1924-06-05

BANKING AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE

Mr. THOMAS VIEN (Lotbiniere):: I move that the select standing committee on Banking and Commerce be instructed to lay on the Table of the House as an appendix to their sixth report, the minutes and proceedings of all their sittings during the present session prior to the adoption of the said report.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 165 (from the Senate), for the relief of Dorothy Marie Robinson.-Mr. Harris.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Hon. Mr. STEVENS:: 1.	Having reference to Return No. 266, calling for all correspondence in reference to the removal of the fisheries office from Vancouver, did the Superintendent of Fisheries, Mr. Found, receive a report from Mr. Motherwell, fisheries official at Vancouver?

Questions
2.	Did the fisheries superintendent or Department of Fisheries receive extensive correspondence having vital bearing on the proposed closing of this office?
3.	Did any of the officials of the department, or the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, receive correspondence from firms engaged in the canning industry, or from organizations representing the fishing industry?
4.	Did the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, or officers of his department, receive letters from the hon. member for Skeena or the hon. member for Chilliwack, regarding the closing of this office?
5.	Did the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, or an official of his department, receive representations verbally from the member from Skeena dealing with the matter and urging the closing of same?
6.	If so, what was the purport of said verbal representations and did he support or oppose removal of said office?	.
7.	What was the reason for not replying to the motion of the House on May 19th for full return of the complete correspondence and was any of the above mentioned correspondence marked "confidential," and if so, what?


Hon. Mr. CARDIN:: 1.	Communications relative to the closing of the Fisheries office at Vancouver were received by Mr. Found from Mr. Motherwell as follows: (a) March 21 last, forwarding clipping from Vancouver Sun; (b) March 26, forwarding clipping from the Cowichan Leader; (c) March 27, forwarding clipping from the Victoria Times; (d) March 28, forwarding clippings from the Victoria Colonist and Vancouver Sun; (e) March 29, forwarding clipping from the Vancouver Evening Sun; (f) March 31, forwarding clipping from the Vancouver Province; (g) April 5, forwarding clipping from the Vancouver Province; (h) April 9, forwarding clipping from the Vancouver Sun; (i) April 8, forwarding clipping from the Vancouver Evening Sun; (j) May 14, forwarding clippings from the New Westminister British Columbia and the Province; (k) May 19, forwarding clipping from the Province;	(1) May 13, enclosingwhat purported to be copies of private letters alleged to have been written and received by Inspector Halladay of New Westminster, which he states were delivered to him anonymously; (m) May 16, enclosing a further instalment of correspondence referred to in (1);	(n) May 19, enclosing a further instalment of correspondence referred to in (1) and (m);	(o) May 16, forwarding a
clipping from the British Columbian stating that the office of Inspector Halladay of New Westminster had been entered during his absence and certain private correspondence taken.
2.	Yes.
3.	Yes.
4.	No.
5.	The member for Skeena communicated verbally to the Minister of Marine and
Fisheries the substance of that portion of his speech in parliament dealing with the matter.
6.	See Hansard of March 6 last.
7.	Eeason for not replying fully to the motion of the 19th May in the first instance was that the greater part of the correspondence had not been properly filed. The whole of the correspondence has now been produced.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-ROLLING STOCK
Mr. CAMPBELL:: 1.	What quantity of rolling stock, equipment and material was imported by the Canadian National Railways for its use during 1922 and 1923, and what was the amount of duty paid?
2.	What (approximate) percentage of the total purchases of rolling stock, equipment and material respectively was imported?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: Mr. Speaker, in
reply to the first part of this question, there was no rolling stock imported. With reference to the last part, some working equipment not made in Canada was imported, but to get the information asked would require the examination of innumerable accounts running back into the old Grand Trunk days, because the Grand Trunk was not amalgamated with the Canadian National Railways until early in 1923. Perhaps my hon. friend would see his way clear to accept that answer. It is the only answer I have at the present time.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: That will be quite
satisfactory, Mr. Speaker.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-SHIPBUILDING
Mr. EVANS:: 1.	Has the government under consideration the building of any additional mercantile ships?
2.	If so, is it intended to build one at Prince Rupert?
3.	What would be the cost of building at Prince Rupert as compared with the purchase price of a ship of equal value built in Great Britain?


George Perry Graham: I understand the
Canadian National Railway Company has been considering the advisability of having a ship constructed for their Pacific business. The government has not under consideration the purchase of any addition to its mercantile marine.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
[Stage Direction]
VANCOUVER HARBOUR Mr. BLACK (Yukon):
1. What contracts have been let by the Vancouver harbour commissioners for harbour improvements since January 1st, 1922 ?
28(H
C.N.R.-Shipbuilding
[Stage Direction]
2.	To whom have such contracts been let?
3.	What is the nature of the work, and the amount of contract in each case?
4.	Were such contracts let by public tender?
5.	Who tendered in each case and what was the amount of each tender?
6.	Was call for tenders advertised in the press, and if so, in what papers and for what period did said advertisements appear?

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: I wish to refer to the
minister's answer to question No. 17, relating to the building of any additional mercantile ships. All these questions are of some interest to every one. The minister omitted to say whether it was intended to build the ship at Prince Rupert.
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals) : I cannot give any positive assurance as to that. My information is that the intention is to build this ship at Prince Rupert, if possible, which I believe it to be.


Arthur Meighen: It could be, all right.
But, having regard to the third question, what would be the cost?


George Perry Graham: I have not that information at all. No contract has been given, I am told, or anything of that kind, and I have not the figures.


Arthur Meighen: Will the minister say
that they seriously think of building the ship at Prince Rupert?


George Perry Graham: I have given the House all the information I have. The matter has been discussed.
PACIFIC GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY On the Orders of the Day:


Arthur Meighen: I desire to ask three questions of the government, or rather of the Minister of Railways, based upon a newspaper report which I have before me, but which it will not be necessary to read. Has the government under consideration the granting of a subsidy for the extension of the Edmonton and Dunvegan line down to Prince George, to the Pacific Great Eastern Railway?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals): No. The subject of railway development in that part of the coun-

try is one of very great moment, but the government has taken the attitude, against great pressure, that it should not proceed with any work in the Peace river district until it has full knowledge of all the circumstances. I have not heard of a subsidy being granted to the railway my hon. friend has mentioned.


Arthur Meighen: I know it has not been
granted, it could not be granted except by this parliament, I asked if it was under consideration by the government.


George Perry Graham: I gave my answer
directly on that point without any equivocation.


Arthur Meighen: Does the same answer
apply to the question of taking over, under any terms whatever, the Pacific Great Eastern?


George Perry Graham: That is not under practical consideration at the present time.


BRITISH COLUMBIA FISHERIES OFFICE
[Stage Direction]
On the Order for the House to go into Committee of Supply:
Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):: May I, Mr. Speaker, bring up a certain matter on the orders of the day?


Mr. SPEAKER:: Yes, by leave of the
House.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I now have in my hand
support for the contention I made a few days ago with respect to a certain return. A week or ten days ago I drew attention to the very meagre response to a return under an order of the House in which only one letter was handed to me. I then placed a question on the order paper in regard to it and the answer given by the government was that correspondence the mere list of which occupies a sheet of foolscap had been received. Yet only one letter was included in the return.
I merely bring this to the attention of the Prime Minister to show that I was not complaining without very good reason.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: To what subject does the return relate?


Henry Herbert Stevens: The closing of the fisheries office in Vancouver. In the return asked for only one letter was brought down, from my colleague the member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie). I pointed out about ten days ago that the return was incomplete and I sent it back to the government for reconsideration. I then asked a series of ques-

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tions with reference to this return and the reply from the Minister of Marine (Mr. Cardin) was that a list of communications had been received. The point I am now making is that these returns ought to be complete and accurate. In addition to the second complaint I made only the day before yesterday,
I would ask that this return should be completed in accordance with the answers that I have received on the subject.


Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine) :: I think the complaint of my hon.
friend is not well founded. When he inquired about the incompleteness of the return I told him it was due to an error in the classification of the documents, and I think he should have been satisfied with that answer. I may say that the documents necesary to complete the return have been placed in the hands of the Secretary of State and will be brought down to-morrow.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The situation is now
satisfactory. But what I am pointing out is that when we make these motions and the House orders the returns we are entitled to receive what we ask for without having to make these complaints.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend is quite right.


Hewitt Bostock: The incident is closed.


FURTHER LEGISLATION
Arthur Meighen: Before you leave the
chair, Mr. Speaker, may I ask what further measures the government intend to bring down this session?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should prefer to answer my right hon. friend's question to-morrow.


CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
[Stage Direction]
The House in committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Customs and Excise-salaries, $585,755; contingencies, $48,000.
The CHAIRMAN:: There was an amendment to this item.


Mr. BUREAU:: The amendment was carried. The item itself has not yet been carried.


Mr. CHURCH:: I wish to draw the attention of the minister to the large number of men in this service who are in receipt of very small salaries, the minimum amount being
under $1,200. I am speaking particularly of the men in the customs service in the city of Toronto. In view of the very large contribution, amounting to about 60 millions of dollars per annum which the port of Toronto contributes towards customs revenues, surely the men in the service there are entitled to greater consideration than they now receive. A large number of these men are returned soldiers and married, who have been in the service for years, and yet they are paid such a small amount as $1,200 a year. Surely the important work which these men are doing entitles them to receive a better salary than that. Officials in the provincial and municipal service who are doing work of a similar nature to that of these federal officials are much better paid. I earnestly hope that the minister will be able to give these poorly paid and highly deserving men a better salary than they now enjoy.


Jacques Bureau: The question of salaries is
now before the Civil Service Commission for revision. I might tell my hon. friend that ever since I have been Minister of Customs I have tried to improve the status of these low-salaried men. For example I have endeavoured to obtain for them the same advantage that is enjoyed by officials in receipt of higher salaries, namely, that they should get an increase of $120 a year instead of merely $60. I was influenced in that course by the fact that the post office officials were getting that treatment on the ground that they were brought more closely into contact with the public than the officers of other departments. I have always maintained that there snould be no difference in this respect between the officers of the Post Office Department and the Customs, and that the employees of both departments who are in receipt of similar salaries should get the yearly increase of $120. I hope that when the matter comes before the Civil Service Commission I shall be able to impress them with the fact that they ought to make the $120 increase per year applicable to the customs officials, to the lower paid customs officials, the same as in the department of the postal service.


Arthur Meighen: If the minister thinks
there is a discrimination in favour of the postal employees, why has the government submitted the question in regard to the postal
employees' claim first for consideration?


Jacques Bureau: They were the first to
raise the question and ask for the increase.
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Arthur Meighen: The minister was a little slow in not bringing his much-injured employees before the commission first, when they were treated worse than the postal employees.


Jacques Bureau: Two years ago the deputy minister, myself, and the officers of the department went before the commission and endeavoured to impress upon them the fact that they ought to make the recommendation that the customs officials should get the $120 increase. We did not make any public demonstration, but I thought the case was good enough to stand on its merits, and that it deserved the consideration of the Civil Service Commission when presented by the officers of the department and myself.


Arthur Meighen: In what form was the
post office case presented? I understand it was presented by an order in council from the entire government-a special reference.


Jacques Bureau: It was presented along with the others. I do not know the form it took; but, as far as the Customs department is concerned, I can give my hon. friend an answer. During the last two years the commissioner, the assistant commissioner and myself went to the Civil Service Commission in order to have this matter arranged.


Arthur Meighen: And how is the case of the post office officials now? I understand it is dancing around between the commission and some board, deputy ministers and so forth, that it is a matter of backing and filling, and that there is no result. What is the reason there is no result in that case? Is the minister to wait until all these convolutions are completed in the case of the post office employees before doing anything?


Jacques Bureau: My case stands on its
merits. I have nothing to do with the post office. I put my case before the commission, and am still pressing it, and will continue to press it until I bring it to a favourable issue.


Arthur Meighen: I do not like the continual blaming of the commission.


Jacques Bureau: I am not doing that.


Arthur Meighen: Inferentially that is the attitude of one minister after another. They would be great men if it were not for that commission. I draw to their attention the fact that in the United' States they have by statute increased the salaries this year over the whole range, although they have a commission. If this government really believes what it is talking about, that the

commission is obstinate to-day, and if the ministers desire to be extremely generous, and if they would pay everybody well but for the commission, why do they not do as the United States government did, namely come down here with a statute that would represent their views and discharge their responsibility, instead of shunting it all the time on somebody else?


Jacques Bureau: This is not a question
of increase, if you will permit me,-it is in one way, because it is a statutory increase. The law provides that officers within a certain range of salary shall get an increase of $60 a year. That refers to the lower-class officials, and I want them to get the $120 increase.


Arthur Meighen: I expect it is the case
of every minister wanting something for his own, that is quite natural; but no matter what the fact is, if the government is wanting this change or that change, all they have to do is come down and do it, if they think they are not getting fair play. Why should they always be loading it on to the commission?


Jacques Bureau: We are not doing that.
We are following the ordinary process.


Arthur Meighen: That post office increase was referred to the commission, and it has never got back yet-at least we have had no report in regard to it. If the government believes it has a good case, and that it is not receiving right treatment from the commission, and if the minister believes that, let him come down and place his case in the form of a statute, as was done in the United States this year.


Mr. GOOD:: How does the minister justify the increase of salary of the Commissioner of Customs and Excise from $6,000 to $8,000? This will be found on page 83.


Jacques Bureau: Last year the salaries of deputy ministers were increased from $6,000 to $8,000. That increase was given to those who had been ten years in the position- not ten years in the service. I am sorry the commissioner is here, because I would like to say a few things to the House about him. If I had my own way I would pay him $12,000, and I think I would be under-paying him then, because I think he does more for the country and more in the interests of all concerned in this country than a great many men who are receiving a bigger salary. The reason is that the government thought there would be an increase for the deputy min-

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isters. Last year the Commissioner of Customs, not having been commissioner for ten years-but having been in the service forty-two years-did not qualify, under a technicality. We thought it was an injustice to the commissioner, and that the injustice should be removed, and that he should be put on the same basis as the others. I think time in the service should count, as well as time in the office. That is the reason of the increase this year.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: I rise to support the minister in this particular instance. I always support him when he is right, and I wish I could do so oftener.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend should get up every time I speak, because I am always right.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Last year I objected to the manner in which increases were being made. They were not made having regard to merit, but having regard to length of tenure of office. One of the objections I took to the general increase last year, which I think was given at the wrong time, was that the Commissioner of Customs was not included in the increase. When others were getting it, he certainly should have got it.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs and Excise-salaries and contingent expenses of the several ports in the Dominion, including pay for overtime of officers, notwithstanding anything in the Civil Service Act,-and temporary buildings and rentals, $5,720,710.


Henry Lumley Drayton: How much of
this is for salaries and how much for contingencies?


Jacques Bureau: The estimated salaries for the full year for the various provinces are $4,918,110, and the rest of the item is contingencies. My hon. friend tan subtract one from the other.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is covered under the heading " Contingencies."


Jacques Bureau: That covers what I call
the overhead, outside of salaries-administration of the office, light, rent, postage, express, telegrams, telephones, also to pay for overtime services of certain officers who have to work after regular hours.


Thomas Langton Church: Part of this item relates to temporary buildings and rentals. In this connection, what has been done to provide customs facilities for the port of Toronto from which the government is collecting between $55,000,000 and $60,000,000 a year? We have a number of old rented buildings
there and there is a great waste of money and time. A proper customs building should be erected for this important city. We are using the old station, the new union station, a large property out Wellington street, the old post office, the new post office and many other makeshift places. I understand the minister has been most active in this connection and is desirous of doing something for this particular port. Some years ago land was bought for the extension of the custom house, and during the war the old custom house on Front street was torn down. A large piece of property on the south side of Front street was bought from the city of Toronto at considerable cost, this lot to be used for the erection of a bigger and more convenient place where the citizens of Toronto could go and pay the 19^ per cent which they pay of the whole amount of excise and customs duties collected in Canada. Those who have any business to do in the custom house- wholesale men, retail men,-are battered from pillar to post with consequent loss of their time, loss of time of the staff, loss of money and many other inconveniences. From the day the old customs building was tom down to this not a dollar has ever been voted by this parliament to provide Toronto with a proper custom house. The old building which was torn down was suitable for a port with a population of only 50,000 people. Three quarters of a million people in Toronto are making use of the customs offices, and without proper transportation facilities they have to go across a territory covering between twelve and fourteen miles. When you compare the facilities provided by the late government with those provided by the present government as regards the port of Toronto, according to the venerable Globe, enough has been said to show that federal governments, whatever their complexion, not only treat Toronto as a milch cow, but refuse to provide even a stable in which to milk her,- and Toronto is becoming very impatient. The board of trade, the municipal government, the ratepayers' association, the trades and labour council and the people generally who are doing business, complain that hour after hour and day after day are wasted in trying to find just the place in which to transact business. If a merchant has some goods coming through the customs, it takes him the best part of a day to find out what building the goods are in before he can get them out. While the minister is in charge of one of the most efficient governmental departments as regards the officials and the rank and file, the buildings are not suitable,
Supply-Customs

they are ramshackle buildings and they do not conform with the municipal bylaws. The revenue collected at Toronto increases in an average by three to three and one-half million dollars ever year. We had a promise last year, and one the year before; we had a promise for about five or six years by the Union government that something was going to be done to give Toronto proper custom facilities.
The postal receipts amount to nearly $6,000,000 a year and yet Toronto cannot get a suitable post office. We have a post office that was built when Toronto had a population of
50.000	people, and now the population is about
750.000	people. If the government is getting all this revenue out of the city of Toronto, surely it would be good business to put up proper buildings. We have a very active minister and I do not like to raise difficulties, because my wish is that he get through his estimates quickly. But I hope something will be done by the government and especially the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) to remedy this grievous situation in which Toronto is placed.


