since Confederation that we have had in this House three parties aligned. The new party, the Progressive party, have their ideals and their programme, as is their right. I may point out that since I have been in this House the Progressive party have changed their name about as many times as the Tory party changed theirs during the same period. First it was known as the " Farmers' party then the word " Agrarian " replaced the word " Farmer," and to-day they call it the Progressive party. Whether they be farmers, agrarians or progressives, there is one thing they must not forget, namely, that they must adjust their policies to the conditions which exist throughout the country. They must acknowledge the facts and they must frame their policies accordingly. As the name of a party, the word " Progressive," is a peculiar one. Progressive, I suppose, implies progress, and when a party takes the name of " Progressive," it might appear on the face of it that other parties were not progressive; that other parties were reactionary; that they did not know, perhaps, what they were talking about; that they did not know much about politics or were far behind the new party which, under the name of " Progressive," had come to save the country. If the word " Progressive " is supposed to refer to a party which favours progress, I acknowledge that the word is well chosen. Our friends obliquely opposite certainly favour progress, but they favour it so far as it affects their own group; they favour it accordingly as it is expedient for them to do so. They favour progress as long as we are willing to give them what suits their purpose, what suits their own particular progress. But I have yet to hear one of them favour national progress, and that is what we want in this country. No party can exist very long in this Dominion if it does not keep steadily in view the progress of the nation as a whole. We must look to the interests not of one province, not of two or three provinces only, but of the country generally. I ask my hon. friends to look to the welfare and the benefit of the country generally, not to the welfare and the benefit simply of their own provinces.
The science of government is a very difficult one; it entails moderation, broadmindedness, co-operation, compromise, and self-sacrifice. I was glad to hear the hon. gentleman who preceded me (Mr. Speak-man) speak of compromise and co-operation. I believe that no government in this country can govern unless it governs on the principles which I have enunciated. Why, Mr. Speaker, this is news to no one in a country like this, extending as it does from one ocean to the other, and with multifarious races and creeds and opinions and a great diversity of interests, and with people who do not know one another. Certainly this country is a hard one to govern. It cannot be compared to any of the European countries, to France or England, for instance, where you have a homogeneity of race, of character, of sentiment and aspirations. Our aspirations are different, our characters are different, our sentiments are different. But if only we will look at the interests of this country from a broad national point of view, if we are broad-minded and willing to cooperate with one another, we can do a lot, and we can govern this country properly. I am afraid that some of my friends on the other side have not yet learned the first chapter of the book which might contain these teachings. Our friends opposite, for instance, want the Wheat Board. The Wheat Board to them is the best thing in the world, but they forget one thing, and that is that we in the East have no use for the Wheat Board. We in the East will not suffer a bit whether the Wheat Board is established or not, and if we chose to be narrow-minded, if we lost sight of the fact that we must cooperate with one another and compromise, surely none of us in the East would ever vote for the Wheat Board. But I do not look at it in that way. I say to my friends from the West: If the Wheat Board is a good thing for you, and if I feel it will not injure the East to any great extent, so far as I am concerned I am willing to take the risk and give it to you, because my policy is a policy of broad-mindedness and co-operation.
Our friends from the West also want a reduction in freight rates. They do not ignore the fact, I am sure, that while reduction in freight rates would be of direct benefit to them, it would be detrimental to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Do they ignore that? Certainly they do not. When the freight rates are reduced,

The Budget-Mr. J. J. Denis
the deficits on the railways will be increased, and when the deficits on the railways are increased, the whole of Canada will have to make up those deficits, and the share that the East will pay will be very much larger than the share paid by our friends from the West. A calculation would prove that for every dollar that we reduce the freight rates our friends from the West are making a profit of 50 cents, and the provinces in the East are making a loss of 50 cents. Oh, our friends know that. They have started this agitation for a reduction in freight rates, although they know it will be giving them advantages to the detriment of the East. Shall we reduce the freight rates? We might do that. I am not ready to say that I shall not vote for a reduction in freight rates. Why? Because I want to co-operate with them, I want to compromise.
There is something else my friends from the West want. They want free trade. Do our friends from the West forget that fifty years ago, as was said this afternoon by the senior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean), there were very few people in the West? Do they forget that the West has been opened up with money taken from the eastern provinces? Do they forget that their railroads have been built by money taken from the eastern provinces? Do they forget that the old province of Quebec was inhabited more than three hundred years ago?


Mr. BROWN:: Has my hon. friend ever examined the customs returns from the port of Winnipeg, and ascertained the amount of customs paid by the people of the West to help Canada?


Mr. DENIS (Joliette) :: I have not examined those figures particularly, but I would ask my hon. friend to examine the customs returns for Montreal, and he will find there is no comparison between those figures and Winnipeg's figures.


John Livingstone Brown: How much that goes through the port of Montreal goes to the prairies and is paid for by us?


Jean-Joseph Denis: It is not fair to ask offhand a question like that. I do not possess in my head all the figures that are in the public books, but I know one thing which cannot be controverted, and it is that there is no comparison whatever between the customs receipts of the port of Montreal and the port of Winnipeg. But that is not the question.


Mr. SPENCER:: The hon. member has informed the House that the railroads in the West have been paid for by the people in the East. Does he realize that half the country in the West has been given away to the railways to put those railways through, and given free of taxation, and the taxation has been paid by the people in the West for forty years.


Jean-Joseph Denis: If much of the land in the West was given to the railways, the people in the West certainly never paid for it. It never cost them anything. But that is not the point. My point is this: It matters little whether land was given to the railways or not. These transcontinentals, leaving out the Canadian Pacific, have been built with the money of this country, and subsequently they have been bought by this country to the great detriment of the country as a whole, and for the benefit of our friends from the West, and now that these railroads have been built and are in our possession our friends from the West say: We want reduced freight rates. They want the deficit on the railways to be increased. T do not blame them. It is to their advantage, but again I say, do not forget: the principle of co-operation. That is what my friends from the West are forgetting.
I have said that they also want free trade. Do our friends forget for a minute that free trade would spell disaster for the eastern provinces? No one can ignore that, but just the same our friends from the West are in favour of free trade. They do not care what happens to Quebec and Ontario and the rest of the country. They want free trade because free trade might be good for them. After they have asked for all these things, after they have come to this House and expounded all their principles, they plead with the Minister of Finance in a pitiful voice and say: It is too bad. we did not have a better budget. If you. had given us something that we had expected, we would have been so glad to vote for you, but we cannot accept these reductions. Well, Mr. Speaker, I should like' to hear my hon. friends propose something better than the Minister of Finance has proposed for this country. I hope 1 shall give no offence to any one when I tell the House that in my estimation there is no man in Canada who is miore capable, more learned, and of greater experience and fitness to prepare a budget and submit it to the country than the present hon. Minis-

The Budget-Mr. J. J. Denis
ter of Finance. My friends on the other side want free trade. Hid they expect for a moment that this Government was going to give them free trade or anything like it? They did not. Some concessions have been made. These concessions, of course, might be open to criticism. The high protectionists say: These concessions are too great; you have gone too far; you should not have given them. Then the free traders say: The concessions do not go far enough. Again, we see the necessity for compromise. What is the best that can be done under the circumstances? I say that the Minister of Finance and the Government have done the best that they possibly could under the circumstances to satisfy, not one group or one province, but the people of this country at large.
I now propose going into a subject which is not very interesting to the House generally, but which is particularly interesting to the constituency which I represent, and the district of Joliette. I refer to the tobacco question. Perhaps, very few people know of the importance of the tobacco industry in this country. In the last twenty years it has developed to such an extent that to-day the government of Canada is deriving $29,000,000 from that industry alone. The government receives from tobacco the largest revenue obtained from any one article. The tobacco that we use is partly produced in Canada, and partly imported from the United States. Figures are wearisome, but I cannot help placing before the House the figures indicating the quantity of tobacco we are now importing into Canada. The quantity and value of unmanufactured tobacco imported into Canada from all countries during the ten years ending March 31, 1922, are as follows:
Tear	Pounds	Value1913	
22,153.588	$5,719,7551914	
17,598,449	5,109,6411915	
18,593,959	4,718,4881916	
20,834,772	4,624,7671917	
17,702,637	5,029,3551918	
17,824,947	6,634,9481919	
25,103,080	10,910,0101920	
24,345,295	13,604,7571921	
20,007,411	13,083,2931922	
20,870,509	8,867,469
The total quantity imported for the last 10 years, ending March 31st, 1922, is 205,036,545 pounds, having a value of $78,302,323. That is the total quantity from all countries. From the United States the total quantity is 192,503,253 pounds; value $71,666,631. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, for
the last ten years we have imported into Canada over 200,000,000 pounds of tobacco, and we have paid foreign countries over $78,000,000 for that tobacco. We have imported from the United States alone over 192,000,000 pounds and paid a total sum of over $71,000,000. These facts are rather startling. Since Canada has become a tobacco growing country, since the best methods for producing tobacco have been adopted, and the province of Ontario is producing certain grades of tobacco, and the province is producing other grades the growers have asked themselves more than once if it would not be possible to adopt some policy that would give them more protection, or, at all events, whether it be called protection or anything else, something that would prevent this importation of some 20,000,000 pounds of tobacco each year from the United States. A couple of years ago, Quebec and Ontario organized and began sending delegations to Ottawa. The Conservative party was then in power. The organizations met the government session after session, and between sessions, perhaps, but the result was that nothing was done. Those organizations asked, above all, two things. First, they asked that the duty of 5 cents a pound on the raw leaf 'be abolished. Secondly, they asked that the excise duty of 40 cents a pound on raw leaf, imported from the United States, or other foreign countries, be raised in order to prevent tobacco being imported in such immense quantities from foreign countries. Tobacco comes free into Canada from foreign countries, but there is an excise duty on raw leaf tobacco of 40 cents a pound when it is unstemmed, and 60 cents a pound when it is stemmed. It might just as well be a customs duty, because it would work out just as well, but, at the present time, it is an excise duty, and if you will look at the statute you will see that raw leaf tobacco is free when brought into Canada, but subject to an excise duty of 40 cents a pound.
This tobacco question, which interests certain localities in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, has become very acute. I must say that although delegation after delegation came to Ottawa, no remedy, no relief, no help was ever offered by the late administration. To-day we are in a position to say to the tobacco growers of Canada that the present Government has given them relief, and the tobacco growers of Canada owe a debt of gratitude to the present Administration for having given
[DOT]2892	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. J. J. Denis
them the relief which they requested. When the budget was delivered on May 23, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) announced that this duty of 5 cents a pound, which was bearing heavily on the planters or growers, was to be taken off when tobacco was sold to a manufacturer, but when tobacco was sold to the public the duty was not to be removed. Yesterday, I was delighted to hear the Minister of Finance, in his exposition of the amendments which he made to the budget, declare to the House that he had decided to abolish the tax of 5 cents a pound altogether, and that, in the future, raw leaf tobacco grown in Canada would be free of duty. I make myself the echo of my constituents and of the people generally of the district of Joli-ette, in offering our best thanks and congratulations to the Minister of Finance and the Government for what they have given us on this particular occasion. Last night, the Minister of Finance said:
Canadian raw leaf tobacco has a tax now of 5 cents a pound upon it. We did propose to remove that tax, as respects the portion of the raw leaf sold to the Canadian faotory, because when it goes in there and later on comes out, we get the tax on the manufactured article. There remained a tax on that .portion which was not to he sold to the factory. It has been represented to us that there is a very large quantity of raw leaf tobacco on hand almost unsaleable, and that where they get sale for it, it does not command more than 6 to 10 cents a pound at the most. It would mean a tax of 5 cents on- goods which, ,in some cases, had to be sold at 7 or 8. Therefore, we have concluded to abolish the tax altogether.
I must say to the Minister of Finance that the case was even worse than what was supposed. Raw leaf tobacco to-day, or yesterday, at least, was selling in Quebec at 5 cents a pound and less. It was high time that the Government should give some relief to the tobacco growers of Quebec and Ontario also; they have given that relief, and for the support and encouragement which they have given to the tobacco growers of Canada, I wish to offer my best and most sincere thanks. The minister said yesterday that recommendations had been made to them. This is true. I made strong recommendations to the Cabinet, and so did other hon. members. Especially did I make those recommendations in my statements dated June 8 and 10; but the difference between this Government and the late government is this, that when recommendations are made to this Government and a request is made for support or help or assistance to a certain class of the community, they are ready and willing to give it, while the late administration always re-