Jacques Bureau: It was not necessary for
my hon. friend to express the wish he did towards me to gain my sympathy for a custom house at Toronto. I agree with what he says and if they will delegate to me the power and authority to build the custom house, it will be built very quickly. The facilities in Toronto, I admit, are not adequate. The old custom house was torn down -I do not know what for. Part of the back of the old custom house is used now as an examining warehouse and you have to go to another place if you want to visit the long room. I certainly am in favour of putting up a proper building in Toronto, because Toronto deserves it on account of, not only the amount of revenue that is collected in that city, but its importance and also the service it ought to receive. I do not think it is fair for any minister or any chief of staff or inspector of a department to require full efficiency from his staff if they have not the proper quarters to work in. Not only are the public inconvenienced in Toronto by the fact that we have to trot to the station to the old custom house, and then to buildings on Wellington street and some other streets in order to get things through, but the officers are also inconvenienced because they have not the proper quarters to work in. Toronto is not the only place that is in this situation. Montreal has not proper custom house accommodation. An examining warehouse was 	*
built. The foundation was put down for a long room; the foundations are there going to waste, and the examining warehouse is being used as a long room. Another place that needs better accommodation, a place that the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) must know something about, is Winnipeg. I think the Winnipeg custom house is not a fit place to put men to work in. There is no custom house in which so many applications on account of sickness are reported as Winnipeg. And this is not surprising. I have been through that custom house; it is not properly ventilated, and is not a place where men can work efficiently. As regards the construction of good buildings, especially for custom houses -and I think the Customs department and the custom houses ought to get some consideration-I may say to my colleague the Minister of Public Works (Mr. King): After all, we give you the revenue we collect from the whole country and the people who are engaged in that work have not the most pleasant job of all. We all know what it is to ask a man for money or to take money out of a man. The smile is longer and broader when you open a letter with a cheque in it than when you open one enclosing a bill. That is human nature, and you cannot change it. Those men are working under a constant strain, and he who pays allways believes that he is paying too much, especially in connection with taxes. When you buy a cigar and pay for it, that is not as big a sacrifice as giving a dime or a dollar for something you do not see and you do not know what you are getting for your money. As regards municipal taxes, there is some relief. You say: We have good fire protection, good police protection, good light, good water, good ffavements on our streets, but the result of the federal tax you do not see. Interest on your debt must be paid. We have to collect the tax and people do not feel quite so willing to pay it as they do when they are called upon to pay other taxes. However, we are bound to make these collections, and those who are charged with this duty should be housed in proper quarters; and the public who pay the taxes should also have decent buildings in which to transact business. As an hon. member has said, it takes a good part of a day to hunt up the different offices; and while those who are constantly dealing with the Customs department such as brokers, who are conversant with the topography of the place, are able to find their way about, this is not the case with strangers. The first time I went to Toronto on business with the department I was at a loss to locate the dif-

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ferent branches, so that I know what inconvenience the general public have to put up with. I am in complete sympathy with hon. gentlemen in this matter, and if the Minister of Public Works will back me up I am even willing to recommend that something be brought down in the supplementary estimates to meet the situation.


Mr. HOCKEN:: Cannot the Minister of Finance help you?


Jacques Bureau: I would rather tackle the Minister of Public Works; he is easier. Perhaps the two of us might get after the Minister of Finance. I agree that the present quarters are inadequate.


Mr. MACLEAN (York):: In Toronto not
only is there a lack of proper accommodation for the Customs department, but there is in that city lying idle a railway station which cost a great deal of money. That building has been out of use now for three or four years and may continue unoccupied for as long a period again. If the minister would urge his colleague the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) to do something towards straightening out matters in Toronto the two railways could be asked1 to get together and find a solution for the situation. If proper steps were taken the entire public of Toronto could be better accommodated not only in connection with the buildings of the Customs department but also in regard to railway accommodation. The railway situation in Toronto is one of the biggest questions at the present time, and the whole matter has been held up indefinitely owing to some misunderstanding between the Dominion government and the city. I see no reason why it should not be settled, and I appeal to the government now to take some steps in the matter.


Jacques Bureau: Is the hon. member suggesting that we should use the station as it stands now for a long room, and the basement as an examining warehouse?


William Findlay Maclean: What I am urging the government to do is to settle the railway problem in Toronto which has been in abeyance for ten years. That station has been idle for a considerable time now, and I am advising the government to take up all these questions together, with a view to providing proper accommodation for the people of Toronto not only in regard to the buildings that are necessary for the Customs department but also in connection with the station. I wish the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) were here himself; I would press upon
him as the head of the government the importance of getting settled this condition of congestion in connection with the National Railways, the Canadian Pacific Railway and these various offices.


Mr. SPENCE:: I do not want to repeat anything that has been already said but I hope that the minister realizes the great inconvenience to which the people are put in Toronto by the lack of proper accomodation in the Customs department. We appreciate the kind words the minister has to say for Toronto, but we have been hearing this sort of thing now for some three years. Let me ask the minister pointedly, has he made any demand on the Public Works department for adequate accommodation? Let him get down to cold facts.


Jacques Bureau: I have repeatedly made such a demand; every trip I have made to Toronto has served to impress me with the necessity for proper accommodation there, and I have never come back without emphasizing that necessity.


David Spence: All I can say is, then, that .the minister ought to have more influence with his colleague who is in charge of the Public Works department. It is the duty of the Minister of Customs (Mr. Bureau) to see that the city of Toronto is supplied with the necessary buildings to accommodate the public, and we look to him to have this done.


Mr. BOYS:: Could the Minister of Public Works be induced to say a word or two on this occasion?


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: I shall be glad
to do so. It is well known that Toronto requires new buildings; in fact, this has been known for some time, even before this government came into power. But it is also well known that there has been practically no construction of public buildings in Canada since the early part of the war, so that there is a great shortage of accommodation in the various services throughout the whole countin'. Up to the present time the government has not seen fit, nor indeed has it been possible, to undertake any large construction programme. I am not sure that it is the wish of parliament that such a programme should be undertaken. I remember very well the debate that took place a few weeks ago in regard to the construction of this building; at that time there was evident an opinion that this national edifice should not be completed, but that further construction should be delayed for five years. I have been in
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Toronto, in Montreal and in other centres in Canada, and I know that there is need of construction work to be done; at Winnipeg, I may remark, I was impressed with that necessity. We fully appreciate the desirability and the necessity for improved facilities in these places in order that the various departments may carry on comfortably. But the matter is more than a mere question as between the Minister of Public Works and any other individual minister; it is a matter that affects the whole people of Canada, a matter of taxation.


Mr. HARRIS:: Do I understand the Minister of Public Works to say that no public buildings are being put up at the present time?


John Warwick King: I did not say
that.


Joseph Henry Harris: Is there not a post office
being built at Sackville, New Brunswick?


John Warwick King: A very small
building.


Joseph Henry Harris: And another one at Kamloops?


John Warwick King: I believe so.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am sorry
that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. King, Kootenay) seeks to compare the expenditure of further moneys on this building, which I should have thought was good enough for any of us to do business in as we have it now, with the expenditure of money in connection with what is undoubtedly an absolute necessity. There is no parallel whatever between the two cases, and my hon. friend is hard put to it when he tries to draw such a comparison. There can be no parallel between building an ornamental tower and constructing a commercial building which will facilitate the business of the country; there is no comparison between expenditures for ornamental lighting in this building and expenditures on public works which are long ' overdue. I will ask the Minister of Public Works to be kind enough to tell us what amounts are now paid in Toronto for accommodation which the minister himself admits is absolutely necessary, the present condition according to him being entirely unsatisfactory.


John Warwick King: I shall be glad
to give that information when that particular matter in the estimates of my department is under discussion. Of course, I have not the information before me now.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is a large
sum of money in any case, as I think the minister will admit; and if it were capitalized it would secure a building the revenue from which would look after the debt. In other words the country would really be at no extra expense whatever.


William Findlay Maclean: It could be
made an investment.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes, I hope
the Minister of Public Works will give us that information later on. In the meantime we note that the Minister of Customs has made his demand for this accommodation. I should like to ascertain from him what sort of building he demanded and where, in his opinion, it ought to be erected. He might also tell us the size together with other details so that we may know just what the business of the city actually requires in this regard.


Thomas Langton Church: 
Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend has asked
me if we have taken any steps towards the erection of a new building, and what kind of building we have in mind. When I came into office I was presented with a plan which,
I was advised, had been prepared before the old building was torn down. It was a plan of a business building, a building with no frills on it, but designed for business purposes and to afford comfort both to the public and the employees. It was to be erected on the old location on Front street between Yonge and Bay. The site had' been already purchased, had it not?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes.


Jacques Bureau: I would not have any
objection to the plan. It may be ahead of the present requirements, but Toronto is growing and the building would not be too big a few years hence.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The department, I understand, are already in possession of prepared plans, which they are satisfied with? And they have the land?


Jacques Bureau: But they lack the money.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the
present estimated cost?


Jacques Bureau: I could not tell my hon.
friend. The estimates are made by the Department of Public Works, and the plans are submitted to us by that department to see if they meet the requirements of the office. After examining the plans with the officers
who are familiar with these requirements,
I agreed with them that they were very good plans. I did not make any inquiry as to the cost.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The Minister of Public WTorks is here. Perhaps he will bring down in connection with this vote the estimate of what it would cost to erect the building, plans for which apparently have been approved now by two administrations, and which may be gone on with to-morrow morning if he puts in his estimates.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Mr. Chairman, the amount of money which is now being paid in rentals for the accommodation of the Customs department in Toronto is equivalent to interest on almost $1,000,000. Would the building which it is proposed to construct under the plans which have been prepared and approved cost that much?


John Warwick King: Speaking offhand,
I ivould say yes. I will bring down definite information in a few days.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: If we are paying rentals equal to the carrying charges of a new building, and suffering all the inconveniences consequent upon the business of the department being transacted in several offices on different streets of the city, surely it is a wise thing for the government to provide 4 p.m. proper accommodation, and surely every member of the government will support the Minister of Customs to this end. The examining warehouse being found insufficient, another examining warehouse was opened on King street about three-quarters of a mile away, while other buildings on another street are required for the general work of the office and the accommodation of the clerks. I cannot imagine anything more calculated to produce inefficiency than the situation of the Customs department in Toronto, and I join my colleagues from that city in urging upon the Minister of Public Works and the government to regard this matter from a straight business standpoint and try to get efficiency for the department-the largest collecting department of the Dominion -and to bear in mind that it will not cost any more to put up a new building than it is costing every year to maintain the three or four buildings at present rented by the department.


Milton Neil Campbell: On April 6, 1922, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Millar) asked the Minister of Customs some questions regarding the Saskatchewan export liquor
Supply-Customs

houses. I will read first a question asked by the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen):
Is it not a fact that the licenses were granted under the approval of the attorney general of the province?
The minister answered:
That has been and still is the policy of the department. We do not grant any licenses unless we get the approval of the attorney general attached to the petition for the license; at the same time we have the designation of the warehouse by him.
In view of the fact that the correctness of this statement has been questioned in the province of Saskatchewan, has the minister had any reason since to change his mind regarding what he then said?


Jacques Bureau: I should like to see the question.


Milton Neil Campbell: The minister's statement is: "That has been and still is the policy of the department."


Jacques Bureau: To get the consent of those in authority administering the Liquor Act in 1922?


Milton Neil Campbell: Yes.


Jacques Bureau: Yes.


Milton Neil Campbell: Do I understand that the minister's statement still stands? .


Jacques Bureau: I would say yes, if I made it it must have been right for I got the information from the officers of the department. And it is right.


Milton Neil Campbell: The attorney general-


George Newcombe Gordon: I am inclined to question whether the discussion which the hon. member is introducing is in order.


Jacques Bureau: It is just as well to deal with it now.


George Newcombe Gordon: Very well.


Milton Neil Campbell: The Attorney General of Saskatchewan, speaking at Milestone on October 26 last, made the following statement :
The Attorney General of this province, and remember I am the Attorney General, never gave any consent to the establishment of any bonded warehouses or liquor export houses.
It is apparent, Mr. Chairman, that one of these statements is incorrect, and I would like to find out which is correct.


Jacques Bureau: I did not expect that we
would go back to the conditions that existed in 1922 when I came here to-day. If the Attorney General of the province of Saskatchewan says that he never gave his con-

sent to the establishment of any bonded warehouses, there may not have been any bonded warehouses established since he became attorney general. That is one thing I would like to know, just when this happened. The main question is, have I given any license without the consent of the attorney general? To answer that I would have to have the date when the license for a bonded warehouse was granted. If I have issued a license since the attorney general has been in office, without his consent, the statement ought to be made. The Attorney General of Saskatchewan may say that he never gave his consent; I may say that I never granted a license, and we may both be in the right.


Milton Neil Campbell: That is still rather indefinite. The minister refers simply to bonded warehouses. The attorney genera! refers also to liquor export warehouses.


Jacques Bureau: There is no such thing as
a liquor export warehouse, so far as the Dominion government is concerned; there may be for the provinces, but not for the Dominion.


Milton Neil Campbell: Do I understand the
minister to say that there is some doubt as to whether any of these bonded warehouses were established without the consent of the Attorney General of Saskatchewan?


Jacques Bureau: There might have been.
My hon. friend cannot expect me to carry in my head every license or permit that has been granted. I do not say no; there may have been some errors committed; there always are. But to put me in a proper position to answer, the statement ought to be made that at such and such a date the permit was issued by the Minister of Customs, that at that time Mr. Cross was attorney general, and that Mr. Cross was never asked for his consent, or anybody else having charge of the liquor license regulations in that province. There may have been; I do not deny it; if my hon. friend wants to give me time I will look it up, and will give him the facts.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will my hon. friend just
at that point tell me in regard to the number of export warehouses located at Vancouver? For instance, did the department in granting a license to the Consolidated Liquor Export Company, or whatever part it is the department plays in the matter, secure the consent and authority of the Attorney General of British Columbia?


Jacques Bureau: There was some misunderstanding about that last year between the Attorney General of British Columbia and

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the Minister of Customs. I took as a new license what was really a transfer, and it was so mentioned, I think, in the return. When T went to British Columbia last summer I saw Mr. Mansor. and I admitted the mistake. Instead of it being a new license to which he had assented, it was a transfer that was made from one company to the other, but it was the same bonded warehouse.


Henry Herbert Stevens: But it was not granted
in opposition to the attorney general?


Jacques Bureau: I do not think I consulted him at all.


Mr. MANION:: Under this item, I presume, comes the consoling of books entering this country. I would like to ask the minister if he does the censoring, or if it is done by a board. How is the scheme worked out?


Jacques Bureau: I am afraid I would not be a proper person for the position, because I believe in every man deciding for himself what books he wants to read, and in every father looking after his children and preventing them from reading what he does not want them to read. But that is only my personal opinion, and I am not here as Jacques Bureau but as the Minister of Customs. There has been in the past in the department a gentleman- I would not call him a censor-who has had charge of reading books that were complained of as detrimental to good morals. This gentleman passes upon these books. I was very careful, so as not to be subjected to any criticism, to see that the gentleman should not be a Frenchman or a Roman Catholic; I want to be candid about that. This gentleman is highly educated; he was born and educated in England. He was in the Press Gallery for a long while, and was connected with one of the largest papers in Toronto, the Mail and Empire. He is, I am told, a highly cultured man. His report on these books is made to the commissioner, and the commissioner either concurs in his report or disagrees with it, and with the confidence I have in the commissioner, so far I have always concurred in his concurrence. I suppose my hon. friend has in mind the Mary Stopes' works that were censored?


Robert James Manion: I was not thinking of any particular books, but how the system was worked generally.


Jacques Bureau: It has been done by this
gentleman whom I spoke of, who belongs to the Anglican church, was raised in England, has a university education, is highly cultured, and is supposed to be a broad-minded man.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Is he still in the Press
Gallery?


Jacques Bureau: He was taken out of the
Press Gallery by the Hon. J. D. Reid when he became Minister of Customs and put into the department. He was recommended to me as a highly cultured man, and I thought he would be the proper man to continue the work he was doing. I never changed him


Mr. LADNER:: This item covers the
salaries and contingent expenses of the several ports in the Dominion, including pay for overtime. Would the minister be good enough to explain how much of this sum is for overtime, and what proportion of that is due to overtime spent on the sales tax regulations?


Jacques Bureau: None of that overtime is
spent on sales tax regulations. It is overtime spent for the accommodation of the travelling public. It is to pay the officers who work overtime in examining baggage, automobiles, and so forth. Supposing people desire to travel on the Pacific highway at night; it would not be fair to keep an officer there all night examining baggage and checking up automobiles without paying him overtime. It is done for the conveience of the travelling public.	'


Leon Johnson Ladner: Then we may take it that no part of this overtime is spent on sales tax regulations?


Jacques Bureau: None of the clerks who
work in the office in any capacity are paid overtime. This is overtime that is worked by officers to accommodate the travelling public in examining baggage and checking vehicles that come across the border.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: I understand that a regulation was made some time ago by the department respecting whiffletrees and doubletrees on wagons. I understand that that regulation declared that these particular parts of wagons were not to be considered as parts thereof. A regulation went through to that effect. Now, it seems the customs regulation has been changed and importers of whiffletrees and doubletrees are allowed to import these as parts of wagons. I should like to know from the minister how it happens that one regulation declares that whiffletrees, and doubletrees are not parts of wagons, and the other one declares that they are?


Jacques Bureau: Would my hon. friend give me the number of the regulation to which he refers; I have so many of them here that it is difficult to turn up a particular regulation Without some mark of identity. Can my hon. friend give me the date of the regulation?

Supply-Customs


James Dew Chaplin: I have not got the date.


Jacques Bureau: Or the number?


James Dew Chaplin: I have a copy of a letter from the department regarding the matter. That may help.


Jacques Bureau: I will look the regulation up-it would occupy too long to try and find it now-and give my hon. friend an answer later. The commissioner is here and he has taken note of the matter. If a mistake has been made we must correct it.


James Dew Chaplin: I do not say there is a mistake. There is a regulation construed in a certain way that establishes a certain rule and then it is altered for particular people. The people in the business say this contradiction makes the regulation unworkable. The manufacturer does not object to the regulation so long as it is construed in the one way, but they point out the impossibility of complying with a regulation which has two constructions.


Jacques Bureau: It is certainly not a fair statement to say that we are altering the regulation for certain people. I do not think the Department of Customs merits such an accusation, or any of the officers either. Does this refer to the sales tax or to customs duty?


James Dew Chaplin: It refers to the regulation dealing with whiffletrees and doubletrees. First of all it is held that these are a part of a wagon and then the regulation is made, as I understand it, that they are not to be so considered. The trade is first of all notified that these are not to be considered part of a wagon then a change is made and the importer is allowed to bring them in as wagon parts. That is the point I am making.


Jacques Bureau: That would not be a regulation; that must be an interpretation by the collector or one of the appraisers or officers at the port who receives these articles. That would not be a subject for regulation. In the first place legislation is passed and when it has gone into effect an appraiser or an officer at one port may give it an interpretation entirely different from that of an officer or appraiser at another port. My hon. friend believes that in this case the proper interpretation has not been given. Very well, I will look into the matter. I cannot say offhand at what port this interpretation was given. Can my hon. friend say what port it was?


James Dew Chaplin: I think his officers will tell the minister that what I say is absolutely correct-that first of all a regulation was made-	j....,


Jacques Bureau: Oh, no, that would not be a regulation.


James Dew Chaplin: Well, the department must make regulations defining what are parts of a certain machine. They must make those regulations because they are not provided for in the act.


Jacques Bureau: These are rulings made by the appraisers and by the board of customs.


James Dew Chaplin: Very well, "rulings". I
may have used the wrong word.


Jacques Bureau: The wrong word often
creates a wrong impression so far as the administration of the department is concerned.


James Dew Chaplin: The facts are just as I have related them to the minister. Under the rulings these articles were first of all not allowed in as parts of a wagon. Now I understand that when the manufacturer brings them in they will be so allowed. There cannot be two rulings on this matter: one or the other must prevail.


Mr. McBRIDE:: Possibly I can throw some light on the question. When I brought wagons in without whiffitrees or neckyokes they were of less value and the customs duty was less. On the other hand when the wagons were imported with whiffletrees and neckyokes the value was greater and the amount of duty corresponded to the value. In other words the duty was levied on the value of the goods imported.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend (Mr. Chaplin) claims that rulings were given by the department. Well, the ruling emanates from the minister. I should like to have a chance to look into this matter and if my hon. friend will give me the concrete facts I can ascertain whether the action to which he refers was taken by an officer in this particular port or otherwise. I asked the commissioner and other officials about this, and they have absolutely no recollection of it. Personally I have no recollection of having signed any such ruling. It must have been an interpretation given by one of the appraisers or officers at the port. If my hon. friend will give me the concrete facts privately I will look into the matter and give him an explanation.


James Dew Chaplin: That is quite satisfactory.


Mr. EVANS:: I wish to protest against
the increase in this vote. Here is an item that is increasing in amount year by year. Notwithstanding the fact that the government has gone at least a small step in the direction of free trade the vote for our pre-

Supply-Customs
ventive service this year is materially increased. It seems that we keep a little army of inspectors in foreign countries who demand to see the books of manufacturers there, and adopt other vexatious measures, under the impression that they are falsifying their invoices. I know of one exporter who came all the way to Canada from Europe to find out why his invoices would not be accepted by the Canadian customs authorities as they are in other countries to which he sends his goods. I think we are carrying this kind of thing to an uncalled for and unreasonable extent, and many of these inspectors employed on this work in foreign countries might just as well be recalled. Owing to these unreasonable and vexatious restrictions we are becoming a byword among the trading nations of the world. When our manufacturers complain that they cannot get rid of their goods it is possibly due to the atmosphere of suspicion which our actions have created in outside countries.


Jacques Bureau: Do I understand my hon. friend's remarks to apply to the preventive service as a whole, or to the investigators of values that have been stationed in various countries.


John Evans: Particularly the investigators of values.


Jacques Bureau: I think these officers are
a necessity. It is all very well for my hon. friend to say that we ought to take the prices at the figures mentioned in the invoice, but let me say that we very seldom find cases where the figures on the invoice presented to the purchaser are not from 35 to 50 per cent higher than the figures in the invoice presented to the customs authorities. I do not think that is fair because the revenue of the country suffers. Putting to one side the question of the interests of the manufacturers I do not consider that to be a very proper proceeding.


John Evans: Will the minister say that
is really the case?


Jacques Bureau: It has been the case and
it still is. That is the reason we have to adopt protective measures in the interest of the revenue. In the United States the face value of the goods is not accepted. Over there they go to greater length than we do. We investigate and we say "if you are not dumping here well and good." But the United States reserve to itself the right to put an appraisement on the goods. They not only ascertain the cost but they fix 178$
their own appraisement. It they choose to price the goods at 100 per cent more, they do it and it stands. I think the investigation of values that we are making is a measure of protection, not in the sense of protection to the manufacturer but a protection to the revenue. Suppose there is an invoice relating to an importation of silk or other material from the United States or Japan and the quantity is given as 500 yards worth fifty cents a yard; when you go to the purchaser you find there are 1,500 yards worth $1.75. The revenue is being cheated out of so much, and that is the reason that we have a suspicion as to the good1 faith of those who are shipping, or as to the truthfulness of the figures on the invoice or manifest. We have investigators of value to make reports and the people who have imported are penalized according to the Customs Act.


Mr. GOULD:: It is quite evident from the minister's remarks that the United States authorities exercise the same precautions in regard to the manufacturers of Canada. Could *the minister inform the House whether that is a practice adopted by Canadian manufacturers when they export to the United States.
_ Mr. BUREAU: Does my hon. friend ask me if the United States have the same privilege of investigating values here as we have of investigating over there? My answer is yes.


Oliver Robert Gould: Has the minister evidence to prove that the Canadian manufacturers ship to the United States on the basis of which he complains

that is with a reduced price on the manifest?


Jacques Bureau: We have no control of that. The exports go out, and it is up to the United States to protect themselves. If the United States do not look after the invoices of their shippers, it is up to the country that receives the goods and that is deprived of the money by the change in the figures to look after it. Of course the reports are made and if the United States want to investigate whether they are right or not, it is not our business.


Oliver Robert Gould: guilty of, and that is the reason our department has officers to look after these matters. The minister says that exporters from Canada have been guilty of the same practice.


Jacques Bureau: We do not know.


Oliver Robert Gould: We are right in assuming that, from the fact that the United States have these officers to look over the manifests. It is the same old human nature. We are not a bit better than anybody else.


Jacques Bureau: If I should' carry a revolver it would not mean that every man I meet on the street is a murderer. It is a question of self-protection. If our manufacturers are guilty of this practice, of course it is up to the United States to protect themselves, and they will do the same as we are doing. I do not think they are any better or any worse in the United States than we are.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Before asking the minister for a few details, I would like to direct the attention of the House to the statement made by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gould), that because it has been found that American manufacturers are dishonest-*


Jacques Bureau: We do not say they are dishonest. The manufacturer is not always the shipper.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Well, the shipper. My hon. friend tries on that basis to accuse the manufacturers of Canada of being dishonest-


Jacques Bureau: I do not do that at all.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I think it is the most farfetched argument I have ever heard.


Jacques Bureau: I did not say that.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I am speaking of the hon. member for Assiniboia. The minister says we must examine these invoices to see that they are honest, and that they represent no less than the value.. Upon that basis, my hon. friend from Assiniboia (Mr. Gould) tries to get the minister to say that Canadian shippers and Canadian manufacturers send invoices into the States that do not represent t'he real value. I want to draw attention to that statement to show the absolute antipathy to and hatred of the Canadian manufacturer exhibited by my hon. friend from Assiniboia, and I think it is a most extraordinary thing to be said in the House of Commons.


Oliver Robert Gould: Will the hon. member produce evidence to show that such is not the case?


Mr. WARD:: I would like to ask the hon. member a question.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Not now. I am engaged in something else. I would like to know if the minister has the details of the revenue and expenditure of the different outports. Will the minister give me the revenue for St. Peters, Nova Scotia?


Jacques Bureau: I have not the report of that. I have the report giving Winnipeg, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec, Hamilton and so on.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: My hon. friend cannot
supply me with any information about the . outports?


Jacques Bureau: Which one does my hon. friend want to know about?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: St. Peters, Nova Scotia.


Jacques Bureau: No.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Campbellton, Nova Scotia.


Mr. HUGHES:: Campbellton is in New
Brunswick.


Jacques Bureau: I have only the reports
from the large centres, but I can get the information. What does my hon. friend want to know?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I would like to have got the information from the minister, but I have it in his report. I want to point out the large number of outports of customs service where there is no revenue at all, and very substantial payments in salaries or upkeep, and to ask if he does not think economies should be put into effect at these points. If he will look over his report he will find there is a revenue at St. Peters, Nova Scotia, of $439.48, and if he will search the expenditure upon that outport he will find it amounts to $1,427, nearly $1,000 more than the total amount collected. If he will look at New Campbellton he will find there is no revenue at all, and that there is $1,330.47 of expenditure upon that outport. If he will refer to Hampton, Nova Scotia, he will find there is no revenue but an expenditure of $250. The position is practically the same at Cape George, where there is no revenue but an expenditure of $200. At Whitehaven, Nova Scotia, there is $535 expenditure and no revenue. As a matter of fact, there are 37 different places in Nova Scotia where there is no revenue at all, and yet at all these places there is considerable expenditure. There are 28 places in Quebec where there is no revenue, but expenditures run all the way from $100 up to $899. Why should the country spend $900 on an outport where there is not one dollar of revenue? Why should it spend $1,427 at an outport where there is $439 of

Supply-C ustoms
revenue. Why should there be 37 different outports in Nova Scotia with no revenue, and an expenditure of about $25,000? This condition exists in all the provinces of Canada. I am not picking out Nova Scotia particularly, except it was the first on the report. It runs through all the provinces of Canada.


Jacques Bureau: And rightly so.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Will the minister tell us how we can justify expenditures of that kind where there is no revenue whatever?


Jacques Bureau: I will tell my hon. friend. In the first place he must realize that there are not only ports where you obtain revenue, but there are ports where you do not get any revenue, but by means of which you send revenue to the other ports. That is the preventive service. You never know what you gain by the preventive service, because you are preventing smuggling. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If these ports were open smuggling would go on galore. Even with that $25,000 of expenditure, I am satisfied that we are bringing in, in proportion to the amount spent, just as much money as is brought in by the port of Toronto or the port of Montreal. That is to prevent smuggling and bootlegging and to see that people who are bringing goods in from the outside pay the duty on them. It has never been criticised and it is a necessity in this country. We have a large country; we have an extensive coast line on both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and everybody knows that a great deal of bootlegging or liquor smuggling and other smuggling is going on, not only by sea, but by land. Ministers of the gospel, men in high civic rank, mayors of municipalities, are weekly, if not' daily, after me to put more men in those ports in order to prevent bootlegging and smuggling. My hon. friend need not be scandalized. If we do away with those men and stop that expenditure of $25,000 or $30,000, which he says we are spending for nothing, millions of dollars will not come into the treasury because goods will be smuggled in without paying any duty at all. They are used as clearing houses for statistical purposes and for knowing exactly what ships contain. A preventive service is necessary in a country like this where we have a long coast line and where we are having a great deal of trouble inland also. In the newspapers every day there are accounts of cigarette smuggling, liquor smuggling. It may surprise my hon. friends if I tell them that spirits are coming into Canada from the United States*; silk and other things are also coming in. If we did not have the preventive
service, we could not collect anything at all, and we might just as well shut up other customs ports. The only people who would be paying duty would be the people of high standing, like big firms with a high reputation. They would lose their trade, because the small man with a small schooner or a Ford car would bring in foreign goods without, paydng the duty, and he would get the business. The reason for these ports is to prevent smuggling and to protect the revenue.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Does that apply to New
Liskeard where there is no revenue?


Jacques Bureau: At New Liskeard we have
excise taxes to collect and the officer there collects them. In the north part of the country we are told that a great deal of moonshining. illicit distilling is going on and we were asked to put an officer there. For the protection of the revenue and of the morals of the country, we put an officer there.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Does the minister say
that it is necessary to have a customs house at Port Credit, another ten miles away, . at Streetsville, and a third ten miles farther' away at Brampton? Is it necessary to have customs ports every ten miles?


Jacques Bureau: As I did not originate
those customs houses, and as I thought there was enough wisdom in my predecessors to know what they were doing, I kept them.


Mr. ANDERSON:: I would draw the
attention of the Minister of Customs to the fact that there is no customs house at Milton.


William Alves Boys: I do not think the minister
has explained how much of this increase is due to increased number of employees, how much to increased salaries and how much to increased business. If this is due to increased business, one can well understand it, but if it is not due to that, how can it be justified in view of the desire for economy?


Jacques Bureau: In 1924-25, the amount is
$7,262,009 and in 1923-24. $7,180,129 an increase of $81,880. The estimates of the item of salaries and contingent expenses of the several ports in the Dominion were: in 192425, $5,720,710; and in 1923-24, $5,581,800, or an increase of $138,910. The increase is made up as follows:
Statutory increases, $107,340.
That we cannot help.
Net additions to the staff, 44 officers, $48,600.
The decreased cost by promotions, that is a man leaving the top-notch of salary and
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the fellow succeeding him taking the smaller salary, amounts to $17,030, making an increase of $31,570, plus the statutory increase of $107,340, or a total increase of $138,910. There is really $31,570 of an increase due to the 44 officers.


William Alves Boys: Will the minister explain where those officers are located and the necessity for their appointment.


Jacques Bureau: The additional officers
attached to the ports are as follows:
1	Customs Excise Enforcement Officer at West Arichat under survey of Arichat-New office opened.
1 Customs Excise Enforcement Officer at Ecum Secum under survey of Canso-New office opened.
1 Watchman at the port of Halifax for greater protection of quantity of liquors held under seizure, etc.
I .. Senior Customs Excise Clerk at Halifax vice T. C. James formerly Collector of Inland Revenue.
I .. Customs Excise Examiner at New Glasgow vice A. A. Clay, retired. Position discontinued.
1 Clerk-Stenographer at Fredericton due to increased work.
1 Customs Appraiser (Divisional) at Montreal, to take charge of the division formerly supervised by the Chief Appraiser who is now assigned to supervising work in all appraising divisions.
1 Customs Excise Clerk at Quebec as a Relieving Officer.
1 Principal Clerk at Quebec in charge of Sales Tax work.
1 Engineer Small power boat at Magdalen Islands under Quebec for service on the boat Alva and May.
1 Master Small power boat at Magdalen Islands under Quebec for service on the boat Alva and May.
1 Sub-Collector at Hebertville under Quebec- New outport.
1	Customs Excise Clerk at St. Hyacinthe due to
increased work at the distillery.
2	Customs Excise Examiners at Lacolle under St.
John's due to increased tourist traffic.
1	Customs Excise Clerk at Three Rivers due to
increased work.
2	Customs Excise Examiners at Belleville due to
increased work at the distillery.
1 Customs Appraiser at Bridgeburg for proper appraisal of imported goods.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at Bridgeburg due to increased work.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at Cobourg due to increased work-Tourist traffic.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at Gananoque due
to increased work-Tourist traffic.
2	Customs Excise Clerks $980 and,
1 Customs Excise Examiner $1,080, at Kitchener due to increased work.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at Niagara Falls due to increased work-Tourist traffic.
1 Customs Excise Clerk at North Bay.
[Mr. Bureau. 1
1 Surveyor at Port of Ottawa account regarding of port.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at Pembroke under survey of Ottawa, owing to increased work.
1 Customs Excise Clerk at Sault Ste Marie due to increased work.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at St. Mary's under survey of Stratford owing to increased work.
1 Chief Customs Appraiser at Toronto.
1	Customs Appraiser at Toronto.
2 .. Vacant position Customs Excise Examiners at Toronto.
5 Customs Excise Examiners and,
2	Customs Excise Clerks at Windsor owing to increased work.
1	Customs Excise Clerk and,
2	Customs Excise Examiners at Walkerville owing
to increased work.
1 Chief Customs Appraiser at Winnipeg.
1 .. Customs Excise Examiner at Winnipeg.
1 .. Customs Excise Examiner vacant at Lethbridge discontinued.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at Bridesville under survey of Greenwood owing to increased work.
1 Customs Excise Examiner at Pacific Highway under New Westminster owing to increased work-Tourist traffic.
1 Customs Truckman.
3 Customs Excise Examiners.
1 Customs Excise Clerk at Vancouver owing to increased work.
1 Customs Truckman at Victoria.
6 50
6 Less deductions.
As regards the sub-collector at Hebertville, that sub-collector was appointed to take care of the large quantity of imports made by the people who are developing the Grande Decharge power. They were bringing in stuff by the carlbad and it was costing them a great deal of delay to stop at Quebec. They made an application for an officer there and their request was granted.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That would be a temporary office?


Jacques Bureau: While the construction
work was going on. There would be no use for it afterwards. As regards the customs and excise clerk at Three Rivers, the hon. member (Sir Henry Drayton) need not smile. There ought to be two, but I cut the number down to one because I was afraid of hon. members' criticism.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Surely the appointment of an additional customs excise clerk at St. Hyacinthe due to,increased work at the distillery cannot be right.

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Jacques Bureau: The consumption seems
to go on although the revenue seems to decrease in proportion to what we think is being consumed.


Joseph Henry Harris: I gathered from the minister that the consumption of certain beverages was increasing and the revenue decreasing.


Jacques Bureau: In proportion to the consumption.


Joseph Henry Harris: What steps is the minister taking to see that the department gets the revenue on the liquor that is consumed in Canada? Before he answers I want to amplify this point with two or three more questions which the minister will be able to answer together. Undoubtedly at the present time very large quantities of liquor are being exported from this country in bond to such countries as Newfoundland, Bermuda, Cuba, Mexico and South America, and some of the steamers that take these cargoes from such places as Belleville are said to return within a very short time

anywhere from 24 hours to 3 days-for the purpose of taking on another load before proceeding to their destination. The minister shakes his head.


Jacques Bureau: Yes, negatively.


Joseph Henry Harris: Does the minister receive landing certificates for all goods that are shipped in bond to these countries? If he does, will he assure the committee that these certificates are bona fide? Will he also tell us whether or not the government of Canada has so far received any representations from the government of Cuba or the government of Mexico to the effect that these landing certificates are as a matter of fact not bona fide? Further, will the minister give the committee some information as to the amount of money, not hundreds of thousands of dollars but probably millions, lost each year to the Inland Revenue department by reason of the fact that liquor which is supposed to be shipped out of the country in bond is not really so shipped, and the department takes no steps to see that the money which is due on the liquor is collected? A good deal of this liquor is consumed in Canada to-day; and while I have no complaint on that score -I rather wish them luck who want to have it-the fact undoubtedly is that a good deal of money is lost to the Inland Revenue department owing to the fact that these goods, which it is understood are to be exported in bond, are not shipped out and no collection is made of what is due the department.


Jacques Bureau: I was not through reading the list but I will answer my hon. friend. He wants to know in the first place whether we get a landing certificate every time liquor is shipped in bond, and whether we have had any representations from any foreign governments, particularly Mexico and Cuba. To the first question I answer, yes; the collector of customs never releases a bond unless he gets a landing certificate from the proper customs officer of the place to which the liquor is destined. Some of these certificates have been questioned, and upon their being sent to the department for investigation they were found to be genuine. Some of them even bore the stamp of the British vice-consul of the particular place to which the liquor was shipped. We have had no representations from any government, Mexican or Cuban; but the consuls have requested that their certificates be attached to the invoice, and I felt that the Customs department should not interfere with the freedom of the people to trade without being under the necessity of having the consul either in Cuba or in Mexico put his certificate to the invoice. The third question my hon. friend has asked relates to the alleged loss of millions of dollars to the revenue of Canada through the practice of steamers, which have already cleared with a cargo, coming back for a fresh supply the next day.