fused to give the help and support which we are now receiving from this Government.
Taking conditions as they are now, we have three categories of tobacco in Canada. We have first of all what I might call free tobacco, that is tobacco free of duty. That is the poor man's smoke. Then we have Canadian manufactured tobacco which should sell in the neighbourhood of about 75 cents a pound. In the third instance, we have imported manufactured tobacco, which sells at from $1.25 to $1.50 a pound. Is it not right and proper that when tobacco has become a necessity of life, different grades of tobacco should be offered to the public at different prices suitable to the different means of the public? It has been said many a time that tobacco is a luxury. It is and it is not. Tobacco is a necessary of life for the poor man. It is a necessity of life when 90 per cent of the men of this country have to use it. We all know that the poor man would very often rather go without a meal than without his tobacco. Therefore, I say that tobacco has become a necessary of life. For the rich man, for the man who wants to buy imported tobacco, for the man who wants to smoke manufactured tobacco, it might become a luxury. Therefore, the new provisions give the poor man a necessity of life in giving him a free smoke, and they give the rich man the luxury which he wishes, for, of course, the price is not the same. There is a price for the poor man and a price for the rich man. But is it not reasonable that, at least, something should be given free to the poor man? The taxes of this country have been increased. The situation could not be otherwise: they had to be increased. The sales tax and many other taxes have been increased. If taxes, of necessity, had to be increased all around, I say: At least give the poor man a free smoke, and to-day the poor man has been given a free smoke by this Government. This, Sir, is a Liberal policy; this is a policy which looks for the poor man and tries to alleviate as much as possible the burdens of the poor. I was saying a minute ago that many delegations for the last three years came to Ottawa, but they received no support from the government of the day. We asked that the duty of 5 cents a pound on raw leaf tobacco be removed, and it has now been removed by the present administration. I would ask something else from the Government, not this session perhaps but later on. There is another improvement which might be made that would benefit both the Gov

The Budget-Mr. Findlay
eminent and the people of this country, and it is this. I do not think we should let this state of things continue whereby we have to buy 20,000,000 pounds of tobacco each year from the United States. I do not think the government of the United States would stand very long for a condition of affairs by which Canada would sell yearly to the United States 20,000,000 pounds of tobacco, or, say $10,000,000 worth of any other commodity which 'could be produced in that country. We all know of the Fordney emergency tariff bill. When the United States wanted to protect their produce against that of foreign countries and especially against Canada, they, not very long ago, passed a bill called the Fordney emergency tariff bill. That bill was far-reaching; but the government of the United States were not satisfied with it, and now they are passing a new bill which enlarges on the Fordney bill. Therefore, I say this is again a matter of co-operation and compromise. If the United States will not admit the natural products of this country within their borders or territory, if they will not permit the cultivators and farmers of this country to sell their produce there, then I would say, not that we should close our doors to them, but that we should take every possible means to prevent the United States from flooding this country with 20,000,000 pounds worth of tobacco which Canadian can produce in this country in as good quality as the United States can export into Canada.
. Now, I have already spoken too long. I ask to be excused, and I will resume my seat immediately. Before doing so, however, I desire once more to congratulate the Minister of Finance on his health, on his courage and on his ability in submitting to this House the splendid budget which he has prepared together with the other members of the Cabinet. I wish to thank him again, and the Cabinet generally, for the assistance they have given to the tobacco growers of my constituency, and to tell them right now that what they did on May 23rd, and again yesterday, will not be forgotten by the people of the district of Joliette, who, when the day of reckoning comes, will not fail to stand by those who have proven themselves their friends and have helped them in their hour of need.


Mr. J. W. FINDLAY (South Bruce) :: It ' is neither from any desire to prolong the debate nor from any wish to hear the sound of my own voice that I rise to take part in the debate; nor have I any great
hope that I shall be able to introduce anything particularly new into the discussion. As the debate has been in progress three weeks and has been contributed to by a great many experienced parliamentarians, I have very little hope of being able to add any new features to it; and I would not rise to-night if it were not for the fact that I feel it my duty to myself and to my constituency to state clearly to this House and to the country my position with regard to the budget. The old historic constituency of South Bruce which I have the honour to represent in this House, sent me here as a protest against the protective principle and, as well, as a protest against blind and bigoted partyism. I feel it my duty, therefore, having been elected under those circumstances, to state the reasons why I cannot see my way clear to support the budget brought down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I have for years had a great deal of respect for the Minister of Finance, and I want to state that fact right here. I have watched his career and have admired his ability, and I want to join my voice in words of congratulation to him on his preserved strength and vigour. I trust that he will continue to give his services to the country for many years to come, and I hope that before he brings down his next budget he will have seen his way clear to going a great deal further in the way of reducing tariff taxation on the people than he has seen fit to do at the present time. It is not my intention to take up the time of the House at any length tonight. A weekly newspaper published in the constituency I represent, making some personal remarks about myself during the campaign, said I would never tire an audience with a long speech, as some of my predecessors had done; neither would it be necessary, after I had stated my position on any question, to call around the next day to see where I stood, as was the case with another gentleman who preceded me in the representation of that constituency. And I think that if these two policies, of brevity in speech and constancy in principle, were more largely practised in this House, the business of Parliament would be conducted with more expedition and with greater satisfaction.
I want to refer for a moment to something that may be regarded in a way as ancient history. In 1911, we had an election on the reciprocity agreement which had been negotiated by the present Minister of

The Budget-Mr. Findlay
Finance, and his colleague the late Hon. William Paterson; and whenever the political machine which calls itself the Liberal party at the present time is charged with insincerity in its attempt to lower the duties in this country, its members have always instanced their endeavour in 1911 to gain free access to American markets for Canadian products. I was willing then, I have always been willing, and I am willing now to give them credit for the effort they made at that time; and I may say that I myself did all I could to help elect the Liberal candidate in South Bruce during that campaign, because he stood on the reciprocity platform. I have debated the question with myself many times as to what were the causes that led to the defeat of that agreement, and I have been forced to the conclusion, very much against my will, that one of the chief causes was the fact that there was within the Liberal party itself a large element that was opposed to reciprocity, as it is opposed to the principle to-day, and that is the protective element. That is one of the chief reasons why the reciprocity agreement was defeated.
Now, Ontario farmers are charged with being protectionists because they did not support the agreement in 1911 as they should have done. Let me say that the Ont'ario farmer is not a protectionist. Whenever any hon. gentlemen in this House refer to the Progressive party they always speak of that party as though it consisted exclusively of men from the western prairies. I take exception to that view; the Progressive element is not by any means confined to the prairies. The Ontario farmer's ideas are just as progressive as those of the western farmer. But the Ontario farmer has been in the past a very strong party man, and it was largely because of his party affiliations and the fact that he was tied up to party in 1911 that he did not vote according to his convictions. I am thankful to say that a very great change has come over the Ontario farmer since 1911. He has had his eyes opened to the folly of allowing party to stand in the way of principle and firm belief. We had a very candid confession the other evening from the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) that he voted against the pact in 1911 because he had always been voting Conservative, and could not bring himself to vote Grit, as he would have to do if he wanted to support the agreement. That confession of the hon. member can 
be multiplied by thousands of others in the province of Ontario.
There was one other circumstance which I believe had a great deal to do with the Ontario farmer not supporting the reciprocity pact of 1911, and that was the coupling up with it of the Laurier naval policy, which was not popular in the rural sections. Another factor which helped to defeat the reciprocity pact was the very general suspicion that the Liberal party in going to the country on that issue was really desirous of securing a new lease of power on what they naturally considered was a popular issue rather than the American market for the products of Canadian farms.
It has been stated that this is not a protectionist budget because the tariff changes are all in a downward direction. Well, it depends on what we understand by the term "protectionist budget". The reductions are very slight, and they are not on the necessaries of life. With all due respect to the Minister of Finance, I think that the 2J per cent reduction on certain farm implements will be looked upon by the farmers as a sop to gain their support.
A great deal has been said in this debate about public morality and political honour, having particular regard to the failure of the Liberal party to redeem the promises they made during the election campaign. Well, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones, and as between the Conservative party and the Liberal party I cannot decide which is the more guilty. We all know that both parties have made election promises and broken them. I well remember that when the Liberal party was returned to power in 1896 they were elected not only on their platforrn of a tariff for revenue but also on their promise of Senate reform. I can readily understand that when people talk of reforming the Senate they are not taken seriously. But at any rate the Liberal party appealed to the people in 1896 on a platform of which Senate reform was a prominent plank, and yet after fifteen years of power that branch of our legislative machinery, which a great many people look upon as unnecessary or at least as not at all democratic, remained unreformed. It appears to me that those who appeal to the support of the electors should realize that when they make promises of what they will do if returned to ' power they are supposed to be speaking in earnest, and they must realize that no. longer will the people tolerate hollow pro-