Joseph Henry Harris: Not necessarily the next
day.


Jacques Bureau: Well, the day after; let
us make it a week. The instructions of the officers are never to clear a vessel for any .port until the man who clears it is satisfied that she can make the trip under her own power and that she is fully equipped and manned for that purpose. All liquor which is being cleared from the various distilleries is duty paid, and the excise department has not lost a single penny on liquor shipped overseas.


Joseph Henry Harris: The experience of the
department, I take it, is that most of the liquor is shipped overseas. Does the minister call Mexico overseas?


Jacques Bureau: Yes.


Joseph Henry Harris: And Cuba?


Jacques Bureau: We have not had any
shipments in bond to Mexico from Belleville; there have been such shipments from Vancouver.
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Joseph Henry Harris: How many shipments were made during the year 1923 to Vera Cruz, Mexico?


Jacques Bureau: I could not tell my hon.
friend.


Joseph Henry Harris: Will the minister get that information?


Jacques Bureau: I shall have to write to
Vancouver for it.


Joseph Henry Harris: Would not the landing
certificates, presented when the bonds were cancelled, give the information?


Jacques Bureau: This particular question
would come under the collector of the port concerned and I suppose I can get the documents if my hon. friend wants to examine them. The bond is released when the collector is satisfied that the landing certificate is in proper order.


William Alves Boys: I notice that in a number of cases the minister referred to tourist traffic. I can quite understand there would be some necessity for the services of extra men during June, July and August, and possibly September, but it is hard to figure out why the necessity should continue -for the rest of the year. What are these extra officers doing the balance of the year, the tourist business being confined at the outside to five months?


Jacques Bureau: The great increase is on the. Pacific highway, and at Windsor and Niagara Falls, and the traffic lasts the year around. The only place where there is any lessening of the traffic is at Rouse's Point, and there the extra men are stationed only during the summer.


William Alves Boys: I recall the minister mentioned, among other places, Gananoque, Cobourg and, I think, Kingston, and the reason assigned for the creation of those new appointments was the tourist business. I appreciate the necessity for engaging these men during the tourist season, but what will they do during the balance of the year? Are they appointed merely for the tourist season and then relieved of office?


Jacques Bureau: It was represented to the department that the work was increasing and an additional officer was required,-not only for the tourist traffic; there is a lot of work for him to do when the tourist season ends, and he remains in the office to perform that work.


William Alves Boys: If that be so the reason assigned by the minister was not accurate. fAlr. Bureau.)
-Mr. BUREAU: It was not altogether the tourist business.


William Alves Boys: That is the only reason the minister gave in a number of cases.


Joseph Henry Harris: I want to follow up the point I raised a moment or two ago. I understood the minister to say that when a carrier had a vessel which was properly manned to carry liquor overseas he was permitted to leave the -port with his cargo in bond. Now, on goods consigned, for instance, from Corby-ville for transport across lake Ontario to the United -States for shipment in bond to Key West, Florida, and then to Cuba, would the officials of the department feel that that lake boat was sufficiently manned for the cargo to go overseas?


Jacques Bureau: When the liquor goes from Corbyville or Belleville it is duty paid, the department loses no revenue.


Joseph Henry Harris: When the landing certificate is presented to the department there is a drawback for the duty paid?


Jacques Bureau: There is no landing certificate. When the duty is paid they can do what they please with the cargo.


Joseph Henry Harris: On goods shipped to Cuba?


Jacques Bureau: They are not shipped from Corbyville to Cuba or Mexico: we do not issue any clearances for such shipments.


Joseph Henry Harris: You do not issue any clearances from Corbyvdle or any other place to Cuba or Mexico?


Jacques Bureau: No.


Joseph Henry Harris: Do I understand the minister to say that no goods are shipped overseas in bond- from any lake Ontario points?


Jacques Bureau: By water?


Joseph Henry Harris: By water and rail?


Jacques Bureau: By water and rail there may be, yes.


Joseph Henry Harris: Ars such boats manned
sufficiently to carry their cargo to rail head?


Jacques Bureau: That is a matter for the discretion of the officer of the
5 p.m. port. His instructions are not to issue clearances to any boat which in his judgment is not able to carry the cargo to the point of destination.

Supply-C usloms


Joseph Henry Harris: If the point of destination is to rail head on the other side of the lake, then if the boat is considered adequately manned to carry the cargo there, that is sufficient?


Jacques Bureau: Does my hon. friend say that a boat with a cargo destined to a port n the United States, which cargo is to be larried across the United States-


Joseph Henry Harris: In bond.


Jacques Bureau: We issue no clearance for any liquor which is to be carried over American territory. Those are the instructions issued to the officers of the department. I do not say that that has not been done; I do not want to be responsible for the five thousand officers between the Atlantic and the Pacific; but those are their instructions.


Joseph Henry Harris: I see the "Belle River" member here (Mr. Healy) Perhaps the minister can tell us what quantity of liquor was exported overseas from the port of Belle River?


Jacques Bureau: None in bond.


Joseph Henry Harris: Would the minister say
that the United States is overseas in like manner as is Mexico?


Jacques Bureau: I would not call Detroit
from Windsor overseas. There have been no shipments in bond from Belle River.


Mr. HEALY:: There have not been any
shipments from Belle River.


Jacques Bureau: In bond.


Albert Frederick Healy: Or out of bond.
Mr. BOA'S:	I do not think it would be
suggested that there are shipments of any description either in or out of Belle River so far as the port itself is concerned.


Joseph Henry Harris: Will the minister tell us what quantity of liquor is shipped, say, from Corbyville for overseas?


An hon. MEMBER:: And from Toronto?


Joseph Henry Harris: Yes, perhaps from Toronto too. I am not raising this question out of any objection to a man consuming his quart of whisky when he feels so disposed, but because I feel I have pretty good grounds for believing that the government is losing manj' hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue due to the fact that these goods are going out of the country without any excise being paid.


Jacques Bureau: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry
to take issue with my friend. When liquor goes out of a distillery, either at Corbyville
or anywhere else, unless, as I said, it is shipped overseas, every cent of duty that is due on it is paid to the government, and the government is not losing a single, solitary penny.


Joseph Henry Harris: I appreciate that point,
but I am talking entirely of liquor that is presumed to go overseas.


Jacques Bureau: Those go in bond, and
the bond is released when we get the foreign customs certificate, and if we do not get it they pay double duty. So we are not losers.


Joseph Henry Harris: I am sorry to press this
question.


Jacques Bureau: Not at all. Go to it; it is a good subject anyway.


Joseph Henry Harris: It is not as dry as some, I will admit that. The minister rather intimated to the House that the department had received no representations whatsoever from any other government with regard to these landing certificates which were surrendered. In view of the fact that his department has not received any representations will he tell me whether the government has received any; the Secretary of State, for instance?


Mr BUREAU:: I suppose they would come through the Secretary of State for External Affairs to us. If any representations have been sent we have not received them yet.


Joseph Henry Harris: Would not representations on a matter of such grave importance be communicated to the minister by the Secretary of State ?
Mr.' BUREAU:	They would come to us
through the Secretary of State for External Affairs.


Joseph Henry Harris: Perhaps the minister wc*ild permit the Secretary of State to give us a loquacious answer.


Mr. COPP:: The representations would
come through the Secretary of State for External Affairs, not through my department.


Joseph Henry Harris: Will the minister say that there will be an opportunity to discuss this question when the Secretary of State for External Affairs is in the House?


Jacques Bureau: We never got any representations.


Joseph Henry Harris: : I appreciate the tenacity with which the minister sticks to his answer.


Jacques Bureau: There is no such thing as too much tenacity to truth. It is veracity I stick to.
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Joseph Henry Harris: I would like to know definitely that the commissioner's mind is just as clear as the minister's on that particular point.


Oliver Robert Gould: Reverting again to the question I raised when the impatience of the hon. member for East York caused him to intervene, I would like to know what principle guides our appraisers at ports of entry in setting valuations for customs purposes. Are they guided by the price of the article in the country of origin, or do they set a valuation of their own?


Jacques Bureau: There are different degrees. If a man complains that the appraisal made is a wrong one and allows the goods to come in here at a cheaper price than the home consumption price in the country of origin, we get our investigators busy. The ordinary appraisal at the port is made by the appraiser upon his own knowledge of the quality and value of the goods. We are supposed to have men there who are supposed to know something about the goods they are valuing. If it is hardware, we take a hardware man; if it is shoes, we take a man who knows leather, and he values the goods from his own knowledge of them.


Oliver Robert Gould: It is quite easy for the
appraiser at the port of entry to ascertain the value of the goods in the country of origin, but is that the governing factor when the appraiser sets the price? Does the department ever check up the valuations made by these appraisers without complaints being made by the importer or purchaser?


Jacques Bureau: When no complaints are
made we assume that the appraisal made is a proper one. The appraisal is made on the basis that the price of the imported goods shall not be less, except for this five per cent, than the home consumption price at which the goods are sold in the country of origin in the ordinary course of business, at the time the goods are imported.


John Evans: I do not think the minister has answered the question of my hon. friend (Mr. Gould) yet, for I have evidence to show that a price is placed on goods entered for customs purposes irrespective altogether of the price paid in the regular way in the country of origin, and if there is any difference between them the Dumping Act is applied. Mr. Sealy of Hamilton, the other day imported coke from Detroit, bought in Detroit in the ordinary course of trade at $6.50 per ton, and the customs officer was instructed to levy $1 per ton of dumping

duty on that coke because the price was 'ess than $7.50 per ton in Detroit. Other cases of that sort have come to my knowledge, and I do know that an arbitrary value is placed on goods by our own customs appraisers, irrespective of the price paid in the ordinary course of trade in the country of origin.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend submits
an exception, and wants me to give a general ruling on that. Exceptional cases will arise. Sometimes goods are thrown on the American market at a lower price than the cost of production. Now in interpreting the law, I do not call that the price paid in the ordinary course of business. It is a price set in an emergency, to get rid of surplus production, and if the Americans choose to throw coke or any other product on their own market at a ridiculous price, and then take advantage of that to export it to Canada, we will not tolerate that because it is an exceptional price, not the price that obtains in the ordinary course of business. My hon. friend has put an exceptional case, and he cannot expect me to give a general ruling or to state a general policy with regard to exceptional cases. This coke business has been investigated and still is being investigated. It has been found that these people had an overproduction, and that they were throwing coke on the market at far less than it cost them to produce it. I do not call that a fair value in the ordinary course of business.


John Evans: Then the minister has power to set aside the provisions of the act and set the price?


Jacques Bureau: That discretionary power is given to the minister under the act. He has to determine whether the case is an exception or whether the price represents the fair market value in the ordinary course of business. If it is an exception, it is treated as an exception. It is a question of interpretation. I may be wrong; I do not dispute that; but I think I am right, and I am acting on the idea that I am right.


Mr. KELLNER:: How many times has the minister levied this dumping duty last year in what he calls exceptional cases?


Jacques Bureau: That may be a fair question, but my hon. friend cannot expect me to tell him the number of cases.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I do not mean the details.

Supply-Customs


Jacques Bureau: It is done automatically, whenever there are exceptional cases like this, that ought not to be tolerated.


Mr. FORKE:: But is it a common occurrence?


Jacques Bureau: It is not.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I would submit a case to the minister for his consideration, that of fruit coming in from the United States. Last fall British Columbia apples were selling in the West for about 93 cents a box, and they could be bought in the United States for about 85 cents. For customs entry purposes I understand the department placed a valuation on them of $1.15 a box. Where is the justification for valuing them at $1.15 when they were sold for less than that both in Canada and the United States?


Jacques Bureau: I got my justification from an American himself, when I was out in British Columbia. He said: "We begin to produce in California, and then we go up to Washington, and then the last stretch is Canada. The pick of the fruit we send to Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other large cities, where we get big prices. The balance is practically scrap which we can afford to give away, and we send it to Canada." I said: "If that is the way you are going to do it, gentlemen, we will put a stop to it." Unfortunately, climatic conditions are such that we come last, and conditions on the other side are such that they can make their profit on their average sales. As one said to me-I do not know whether I am permitted to say this in the House or not-"I have enough to feed the swine with, so I can throw it into Canada." We do not want such fruit as that to be unduly favoured on entering Canada. We want the Canadian fruit grower to have a chance to grow his fruit and to sell it.


Mr. MORRISON:: I object to the minister taking exceptional cases. The case he quoted of an importation of culled fruit from Washington was an exceptional one. The fruit shipped from the western states to western Canada has been first-class, and compares very favourably with our own. I submit that the gentleman whose statement he has quoted did not state the facts.


Jacques Bureau: I only repeated what he
said.


John Morrison: You quoted an exceptional case.


Jacques Bureau: I only quoted what I
heard from that man.


John Morrison: ' I submit he is not correct in his statement.


Jacques Bureau: If the man made a mistake it is not my fault.


An hon. MEMBER:: Would the minister
state what the price of the fruit was and what amount was paid in freight?


Jacques Bureau: No, I am not in the fruit business.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Would not Canadian
fruit growers be in just as advantageous a position in shipping to the United States as fruit growers in the state of Washington are in shipping to Canada?


Jacques Bureau: In the United States they have a market of 110 millions of people. They produce on a very large scale there and are looking for a market for their surplus.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I submit that American
fruit ought to be allowed to enter western Canada when the local supply is practically off the market. Furthermore, I do not see how you can justify such a valuation for duty as $1.15 when the United States price is 85 cents as compared with the British Columbia price of 93 cents.


Jacques Bureau: Is that for the same grade?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Of course you cannot
get precisely the same grade as between Canadian and American apples. It was as near the grade as is possible. It was the same grade approximately.
M . BUREAU: The word "approximately" opens the door to quite a big margin.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: You cannot have
identically the same grade of apples in Canada as in the United States.


Jacques Bureau: Why not?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Because the same grades of apples are not grown in both countries.


Jacques Bureau: Is not the Macintosh Red grown in the United States?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Possibly it may be
grown there.


Jacques Bureau: And also grown in the
Okanagan valley?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: It would be more or less a different variety to that grown in Canada.


Jacques Bureau: Oh, come now.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Would the minister tell
us what he meant when he said a little while ago that the officer of a port might make a
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regulation? I take the minister's statement to mean that these port officers are entitled to make regulations which the department do not necessarily need to concur in, is that right?


Jacques Bureau: No it is not. No port
officer has the right to make a regulation; only the minister has the right to do that. In certain cases the officers are called upon to give an interpretation and they do so, but they do not make regulations. The regulations are universal in their character and apply to everybody.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I have a letter here that was published in the News, of Vernon, B.C., dealing with the importation of bulbs. There are a lot of charges enumerated in the letter and I should like the minister, if he can, to explain them.


Jacques Bureau: Read it in French and
I will tell you.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Unfortunately I cannot.
I will, however, read it in such poor English as I can command. I may also inform the minister that it deals with a different subject. The question of liquor was discussed pretty nearly all the afternoon. After that we dealt with fruit, and now I am going to bring up the question of the cost of importing bulbs.


Jacques Bureau: I thought you said ginger ale?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: It is a more appropriate subject than ginger ale. The letter is as follows:
The Apotheosis of Protection Editor Vernon News, Sir:
Yielding to the importunities of a Dutch firm of bulb growers, and fearing to miss the pigeon-English appeal accompanying same, I sent $2.00 for some bulbs and flower seeds.
I received the following billet-doux from the shipping agents at Montreal:
Du'y

	 $1 91
Inward charges	 73
Re-shipping	 50
Cartage	 50
Entry	 1 00
Exchange	   25
Forms, etc	 05
Total	 |4 94
I presume that is all that interests the department. And yet the balance is well worth reading:
After paying this modest demand and applying at the local freight office for the parcel, I was informed that the C.P.R. charges for conveying same from Montreal to Vernon were $6.75.
(Mr. Kellner.]
Local bulbous advertisers in The Vernon News will no doubt be tickled to death when they find how substantial a measure of protection they are receiving from the powers-that-be, and how superfluous will in future be the appeal to ''Buy in B.C." to yours truly, Augustine C. MiCKiE.
Coldstream, Vernon, B.C.


Jacques Bureau: The Customs department is only concerned with one item in the charges my hon. friend has read. The balance is something we have nothing to do with.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: What would be the rate of duty there?


Jacques Bureau: The rate of duty? We will have to see what it is. This man must have employed a broker, or some such person, to look after his business and that is how all these charges were incurred. If the broker went to the custom house and paid duty, and then re-packed and re-shipped the importation, and had it pass the inspection of the Department of Agriculture that might account for some of the charges but the only item with which we would have to do is the $1.91. The law is there and I must apply it. For that I do not make any apology, but I do not want my hon. friend to charge this department with the cost of all the frills and extras of an importation when the department is not responsible for it.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I have tried more or less to relieve the minister of responsibility but I think these charges have to do with the Customs department and I think it is a shame that any importer should have to pay them.


Jacques Bureau: If my hon. friend feels the duty is excessive he will have to move to amend the law.


Thomas George McBride: I think if there had been more stringent regulations in the past governing importations of fruit the fruit growers of British Columbia would not have had to spend such enormous sums of money as they have done in spraying their trees in order to control the depredations of orchard pests. Some years ago a consignment of fruit was brought into the province which contained a certain destructive moth and the ravages of that moth were of such a character that they are felt even to-day in the British Columbia orchards. In connection with the fruit to which my hon. friend has referred it could not have been a standard box, it must have been an inferior variety. The lower grade of fruit sold for 75 cents per box whereas the price of the better grades ranges from $1.25 to $1.50 and $2.00.

Supply-Customs


David Spence: There must be a mistake
in regard to the importation to which my hon. friend (Mr. Kellner) has referred. I was under the impression that on bulbs there was no duty whatever. However is there any reason why duty should not be paid on importations from Holland? We import from time to time and. have to pay duty on nursery stock. Our nursery stock in Canada is certainly entitled to protection. In the case in question if the man wanted to buy $2 worth of bulbs he should have sent the money here and thereby aided the nursery industry at home instead of sending it to Holland.


Mr. COOTE:: How do you arrive at the value which you declare on apples coming from the state of Washington or the state of Idaho?


Jacques Bureau: By investigation by an officer appointed for that purpose.


George Gibson Coote: I apparently misunderstood the minister before. I thought he said that he set the value because of a conversation he had had with some American when he went out to British Columbia last year. When this officer goes over there, on what basis does he set the value? Is it on the cost of production?


Jacques Bureau: He takes into account all conditions, cost of production and so on. He investigates the whole thing. My hon. friend apparently misunderstood me. I just related the conversation and made no comment. I did not say I believed it. I wanted to show the state of mind of the people over there, and the way they expressed themselves. I did not say that it was the basis for any valuation or any appraisement.


George Gibson Coote: If the minister took it
seriously, he must have thought that the apples which came in from the United States were of an inferior quality. He has not yet given the committee any intelligent idea of how this investigating officer arrives at the value which should be placed on these apples.


Jacques Bureau: I do not know what my hon. friend means by an "intelligent" idea. I said that this man did it. He is supposed to know his business, and he investigates conditions. I suppose he sees how much it costs these people to produce the apples. He looks into the labour conditions, the soil, irrigation-whatever conditions are required to grow apples. I could not give my hon. friend a lecture on the subject, because I know nothing about it. I tasted the apples and they were very good; I was very pleased
to have them. But we must give this man credit for using all possible means in his power to satisfy himself as to the value of the apples in Washington. I know that whenever I investigate anything I take every means possible to get down to the facts and draw my conclusions from the facts I have gathered.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I cannot see how the
minister is following that policy when the apples are selling in the United States for 85 cents, and the Canadian price was 93 cents, and when the apples are shipped into Canada, duty is collected on the basis of $1.15.


Jacques Bureau: Perhaps it is in the same condition as coke, which has been referred to. It way be that the apple growers of the United States have supplied the United States market. They have their money, their overhead and their profit, and they have such a quantity of apples that they can afford to sell them even under the cost of production. Perhaps that is the reason.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: That is putting the matter purely in the hands of the departmental officials, and they can judge these things for themselves.


Jacques Bureau: For the time being, yes; we have no other way of ascertaining it.


George Gibson Coote: The minister does not really know. It may be this, that or something else. Surely we are entitled to know on what basis or by what method this man sets the value. Is he setting the value at the price the goods are sold at in the United States for home consumption, or is he setting the value on the cost of production in the United States, or on the cost of production in British Columbia, or the cost of production in Ontario? I do not think he has told the committee.


Jacques Bureau: He is using all the means my hon. friend has mentioned, except the last. He does not take the cost of production in Ontario. He is inquiring into conditions, price of goods, cost of production, cost of irrigation and so on.


George Gibson Coote: Is it the cost of irrigation in the United States, or in Canada?


Jacques Bureau: If you desire to ascertain the cost of labour in Canada, you do not consider the cost of labour in England. It may be that it will be the cost of labour in Canada or it will be the cost of labour at the place of production.
Supply-Customs


George Gibson Coote: The apples we are talking about were produced in the United States, and the minister said he sent his officers there to make an investigation.


Jacques Bureau: Yes. That is the reason we have investigated the value in various countries.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I think we should have a little more information on this question. The valuation for customs was higher than the price these apples were selling for in either Canada or the United States. I do not see that the cost of production could have been considered at all, unless the apples were .being sold at less than the cost of production. If you considered the selling price in any country, you certainly had the valuation for customs too high, because it was higher than the apples sold for in the United States.


Jacques Bureau: Does the hon. member
claim an impossibility-that the goods were sold cheaper than the cost of production?


George Gibson Coote: They might be.


Jacques Bureau: Yes, they might. It is up to the investigating officer to find out.


George Gibson Coote: Is it the fact that he sets
the value at whatever figure he pleases, regardless of the cost of production or anything else.


Jacques Bureau: I would not admit anything of the kind.


George Gibson Coote: What would the minister
admit?


Jacques Bureau: I admit nothing.


Joseph Henry Harris: Let us get back to something more interesting. What is the real objection of the Department of Customs and Excise in Canada to allowing the consulates of the countries to which these goods are being exported in bond to look over the clearance papers?


Jacques Bureau: I do not know that we
have any particular desire to have Mr. Consulate from anywhere go and look into our business; we think we can carry it on ourselves. I do not see why every paper issued in our country should be handed over to the consulate at Washington, or the consulate in Mexico. As a matter of policy I have told the officers not to do it.


Joseph Henry Harris: What steps does the department take to see that they get the revenue which rightly belongs to them for the goods which are supposed to be shipped overseas, but which are not as a matter of fact sent overseas?


Jacques Bureau: That is, assuming that the goods are consigned overseas and landed in Canada ?


Joseph Henry Harris: Yes.


Jacques Bureau: These facts are unknown to .us. Every time we have asked the people who were alleging such facts to bring down a concrete case so that we can land the offender, they have always fallen short.


Joseph Henry Harris: In view of the fact that
the consulates of other countries are ready and willing to assist the Department of Customs in Canada, why will not the Dominion of Canada come forward and avail themselves of their assistance?


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend is working under a false assumption. It does not assist in any way that they should take an invoice and initial it. If I sent a bill to my client, I would not like to have my neighbour come in and put his name on it. It is my business. My hon. friend would not like to make out a bill and have somebody else from some other country look it over and see what it was and what there was in it. It does not help us a bit.


Joseph Henry Harris: It helps to find the offender.


Jacques Bureau: Is there any offender, if
he takes it across?


Joseph Henry Harris: If he does not take it across,
there is.


Jacques Bureau: If my hon. friend has a
concrete case in mind, let him give it, and I have an officer who will land the offender.


Joseph Henry Harris: I cannot use the party's
name, but I will inform the minister that certain consulate generals from an outside country were in Ottawa in 1923 and made representations to Sir Joseph Pope in this connection. I happened to be present in Ottawa at the same time and was present when the interview was held with Sir Joseph Pope, and surely some information must have come through to the minister that this practice was going on and that some assistance was being asked. That is from their point of view. It seemed rather impossible to me that Canada should be shipping large quantities of liquor to Cuba and Mexico. When they asked that they have an opportunity of looking over these export entries, they were refused through the Department of Customs.


Jacques Bureau: Yes.


Joseph Henry Harris: In view of the fact that
the government are undoubtedly losing hundreds of thousands of dollars-

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Jacques Bureau: I object to that statement. We are not losing hundreds of thousands of dollars as my hon. friend says. In connection with exports from distilleries, we are not losing a penny. The duty is paid.


Joseph Henry Harris: On liquor that is being
consumed in Canada which was originally supposed to be shipped in bond for export overseas.


Mr. JACOBS:: Will the hon. member mention an individual case?


Joseph Henry Harris: I just told the committee
that I did not have permission to use the name.	.


Samuel William Jacobs: I do not think the hon.
member should bring the question up if he can give only half the information. The reason why these consul generals are making representations is because there is a high fee attached to the work. These consul generals -I know something about them-live off people who want to have their signature attached to any document. If you go into a consul general's office, he will charge sometimes $5, $10, or $15, and their object in coming here was to satisfy their own pockets and nothing Pise. I do not think they were looking after the interest of this country when they came here and suggested that no document should be issued by the department until their signature was attached to it.


Joseph Henry Harris: I cannot agree with that
at all. I have a perfect right, if I feel there is any revenue which should come to the Customs and Excise department, to get up in this Chamber and say so.


Jacques Bureau: Absolutely.


Joseph Henry Harris: I know that representations have been made and I cannot understand why the Minister of Customs and Excise should say in this House that he knows nothing of any such representations having been made.


Jacques Bureau: Of revenue being lost?


Joseph Henry Harris: That is incidental. I gave the specific case of Vera Cruz landing certificates being surrendered in Canada which were not bona fide.


Jacques Bureau: The question is: Was the
liquor 'landed back in Canada? That is where we lose revenue. If the liquor is not consumed in Canada, we lose nothing. If my hon. friend has any specific case of liquor being landed back in Canada, I should be glad if he would let me have it.


Joseph Henry Harris: I took the minister's word
for that. He said that production was increasing and the revenue seemed to be declining.


Jacques Bureau: That is moonshining; that is not liquor exported in bond and reimported into Canada.


Joseph Henry Harris: Yes, and liquor exported
in bond that never left the country.


Robert Forke: I want to ask the minister
a question regarding a ruling of the Customs Tariff Board. A merchant shipping into Canada raisins and dried fruits in cartons, pays for the fruit and the container. When it comes to the customs border, a duty is levied on the total amount. Over and above that the party is called upon to pay a duty of 35 per cent on the carton. He has paid duty on the total cost, because when he buys it from the exporter, he pays for the box as well as for what it contains, and the box is afterwards of no use. That is the ruling of the department. It seems to be unfair and unjust.


Jacques Bureau: The Board of Customs
have ruled that these cartons were not the usual covering and therefore they had to pay the duty on the value of the carton itself.


Robert Forke: The duty was paid on the
value of the cartons to begin with.
Mr. BUREAU" The value of the carton was paid, not the duty.


Robert Forke: Yes. When the purchaser
bought the goods from the exporter, he paid so much for a carton of raisins. The price of the container was included in the cost of the goods. Consequently, he paid duty on the total cost of that carton with the raisins.


Jacques Bureau: The duty on the raisins is a specific duty and the duty on the carton is an ad valorem duty of 35 per cent. The specific duty was paid on the weight of the raisins.


Robert Forke: He paid on the value.


Jacques Bureau: I will not dispute that;
but if the officer had been within his duty, the duty charged would have been a specific duty of, I think, three cents a pound on the net weight of the raisins, and then an ad valorem duty of 35 per cent on the value of the carton. I do not think duty was paid on the weight of the container.


Robert Forke: I think I shall be able to
convince the minister at another time if I have an opportunity, because I have the cus-
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toms superintendent's ruling. I think I am right in saying that the merchant pays duty on the value of the box and what is contained in the box.


Jacques Bureau: I do not want my hon.
friend to believe that I am contradicting him. He may have done that. If he has done it, it was done wrongly, because he ought not to have paid duty on the weight of the container. He ought to have paid duty on the net weight of tne raisins and then an ad valorem duty on the container. If my hon. friend will bring the case before me, I shall be glad to look into it.


John Morrison: On April 16, I asked for a copy of all letters and other documents between the federal government and the government of Saskatchewan on the question of licenses for export liquor houses. It	took	just	fifty days	for	this	reportto be laid on the Table. It was placed on	the Table yesterday	and I	was inmy	office	reading this report,	and	I hadgot about half through it, when I was notified that this discussion w'as on. This is not giving	us a	fair	opportunity	to	present our
case. As the government surffiy knows, about June 21 or 23 there is to be a referendum in Saskatchewan in connection with the liquor business, and there has been a controversy between this government and the Saskatchewan government as to who is responsible for the control of those export liquor houses. The reason I asked that this correspondence be placed on the Table was so that we could fix the responsibility. I think this discussion should not be closed to-day in justice to all parties concerned.


Jacques Bureau: How would that interfere
with the election?


John Morrison: I want to have an opportunity to look through this return. The liquor interests of both governments are passing the buck when we nail them either in this House or in Saskatchewan.


Jacques Bureau: I do not pass the buck.
I hang on to the buck.


John Morrison: I am going to hang
on just now for a minute. I interviewed the minister in his office and told him that we could not get them nailed down either provincially or here. He told me then that he did not pass the buck; but both parties deny the whole responsibility.


Jacques Bureau: What responsibility? My
hon. friend is talking about export bonded warehouses.


John Morrison: Yes. The minister
stated two sessions ago that he did not issue a license except on the signed request of the Attorney General of Saskatchewan. During a by-election in my constituency last fall the Attorney General of Saskatchewan denied any responsibility in the matter.


Jacques Bureau: Were there any licenses
issued?


John Morrison: Yes there have been
bonded warehouses there. What I want is the assurance of the minister that we shall have another opportunity to bring this matter up this session.


Jacques Bureau: Were there any licenses
issued for what are commonly called import for export warehouses? Such houses do not exist as a matter of fact, but for the purposes of the discussion we will accept that term. Were any licenses issued for those houses since I became Minister of Customs?


John Morrison: They are doing business, I know that.


Jacques Bureau: Have there been any licenses issued for these bonded warehouses since I have been Minister of Customs from January 1, 1922?


John Morrison: They have been continuing in business. '


Jacques Bureau: The hon. gentleman is not explicit, and I will assume no responsibility for anything but what I myself have done.


John Morrison: I asked for the correspondence to be laid on the table, and I will make this charge now, that that correspondence has not all been brought down.


Jacques Bureau: Let us know what is missing.


John Morrison: I will not. I have already said that it has not all been laid on the Table. I saw a letter written by the Saskatchewan government to the federal government and I can tell the minister that the file does not contain that particular communication. How does he expect me to answer his question when I have not been supplied with the information I have asked for?


Jacques Bureau: It might be in my private file; I do not know. My hon. friend says that I am passing the buck. Well, I am entitled to know, I want to know, and I ought to know, what licenses I have issued in the province of Saskatchewan for these bonded warehouses of the kind the hon. gentleman speaks of, since I have been Minister of Customs.

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John Morrison: If the file had been laid on the table as promptly as it should have been, and if all the information had been submitted, I should be able to answer the minister.


Jacques Bureau: The file will not tell you; you ought to know.


John Morrison: I have not seen all the correspondence.


Jacques Bureau: I do not object to my hon. friend making a field day of this if he wants to.


Arthur Meighen: Are these not annual
licenses?


Jacques Bureau: The excise are; the customs are not.


Arthur Meighen: Are not these particular ones referred to, annual licenses?


Jacques Bureau: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Then the minister must have issued some.


Jacques Bureau: There are no excise licenses in Saskatchewan and those are the only annual licenses that are issued.


John Morrison: Are there no export
licenses?


Jacques Bureau: There is no such thing as an export license.


John Morrison: How is it that these
houses exist?


Jacques Bureau: There are bonded warehouses but no export houses.


William Alves Boys: Quite evidently there are some houses in existence and the confusion seems to be in regard to the name. The minister might tell us what is the proper designation of these houses and once we get that we shall know what we are talking about and shall be able to find out whether any licenses have been issued or whether they are renewals from year to year which I presume is what the hon. member wants to know or just what the situation really is.


Jacques Bureau: Warehouses are licensed by the provinces for the storage of duty-paid liquor and once the duty is paid we have nothing more to do with the liquor. If anyone buys a coat and he pays the duty on it the government has no more responsibility in connection with the transaction; and similarly the moment the duty is paid on this liquor we are through with it. The importers might then want to put the liquor in a warehouse
to keep it until it could be exported and the province grants a license for this purpose. But this department has nothing to do with that.


Arthur Meighen: Never had.


Jacques Bureau: Never had; the duty is paid on the liquor and thereupon the department's responsibility ceases.


Arthur Meighen: Is it an import duty?


Jacques Bureau: An excise duty or an'import duty-


Arthur Meighen: It would not be an import duty if the liquor was to go out again.


Jacques Bureau: Why not? I might import liquor with the view of exporting it again. Before any liquor can be taken out of the control of the Dominion government whatever is due upon it must be paid, and when that money is paid the owner of the liquor can do what he likes with it so far as the department is concerned. In order that the liquor might be kept in the province however the provincial government consented to the establishment of bonded warehouses and they charged so much a case, or whatever it might be; at any rate they levied a tax for allowing the liquor to remain in the province so that the owner might get rid of it at his convenience. But the matter was one within the jurisdiction of the provincial authorities, and with it we had nothing whatever to do after, as I say, the duty had been paid us.


Milton Neil Campbell: The minister's present
statement seems to conflict considerably with the statement of the Attorney General of Saskatchewan which I read a short time ago. Speaking in the House on April 6, 1922, in reply to a question asked by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen), the minister made a statement which was not nearly so direct as his remarks to-day. And that is what I complain of. If the minister is not entirely satisfied that what he said then was correct he should at least make it plain to the House.


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend must be
careful to make the proper distinction. What we issue is a license for warehouses for the storage of liquor on which duty has not been paid. That liquor, so to speak, is under the King's guard. But when the duty is paid we are no longer concerned with the liquor, and if the provincial law forbids the keeping of liquor in the province it is none of our

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business. When the duty is paid to us the provincial government can seize the liquor so far as we are concerned; but so long as the liquor is in the keeping of the Department of Customs, in the bonded warehouses kept for the storage of liquor on which no duty has been paid, it cannot be touched, the theory being that the King has control of it. But evidently the province considered that it would be unfair to the owners of liquor to seize it without an opportunity being given these people to dispose of it, and they themselves established bonded warehouses or storage warehouses, or what is called export houses,-you may call them what you like-to take care of the liquor in the meantime. The owners could not dispose of the liquor within the province but had to export it. But that was exclusively a provincial affair, without the jurisdiction of the Department of Customs; it was, I emphasize, exclusively within the control and jurisdiction of the province.


William Alves Boys: What licenses have been issued or renewed in Saskatchewan during the last twelve months?


Jacques Bureau: Not one in the province
of Saskatchewan.


Milton Neil Campbell: What I want to know
from the minister is; not the description of these houses, in which I am not so much interested, but whether or not the houses were established with or without the consent of the attorney general of the province. The Attorney General of Saskatchewan says:
The attorney general of this province-and remember I am the attorney general-never gave any consent to the establishment of any bonded warehouses or liquor export houses.
That is the point we want to get at; we want to know whether the provincial authorities had to consent to the establishment of these houses or not.


Jacques Bureau: I think I have explained
the matter fairly fully. I have pointed out that when the duty is paid my control ceases. I could not grant any licenses of this kind inasmuch as I have no authority whatever to do so. I pointed out that these storehouses or warehouses were established evidently for the purpose of allowing those persons who owned liquor at the time the Temperance Act came into effect to dispose of that liquor in such a way that they would lose nothing. But that was done entirely and exclusively by the provinces. Whether the matter was under the direction of the attorney general or of the superintendent,

or whether it was managed as it is in Ontario, I do not know. At all events neither the Department of Customs nor any officer thereof had anything to do with the matter.


Milton Neil Campbell: Were there no licenses issued in connection with these houses? Let me again read the question which the right hon. the leader of the opposition put in April 1922:
Mr. Meighen: Is it not a fact that the licenses were granted under the approval of the attorney general of the province?
Mr. Bureau: That has been and still is the policy of the department. We do not grant any licenses unless we get the approval of the attorney general attached to the petition for the license; at the same time we have the designation of the warehouse by him.
This is at variance with what the minister now tells us.


Jacques Bureau: That relates to the storage of liquor in bond when the duty has not been paid. When the duty has not been paid and you want to store the liquor the license comes from the department; but when the duty is paid we have absolutely no control over the matter. My hon. friend is now referring to liquor in bond upon which no duty was paid. When the Temperance Act came into force, just before importation was prohibited, if any one wanted a bonded warehouse established to store liquor he made application for it. I said that the policy of the department had been, and was then, not to issue a license except with the consent of the man in charge of the operation of the temperance or liquor act or whatever else it might be in the province.