The Budget-Mr. Laflamme
mises. Therefore I would counsel our statesmen and politicians to mend their ways in that respect.
We all realize that we have an enormous debt to take care of. But is there no other way of meeting our obligations than by increased taxation? When a sensible business man finds his income is less than his expenditure, he at once attempts to curtail his expenditure. Why is it that the business of the country cannot be run on the same principle that applies to private business? Surely there are many ways in which our national expenditure might be curtailed. I was glad to hear the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) suggest that economy might be practised by reducing the sessional indemnities. Of course, this is not a very popular subject to bring forward in this House, and it may be suggested that any one who discusses it is playing to the gallery. But I do not refer to it from any such motive. I do believe that it is time to practise what we preach, and while it might entail some considerable sacrifice on many members, I feel that all who are sincere in advocating economy should support a bill to reduce the sessional indemnities of both Houses and the salaries of ministers.
It was stated last night by the Minister of Finance that when raw material is imported by the manufacturer and the finished product is exported, he receives a refund of about 99 per cent on the duty paid on his raw material. It appears to me that there is something in that feature of our tariff which is not fair. If on account of a scarcity of domestic feed for his stock a farmer is compelled to buy feed in a foreign country, he has to pay duty on that feed, but after he has manufactured it into beef or pork and exported this finished product he does not get any drawback on the duty so paid. He pays duty the same as the manufacturer does, but when he exports his finished product, which is his fattened beef, he receives no drawback. Why does the manufacturer get a privilege which is not extended to people in other lines of business?
I want, in just a few words, to make my position clear with regard to this budget. I have given the matter considerable thought, and I have tried to do what I believe my constituents would expect me to do. As I said in the beginning, I was sent here as a protest against a protective tariff. In spite of the fact that speakers
on the Government side claim
10 p.m. that this budget is not a protective budget, I cannot see it in any other light. It is a protective budget. In fact, it is admitted by the official Opposition, as well as by a great many Government supporters, to be a protective budget, and under those conditions I feel it my duty to oppose it. It is a disagreeable duty, I may say, because my affiliations in the past have always been with the Liberal party, and I should have been glad if the budget brought down by the Minister of Finance had been of such a character as to enable me to support it. But under the conditions to which I have referred, and having regard to the purpose for which the people of South Bruce sent me here, I feel it my duty to register my protest against the action of the protective element in the Liberal party in bringing about the introduction of a budget which, in my opinion, is not in the best interests of this country.


Mr. N. K. LAFLAMME (Drummond and Arthabaska) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker,
I feel certain that you will, in all justice, recall that since the opening of this Parliament, I have in no way overtaxed your patience. I have endeavoured to put into practice an economy very seldom found, that of speech. I have, on the contrary, sought to become somewhat acquainted with my new, and, I may add, interesting surroundings on more than one score. I have made some progress, but I fear very much that I have, at present stumbled against an insurmountable obstacle. What has occupied the House's attention ever since May 23rd? A main motion and an amendment to this motion. I think there is no better means to elucidate the discussion than to examine again the question, as Webster said, to discover how far the ship has drifted from port. The main motion which the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) made, is that the House resolves itself into Committee of the Whole to consider and pass upon the principal business of this session, that is to say, using parliamentary language, to provide ways and means so as to allow the Minister of Finance to carry through his budget. That is without doubt the question. It would only be repeating things said a thousand times, to discuss the disastrous consequences of the world wide war; it has baffled the financial world, changed the conditions of living, burdened us with debts which, ten years ago, would have frightened us. All
289G

The Budget-Mr. Laflamme
these events were commented upon both by word and writing and all were sadly deplored. What credit has the Minister of Finance been given? The hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) who has, in this House, no greater admirer than myself and who commands a prestige far in advance of what his age would entitle him to-I say it openly; I stated it in private, I may do so in public-and who is a powerful debater almost without any rival in this House-merely told us in picturesque language which I shall condense into a simile after the Latin mind, by saying: that the hon. Minister of Finance's head was as white as winter. He forgot to add this: that time had not impaired his vigour, which recalls a spring day. What was the answer to this proposal? A motion was put forth, which parliamentary practice enjoins me to call a motion in amendment, but which amends nothing, which is placed along with the main motion but nevertheless has no connection with it. Taking up this question with the reserve characteristic of a new member, I should say: that the so-called motion interposed by those who in the past were known as the loyal opposition, but who have rechristened themselves by taking the name of official Opposition, ask that the House do not resolve itself into Committee of the Whole and that Parliament refuse the Ways and Means, which would permit the Minister of Finance, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, to carry through the House his annual budget. In fact if not in its wording at least in its effect, this motion, if adopted, would entail the fall of the Government, because it amounts to a motion of lack of confidence. It is a great responsibility to assume under the circumstances; however, as far as I am concerned, I would rather have the question put in clear-cut fashion-the people understand simple and plain questions, only because they solve them by a yes or no- it is better that the test should take place now.
What arguments are brought to bear in favour of this counter proposal? Do they affect public interest or do they come under the scope of party reasons? Let us examine these arguments which I have heard and read. They must weigh heavily upon the lips of those who have public duties to carry out, and particularly upon the lips of those who wish to uplift Parliament. What was said? The right hon. leader of the Opposition and my hon. friend from
rMr. Laflamme.]
Vancouver (Mr. Stevens), asserted and reasserted that the policy introduced in 1878 had been the salvation of the country, that under the shadow of this protective policy our industries, then in their infancy, had developed, that the country had grown with them, and that the policy, which was necessary at that time had become essential to-day. That is clearly the summary of what the representatives of the official opposition have submitted to us. What is the second reason invoked by them? They argued, with a subtlety of mind, which I am not inclined to imitate.
We perceive in this, they said, our way of looking at things, we find the imprint of our principles, we see the protective policy reproduced almost word for word in the speech of the Minister of Finance delivered in this House on May 23rd. In a word, they tell us: The policy we have held forth since 1878, you carry out, and you follow in our footsteps. Anyone who is not familiar with the versatility of parliamentary life-and I am one-might be led to conclude that these two reasons would militate in favour of the main motion. But we are in the midst of parliamentary surroundings: we are not allowed to draw such conclusions, we must perform some special feat the ingenuity of which I admire, but nevertheless a feat, to conclude that these two reasons justify an adverse vote on the motion brought down in the House by the Minister of Finance.
Accordingly an excuse was offered. What is the plea? We were told: The Liberal party-I may speak of the Liberal party with an open mind; being one if its musketeers, a free lance and outspoken-we were told: The Liberal party held, in 1919, at Ottawa, a convention which it seems the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) had thought imbued with a democratic spirit. At this convention, you discussed what is termed a platform with definite leanings. This platform was well threshed out by the right hon. leader of the official Opposition, who is at present listening to me; I shall not dwell upon it. He came to the conclusion that the ministerial party of today, with duplicity-that is the expression he used-had thrown overboard the pledges given and promises made. In other words the gentleman sitting opposite to us stated: Your policy is a poor one, but you are wrong in not having followed it. On the contrary, they add, the principles we

The Budget-Mr. Laflam-me
have been preaching for the last half century are the only true ones; by applying them, you are wrong. This is, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I have not yet understood, during my short experience in this House. I hope that public life will impart sufficient suppleness of mind to enable me to understand that this distinguished political leader and statesman was right when one day he endeavoured to reassure me in' these words: My friend, logic and politics in Canada are two grand ladies who have never met in the same drawing room.
I shall but add one remark in reference to the hon. members who hail from the prairie provinces. They are dear to me on more than one score, because I come from a county where were recruited and where they hold in the highest esteem the farmer's party: the county of Drummond and Arthabaska. I was anxious to know if, on the actual field of operations, the enthusiastic statements which I heard in December last, would come up to expectations. The trial is not over, it is on; it would be untimely therefore to pass a judgment. For the moment and I speak for myself alone, I understand the responsibility which weighs upon those who speak here, and I take the full responsibility, I do not acknowledge that a country like ours begins at Fort William and ends at the foot of the Rockies, and I do not wish to hear utterances which, after all, reminds one of "1'In-ternationale," and tell you-it is useless to hide the truth of what is brought out by the discussion that has taken place here for the last four months-which tells you: Toilers of the soil, you are small because you are on your bended knees; rise and you shall become their equals! I leave it to you, Sir, is that not the theme which served for more than one remark made since March 8th, last?
I think the time has come for one who, to-day, enters public life to shoulder his responsibilities, but I must, casually, remind the very able and estimable leader of the Agrarian party (Mr. Crerar) that to-night or in the wee hours of morn he will meet at the cross roads that lady of which I spoke a few seconds ago, and by name-cold logic.
If I remember well, a sub-amendment was moved. Why? Because our friends who hail from the prairies, apparently, were not satisfied with the amendment moved by the former Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). Their sub-amendment was declared out of order.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON (Translation):: Oh! oh.


Napoléon Kemner Laflamme: My hon. friend sees the point at once.
Therefore there are no longer three roads open, there are but two. By their sub-amendment they have implicitly condemned the terms, the purpose of the amendment. I would not be astonished that a great number of them would realize the difficult situation into which the windings of the discussion have led them and would lean towards the main motion.
One last word: I do not know why some of the most brilliant leaders in this House have thought it proper in a debate which had no relation whatsoever to the general topic of our parliamentary customs, to point out the necessity of mending our ways. It is a rather cold reception for an ordinary layman who comes with illusions and who sees men of experience that have fought against one another for twenty years and hear them say: The time has come when we must raise the standard of public life. Others thought that public men should have been the first to give the example rather than follow it. These things were said and repeated, why? In my opinion so as to find a reason more plausible than true, to attack the main question which is before the House. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) asserted this afternoon that, when the Minister of Finance, clearly admitting the forcefulness of the argument set forth by the member for Vancouver, surrendered on the question of foreign exchange fluctuations, there only remained to criticize the question of the dumping of foreign overproduction and that of the marking of foreign goods. These two subjects that are capable of being openly discussed, serve to-day as a last theme for criticism on the part of the Opposition, and would suffice to induce the Canadian Parliament, under the grave circumstances we are placed in, to decide that there is no necessity for the House to resolve itself into committee of the Whole so as to dispose of the budget. Three reasons, which I shall sum up, are given to uphold this contention; in my opinion, these are not sufficient to make much of an impression on my mind: first you promised, in 1919, something that circumstances prevent you from carrying out; secondly, you give an example of public men who promise things they are unwilling or unable to carry out; and, lastly, because you want to strike out clause 7 of the Customs Act

The Budget-Mr. McConica
December, 1921, and because you want to cut out clause 8, we are called upon to obtain from the Parliament elected in December, 1921, a vote which will mean: the Government's defeat. So far as I am concerned, this threat will have no effect,- and the view I express is that of many who sit on this side of the House-we are backed by something that will comfort us and by a power able to uphold us. I submit, Sir, that these three reasons are not worth much. I am sorry to say so-because the right hon. leader of the Opposition, who does me the courtesy of listening just now, will not find in this House a greater admirer than me-I find with regret that the exigencies of politics have induced him, in his anxiety to defeat the main motion which is before Parliament, to take a stand giving the impression that there comes a time when the image of his country is dimmed by the clash of party interests, to the point of preventing him from taking a broader and more lofty view of the question.