Milton Neil Campbell: Now we are getting a little nearer the question. Am I to understand that the minister stands strictly by this statement that no licenses were issued in Saskatchewan without the consent of the attorney general?


Jacques Bureau: Licenses for bonded warehouses where liquor was in bond duty unpaid; not export warehouses. I want the distinction to be dearly understood.


Milton Neil Campbell: The attorney general mentions specifically bonded warehouses or liquor export warehouses.


Jacques Bureau: That is his business, not mine.


Arthur Meighen: What would the attorney general have to do with the establishment of a bonded warehouse, which is established only

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for the purpose of collecting duty? Why would the minister ask the attorney general's consent foi that? I understood the matter as it has been read from Hansard; I thought it was export warehouses.


Jacques Bureau: No. When anybody wanted to import liquor, before the importation of liquor was prohibited, he had to get a bonded warehouse, unless he paid duty. To get this bonded warehouse he had to obtain the consent of the Department of Customs and Excise. The department got all the necessary information, but before issuing the license they always wrote to the man in authority-the attorney general, I think, in Saskatchewan- and got his consent. That was not a regulation; that was the policy established in December 1916. When I came in the officials asked me if they should continue it, and I said, "Yes, it is only proper that where they have temperance or prohibition legislation they should be advised of the fact that such applications are being made in order to give them a chance to present their objections, if they have any to the licenses being granted." We continued that policy until lately. But that is not an export warehouse. The export warehouse is for duty-paid liquor, and when the duty is paid it is under the authority of the province.


Arthur Meighen: Suppose the province had not agreed at all, what would be the consequence?


Jacques Bureau: After the duty was paid?


Arthur Meighen: No, no. I am referring to the policy established in 1916. I know there was a policy requiring the initiation of the provincial authorities. I cannot remember going into it in detail, but my general impression is that it related to export warehouses. I may be wrong in that.


Jacques Bureau: You are mistaken surely.


Arthur Meighen: Supposing it was as the minister says, just a bonded warehouse for the purpose of importation and to enable the owner to hold liquor until he paid his duty, and the province did not consent; then there would be no power of importation at all?


Jacques Bureau: If the province did not give its consent or made any objection to the issue of the license, we would not grant it.


Arthur Meighen: The minister says that
that policy was continued from 1916 until last December. What policy was established in its place?
179i


Jacques Bureau: None.


Arthur Meighen: Well, are there any
bonded warehouses now?


Jacques Bureau: There are.


Arthur Meighen: As long as the bonded
warehouses continue, is not the policy continuing?


Jacques Bureau: They were in force at the time; we did not issue any new licenses for bonded warehouses, except for distilleries. I am informed that there are now ten less than there were when I took charge of the Customs department.


Arthur Meighen: I presume the province did not ask for their continuance:	Is that
the reason?


Jacques Bureau: The importers themselves did not ask for their continuance. Application is not made by the province, but by the individual who is the owner of the bonded warehouse. If he did not ask for a renewal of the license, it lapsed.


Arthur Meighen: The improvement in
policy is really the making a virtue of necessity.


Jacques Bureau: I do not know-it is the virtue of a good example.


John Morrison: When the minister
made the statement which the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Campbell) has just read, did he receive any protests from the Saskatchewan government?


Jacques Bureau: Protests against what?


John Morrison: Did the Saskatchewan
government protest to your department against the correctness of the statement which the member for Mackenzie has just read?


Jacques Bureau: I would have to look up the files. I do not remember; maybe.


John Morrison: The statement was made out there during the by-election that they did protest very vigorously.


Jacques Bureau: I was not at the by-election; whatever statements were made then I am not going to be held responsible for. I am satisfied that hon. gentlemen
6 p.m. will make statements at by-elections which they would not make on the floor of the House.


Arthur Meighen: The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) will agree with thatl
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John Morrison: I saw a copy of a letter of protest in the hands of the attorney general, so I considered that pretty good evidence that a protest was made.


Jacques Bureau: It is a pretty good presumption. The letter may have gone astray in the mails.


John Morrison: There is no copy of the letter on the file; that is why I am not satisfied.


Jacques Bureau: I do not think that insinuation is fair. I have had letters go astray in the various departments.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Jacques Bureau: To those who are used to the pure, all is pure, Mr. Chairman. Those who smile must have been the abstractors of letters. But I would not have any objection to producing any protest. If a protest was made about issuing a license, and no license was issued, where is the harm in the statement I made? I do not see any. If no license was issued, I had no consent to ask.


John Morrison: But here is the point: You made the statement that you did not authorize the issuing of any license without the written request of the Attorney General of Saskatchewan.


Jacques Bureau: No, no.


John Morrison: The minister says no, that is not right; and further, before that a protest was made as to the responsibility for it.


Jacques Bureau: I want my friend to stick to this: I have nothing whatever to do with export warehouses; it is the bonded warehouses that I am concerned with.


John Morrison: Mr. Chairman I do not wish to take any more time of the committee, but I should like an assurance that we shall have a chance to discuss this matter later.


George Newcombe Gordon: This debate is all on the next item, I am sorry to say. Shall item l carry?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


George Newcombe Gordon: Carried.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
George Gibson Coote: Mr. Chairman, I protest
against this item carrying. It is six o'clock.


George Newcombe Gordon: The hon. member is out of order. The debate is not on this item, but on the next one dealing with the preventive service.


George Gibson Coote: It is preventive officers I want to discuss


George Newcombe Gordon: That is the next item, which has not yet been called.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Salaries and travelling expenses of inspectors of ports and of other officers on inspection, preventive service, and in connection with the Board of Customs; the latter including salaries of $1,000 each for three members and $500 for the secretary, $790,719.


John Morrison: I would ask that this item be allowed to stand for a little while.


Jacques Bureau: Curing the recess I had inquiry made to find out if any licenses had been granted to private parties for bonded warehouses in Saskatchewan-the officers went down to the department to investigate it-and I find that none were granted. The only licenses that have been granted since I took charge of the department are the licenses to the official vendors, no others. So the point in dispute seems to have disappeared.


John Morrison: Does the minister mean the official vendors in Saskatchewan?


Jacques Bureau: Yes.


John Morrison: I should like the item to stand for a little while so that an opportunity would be afforded of looking through the papers. In the meantime the minister could take up another item.


Jacques Bureau: I have no objection.


Arthur Meighen: The licenses that were issued were yearly licenses to private parties?


Jacques Bureau: They were issued to bonded customs warehouses.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, but they are yearly licenses.


Jacques Bureau: No they are not yearly.


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister mean that a permanent license is given a man, that it is not a yearly license?


Jacques Bureau: If he has got a bonded warehouse for storing intoxicating liquors he must have a permit.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, but for how long?


Jacques Bureau: Until the license is revoked, or until he abandons it.

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Arthur Meighen: Subject to revocation at any time?


Jacques Bureau: Yes.


Joseph Henry Harris: I should like to make my position clear with regard to the question raised before recess. In the first place I am opposed to prohibition or coercion in any sense.


Jacques Bureau: Hear, hear.


Joseph Henry Harris: I want that distinctly understood. The point I raised however was that I felt the department were losing some revenue over these seaworthy vessels carrying this liquor supposed to be for export. We might assume that each vessel would carry a thousand cases. At a duty of $15 a case this would represent $15,000. It would only need one hundred of such trips to make a loss of revenue to the country of $1,500,000. I merely make this statement for the purpose of explaining my position.


George Newcombe Gordon: Is it the intention, Mr. Minister, to allow this item to stand?


Jacques Bureau: If there is any further
information my hon. friend desires I am willing to give it. The bone of contention seems to be that I should not have issued licenses without the permission of the provincial authorities. I find from the records of the department there have been no licenses issued to private individuals for bonded warehouses; so that I could not have granted licenses without their permit, none having been issued.


John Morrison: Here is the position;
the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) is not clear on this whole matter; it is a big and important question, and this return should have been brought down sooner. It was asked for fifty days before it was laid on the table and we have not had time to read it. If the committee will go on with another item, we will be ready in an hour's time.


Arthur Meighen: Then is it understood
that this item stands for to-night? I should like to look over the correspondence. Has the minister found the missing letter?


Jacques Bureau: I have not had time to
look for it. I do not know 'what it is.


Arthur Meighen: I thought that would
be more important than the point the minister did look up.


Jacques Bureau: If I understand rightly,
the missing letter was a protest against the issuing of licenses by the federal authorities.


John Morrison: No, it was against
this government stating that it was for the Saskatchewan government to take all responsibility for the issuing of the licenses. They disclaim all responsibility. The minister made the statement that he did not issue a license without the signed request of the Attorney General of Saskatchewan.


Jacques Bureau: No, there is a misunderstanding. I said without the consent-not at the request. I do not want it to be understood that I wanted it to come from the provincial government. If I said that, I did not state what I had in my mind. The answer I made was that before issuing licenses we always got the consent of the local authorities in charge of the administration of the liquor laws in the province.


Robert James Manion: Could the minister tell
us how many export liquor licenses have been issued throughout the Dominion?


Jacques Bureau: My hon. friend was not
here when I explained that. When the duty is paid on liquor, if the provincial law prohibits the possession of liquor within the limits of the province, we have nothing to do with it. If the owner of the liquor wants to keep it for the purpose of export, so as not to lose the whole thing, he obtains authority from the provincial government. That is what they call the provincial export license. The government charges him so much and allows him to keep the liquor in the province, and he exports it later on; but we have nothing to do with that.


George Gibson Coote: We were talking this afternoon about the inspector who places the value on apples. Would the minister inform the committee whether the officer came all the way from British Columbia to Winnipeg to value apples that had been imported from the state of Washington by a Winnipeg jobber; and if so, what value he placed on apples imported from Washington last winter?


Jacques Bureau: Mr. Mowat, who has this
particular duty to perform, is in Vancouver and goes to Winnipeg to examine invoices and prices and to investigate conditions.


George Gibson Coote: What value did he place
on apples coming from Washington last winter?


George Newcombe Gordon: I question if items
of the tariff can be brought up under this item. Matters of administration can be discussed.
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Jacques Bureau: I do not object to the
question, but I could not say offhand. My hon. friend will understand that we do not get reports of all these things, and if we did I could not carry them in my mind, and would not have any record of them here.


George Gibson Coote: I do not want to ask any
question that is not in order, but it seems to me this is the only place that we can ask any questions regarding the administration of the Dumping Act and I feel that this is the proper place to ask the question. Would the minister be willing to lay on the Table of the House the reports he got from these officers showing the value they placed on these apples?


Jacques Bureau: These appraisals and valuations are made by the officers. They must appear on the invoice in the particular port. If the invoice contains a certain price for the apples, and that price is changed by the appraiser, it must appear on the invoice.


George Gibson Coote: Is the minister aware of the fact that sometimes this dumping duty has been levied by his officers on shipments of apples after part of the apples have been sold by the importer to the retailer? Could the minister not find some way of administering the act that would not inflict this hardship on the importer?


Jacques Bureau: In speaking of these
apples, all importers are told when they bring in commodities or products that their entries are subject to correction, and subject to the appraisal which has to be made. They are all warned of that.


George Gibson Coote: Could the minister not have these valuations made so that the importers could be told when the apples are cleared through the customs that the duty would be so much, and not have the duty imposed after the man has cleared his apples and possibly sold most of them to retailers?


Jacques Bureau: We must get the shipment before we can make an investigation. We do not know what the duties are going to be. After the shipment is in we make the investigation, and then these people know exactly where they stand, because the appraiser makes his report and assesses the value. But- the shipment must be made first.


George Gibson Coote: I may be misinformed, but
I have had letters from some of the importers stating that they have' [been assessed for dumping duties after they have had the apples in their warehouse for some time and

after they have actually sold most of them to the retailers. I understood the minister to say this afternoon that the United States were dumping a lot of poor apples into Canada.


Jacques Bureau: I do not want to be understood as saying that. I just reported a conversation I had with an American at Vancouver. I did not say that I believed it or that I did not believe it, or that it was true or false. I reported it for what it was worth. I did not make it my statement.


George Gibson Coote: The minister certainly left
the impression on my mind that he or his agent had acted on this information when they levied the dumping duty. Is the minister aware that these same British Columbia fruit men are shipping hundreds of cars of apples to the United States every year? I would like to know whether his appraisers have examined the books of the British Columbia growers and found out what they were charging for these apples they were shipping to the United States, Great Britain, Mexico, Sweden, Germany and Japan. If not he does not know whether he is making the people on the prairies pay more for their apples than people in those foreign countries.


Jacques Bureau: It is not for us to look
into shipments made by our people. If they ship to Mexico, the Mexican authorities are there to protect themselves. If they ship to the United States, the United States authorities are there to protect themselves. The United States authorities do not examine the invoice of their shippers when they ship to Canada. It is up to the Canadian authorities to look into them and to protect themselves.


George Gibson Coote: Will the minister be good
enough to inform the committee who is looking after the people on the prairies that would like to get apples?


Jacques Bureau: I suppose each individual
who desires apples ought to be able to look after himself and get them. I do not presume they want any particular tutor or guardian for that purpose. I know when I want an orange or an apple, I do not go to my neighbour, I go out and get it.


George Gibson Coote: They do not want some
appraiser going around and penalizing these fruit jobbers when they import a car of apples. The minister has shown that these people on the prairies had better get somebody to look after their interests.


Jacques Bureau: That is their business.

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George Gibson Coote: I wonder if I would be in
order if I asked the minister on what basis his officers are now setting the value of goods imported from Germany? What procedure are they following in fixing the value of those goods for duty purposes?


Jacques Bureau: That is determined by the law which reads:
In the case of importation of goods, the manufacture or produce of a foreign country, the currency of which is substantially depreciated-
That would include Germany.
-the value for duty shall not be less than the value that would be placed on similar goods manufactured or produced in the United Kingdom and imported from that country if such similar goods are made or produced there. If similar goods are not made or produced in the United Kingdom, the value for duty shall not be less than the value of similar goods made or produced in any European country the currency of which is: not substantially depreciated.
That is a question of law, not of regulation.


George Gibson Coote: Some of us are getting the
impression that the Customs department is a law unto itself, and that is the reason I asked the minister the question. Could he tell this committee whether it is a fact that Germany is now quoting her goods, not in German currency, but in either American or British currency?


Jacques Bureau: Whether they quote them
in German marks or American dollars or Canadian dollars does not alter the value of the currency in Germany. If they quote $10 for a thing that is worth $20 in England, naturally it will be appraised as being worth $20, the value of the goods in England according to the law that I have just cited. Whatever currency they quote does not make any difference as to the value of the currency in the country of origin.


George Gibson Coote: I think it is well that the
committee should get all the information they can in regard to this question, because I will admit that I have not all the information I would like. I have lately received from a gentleman who is in the importing business in Montreal some information regarding this matter. I do not want to take up much time, but I will read a memorandum that he gave me in regard to scissors. This is just one of the items, but it will serve as an example:
The scissors and shears are supplied to Canada to a great extent by United States manufacturers. We understand that Great Britain is not equipped in the industry to supply her own demands, but that she imports annually large quantities of United States and German manufactured shears and scissors for her own use as well as for her export trade.
It seems absurd to use the cost of British made scissors and shears as a base in Canada for the cost of German scissors and shears for duty purposes. The
result is generally a workman, working girl, or farmer has to pay for the extra valuation for duty purposes. Under present rulings, it raises the cost of these scissors and shears to nearly double the price of what they should be, as the duty on these goods-
I think he means to include the sales tax.
-amounts to 113.4 per cent of the cost. The application of the valuation taken from British goods does not give any more trade to Great Britain but gives a certain amount of additional trade to the United States of America, which thereby increases the unfavourable balance of trade against Canada.
This could be reduced by allowing the German-made scissors and shears to come into Canada at their real value.
I would be much obliged to the minister if he could inform us whether that is the way in which the duty is actually working out at the present time. That brings the duty and sales tax in some cases to over 100 per cent of the value of the goods.


Jacques Bureau: I just explained to my
hon. friend that this was not a matter of regulation. Those scissors are imported from Germany. The currency is depreciated in Germany. They say the scissors are worth $10 or $5 a dozen. The value for duty purposes is the value of similar goods manufactured in England, as I have just said. That is a matter of law, not of regulation, and the customs collector has to follow the law. The law says that when goods are imported1 from Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Austria, the value of the goods shall be the value of similar goods in England. That is the Customs Act as amended in 1922.


George Gibson Coote: I am informed that this
country is maintaining trade agents in Germany. If we take into consideration the condition that Germany is in, how can we sell her any goods if we do not take goods from her? I am at a loss to know how we can continue to import goods if the duty and1 the sales tax against Germany amount to over 100 per cent. If the law is wrong, the minister is in the best position to know about that, and I think it is time he suggested some change in that law.


Jacques Bureau: I have no control over
trade agents or trade conditions. I am administering the Customs Act. The question my hon. friend puts to me is: How is Germany to pay such a high duty? I explained to him that the duty on all goods coming from a country where the currency is depreciated is regulated by statute. I have no power to change it. Parliament is master of the situation; parliament can amend it, and if parliament chooses to say that goods
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shall be valued at the currency of the mark, that is its business, not mine. My duty is to administer the act as I find it in the statute book. My hon. friend wants to be fair. He knows very well that I cannot change the provisions of the statute.


George Gibson Coote: Is the minister trying to
give the impression that a private member could bring in any bill to amend the present act dealing with depreciated currency? He surely does not want to give that impression.


Jacques Bureau: I do not give any impression at all. We all have the same rights in this House. When we think anything is wrong, it is our right to discuss it and to make suggestions. These amendments were made by the Minister of Finance. This is a question that comes under his jurisdiction. My hon. friend has not been deprived in any way of an opportunity of making suggestions or of expressing his views. I am stating to him my position. My hon. friend seems to be under the impression that by a regulation of the department we can remedy this. I am explaining to him that I cannot. If he wants an amendment to the Customs Act, let him suggest it. I do not say that he has the right to make any motion in regard to it, because it must come from the government. But so far no suggestion has been made in the matter; at least I have not heard any in the House. I am discussing the act as I find it and am trying to explain matters to the hon. gentleman as well as I can. If he thinks that this is a question that rests with the department he is under a false impression, because the department is bound to administer the act as it stands and the act provides that the measure of value of goods coming from Germany or from any other country whose currency is depreciated shall be according to a certain standard which is laid down; and I have no other means of valuing such goods. I do not say that the hon. member's views are either right or wrong; I am merely stating that it does not lie within my power to make any change.


George Gibson Coote: I assure the minister I am not trying to be unfair to him. I wish he would say whether in his opinion the duty now collected on these goods coming from Germany is levied strictly in accordance with the regulations, or whether it is just possible that the inspectors are putting too high a value on the goods.


Jacques Bureau: The officers are instructed to adhere to the law, and the law states clearly what shall be done; the goods shall be appraised at the value of similar goods made in England. I do not see that there is any other explanation I can give the hon. gentleman; the matter is perfectly clear in the act.


George Gibson Coote: I will not bother the minister any further, but I would point out that although we have been discussing these estimates all afternoon we have secured very little information regarding the actual working of the Department of Customs. I am not criticising the minister at all in that respect, but I would urge him to suggest to his government that the estimates of some of the departments at least be submitted to some standing committee of the House and passed by that committee before being brought down to the House. This is what is proposed in regard to the estimates of the Minister of Railways, that they be submitted to a special committee of the House for consideration. This would greatly expedite the business of the House and I am sure hon. members would be able to discuss the estimates in a more intelligible manner. The result would be more satisfactory not only to the members themselves but also to the department and the country at large.


Mr. WARNER:: The committee has been
dodging around from one thing to another in such an erratic -way that I would not blame the minister for getting out of patience. But at the same time I must say that he has made one statement himself which is responsible for my getting up now; I refer to what the minister said about people being able to look after themselves when they wanted to buy fruit. Well, so far as that goes, I have reason to know that much as they would like to, they cannot possibly "look after themselves" at the present time under conditions as they are and with the dumping clause in operation against them. I know of one case where the fruit dealers in Edmonton desired to buy apples in Washington so that they might be able to supply the trade in their city at a cheaper rate than they were otherwise able to do. But from what I have learned there seems to be some question as to whether the dumping regulations were properly applied. The British Columbia apple dealers were unable to supply the particular apples required in this instance-winesaps

and when the Edmonton dealers tried to get them from the United States they discovered that the

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dumping clause operated to their detriment. There was a question as to whether it was applied justly or not. I want to tell the minister that the people on the prairies would like to look after themselves, as he says, if they could; but it is impossible for them to do so with the dumping clause against them. If the British Columbia dealers were able to supply these particular apples the people would like to buy from them rather than go across the line. I think it is well worth the minister's while to take this matter into consideration; certainly the people of the prairies are at a disadvantage under present conditions. They were compelled in this instance to pay so much more for the apples when the dumping clause was brought into force that they were obliged to go without them.


David Spence: What time of year was
it that the people in the prairies could not buy British Columbia winesaps?


Daniel Webster Warner: They grow some of these apples in British Columbia but not very .many,' and the time I am referring to was during the fall season before I came here, the early part of the winter. I know that the British Columbia people did not have these particular apples at the time they were wanted, and when the dumping clause was brought into force it prevented the prairie people from getting them, the price being too high.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: What the hon. gentleman has just said reveals to us the luxury in which the farmers of the western provinces live. Apparently there is only one kind of apple in the world which they will eat and it must be something very choice. Down in our province we will eat northern spies.


An hon. MEMBER:: Or rhubarb.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Yes, and in large quantities.


Daniel Webster Warner: You have no dumping
clause against you.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: My hon. friend I think discovers that he has put his foot in it.


Daniel Webster Warner: As to my foot, it is perfectly comfortable. My hon. friend comes from a place where the duty has nothing to do with the apples he buys; they cannot sell all the apples they raise in that community. Nevertheless they are telling us that the home market will make us all rich.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: The problem of the hon. members who represent Toronto is not the same as the problems we have in the West,
and their ideas of luxury are no doubt different from ours. I have a list of telegrams which passed last fall between the fruit growers of British Columbia and the jobbers of Vancouver in which the latter contracted for a certain volume of fruit. I hesitate to put all these telegrams on Hansard and so I will summarize their contents; the telegrams are at the disposal of the minister at any time. The Vancouver jobbers contracted for the delivery of 25 cars of peaches, 15 cars of apricots and 5 cars of pears early in the season. Considerable advertising was done to convey to the people of Vancouver the importance and the duty of eating homegrown fruit. The season wore on, marketing conditions changed a little, and they found that they could sell fruit on the prairies at a better price and on a less discriminating market; so they forced the Vancouver people to get along with 5 cars of peaches, 3 cars of pears and considerably less than a car of apricots, so that they could sell extra fruit on the prairie market. The minister's department came to the rescue with the dumping clause. When the price got high in the prairies the suggestion was made to bring the fruit from the United States; some fruit was brought in but the minister's agent went to the prairies and put a valuation on that fruit which it never had and collected a duty which prohibited further importations. I would point out to the minister that he will have a very hard time convincing the people that that is what the dumping clause was intended for. He made the statement this afternoon that we might as well not have any statute at all in regard to the dumping clause as his department administers it. I cannot put any other interpretation on his words. I think it is very unfair to the people that his department should so administer the dumping clause as to create a condition of this kind.


Thomas George McBride: Mr. Chairman, I think the words of my hon. friend (Mr. Kellner) prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the people of British Columbia were more than anxious to supply the needs of the prairie farmers when they cancelled the order which they had to ship apples to Vancouver. Now, in regard to the question of who is looking after the fruit needs of the prairie people, I understood that some time ago the Grain Growers' Association was handling the fruit for the prairie farmers, and as I have already stated in the House some of the prairie organizations were making 65 cents a box profit on British Columbia apples.
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An hon. MEMBER:: Shame!


Thomas George McBride: Yes, I should say so. I have that statement signed by the secretary of one of the Grain Growers' associations. With respect to the winesap apples which were being shipped in from the American side, Mr. Thomas Bulman, of the Okanagan, was here at the time and I took this question up with him. He told me that there were then in cold storage sixteen cars of the same kind of apples which he was anxious to get rid of.


John Evans: Mr. Chairman, I have a word of explanation to offer in reply to the statement of the hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. McBride) regarding the profit of the Grain Growers' Association on apples. He is quoting the price from a local association which, if I remember rightly, is the North Battleford association. The Grain Growers' Association buy apples wherever they can get them, whether from British Columbia or Washington. The local association at North Battleford was compelled by the rest of the distributing trade in that city to sell the apples at the price referred to, otherwise they were told they could not get their shelves replenished with any other line of goods. That is an instance of how the anti-dumping clause is applied on goods in western Canada and elsewhere to-day. The absurdity of applying a dumping duty to fruit coming into this country, particularly into western Canada, can easily be shown by the fact that at the time it was being so applied in western Canada to certain cars of apples from Washington the British Columbia apple growers or packers could not supply even the Vancouver trade and had to import the deficiency. The real reason for the dumping duty being applied on fruit in western Canada is because the British Columbia apple growers are exporting their best apples and want this added protection in order to get rid of their culls. Naturally we in the West object. Another absurdity of the application of the dumping clause is shown in the fact that when applying it to two cars of apples that came into Winnipeg last March Mr. Mowat was brought all the way from British Columbia a distance of 1,200 miles, to assess the duty. Could anything more absurd be imagined?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Does the hon. member contend that the dumping duty on fruit should be entirely eliminated? Is that his frank position?


John Evans: I would say that it should
be. I say further that any apple growers in this country who cannot carry on with the advantage of a shorter freight haul and a 
30 cent per box duty ought to go out of business. Anyway, I serve notice on the British Columbia advocates of the dumping duty to-day that the plain people of the prairies are not going to tolerate its continuance much longer, and already relations are strained between the fruit distributors of the prairie provinces and the apple growers of British Columbia. To bring a man 1,200 miles to assess the dumping duty on two cars of apples in Winnipeg seems to me an utter absurdity. One would think that a duty of 30 cents a box would be quite sufficient advantage to any apple growers in any part of the Dominion. If it can be proven that the United States apple growers are sdling their apples for export at a lower price than for home consumption, then I say there is some justification for the dumping duty being applied; but in the case of apples which last year we could buy at Washington for 80 cents a box, the price at which they were being sold to any one in the United States, why was the dumping duty levied in western Canada? Because the British Columbia fruit growers claimed the United States growers should be getting $1.10 a box! I think the absurdity of the whole thing is plain to every member when I recall the fact that to-day we are maintaining an army of officers in all countries of the world to look after this business for our apple growers and manufacturers while we are collecting less than $130.000 in duty under the dumping clause.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Mr. Chairman, it is
apparent from the speech of the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Evans) and of certain other hon. members that they are very strongly disposed to eliminate all duties whatsoever. Now, the British Columbia fruit question has been explained time and again by members from that province, particularly by our friend, the late Mr. MacKelvie. The facts, as I understand them, are simply these: that at certain periods of the year the United States apple growers, owing to climatic and other conditions are able to produce their fruit a little earlier than their British Columbia competitors, and they not only supply their home market but also the market of Canada at the highest prices; later when the British Columbia apples are ripe our growers find the cream of the market has been taken by their competitors across the line, and in addition the home market is further depressed by the dumping of the surplus product from the States. The net result of eliminating the anti-dumping clause would accentuate the extremely hard times which the apple growers

of British Columbia are passing through; not only so, but many of the men who have invested thousands of dollars in their orchards and waited years for them to come into bearing in order to supply the home market would be put out of business.


George Gibson Coote: Is the hon. member aware that there is a duty of 30 cents a box on apples?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Yes, but that protection is not sufficient at certain times of the year.
Mr. COOTE. Will the hon. member give to this committee any reason why the dumping duty applicable to natural products should not be the same as applied to. manufactured goods?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I do not see the relationship. I believe the dumping duty is applied to manufactured goods to protect home industries. Now so far as apples are concerned, and the fruit industry of British Columbia, it is onfy a periodical application of the dumping clause that is required; that is, it is put on when what we consider unfair means are being used. I would like to ask hon. gentlemen sitting to my left, as men not actuated by selfish motives, and I know they are not, whether they are disposed to use their power in this House in favour of a step which would save them only an infinitesimal amount on the cost of their fruit, but that would put out of business many thousands of men engaged in the ap,ple-grow-ing districts in the central portion of British Columbia, who have invested millions of dollars there, and in which the government has also made a huge investment? If it were a question, of trying to grow cotton around the north pole by artificial protection of an extreme kind, their arguments would be reasonable, but this is a question of protecting this industry only at certain given times of the year against unfair competition, and if we are going to maintain the unity which hon. gentlemen preach so strongly, consideration must be had for all parts of this country which are specially affected by foreign competition at particular times of the year. Let us have a little reciprocity in the concessions given from one end of this country to the other. What do we find so far as my friends to my left are concerned? They come down here with grqat political power-


George Newcombe Gordon: Order. I must call the hon. member's attention to the fact that this is an item for administration; it is not a question as to the propriety of maintaining >r abolishing any act; nor is it a tariff item.
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Leon Johnson Ladner: My friends to my left,
Mr. Chairman, have been protesting against the administration of this act, and I am trying to affirm its administration. I am trying to show that the anti-dumping clause should be administered, and effectively administered.


Mr. KENNEDY (Glengarry):: Does the
hon. member consider that the dumping clause as applied to natural products should be applied only during a certain period of the year, before the British Columbia apples are in the market, and when American fruit is coming in?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I say that the anti-dumping clause should be applied to protect the business of fruit-growing in British Columbia against unfair competition at any time of the year.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: I understood the hon. member to advocate only a perodical application of the anti-dumping clause.


Leon Johnson Ladner: No, I did not say that. I say that the necessity for its application is periodical; it is applied to meet a certain condition. This is an important matter for British Columbia, and I think before hon. gentlemen to my left decry the application of the anti-dumping clause they should be better informed on the investment that has been made in this industry and what it means to British Columbia, and when they look for tariff readjustments on machinery and. other articles they might have consideration for these fruit-growers in British Columbia who are tied up with their investments in this industry.


George Gibson Coote: I want ,to take exception to
the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver South that we should be better informed, and I would suggest to him that possibly he is not as well informed on the dumping act as applied to natural products as he might be; otherwise, he would have [DOT]answered the question I put to him a little while ago, when I asked him to give any reason why the dumping act which applies to natural products should not be the same as applied to manufactured goods. If he is well enough informed to lecture us in this regard, perhaps he can now answer that question.


Daniel Webster Warner: I want to call the attention of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner) to the fact that he is m
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danger of putting the prairie farmer out of the business of eating fruit, and consequently of putting the British Columbia grower out of the business of raising apples.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Try Ontario apples.


Daniel Webster Warner: Some Ontario apples we get are very good. We always find the top layer of the barrel good, but the rest are what they would not feed to their pigs. I do not wish to reflect on the fruit growers of Ontario. I do not know whether it was a high protectionist or a fruit grower that packed those apples. This question is a serious one, Mr. Chairman, for the prairies. We need fruit on the prairies, and British Columbia, on account of being nearer, should supply us with our fruit.


George Newcombe Gordon: Order. I would draw the hon. member's attention to the fact that this item concerns the expenditure of a department. There is no question here of whether a certain act is a proper act or not; it is simply a question of whether the expenditure is proper, and whether the law is being administered efficiently. This debate has continued for some time, and for nearly an hour hon. members have been wandering away from the subject matter.


Daniel Webster Warner: I am sorry if I am out of order, Mr. Chairman. I hardly thought I was, because everybody has been saying about what he pleases on this item. When I remember what others have said, I can hardly think I am out of order. If you will allow me, Mr. Chairman, to encroach just a little further, I want to say that I know that the British Columbia land on which they are growing these apples is from three to four times the price it ought to be. We want apples in the prairie provinces, and we do not care whether we get Ontario or British Columbia apples, but we do want them at a price we can afford to pay. That is what we are interested in. We are not more selfish than other human beings, but we have been up against it hard enough in paying tariff duties on everything so that we have not much left now to pay for apples, and we want to eat apples. I think it is well worth while for this House to consider whether the dumping clause is not going to put us out of business of eating apples, and consequently put out of business the man who is growing apples. I do not think the dumping clause was applied last fall at the right time, and in the right place. In fact,
I do not know where the right place is; I have never been able to find that out; I think 
we should get rid of it altogether. I want the government, and the Minister of Customs particularly, to be mighty careful how he uses that anti-dumping clause, if it is possible for him to be careful.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Can the hon. member say what the application of the dumping duty adds to the cost of a box of apples?


Daniel Webster Warner: I do not know exactly how much it amounts to on each box but it is enough in some cases to put us out of the business of eating apples.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Chairman, a question was asked a moment ago, a perfectly proper question I think, in regard to the administration of this dumping clause-why the clause which applies to manufactured articles is not equally applicable to natural products. The question I say is a fair one, and I think a very proper one. The reason is-the minister will correct me if I state it in any sense unfairly-that in the case of the manufactured article you have generally a fixed price which is easily ascertained in the country where the article is manufactured. In, perhaps, ninety per cent of the cases there are regular lists of prices Issued, and the article is of a nonperishable character. But with fruit you have an article that is not only perishable but variable-variable as to varieties, variable as to seasons, variable as to the quantity of the crop which always affects the price. So that from day to day there is no fixed price on fruit, it is something that is constantly changing. Secondly, while it is very simple to ascertain the market value of a manufactured article, it is exceedingly difficult to find the market value of fruit.


George Gibson Coote: Will you explain why it is difficult to find?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes I am going to explain that. Take for instance the production of Strawberries, I use that, perhaps, as a more extreme type and more suited to making the explanation clear.


George Gibson Coote: Make the explanation on apples.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I will make it with respect to strawberries first, and then I will take pears and apples. Now, strawberries are produced and they must be marketed at once; let two or three days elapse and the strawberries are unsaleable. The growers south of the line produce strawberries very quickly. If there happens to come a shower of rain it ripens the strawberry very quickly and turns

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it into a soft condition not suitable for keeping any length of time. What they do south of the line, and it is a regular practice, is this:	They supply their home market-
Seattle, Spokane, and these other cities all through that area at cost price because the growers south of the line are well organized, and they have the home market under control. But the surplus they will dump into Vancouver, for instance, or into Calgary, or on a market they can reach at any price at all, because the amount they get is pure salvage, it is barely sufficient to meet expenses whatever the amount may be. It does not follow :hat they must make even the cost price of .he article because they have already protected their profit in the stabilized market south of the line.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: In the home market?


Henry Herbert Stevens: In the home market.
Now then, in facing this situation the minister and his predecessor were called upon to find a dump that was applicable, and so we had a dump clause to this effect, that the Customs department would ascertain the cost of the production of the article and allow that price plus 10 per cent for profit, and that was the dutiable price to the Canadian market. Now we come to pears. I have in mind-and perhaps the minister's assistants could give the exact data in regard to this-an incident that occurred where nine carloads of pears were shipped on consignment into Calgary. They were shipped there simply at any price that could be secured for them-in fact they secured, if I recall rightly, a very low price, about one-third of the market value of these pears. Well, no Canadian grower could compete with a condition of that kind. Now take apples as to which my hon. friend (Mr. Coote) asked for an explanation. I will also reply to the question which was raised by my hon. friend from Glengarry (Mr. Kennedy) in which the suggestion is made that there was a period, perhaps, at the beginning of the season where the dump may be applicable. But you must remember this:	You
have apples coming on the market-I will give the British Columbia data as well as I can recall them-from the end of July, early harvest apples. Then you have the Graven-stein coming on in September; the Macintosh Red coming on about October; and then you have other varieties in November, the later varieties, the winter varieties which keep well. You have a long series of different varieties of apples some of which are only marketable during the particular two or three weeks that they come on the market.
Take early harvest apples. You cannot possibly, even with cold storage, keep them over perhaps a period of a month, or five or six weeks. On the other hand winter varieties can be kept over until spring. The dump therefore must be made applicable not simply at the opening of the apple season but its application must correspond to the coming on the market of the different varieties. Again we have exactly the same situation. We have in the Wenatchee country, in the Hood river valley, in Oregon and Washington, particularly in Washington, some very extensive orchards. The growers there pack all their apples very skilfully and the fruit is very carefully graded. The very high and fancy grades are saleable in every great city of the United States-New York, Chicago, St. Louis. Cincinnati, and Cleveland. Clear across the continent they have a splendid market for their number one grades at high figures.