Mr. T. H. McCONICA (Battleford) :: Mr. Speaker, it was my intention to discuss the budget, but certain things that have occurred during the debate impel me to beg the indulgence of the House for a few moments. I regret that my duties on one of the special committees have prevented me from studying the budget and following this debate as closely and carefully as I should have liked. I have given very considerable thought to the subject, however, and I must confess that I have been more or less perplexed by the subjects that have been presented.
The first question that comes before us is the amendment of the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). What is the purpose of that amendment? What would be the effect if it were carried? Why is it presented for consideration? I apprehend that it is very clear to the mind of every hon. gentleman present that if by a vote of this House that amendment could be engrafted upon the budget now before us, the most decided vote against that amendment would come from the hon. member who has presented it for our consideration. He would run like a turkey if he thought it would pass; there is no question about that. It is not presented for the purpose of securing the benefits, as we conceive it, of the planks that are presented in the platform of the Liberal party. The hon. ex-Minister of Finance would under no consideration cast a vote which would engraft those planks upon the fiscal policy
rilr. Laflamme.]
of this country at this particular time or at any other time. For that reason we are not to understand that a vote for the amendment is a vote in favour of all the policies set forth in the platform recited in the amendment. That is very evident. Then what is the purpose of the amendment? It recites that the present budget is not guided by the planks of the Liberal platform, and I apprehend that that is very substantially true. I have failed to recognize in the budget that has been presented for our consideration any resemblance to the planks recited in the amendment.
On the other hand, it is urged that these planks were adopted with certain mental reservations, that they were not very fluently proclaimed, that they were not in fact and in truth a proper expression of the intentiop of that convention. As to that I am not advised.
There is another defence, and that is that the mover of the amendment and his associates have also violated tariff promises. That has been proclaimed in this debate. I recall that on certain occasions there were certain promises, and I think on one occasion we had it promised with all the sanction and authority of His Excellency the Governor General in the Speech from the Throne that the tariff was to he revised last session. We have heard a good deal said about the revision of the tariff by hon. gentlemen to my right. We had their promise, but what it means no man on this earth can tell. It is one of those convenient tariff declarations which is supposed to look in all directions and be in favour of all things. The tariff was to be revised. It was an easy promise to make. It was a Janus-faced arrangement. To the protectionist it meant revision upwards, and to the free trader revision downwards. It was a promise that could easily be made and as easily be fulfilled. Any change could be called by the man who made the promise, a revision of the tariff, in his opinion, but even that small tribute was not paid to the promises which the right hon. gentleman to my right made, as. I understand it. He could easily have made some change in the tariff, and he failed to make any. Hon. gentlemen opposite do not keep their promises, it is alleged, and hon. gentlemen to my right do not keep their promises, it is alleged. We in this corner are willing to agree that both of you are guilty, and if you want to find a political party in Canada that has never violated a tariff pledge, here

The Budget-Mr. McConica
it is-the only party of its kind. Now, gentlemen, if you are all of the opinion that we should have a purification of political life in this country present yourselves in due form, and if you are found worthy and well qualified you may be admitted over here on approbation.
What is the matter with the amendment? It does not amend. That is the trouble. It does not even amend the political morals of either party, and I am willing to agree that both of you need it pretty badly. What is the matter with the budget? it does not budge. That is what we complain of in this part of the House. It is much too stationary to be much of a budget, and it follows too closely the lines which were followed by the leader of the Opposition. I want to say here and now that I have the most profound respect for the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), and I want to join in all that has been said, and said so well on that subject by hon. gentlemen who have preceded me. I congratulate him most hearti'y on the splendid patriotic courage he displayed when he assumed the onerous duties of the very important position in which he now so ably presides. I want to congratulate this House and the country and the Empire on the fact that we are favoured with the great ability, the wide experience, and the sound judgment of so able a financier.
There is much in this budget with which I am not particularly pleased. In fact, I have a theory that a tax is a good deal like a pain. It is never where you want it, unless it is on the other fellow. It was said by one of old time that any old tax is a good tax, and any new tax is a bad tax, and I apprehend there is much truth in that. An old tax is established. It conforms to business conditions, and contracts are made with reference to it. It is settled as a part of business policy. An old tax is therefore a good tax. It may bear heavily, but rights are fixed with reference to that. Contracts are made with that in view. Any new tax must disturb, to an extent, business conditions, must, to some extent, interfere with values, and call for a readjustment of the conditions in which the world finds itself. Therefore, it is a bad tax in that respect. I am not in favour at this time in our history of sudden changes in our taxing system. I do not think it would be advisable, and, for that reason, there is something in this budget that commends itself to me. It, surely, is not a very
radical change in the system which has prevailed, but there is something in it that I do not like, and which I will discuss later.
I was pleased to hear the hon. member reaffirm his allegiance to the principle of reciprocity. I certainly was in favour of reciprocity when it was before the country, and I have never seen a reason for changing my view. I honour the minister for the attempt he made to bring about a reciprocity treaty with the great republic to the south. I noticed, with a good deal of interest, the very able argument of the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Meighen) against reciprocity. It was a cleverly conceived, clearly stated, and forcible presentation, of all the arguments, I think, that could be marshalled against the proposition. Now what were they? He is in favour of reciprocity as an abstract principle. But he is not in favour of reciprocity with the United States. The government that succeeded Sir Wilfrid Laurier's government was in favour of reciprocity everywhere, excepting where they could get it. We had rumours out in the prairie provinces of the blessings of reciprocity that were to come to us. Sir George Foster, Minister of Trade and Commerce at that time, went to Australia, seeking a reciprocity treaty with that distant island continent. He was gone for some time, and made a diligent effort, as I am advised, and, I think as I recall, all that country could offer, in regard to which we could enter into a reciprocity agreement, was prunes. That substantially exhausted the list, and we were not particularly in need of prunes, and, as we had not anything we cared to trade for prunes, and, I think, we were pretty well supplied with prunes, nothing came of that effort. But Sir George Foster stopped in China to look up our trade relations there, and we, in the West, thought we were going to have an opportunity of shipping our wheat over the highest mountains on the continent, across the widest ocean on the globe, and selling our products to that great nation of Chinamen who live on rice and rats. Nine-tenths of them could not tell the difference between a biscuit and a balloon. That is the place where we were to find a market for our wheat and other products. He was going to persuade them to abandon their rice lands, to sell their rat-traps, beat their chop-sticks into bread-knives, and buy our wheat, but that did not work very well. Now, what was the effect of the reciprocity



The Budget-Mr. McConica
arrangements that were entered into by that government? Well, I believe they did, after a long time, make some trade treaty with the West Indian islands. That was the end of it. Here was the great country to the south of us ready to enter into trade relations with us and anxious to take our products. That market stood open for years, and what was the result? Why was it not arranged? The hon member tells us that the public men decided that that was not a proper proceeding, and that it was a dangerous thing to enter into a reciprocity treaty with the United States. When I try to discuss a question, it is always my specialty to do most of it from a book, and I have here a book entitled, " Makers of Canada," volume XXI, and on page 319 I find the following:
Reciprocity-
Efforts were made from time to time by Canada, between the years 1847 and 1854, to secure the free admission of goods between Canada and the United States, but without success, until the latter year, when Lord Elgin negotiated a treaty. It came into force in 1855 and was abrogated in 1866, at the instance of the United (States.
Now, mark this-
The renewal of the treaty was urged by Canada in 1866, 1869, 1871, 1874, 1879, 1887, 1892 and 1896, but in every instance the American authorities failed to respond.
Many public men had a good deal to do with the affairs of Canada during that period, and they evidently were in favour of reciprocity. I have here a list of names of illustrious men who favoured reciprocity, but I will not bother to read them. Hon. members know who they were. Yet the hon. member said that, in the opinion of Canadian statesmen, it was an unwise policy. But in 1896 the efforts on Canada's part stopped until there was a proposition from the other side of the line, and then the eminent Canadian statesmen of that time embraced that opportunity, and a reciprocity treaty was negotiated, which afterwards failed in Canada. When that treaty was first proclaimed Liberal and Conservative statesmen alike uttered shouts of delight, and said that it was a marvellously clever thing, it was just what Canada needed. After some little time, a change came over the spirit of their dream, and some of these gentlemen concluded that it would be dangerous to have business relations with the United States. Why? They said they are too big, that it would be unsafe for us to sell them our stuff or to buy their stuff. I cannot conceive that that is a proper ob-

jection. The bigger the market the better; we will not buy anything from them, unless we want it, and we will not sell them anything unless it is to our advantage to sell it. That is the effect of the reciprocity treaty, and the larger the market for us down there, in my opinion, the better for us- They say it is a dangerous thing to establish trade relations with the United States, yet in this last year 52 per cent of our foreign trade was with the United States, and the year before 58 per cent was with the United States. What is the matter with that kind of trade, if reciprocity is dangerous? They say it might be abrogated, and we could not trade with them. Our arrangements might be disturbed and we could not deal with them. Well, when that calamity comes it will be met as our difficulties have always been met. " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
But hon. gentlemen tell us that we send our trade east and west, and if we entered into such an agreement with the United States, there would he a danger of our trade routes being destroyed. Are not many of our trade routes now running down into the United States? I am advised that more than 60 per cent of our wheat goes tc the ocean by way of Buffalo and as shipped from United States ports. I am advised that a large quantity of the merchandise that comes to Canada is landed at United States ports and is shipped from there into this country. I am advised that a large part of the grain that goes through the port of Montreal is United States grain. Our trade relations are, therefore, at the present time a good deal mixed up. I recollect that when my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) was in power, he took over 1,700 miles of railway, and as near as I can remember, both ends of it were in the United States. He also took over an ocean port down	in	the United States.
We are doing more and more business every day with the United States, and, in my opinion, that is a good thing. What is the trouble? 1 have heard hon. gentlemen suggest that we should not improve the St. Lawrence because there would be danger of trade complications. By the way, my recollection is that while hon. gentlemen were in power, they proposed to improve the St. Lawrence; they were not afraid at that time of our trade relations getting mixed up, of our trade routes becoming contaminated. I do not think there is anything in that argument.

The Budget-Mr. MeConica
What trade complications are liable to arise between us? If you visit the city of Windsor and look out over the Detroit river, you will see more tons of freight shipped past a given point on that little river than were ever before seen on the bosom of any inland' waterway on the face of the globe, more tons of freight by far than pass through the Suez canal, or through the Panama canal, or through the Kiel canal, double the quantity of freight that passes through all those great artificial waterways together. You will see boats of all kinds, large and small, of every colour and of every shape, moving up and down, across and through and around, mingling in perfect harmony without a jar, some bearing the Stars and Stripes and somje the Union Jack, in absolute unity of understanding, a tribute to the good sense, amicable business relations and the mutual confidence that exists between these two great nations.
We have our St. Lawrence river. It has been there for some time, I understand, and I apprehend that it will be there for some time to come. It is the great natural gateway to this continent. There is nothing like it anywhere else on the face of the globe. It is navigable for a thousand miles; it is a source of power, an inlet to the nation. It bears between its banks the surplus water from more than one-half the fresh water lake surface of the globe, and it will remain with us until the end of time. We cannot well get that confused if we should enter into a reciprocity arrangement with the United States.
I am in favour of sendng our wheat to the United States every time we have an opportunity to do so, and why? Oh, we are told, the United States export wheat. Secretary Hoover has, however, recently stated that within ten years the United States will be importing foodstuffs. Ten years hence the farmers of western Canada will be needing an outlet for their wheat. Russia to-day is out of the market. Russia in the future, will be our competitor. Russia has entered into some sort of relationship with Germany. Russia, herself, is not so formidable; but when German energy, industry and business sagacity penetrate that great empire, we shall be compelled to seek diligently for a market for the wheat of the western provinces. We can put the wheat fields of the United States out of business with our cheaper land, our higher production, our better quality of grain. The day will not be far
184i
distant when we can turn their wheatfields into corn fields, tobacco fields, alfalfa fields and cotton fields, and in time, there must be our outlet for the surplus grain of the western prairie.
But, say hon. gentlemen, we are going to build up manufacturing industries in the East and have a home market for our western products. Western Canada produces 300,000,000 bushels of wheat a year, and as about six bushels of wheat will feed a man, that means 50,000,000 people. Supposing we have 50,000,000 people in Canada and not a single one of them engages in producing wheat, then we have a possibility of consuming the wheat of western Canada in the home markets of Canada. But what will the 50,000,000 people do? Will they engage in manufacture? It is a laudible business, and apparently in the past it has been a profitable business; but where will they sell their products? That is the question. Where will you find an outlet for your commodities? You can manufacture goods in abundance in eastern Canada. I know of no place on the face of the globe that appeals to me more strongly than the great St. Lawrence valley as a hive of manufacturing industry, and nothing will please me more, nothing will please the people of western Canada more, than to see that the busiest place on the face of the globe. You have the power. My esteemed friend has often told us of the great electrical power that is capable of development in the St. Lawrence and in Canada. It is a power unequalled anywhere else, a power easily controlled, constant in its application, cheap to produce, and susceptible of being distributed in every direction at an exceedingly moderate cost. We have here an abundance of raw material. Why then, cannot Canada manufacture as cheaply as any other place on the face of the globe? What is the trouble between the East and the West? What is the matter with our economic situation? The trouble is that it is not balanced properly. We in the West are buying in a highly protected market; we are paying railway freight rates to support workmen whose cost of living is fixed by highly protected markets; we are buying our implements of production from firms that are highly protected, and we are selling our products in a free trade market. That is what is the matter; and when we come to cast the balance at the close of the year we find it on the wrong side.
Now what is eastern Canada going to do about it? Why do they not sell their

The Budget-Mr. McConica
goods now? Why are they not shipping trainloads of commodities into the West these days? We need everything out there that the human imagination can conceive, and we need them in large quantities. We want fencing, lumber, hardware, paint, glass, and everything that the East can produce; and we want these things in abundance. Why do we not buy them? We do not, simply because the purchasing power of the West is exhausted; it is gone. We cannot buy because we have not that with which to pay; and it seems to me that the prospect for the future is dark indeed. I listened with attention to the hon. member for St. John (Mr. Baxter) the other day, who challenged the statements of the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey), with regard to the farmers, which he said were overdrawn. He implied that those statements were not entirely reliable. Now, I have great confidence in the hon. member's judgment on some things. I consider him the greatest living expert on morganatic political alliances; in that matter he is an expert in practice as well as in theory; and I was pleased when I saw the smile that spread over his countenance when he rose the last time in his place to foregather with his friends across the way with whom he was so tenderly, and touchingly, and ticklishly united on that occasion. He seemed to enjoy it immensely. But when it comes to conditions in the West, I fancy he does not know as much as I do. I am a farmer; I do not do anything else; I have no other means of support; I do not know what we should do with reference to the budget and all that sort of thing.
But, Mr. 'Speaker, that is not the pressing question with me. The question with me just now is, what I am going to do with my holdings in the West, the farming enterprise that I have on my hands, I paid the Canadian Pacific Railway Company last year over $4,000 in freight, and I have bought $23,000 of eastern made farm implements and vehicles in the last eleven years. My business has come to the point now where I cannot make it pay, and the problem with me is, how am I going to save myself. I see no light in the future. And that is the problem that all of our farmer friends here, and people in the West, have to face. We do not know what to do. We are paying too much freight; we are paying too much for our supplies. Our help we employ in competition with railway men and men employed in factories

at exhorbitant wages, and we also must pay high wages. Now, the budget does not balance with us; I hope it may balance here. But what are we going to do? We must have cheaper freight rates; we must have a .better system of marketing grain; and we must have cheaper supplies; otherwise we cannot succeed. And what will be the effect if we do not? Where do the manufacturers sell their goods? Where will hon. gentlemen's manufacturing friends find a market? what is the matter with the market now? You have all the protection you need, I think. Protection has been the order of the day in this country for fifty years. Well, what is the trouble with the manufacturing interests? Why do not the wheels of industry start if protection is the remedy? These men should call on their god Baal, the god of protection, and ask him to come down and start the fires in the furnaces. Perhaps he may be asleep. It is going to take a miracle to start things in the West, under present conditions, and if our industrial enterprise in this country is to keep going we must begin by improving conditions in the West. You are ready to start your factories; your workmen are standing idle; your warehouses are piled high with unclaimed goods. Where is the trouble? You have no outlet for your products. The time has come when Canda must take her position in the world.
I listened with interest to the address of the Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin) for whose ability I have great respect; and I can see his viewpoint. But that viewpoint will not stand in western Canada. I say to him, in all candour, "We cannot buy your stuff". I listened to his recital of history with reference to Hon. Edward Blake and other eminent statesmen of the past. I did not know whether his citations were correct or not, and I do not care very much whether they are. I think those gentlemen have been out of business for some time, and the conditions that prevailed then are not the conditions that exist now. In those days Canada was a little, unknown colony and her commerce consisted in loading a ship and sending it somewhere to trade and sell goods and bring back something we needed here. Today the world is one great industrial manufacturing centre. Conditions are entirely different. The means of transportation are so rapid and so universal, and the means of communication are so instantaneous, that every man in any particular line of

The Budget-Mr. McConica
business knows exactly what the world status is every day of the year. He knows where he can find the best market for his goods and where he can supply his wants at the lowest price. So that the conditions that existed in those days no longer prevail; and Canada must do one of two things; either decide to live within herself, or determine to become a world power and one of the world's' commercial nations. We must seek an outlet in the markets of the world for all our products. I am a wheat grower. I am getting up in years, but I can go on a farm and with a fair chance stand up against any wheat producer on the face of the globe. And so can any of us in that country. But we want a fair show; we want reasonable means of marketing our produce; we want reasonable freight rates. Give us these and we ask for no better opportunity than to meet all the producers of the world and sell our commodities to the nations on such terms as they choose and at such prices as they can afford to pay. Why is it that Canada cannot manufacture as cheaply as the United States? Oh, say my hon. friends, the factories there are large; the United States has a population of 110,000,000 whereas we have a little less than 9,000,000. Do hon. gentlemen know any one down in the United States that is supplying the wants of 9,000,000 people? It is not necessary to have an enormous factory in order to produce at a profit. Better management is usually found in the more moderate sized factories. No factory in the United States has a monopoly of any line of business, never has had, and those factories succeed because the moderate sized factory is the most successful. Many of our factories here in eastern Canada are big enough to produce as cheaply as the American factories. We are told by the hon. gentleman from Halifax (Mr. Maclean) that this is a young country. It is in some parts, and in other parts it is pretty old. Our industries are young we are told. Why, we have had protection for fifty years, and we have industries with whiskers as long as your arm-but they are infants still. Mr. Speaker, none of them is of age yet. The hot-house plant is very beautiful, but it is not very robust and soon languishes. So it is with our hot-house industries. If they cannot stand alone after forty or fifty years of nursing, the sooner you tell them to get down to, or out of, business the better in my opinion. Protection ! Infants! Those infants are grown so big that they cannot move themselves, and yet they want us to protect them!
The way to put industrial business on a substantial basis in eastern Canada is to take such industries as can properly be conducted here, and say to them, "Root, hog, or die." If they need protection, let them show how much-that is our platform-let them show why they need protection, and then if it is worth while to nurse them along, all right, we will consider the question. The proposition that in this country where the raw material comes in free we cannot manufacture woollen goods without 30 or 40 per cent of a protective tariff is to my mind exceedingly strange. Why, my friend from Yale (Mr. McKelvie) tells us that an Okanagan apple tree cannot compete with a Yankee apple tree; that the apple trees down there are highly specialized. Now, I cannot understand the philosophy of that statement. Our peach trees blush when they think of competing with the peach trees across the line. The gentleman says: "Why, the Yankee fruit is earlier, and the Yankee growers have a chance to supply the prairies before our fruit is ripe." Let me tell the House that the farmers of the West do not buy early apples. They do not buy them until they have marketed their crop, paid their threshing bills, their hands, their grocery bills!; they do not buy them until they have laid in a little supply of coal which they hope may carry them through the long winter; they do not buy them until they have bought boots and shoes and clothes for their children; they do not buy them until they have paid the interest on the mortgage and their taxes-and when that time comes they do not have any money left. That is what is the trouble with the apple market of the prairies. It is not that we want Yankee apples, but we cannot afford to pay $4 a box for Canadian apples. That is all there is to it. And what have we done? We are planting rhubarb. We send the children down along the edge of the coulees to pick choke cherries and Saskatoon berries, and we get along without your $4 apples; and we will continue to do so. We would like to buy them, and our children need them, but we cannot afford the price
My hon. friend from Halifax says that the prairies are prosperous, and he has a peculiar way of estimating that prosperity. "Why," he said, "you had so many population in 1912, and you have so many more in 1921." Well, let me tell you that in 1912 there were just four Mc-Conicas out there; now there are thirteen.

The Budget-Mr. McConica
We believe in some kinds of protection, and we want immigrants under certain conditions, but, sir, we first want to take care of-
The 'immigrants that come across the unknown sea,
The unknown sea that reels and rolls.
Specked with the barques of baby souls;
Barques that were launched on the farther side,
Slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide.
They are the immigrants that have the first claim upon our affections, our diligence and our earnest solicitations, and it is for them that we are most concerned. I believe I am talking too long.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no. Go
on.


Thomas Henry McConica: I want to get in Hansard. Now, Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the address of the hon. member from East Calgary (Mr. Irvine) which he delivered in the course of this debate. I followed him as best I could with my poor ears, and I have since read a portion of that address. I do not think I understand it now, and I am not sure that I ever will be able to.


An hon. MEMBER:: There are others.


Thomas Henry McConica: I thought when he started out that he was going to catch the rainbow and coin it into drachmas, Spanish pieces of eight and doubloons. But I was satisfied with his description of the vast wealth of Canada, of our man power, and of the resources at our disposal to pay our national debt. Mr. Speaker, I remember the debt of the United States after the Civil War. I am not so old but I remember as a lad the condition which then confronted that country. The nation owed more than $2,000,000,000, and in those days that was a fabulous sum. Not only was that a stupendous national debt, but the land was rent by civil feuds, devastated of its man power, and many of its cities in ruins. In a word, conditions were deplorable, and it was then that I first heard the word, "repudiation". I remember my mother used to read in the evenings from the great newspapers of New York that we would have to repudiate our national debt, that it was impossible for us even to meet the interest upon that vast obligation. The State of Virginia did attempt to repudiate its debt, but finally some readjustment was made as a result of the efforts of a political party known as the Readjusters. But the country was 
distressed beyond measure. What did the people do? They called in immigrants, they started to produce and to ship their products into the markets of the world; they forgot their differences, they forgot their little state troubles; they started in to meet their obligations manfully, and that great debt just melted away and no one ever knew when it was paid. Now, that is a thing that we can do here in Canada, and we can do it only by getting together, only by getting to work. We must do that thing by producing the commodities which we can best produce and by putting them in the markets of this country and of the world at prices that people can afford to pay.
The Great Architect of this universe prescribed a remedy for human ills away back in the days of the Garden of Eden, and that remedy was work. He has seen to it, Mr. Speaker, that there has always been a job. There are one hundred times the number of opportunities available today that were available one hundred years ago. We are engaged in lines of industry that were undreamed of fifty years ago, even twenty-five years ago. Take the automobile business. I remember when I first heard of a horseless carriage; to-day I suppose the automobile business employs more men than any other manufacturing business carried on in this hemisphere. In the manufacture, in the sale, in the repair, in the use of these machines, I apprehend we are employing more people than are employed in any other line of manufacture. And so it will be in the years to come. We shall have plenty to do; every man will have a job if we adjust our industrial affairs properly; and we shall be able to pay him an ample price for what he does. We shall have no trouble to develop the West. We shall be able to take care of immigrants, and we will welcome them to our shores, but you must put us in such a position that we can live, for if we cannot live, they cannot. We have no bread lines in the West; we have no soup kitchen on the prairies; with us it is "root, hog, or die." (But we cannot take care of men who cannot earn a living there. First, I repeat, put us in such shape that we can live; then they will be able to live.
Now, I do not object so much to this budget, but I do not believe that Canada should be a high protection country. I do not believe that the principles advocated by Hon. Edward Blake stand good to-day.
I am not a free trader; none of us in this country are free traders. We are not in

The Budget-Mr. McConica
favour of throwing down the tariff entirely, but we are in favour of a substantial and continuous reduction of the tariff. I listened and waited for some hon. gentleman on the other side to say: "We propose to continue this fight. We pledged ourselves to give freer trade in certain commodities, and we are going to keep on until we achieve that end." But as yet I have not heard anybody say that. I would be glad to hear it. I would be' glad to support a budget that contained such a statement. I do not exactly like the kind of budget that has been brought down, but I am not particularly fussy about that; I will stand for almost anythng, provided that it is going to sweep us on to the goal which I believe it is necessary we should attain if we are to have industrial prosperity in this great Dominion. I see no reason why we should not put our commodities into the markets of the world. Put us where we can compete fairly with any wheat growers on the face of the globe and we will compete with them; we will buy your manufactured goods and pay you for them. We want to encourage the industry of eastern Canada. We want no sectional strife, no differences between the East and the West. But I had sincerely hoped to see a much more substantial reduction in the tariff than we have seen.
Another thing: I was not pleased with the address of the Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin), and I was not pleased with the addresses of some of his associates. I want to be perfectly frank; they do not reflect my views. I want to tell you squarely and candidly that the sticking point with me is not so much the budget as what has been said in favour of it on both sides of the House. That is what 1 do not want to endorse, and I am sorry that that is the position.
Now, I have talked longer than I should. I extend to the Minister of Finance my congratulations upon his eminent service and I extend to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) my very best wishes. I hope that his administration may be exceedingly prosperous. I did not come down here to try to settle political differences. I had a theory when I came here that this was a time in the history of the country when men who had some idea of public questions should get together and agree on a solution of our difficulties, not merely try to solve political troubles. But I have failed to see anything advanced so far which is destined to put Canada on the return road to prosperity and that is something which I deplore. We are in debt; our fixed charges are very great. But we cannot tax ourselves rich; we cannot adjust our problems by levying taxes. We must adopt some remedy that will go to the root of the evil, and I contend,-and I think I am unselfish in the contention- that the place to begin this business is at the foundation, and that the foundation is the agricultural industry of the country. The agriculturists of the East can find their market here; we must find ours abroad. I have so far failed to see-and I sincerely hope I may see-the proposal of something of a remedial character that will put this great country back in the path of prosperity, that will open up our great resources, that will result in the development of our mines, the tilling of our fields, the operation of our factories, and bring peace and contentment to all our people.


Hon. CHARLES MARCIL (Bonaven-ture):: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention at this late hour to inflict a speech upon the House. During the twenty-two years that I have had the honour, owing to the confidence placed in me by my constituents, of sitting in this House, I have listened to too many speeches to inflict a lengthy speech upon others; for I know how I have felt myself under similar circumstances. In those twenty-two years more than two hundred members have left this House and I am practically addressing a new House. When I first came to the House I seconded the motion made by the member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) for an address in reply to the speech from the Throne. I have had the good fortune of listening to thirteeen out of the sixteen budget speeches delivered by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I am glad to say that I supported them all, and I intend to support the present budget with the same fervour with which I supported those in the past. In those twenty-two years it has been my good fortune to do many things for the West, in my humble way. In the name of my constituency down on the Atlantic coast I have voted many charters for the construction of railways in the West; I have put through money votes by the millions. As deputy speaker of the House it was my good fortune to place my name on the two bills which raised Alberta and Saskatchewan to the rank of provinces. What I have done for the western country is what all the old inhabitants of Quebec, the maritime

The Budget-Mr. C. Marcil
provinces and Ontario have done. We have heard to-night an eloquent, conscientious speech from a new Canadian. The hon. member for Battleford (Mr. Mc-Conica) delivered a speech to-night which should give us food for thought. He represents, as I believe, the feeling of the West at the present moment. That party at the present time practically represents western Canada, and the Liberal party represents more particularly eastern Canada. East of the Ottawa river, with the exception of half a dozen constituencies, perhaps less, all representatives of eastern Canada sit on this side of the House. We are met here on the borders of the Ottawa river, which is the dividing line between the East and the West. I have sat here a long time, Mr. Speaker, and I wish to remain as long as Providence will allow me, but I do not want to leave this House before being able to say that I have been as sincerely devoted to the interests of the West as I am to the interests of the East. We do not know each other, unfortunately. I have never been west of Winnipeg, and many members from the West have never visited the part of the country I represent, though it is older than Quebec itself, because Jacques Cartier landed here before he went up the St. Lawrence. There was a time in 1867 when one of the lieutenant governors of the province of Quebec, who was then representative of my constituency, won the gold medal at the Paris exhibition for the best wheat grown in Canada at that time. It was grown at New Carlisle, in the county of Bonaventure. The West at that time was a howling wilderness.
The Liberal party has done what it could to build up the West since 1896, and it has done so with signal success. From 1896 to 1911 the West went forward by leaps and bounds which attracted the attention of the world. In those days immigrants came into the West by a thousand a day. They came there from all climes, carried' by the steamers sailing towards Canada, the promised land. The vigorous immigration policy inaugurated at that time by a western man, an ideal western representative, was heartily supported by the representatives of the province of Quebec and by the representatives of the maritime provinces. We intended in those days to build up a united Canada and I am glad to hear to-night from the West through the hon. member for Battleford, for whom I have the greatest respect, that that feeling exists in the West

to-day. Canada must be united and must be one. Otherwise, Canada will fail in its mission. We have been providentially situated as to our geographical position. We occupy practically the centre of the British Empire. As Quebec is the keystone of Confederation, so Canada is the keystone of the British Empire. As we extend our hand of good-fellowship towards the Mother Country, we extend our hand of progress towards the West, because progress is intended westward, and the great problems to-day are to be found in the western country for us, and beyond the Pacific ocean for the world at large. It is not my intention, Mr. Speaker, to go into these details to-night, but I should like the hon. member for Battleford, before he casts his vote, to feel that the Liberal party is striving at the present moment, under its young and gifted leader, to take up the work which the great statesman who fell prematurely in 1919 had so deeply at heart. Sir Wilfrid Laurier had called upon us repeatedly to do for the West what he wanted himself to do. In his early career he had declared that the citizens of Quebec should not confine their fatherland to the borders of the St. Lawrence, but that the fatherland of the Canadian extended to the shores of the Pacific ocean, and with Sir George Etienne Cartier, who had been instrumental in establishing the province of Manitoba, he was instrumental in giving the West a great rush forward, just as Cartier had done some thirty years before.
We find ourselves to-day in office through the will, largely, of the people in eastern Canada. The Government of the day has but commenced its work. A great deal lies before it. It is blamed on one side for not going far enough, and blamed on the other side for going too far. The men of the West are reasonable men. The case they have submitted to the hearing of this House is a reasonable one. They want a living, and they deserve to earn a living, and to be rewarded for their labour. They have to contend with many difficulties which are unknown to us in eastern Canada, but which were not unknown to those who came before us, because the. pioneers of eastern Canada went through hardships that those in the West may never know. Those who settled the province of Quebec in the early days and the province of Ontario, and those who are to-day invading the northern lands of Ontario and Quebec, have gone through hardships which will he unknown

The Budget-Mr. C. Marcil
to the West. The West has conditions and advantages that eastern Canada never had. We have given the West railways by the thousands of miles. I heard when I was in that chair, Mr. Speaker, the cry of every member, for the West asking for the Hudson Bay railway. I have heard every member from western Canada for the last twenty years ask for the Grand Trunk Pacific, ask for subsidies for the Canadian Northern, ask for branch lines for the Canadian Pacific railway. We could not build railways fast enough for them. We needed then, according to the people of the West, three, four or five transcontinental railways. Eastern Canada responded to the appeal without grudging the expense. We bore the brunt of the load and burden of the debt of Canada by our population, and we are bearing it still to-day, but we felt that if Canada was to fulfil its mission, if Canada was to become a great country, the West must be developed, so we gave to the West and we put it on the high road to prosperity.
We are accused to-day because we have not done all that is required for the West. There are two things Canada needs at the present time. The western farmer needs a market, and the working man in the city need's employment. Find a market for the farmer, a market for the producer, and find employment for the working man who earns his living in a factory, and your difficulties will be solved.
When I was elected in 1911 to this House, I was elected to support reciprocity. I see by the figures given of the general election of 1911 that those sentiments were also shared by the people of the West. We were united for reciprocity in Quebec, because Quebec voted for reciprocity in 1911. Western memberswhoarenotasfamiliarwith the conditions of 1911 as they are with conditions to-day will do well to remember that the twenty-seven members who were elected in the province of Quebec in 1911 and who brought about the downfall of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, were not elected in opposition to reciprocity, because reciprocity was no issue in the province of Quebec in 1911. The fight in Quebec in 1911 was on the navy, and on that alone, and those twenty-seven members from the province of Quebec secured their election by co-operation between the Nationalist element and the Conservative party. The maritime provinces divided on the question of reciprocity, the West voted for it, and Ontario went dead against it, but there were other issues at that time
raised in Ontario against Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his government, and I think many constituencies in Ontario were not wholly carried away against reciprocity. I remember well the day I occupied your Chair, Mr. Speaker, when the distinguished Minister of Finance of that day and his late distinguished colleague, the Hon. William Paterson, then representative of Brant, came into this House and the Minister of Finance rose to make the announcement of the success of the negotiations at Washington. The applause was general throughout the House, even from the front benches of the Opposition, and many of the old veteran Conservative members of Ontario, walking past the Chair would remark, en passant, what a fortunate man he was to have been able to achieve success because Sir Charles Tupper, Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir George Etienne Cartier, Sir Leonard Tilley and all the other statemen had failed. They regarded reciprocity as a Godsend to Canada. We had been wishing for it for years, and it was delayed. But, reciprocity being delayed, enabled Canada to fall back upon its own resources, and to start building the Canadian Pacific and developing its resources in an effort to try and eke out its own existence. But when reciprocity came, it came through the instrumentality of the Liberal party, in the fullness of time, and through the instrumentality of the Finance Minister, who has lived long enough to be able to know that, although he was accused at that time of having made a mistake, it was not a mistake, and that Canada is still longing for reciprocity. The reciprocity agreement, when laid before this House, did not receive fair treatment. I remember, from day to day, for weeks and months, I rose from the place where you, Mr. Speaker, stand to-day to put the question to the House, but obstruction of the most determined character was raised, and the vote could not be secured in this House on the question of reciprocity. Objections of all kinds were raised. Then the coronation of the late sovereign of Great Britain was to take place shortly, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier was urged to go to England to attend the event, as representing the premier dominion of the Empire. He went, and during his absence, a campaign was organized against reciprocity, and we know the result. Those who organized that campaign realized that if reciprocity in natural products with the United States were permitted to go into effect, it would be so

The Budget-Mr. C. Marcil
popular, and would have such an effect on the public mind that, within a very short time, the people of Canada would ask for reciprocity in manufactured articles. It was in Montreal, and also in Toronto, where there were many manufacturers, that the money was raised to fight reciprocity, because the manufacturers realized that reciprocity in natural products was the first step towards reciprocity in manufactured articles.
The measure was rejected, and then we went on without it. But our trade with the United States continued. Notwithstanding our fiscal policy our relations with the United States continued. The natural tendency is to trade with the United States, because they are our nearest neighbours, and they furnish the greatest market that we have. It is the policy of this Government to bring about a better understanding with the United States and to bring about a reciprocity agreement as soon as possible, and, I think, that the hon. members from the West would be well advised if, on the main motion, which will be submitted to them in a few moments, they give the Government, at least, a fair opportunity to give effect to what every Liberal in this country desires, namely, fuller, broader and more complete relations with the United States. In my own constituency we have been a unit in favour of dealing with the United States, because it is our natural market for lumber, fish, agricultural products and other things, and the United States will be the market for many districts throughout the whole of Canada. I hope, therefore, that when the vote is taken, the hon. member who has delivered such an eloquent oration to-night will give the Liberal party another opportunity of implementing what we know to be their policy.
In the meantime, we know the tariff has been reduced substantially on many articles, and the Minister of Finance has taken another step forward with the preference which he granted to Great Britain before the reciprocity agreement was made.
I remember well when that matter was introduced in this House, and I remember all the objections that were raised to it. The Opposition contested it and spoke against it, but never dared to challenge it on the floor of the House, and nobody sought to bring about a change in the British preference. It increased our trade with Great Britain, and the St. Lawrence became the natural highway for the commerce of the Mother Country to Canada.

That route was transformed into a national highway. In the old days, when the Liberal administration came into office, the St. Lawrence was an ordinary waterway, the steamers having to drop anchor at sundown in the lower regions of the St. Lawrence. In the course of a few years, we found the St. Lawrence transformed into a river with a channel 30 feet deep, and well lighted, so that the steamers were able to reach Montreal as easily at midnight as in the noonday sun. Montreal has become one of the leading ports in North America, the leading port in Canada, surely, and in the course of time, in the development of Canada, with the increase in our population and the development in our facilities of al kinds, Montreal will become the centre of this country, because it occupies a geographical position.
Montreal has progressed, and eastern Canada will progress, in time, as the West progresses, but the western and eastern people must get together and come to an understanding. No question of a paltry few dollars on the tariff, or a few paltry changes here and there, should keep Canadians apart, and I hope, before this session is finally closed, a better understanding will be brought about. When this session was called on the 8th of March there were a hundred new members in the House. We have hardly had time to become acquainted with their names, much less with their views. I have learned more in the present session about conditions in western Canada than I ever learned in the past. New ideas have sprung up, new conditions have developed, and a new state cf things has arisen. The statesmen of Canada must deal with these issues, because in their solution lies the safety of this country.
I will vote against the amendment, because I feel that I will be carrying out my mandate, and I will vote for the budget, because I think it is the best that could be presented. The Minister of Finance has been placed in the most difficult position in which any statesman could be placed, because he has to find revenue to meet our war indebtedness, which is eight times larger than the public debt of Canada was a few years ago. But Canada is now on the map of the world. Canada is in the council of nations, and has plenipotentiaries, and representatives in Europe. Canada is a nation, Canada that has been the home land for those who came from all countries, regardless of their creed

The Budget-Mr. Cannon
origin or nationality, only asking them one thing,

loyalty to the flag. There is among the citizens enough patriotism, enough enlightenment to solve the puny difficulties which now present themselves in matters of dollars and cents, to avoid a greater difficulty, which later on, may break Canada asunder, but which, I hope, will never occur, because to-day with our means of communications, with our newspapers, with our facilities, we ought to be able to get together and stand on common ground. I claim enough intelligence in the Canadian people to know that the moment we would get together, those difficulties would be solved.


Lucien Cannon: Mr. Speaker, in the fall of 1921, the then Prime Minister of Canada, (Mr. Meighen) announced that a public meeting was to be held in the province of Ontario, and that he would take occasion at that meeting to make a pronouncement of great moment and interest to the people of Canada. The then Prime Minister, who had been leading the destinies of this country for quite a long while, had disappointed the people of Canada in many ways; but that evening when he spoke at that great meeting, after having announced that the government of Canada would go to the people, a unanimous feeling of rejoicing went through all our country from the Pacific to the Atlantic, because the people of Canada thought the Prime Minister had at last realized his responsibility and a ray of hope could be seen in our darkened political sky. The government went to the people of Canada; the administration which had led Canadian aifairs from 1911 to 1921 went before their judges, and we see the result of the trial which lasted for several months. We have in this House before our eyes, in the decreased number of representatives of the Tory party, the real feeling, the real meaning of the elections held in December, 1921.
If on the one hand the people of Canada are happy to-day to be rid of the administration of 1921, on the other hand, the rulers of Canada are to-day facing a situation which is so serious, they have to solve problems which are so momentous that the time has come for every public-spirited citizen in Canada to lay aside party spirit and partisan division in order to endeavour to find national remedies for the grave and weighty problems that we have before us. One result of the election which ought
to open the eyes of every patriotic citizen of Canada, is the peculiar, the new situation created in this House. Formerly, in the House of Commons two great parties with old traditions used to fight over the affairs of Canada and used to devise the best means to administer the government. To-day, instead of these two old parties, we have three parties, the third, a younger party called the Progressive party. But there is something that adds to the seriousness of the situation, and it is this: Not only have we three parties in this House; but one of these parties, the Progressive party, the third party, is recruited almost exclusively in one section of our country. If we wish to have national unity, to have real harmony in this country, to have a government that will meet the needs of every section of Canada, we must have a government that will bring forth a policy that will not only obtain the support of the eastern section of our country, but receive the support and approval of the western section of Canada.


Henry Elvins Spencer: We have continually
heard of the western viewpoint and what the West wants. I should like to ask the hon. member if he realizes that one-third of the Progressives on this side are from eastern Canada?


Lucien Cannon: That one-third of the Progressives are from eastern Canada, I do not deny. I realize fully that some of the members of the Progressive party come from Ontario; but I repeat that most of the Progressive party comes from the western provinces, and that the peculiar feature in this House is that three of the western provinces sent practically exclusively Progressive members to this House.
When the hon. gentleman asked me a question, I was saying that, after the election, the Liberal party was called upon to form an administration. What were the causes of the Liberal victory at the polls in December last? The causes were two-fold: First, the people of Canada had confidence in the leader of the Liberal party (Mr. Mackenzie King) and, second, the people of Canada approved the Liberal programme. It does not belong to me to pay a eulogy to the leader of my party. Our leader, in the last election, held meetings in practically every constituency in Canada. His eloquence :'s well known; his sincerity is admitted everywhere, and in every home in Canada hopes, and high hopes, are formed that the leader of the Liberal party, on account

The Budget-Mr. Cannon
of his youth, his training, his political experience, will give to Canada one of the most brilliant administrations that Canada has ever had. It is true that the role of our leader is a hard one to fill. His predecessor, the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, was one of the brightest men who ever lived in Canada, and probably he has left the finest record of any man in the history of Canada. Sir Wilfrid Laurier stood for great principles; he fought in Canadian politics the greatest battles for principle that were ever fought by any statesman, and I may say to the right hon. leader of this House: If you wish to give to Canada a great administration, if you wish to give to this country satisfaction and prosperity, follow the footsteps of the former leader of the party, and I may be sure, and you may be sure that that Canada will continue, under the regime under which Canada is now, the great strides which Canada took under the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Not only had the personality of our leader great importance at the last election, but so had the political programme of the Liberal party. In 1919, a Liberal convention was held in the city of Ottawa. Liberals from all parts of the country were convened in order to adopt a programme and in order to elect a leader. The leader was chosen. I have spoken of him, and I may here but repeat that I have full and complete confidence in him. As to the programme of 1919, that programme stands as being the charter of the Liberal party. We adopted that programme in convention, and so far as I am concerned I may say that I fought for that programme at the convention and have fought for it before my people; and by that programme I will stand.


Mr. DUFF:: That is the way to talk.


Lucien Cannon: The great reproach
which we adressed to the then government while we were on the opposite side was that constitutional liberty and freedom was not properly safeguarded by them. During the election, pledges were given and promises were made that should a Liberal administration preside over our national affairs constitutional liberty would be restored and Parliament would again enjoy all its privileges. I have full confidence in the Government to restore that liberty in Canada, and in the course of this session the administration has given many evidences of its willingness to give to the House of Commons all the privileges to which it is entitled. But I take the liberty of calling

the attention of the Government to certain facts of great importance, and I say that the Government will have to bring down some legislation that will show to the people of Canada that when the Liberal party gives pledges or makes promises, those pledges are redeemed and those promises are respected. In Canada our forefathers fought on many battlefields to obtain the liberties of which we are so proud to-day, and we, their children, have one solemn duty to perform. That duty is to safeguard those liberties to the very utmost of our ability. The basis of constitutional and responsible government is that every minister in the government shall be answerable to the representatives of the people for acts done by the government in the administration of public affairs. If we wish to have constitutional liberty in its completeness, if we wish to have governmental responsibility in its integrity, we must have every department of public affairs responsible to the House of Commons.
I call the attention of the members of the Government to one fact. To-day, as a representative of the people I am responsible to my constituents for the conduct of public officials in my constituency. If the administration of public affairs in that constituency is not what it should be, the responsibility rests upon my shoulders, and on no other man's. But although I am charged with the responsibility for the administration of public affairs in my constituency, I have no control over the appointment of those officials. Now, Mr. Speaker, I say, not in the hope of being in a position to distribute favours, not in the desire to take revenge-no, sir, my object is very much higher than that-I say, to the Government that if we wish to have responsible government in this country civil servants must 'be responsible to Parliament. We should have responsible government in Canada and have it in its entirety. But can we have that government, as it is understood in England, as it has always been understood in Canada, and as it should be understood everywhere where British institutions exist, if, for instance, we have the immense system of railways, owned by the people in this country, controlled by a commission altogether independent of Parliament, and when the Minister of Railways has absolutely nothing to do with their management? We should have in connection with our railways a policy that would put that immense

The Budget-Mr. Cannon
system beyond the range of patronage. But, on the other hand, no minister should be able to get up in this House and say that he is not responsible for that policy. Mr. Hanna, the President of the Canadian National Railways, is not elected of the people. He has never been elected by any constituency; he has never even been chosen by this Government. Why then, should he be a czar, in absolute control of this immense system, in such a way that my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Kennedy) should have nothing to do with them? If we want to have responsible government in the real sense, if we want to have that constitutional liberty which is so lauded, and rightly, by the leader of thi3 Government, (Mr. Mackenzie King) let us have a responsible system in connection with the civil service and with the Government Railways. Before I leave the subject of the Canadian National Railways I wish to express one hope, and that is that the Government will very soon appoint another board. We cannot have at the head of the Canadian National board a man who said that the Prime Minister of Canada did not tell the truth to the people of this country. We cannot have at the head of the Grand Trunk board a man whose scandalous profits during the war brought upon his shoulders the opprobium of the whole population of Canada. If these boards are to be maintained, let the personnel be changed; and the sooner it is changed the better.
Before resuming my seat I want to say a few words to my Western friends. I come from the province of Quebec. That province, in 1921, when the call came to choose representatives, sent to this House 65 Liberals out of 65 constituencies. Why? The province of Quebec elected those 65 members because it wanted to send to Parliament liberal, broad-minded men who desired to work in harmony with every other section of the country for the common good of the Dominion at large. Unfortunately, in this House, the representatives of one section do not know the representatives of another section as well as they should. Another great evil is that public men in Canada are prone to forget past history and look only to recent events for their guidance. I wish to tell our western friends that we members of the Liberal party in Quebec have fought since 1896 the fights of western Canada before our electorate.
When in 1896 the great question came before the Canadian people as to whether provincial autonomy was to be maintained, or if the small, weak province of Manitoba was to be crushed, the man who got up before the people of Canada and asked that liberty be given to Manitoba and used the slogan "Hands off Manitoba!" was a man from Quebec who wanted political and religious liberty to prevail. In 1896 we in the province of Quebec battled for the rights of western Canada. Did western Canada forget, or was she grateful? In 1904 we fought again for western Canada when we wanted the great transcontinental railway to be constructed through the West. Again in 1911 Laurier fought for the western farmers of Canada. There was no Progressive party at that time, and those who fought for western ideals were again the Liberals of the East, the Liberals of Quebec. And a fact not to be forgotten by our friends on the other side is that while Laurier was battling for his life, while he was putting up probably the greatest battle of all his career, part of the West went back on him. The Liberal party in the East never went back on the principles underlying the development of western Canada and western trade. Those principles were always carried by us in the East; but unfortunately when we were fighting the battles of the west, the West was not united with us.
Those are the battles of the past. We have now to face the future. The eloquent member for Battleford (Mr. McConica) said, "We want our condition improved, we want remedies applied to our hurts." I ask my Progressive friends, is there one among them who, putting his hand on his heart, will say that he can hope to obtain any remedy or any improvement of condition from the Tory party? Is there one member of the Progressive party, be he from Ontario, from the prairies, or from British Columbia, who will say that the Tory party, whose basis is selfishness, ever thinks of the ills of others? The hope of the West, the hope of Canada as a whole, is founded in the Liberal ideas of her citizens. If we want to reconstruct Canada, if we want to pay our immense debt, if we want to continue the era of prosperity begun under Sir Wilfrid Laurier, but interrupted by the Tory party in 1911, the time has come for every man, be he Liberal or be he Progressive, if he is sincere in his desire to put into practice the principles for which he fought, to take the common road

The Budget-Division
that lies ahead of us-the road of Liberalism and Progressive ideas.
Nothing would please our Tory friends better than to see the Progressive forces of Canada divide. Why should they divide? The amendment brought by the right hon. leader of the Opposition will certainly not be supported by this House. There remains the budget. The Tory party tell the Minister of Finance, "We cannot support your budget because you go too far in the way of reductions." If the Tories cannot support our budget, the Progressives ought to sustain it.


William Duff: Nothing else will do.


Lucien Cannon: I said, Mr. Speaker, that we eastern members of the Liberal party have fought the battles of the western farmers for twenty years, and in doing so we have simply continued the traditions of those French pioneers who opened up the West. We are not strangers in the West. The first white men who travelled up those great western rivers were men in whose veins flowed French blood. The West has been peopled by French pioneers, and the descendants of our people from Quebec are still living out there. The interests of the West and the interests of the East could very easily be united; and let us hope, Sir, that all our forces, Liberal and Progressive, uniting, we will be able m a certain measure to repair the blunders and incompetency of the past administration.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: I vote in favour of the amendment.


Mr. GARDINER:: I vote for the amendment.


Edward Joseph Garland: I also
vote for the amendment.


Miss MACPHAIL:: Mr. Speaker, I vote
for the amendment.


Arthur Meighen: Before you make any pronouncement on the vote, Mr. Speaker, I call attention to the fact that several hon. members whose names do not appear on the records of the Whips as being paired have not, in this division, voted. This, as Your Honour knows, is contrary to the rules of the House. I could not state with any finality all the hon. members, but I call your attention to the hon. members for for East Calgary, West Calgary, Centre Winnipeg, Macleod and some others.


An hon. MEMBER:: Southeast Grey.


Hewitt Bostock: Am I to understand that hon. members who are in their seats have not voted?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. members I refer to, and others, are in their seats and have not voted?


Hewitt Bostock: And are not paired?


Arthur Meighen: And are not on the records of the Whips as paired.


Hewitt Bostock: The rule of the House and the custom in Parliament is that members who are in their seats and are not paired are obliged to vote.


Mr. MURDOCK:: No loafing on the job.


Hewitt Bostock: I would ask the hon. members whose constituencies have been mentioned-


An hon. MEMBER:: And others.


Hewitt Bostock: Order. I would ask the hon. member for West Calgary to declare if he intends to vote.


Mr. SHAW:: If I must vote, I shall vote against the amendment.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton) :: If I had voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Henry Elvins Spencer: If I had voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Arthur Meighen: I would call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the hon. gentlemen are not voting.


William Irvine: I vote for the amendment.


Mr. COOTE:: Mr. Speaker, under compulsion I vote against the amendment.


Mr. McTAGGART:: I vote for the
amendment.


Hewitt Bostock: On the question of
casting a vote when a division takes place, Bourinot, fourth edition, page 381, says:
If a member of the Commons who has heard the question put does not vote, and the attention of the Speaker is directed to the fact, the latter will call upon him to declare on which side he votes; and his name will be recorded accordingly.
As there seems to be misunderstanding, the request is made to the hon. member for East Calgary and the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg kindly to declare again which way they vote. So many hon. members rose at the same time that the Clerk did not get their votes.


William Irvine: For the amendment.


James Shaver Woodsworth: For the amendment.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I was paired with the hon. member for Kent, N.B. (Mr. Leger). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment and against the budget.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Welland (Mr. German). Had I voted I would have voted against the main motion.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I was paired with the hon. member for West Hastings (Mr. Porter). Had I not been paired I would have voted against the amendment and for the main motion.


Mr. DUNCAN:: I was paired with the hon. member for North Bruce (Mr. Malcolm). Otherwise I would have voted for the amendment, and against the main motion.


Mr. KYTE:: I was paired with the hon. member for South Simcoe (Mr. Boys). Otherwise I would have voted for the main motion and against the amendment.


Mr. JACOBS:: I was paired with the hon. member for Centre Toronto (Mr. Bristol). Otherwise I would have voted for the main motion and against the amendment.


Mr. GERVAIS (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Jones). Otherwise I would have voted against the amendment and for the main motion.


Hewitt Bostock: In order to avoid confusion as regards the result of the vote on the amendment, I may say that the tellers have sent me the figures which are as follows: Yeas, 51; nays, 169.

Wheat Board
Motion (Mr. Fielding) agreed to, and the House went into Committee of Ways and Means.
Progress reported.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 135 (from the Senate), for the relief of James Henry Boyd.-Mr. Boys.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King, the House adjourned at 1.20 a.m. Wednesday.
Wednesday, June 14, 1922.