An hon. MEMBER:: Ten cents apiece.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Someone suggests that
they retail at ten cents apiece, at any rate they get very high figures for these fancy grades. But they have also second and third grades. For instance, their second grade is a good apple, a very excellent apple, and one which will market well, but it has not got the demand that the very fancy first grade has on the high priced market. Well, they seek to dump their surplus of seconds and thirds on the Canadian market-on the Canadian Northwest market if you like or any of the cities; indeed, they dump them into Vancouver just the same as they dump them into Calgary or Winnipeg. This competition is wholly and utterly unfair, as far as our fruit growers are concerned. I would say this to my hon. friends: I know this question has been discussed many times in years gone by, and the suggestion is made, "Why should not the prairie purchaser have the number one grade as well as anybody else?" There is no reason why he should not if he will pay the price. I want to say this, however, that for all ordinary purposes there are very few hon. members would discern very much difference between a good, general number two grade and a number one fancy grade. There is a little more uniformity of size, a little better colour perhaps, and more careful packing- it is a little fancier all round-but the number two grade is just as good. It is not a question of putting an inferior grade on the market at all; it is just simply a condition that develops in this industry.
Now, let me turn to the industry itself which calls for this dumping clause and the applies-
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tion of it by the minister. My hon. friend said there was land in the Okanagan valley, where these apples are produced, that is three times above the value it should be. Well, I venture to say that in the case of the Okanagan growers this year-and I certainly regret that our late friend Mr. MacKelvie is not here because he had all this information at his finger tips-the great majority of them, fully 90 per cent of them came out at the end of the season with a complete loss on operation. Considering the price of land I venture to say further that the owners of these orchards in the Okanagan valley would be delighted if they could get a return covering the cost of production plus, say 2 per cent on the cost of this high priced land.


Daniel Webster Warner: Does the hon. member for Vancouver Centre not think that if we had got rid of protection some time ago the fruit growers would have been in a better position because we on the prairies would have been able to buy their apples?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am glad my hon. friend asks that question. I will tell him the history of the citrus fruit situation which illustrates where you would be if the protection had been taken off. If there had been no protection you would have had no development of the fruit industry in Biitish Columbia and very little in Ontario probably. About twenty years ago-and I recall the time very well because I dealt at that time very largely in the marketing of fruit and articles of that kind-we used to buy lemons and sell them retailed at twenty cents a dozen. That was the prevailing price for years, with perhaps an occasional rise in the middle of the summer season. Our oranges were sold according to grades and sizes up to thirty cents a dozen, and very rarely beyond that. At that time Canada bought its citrus fruit in California, Florida and the West Indies, but the California citrus fruit industry, organized under Mr. Shapiro and other organizers of that character secured first from congress a heavy prohibitive duty, which shut out the competition of the West India fruit in the American market; they secured absolute control of the American market, and then by the development of their industry they controlled the American market from the selling end, but not from the buying end. They supplied the citrus fruit to the American market just as they saw fit to send it, and: maintained the price. What was the effect of that on Canada? The effect upon Canada was that when the United States shut off the market from the West India fruit growers, these West India

concerns went out of business. We had been receiving West India fruit in Canada in competition with California fruit. When the West India fruit was shut off, we were confined to the California fruit; and for the last ten or fifteen years, I think I can say, the price of citrus fruit in Canada has been from two to two and a half times the price at which we could purchase it in the previous ten or fifteen years. And why? Because the citrus fruit growers in California fixed the price. We have no duty on lemons and oranges; they are absolutely free, and yet the price has doubled during that period. I obtained the prices in Seattle and Vancouver, Winnipeg and St. Paul, Buffalo and Toronto, and all corresponding places along the line, and in every case the citrus fruit was marketed in Canada at a slightly higher price than south of the line, although we have no duty on that fruit.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I was just wondering
what the prohibitive duty of the United States is.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I cannot give it offhand to my hon. friend, because I was not prepared for this discussion at all, but I would say perhaps thirty per cent.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Ad valorem?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes. I must give that answer subject to correction, because I am not certain. I made a very careful study of the citrus fruit situation, and I will give the House an illustration applicable to the administration of the dumping clause. The citrus fruit growers-I want this to be made perfectly clear-through the act and persuasion of congress, through prohibiting it, closed the market to the West Indian grower, and thus cut off that supply. Let me say this-and if the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low) were in his seat I would invite his attention to it-that when the West India delegates were in Ottawa, I think about 1920, and made an agreement with Canada under which we allbwed their products to come into Canada, they told us that they wanted to come in here with citrus fruit, and if we would give them a preference in our market for citrus fruit they would replant their lemon and orange groves, stimulate industry and go into the production of citrus fruit again. I am certain that if Canada had put a duty on citrus fruit, in a very few years we would be buying citrus fruit in Canada twenty-five to fifty per cent less than the price we pay to-day, and we would stimulate that trade. But that is on the side. If

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the dumping clause is removed, or if the minister fails to administer this dumping clause in the interests of the Canadian producer, and if you add to that the removal of the meagre duty, I will venture to say, without the slightest hesitation-


An hon. MEMBER:: Is that a thirty per cent duty?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Thirty cents a box, not thirty per cent-if these are removed the result will be, without any doubt, that the Canadian fruit grower will be squeezed and put out of business. I can take hon. members to the Okanagan to-day and show them orchard after orchard which has been abandoned during the last few years. An orchard goes to pieces in a couple of years beyond recall. What will be the result? Do you think you will get the fruit on the dumping basis? No, you will get it at prices dictated by the Washington and Oregon Fruit Growers' Association. There is no question about that. We have to face it. Let me say to my hon. friends who object to the application of this dumping clause that the growers of the Okanagan constitute perhaps one of the best co-operative agricultural or horticultural organizations in the country. They are splendidly organized. What for? Not to force Canadians to pay an unreasonable price. That is not it. They are organized to try and make a bare living out of their business and out of their chosen vocation. My hon. friend may say to me, "Well, they ought to have foreseen that", but you must remember that it takes from six to ten years to bring an apple tree into full bearing, and some take longer, while some develop more quickly; but I am well within the mark when I say that a tree cannot be expected to come into bearing in a period less than six to tern years. That is a long period. That is a long -wait, and these men who planted these orchards ten or fifteen years ago could not foresee the difficulties they were going to be confronted with, nor at that time did' this extreme production south of the line exist. I desire to say to the committee that the existence of this dumping clause and the fair and generous administration of it by the minister are absolutely essential to the livelihood of thousands of producers of fruit in the Okanagan and in other sections of western Canada as well as in eastern Canada.


Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil):: What is
the average price the grower gets for apples in British Columbia?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I should have to take a guess at that, because I did not come into the House prepared with the information.


Charles A. Stewart: I was
anxious to know what the growers got for their apples.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This is all subject to
correction, but if I recall it right, this year they got less than 80 cents a box. I take the figure 80. They are practically co-operative growers. I think perhaps the fruit growers of the Okanagan-I use the Okanagan because the industry centres around there but the same thing applies to the Salmon river, the Kamloops and the Kootenay country-have the most splendid organization for the handling of their products. All their fruit is brought into numerous central depots. It is there sorted by the most up-to-date methods. The packers are trained very efficiently, and they pack the fruit at a speed that really is far beyond what any average person could hope to attain. Therefore, every effort is made to handle this business scientifically, and yet, though they take full advantage of the co-operative movement and the most up-to-date methods, I think a little less than eighty cents a box on their varieties was the price w'hich they received. The production cost, plus packing, plus freight and boxes, I know was beyond that point; just what, I cannot for the moment tell my hon friend, but there was a loss experienced right through the season.


Daniel Webster Warner: I want to draw attention
to just one phase of the argument of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. He says that the people in the West Indies would go into raising citrus fruit to supply to us if we would put a tariff on that fruit and make it so that we would have to pay more for it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I made no such statement.


Daniel Webster Warner: That is what I took from the statement the hon. member made.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend must
permit me. He took it wholly wrong. The statement I made was that there was no doubt the people in the West Indies would go into raising citrus fruit to sell to us provided that we put a tariff on it.


Daniel Webster Warner: And give them a preference in the trade. I think I should say that to be fair.
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Henry Herbert Stevens: A preference in the
market.


Daniel Webster Warner: Am I wrong there?


Henry Herbert Stevens: The hon. member is all
right that far.


Daniel Webster Warner: I want to draw attention to the fact that nobody in this House or, indeed, in Canada has fought against giving preference in trade where that would lessen protection, harder than the hon. member has himself.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend is wrong
again.


Daniel Webster Warner: At least, that is the impression I gather from the way in which he presents matters to the House.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am sorry I apparently cannot make myself clear.


Daniel Webster Warner: The people on the
prairie have no assurance that they are going to get their fruit for less by encouraging the people of the West Indies to go into raising citrus fruit to sell to them. If we put a tariff on that fruit, we know we shall have to pay more for it. That is what we oppose, and we cannot wait for citrus fruit or any other kind of fruit until they get their orchards going in that country. I want to see my hon. friend using logical arguments when he argues about protection to the fruit grower. I am quite willing that the man who is in the business should raise fruit in Canada for me to eat, and I want to eat it. But I do not want to be asked to wait for a new orchard to grow or to pay so much that I cannot afford to buy the fruit and, perhaps, soon be out of business and therefore not be able to buy any fruit at all.


Mr. FOURNIER:: Mr. Chairman, do you
not think we have considered this matter long enough-an hour and a half? Do you not think this House should attend to business.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: As regards the statement of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre that it was necessary to enforce the dumping clause in order to keep out United States fruit, and that the industry had been built up in that country by using similar tactics, I maintain that at the present time, our duty, without any dumping duty at all, is about the same as the duty which he calls a prohibitive duty on fruit going into the United States. The dumping clause was not

uniformly used ,to maintain the western market for British Columbia fruit because, at the very time it was used to keep fruit out of the prairies the city of Vancouver was importing Washington apples.


David Spence: When did British Columbia import Washington apples?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Last August.


David Spence: What quantity did British
Columbia import at that particular time?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I am not an encyclopedia. I do not know the quantity imported.


David Spence: British Columbia has had a big surplus of apples and has never had any need to import any.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: The hon. member for
Parkdale takes a good deal of exception to my statement that apples from Washington went into Vancouver. I heard him state this afternoon that he sometimes bought fruit from the United States. He frequently rises in his place and tells us just how we ought to conduct our business in the West. By the way, it may be of interest to call the attention of the committee to where Parkdale is. It represents as regards Toronto about the same position as a certain district does in regard to New York which George Ade made famous and possibly a little bit ridiculous in one of his songs:
Only forty-five minutes from Broadway
And nothing at all to do,
But stroll down to the depot
And see the trains go through.
I wish to call to the attention of the committee a telegram which was sent to the Growers Sales Agency from the British Columbia growers under date of August 24, 1923. There were several other telegrams preceding this one in which they had been ordering fruit from the growers and there had been some dispute. The growers did not wish to live up to the terms of the arrangement which they had previously made and they wanted to deliver a less quantity of fruit than they had previously agreed to deliver. This is the telegram and it also includes the price:
Regarding price Elbertas it was our understanding we were compelled meet competitors price from Washington and our idea in advising quantity was for purpose having you reserve sufficient outlet your market this quantity inasmuch as our fob quotations are always disregarded and it is impossible for us to get more than Washington is quoting, we cannot see advantage naming price until they ready move. We would, however, be satisfied with eighty-five cents fob Okanagan please advise as we do not want any more misunderstandings.

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That is as far as I will read the telegram, There are three or four lines which are not germane to the subject. But you will notice in August last they were paying eighty-five cents for British Columbia apples and not somewhere around fifty or eighty cents as the hon. member for Vancouver Centre mentioned a short time ago.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I said the grower.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I do not understand the
statement. I presume if the grower got fifty or eighty cents, the jobber was paying it. This is a telegram to the growers from the dealers and most assuredly if the dealers are paying eighty cents, the jobbers are getting that, that is, f.o.b. Okanagan points, as quoted in the telegram. I want to reiterate that personally it is not with the intention in any way to hamper the fruit growing industry that I object to this dumping clause being administered. I think it manifestly unfair that the prairie provinces should be asked to pay for fruit a greater price than is charged in Vancouver when the grade is admittedly poor; and there is no justification for the anti-dumping clause to be introduced into the prairies to keep fruit out of that part of the country while fruit is being shipped into Vancouver city from Washington points.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Does the hon. member
know how much more the prairie man pays for the fruit in consequence of the application of the (anti-dumping clause? How much would he save if the clause were repealed? Many speeches are made about this matter but no one appears to know what the position is.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: That has nothing to do
with the situation.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Suppose you paid one cent more, would you put these people out of business?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I would put the system
out of business whether I paid a cent or half a cent; the system is unjustifiable.


John Evans: 
Leon Johnson Ladner: Mr. Chairman.-


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is not fair.


George Newcombe Gordon: Order. This debate
is getting far beyond the item under discussion and for two hours it has been more or less irrelevant. The hon. member has had an opportunity of speaking once before concerning this matter and he is now merely pursuing the question whether or not the legislation is advisable or proper. He is not discussing the administration of the act or the question of cost, with which the item has to do.


John Evans: I submit, Mr. Chairman, that what I am about to say is relevant.


George Newcombe Gordon: The present discussion would be in order in the debate on the budget or on the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne, but it is hardly relevant in the present instance. The hon. member is out of order but I do not want to interrupt him precipitately. I take it that he has about concluded.


George Gibson Coote: The debate is winding up
as I thought it would. When the hon. member for Vancouver Centre was making his half hour speech I was satisfied that the debate would be shut off soon after he had finished.


George Newcombe Gordon: Order. The hon. member has no right to reflect upon the ruling of the Chair. It was agreed that this item would stand to suit the convenience of an hon. member, and I shall proceed to call the next item.
Item stands.
Miscellaneous, $450,000.


Jacques Bureau: There is a decrease of

Item agreed to.
To provide for expenses of maintenance of revenut cruisers and for preventive service, $290,580.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the minister give us a brief idea in regard to the expenditure of this money for preventive service? To what extent has that service been increased on the Pacific coast, and are aeroplanes being used now, and to what extent?

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Jacques Bureau: We are using aeroplanes to some extent on the Pacific coast but at no txpense to the department. The service on the Pacific coast is being improved both on the Pacific highway and at the coast; and we have now under consideration the construction of a number of fast motor boats to follow up smugglers of narcotics and liquors particularly. The Pacific coast has required a lot of additions owing to increased business and the great number of ships which now come into port as compared with previous years. The same thing applies on the Atlantic. We have had complaints that sufficient patrol was not exercised along the coast. There are various small harbours and islands along the Atlantic coast just as there are on the Pacific and they are very favourable to the smuggling enterprise.


George Gibson Coote: How many cruisers are there?


Jacques Bureau: .There is just one cruiser proper, the Margaret, which does service in the gulf of St. Lawrence and on the Atlantic coast. We have also a number of auxiliary ships that patrol the coast, such as the Grib, the Sagamore, the Edna H. and the Vagrant. These boats are engaged in patrolling the coast of Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton and the Straits where conditions are propitious for smuggling. There is also one on the British Columbia coast, the Winnamac.


George Gibson Coote: What particular class of goods are these smugglers bringing?


Jacques Bureau: Liquor and narcotics.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Amounts to be paid to Department of Justice to be disbursed by and accounted for to it, for secret preventive service, $10,000.
Mr. MacLEAN (Prince):: Will this item conclude the list?


George Newcombe Gordon: No. The hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Morrison) and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) have asked that the item regarding bonded warehouses be allowed to stand.


William Alves Boys: I believe the understanding was that it would stand in order to give the minister an opportunity to find some letter which was missing from the file, and the hon. member for Weyburn an opportunity of more carefully reading the file than he had been able to do up to this afternoon. That is what I understood the minister had agreed to.


Jacques Bureau: I will agree to anything,
but I want to put the matter before the House as it actually is. The contention was that the local authorities in Saskatchewan
l Mr. Stevens.]
had disclaimed all responsibility for the granting of licenses to bonded warehouses, and the hon. member for Weyburn declared that he had seen a letter of protest from the Attorney General of Saskatchewan against the granting of such licenses. He claims that the letter which he saw in Regina is not on the file. During recess one of the officers of the department in charge of this particular branch searched the records and found that no licenses had been issued for customs bonded warehouses in Saskatchewan since I became minister. Consequently whether that letter of protest was sent or not-and it might have been in anticipation; I do not know-since no licenses were issued I do not see the use of keeping this item open.


William Alves Boys: I am not holding a brief
for the member for Weyburn (Mr. Morrison) in the matter at all. I was appealed to by the Chair and I merely stated the understanding I have of what took place this afternoon. I am absolutely ignorant of the situation except from what I have heard during the discussion, but it did seem to me there was a suggestion that the Attorney General of Saskatchewan placed responsibility on the Minister of Customs; while on the other hand, the Minister of Customs says that he issued no license. It is simply to clear up the matter that it was suggested the item should stand; also, to provide an opportunity for locating the missing letter referred to by the member for Weyburn.


Jacques Bureau: The cause having disappeared I thought the effect was null.


George Newcombe Gordon: The second item stands for production of the file, if it is available.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: Mr. Chairman,
I understand there is a treaty or arrangement between Canada and the United States whereby pure bred live stock for breeding purposes is allowed to pass between the two countries free of duty. This arrangement is lived up to apparently, with one exception, which affects the province from which I come. The breeding of fur-bearing animals has now become a very large industry throughout the Dominion, particularly the breeding of silver black foxes in Prince Edward Island, which are registered by the National Records office the same as any other pure bred live stock. Our friends in the United States charge a duty of 15 per cent on such live stock, whereas they are allowed to bring their stock in here free of duty. If Canadians are compelled to pay this duty, it seems to me it is only fair that the Ameri-

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cans should be treated in the same way or else they should recognize that silver blacik foxes are included in the arrangement referred to. I should like to hear from the minister in regard to tihis. I might also state that the fur trade between Canada and the United States has been very large. This question may not come under the present vote-


George Newcombe Gordon: That is the conclusion
I have come to.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: -but with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I should like to bring tihis to the attention of the committee.


George Newcombe Gordon: The committee has the last word.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: All furs are
allowed into the States free of duty except silver black fox furs, on which a duty of 50 per cent is imposed, which is prohibitive. I have it from the Fur Merchants' Association in the United States, which is a very strong organization, that if representations were made by the Canadian government to Washington some relief could be obtained, the duty having been imposed at the request of a few American breeders. It may be thought that this does not affect Canada very much, but I would point out to the committee that it is a very serious matter. We have big fur auctions in Montreal every year, and these have been largely kept up by American buyers, who purchase silver fox furs and take them to the American side for sale or for shipment to the fur sales in London. The 50 per cent duty has practically prohibited the continuance of this practice. As a consequence the industry is hit very hard, and I am sure that if negotiations were taken up with the authorities at Washington some relief could be obtained. I refrain from discussing the matter further and will content myself by asking the minister if there is any treaty or arrangement with the United States regarding the interchange of pure-bred live stock.


Jacques Bureau: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I cannot answer my friend, as this is a matter which would belong to the Department of Agriculture, and my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) will be in a better position to answer the question. The Department of Customs has nothing to do with such treaties except to collect whatever duties may be imposed.


George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the last item for
secret preventive service, $10,000 carry?
180i


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


George Newcombe Gordon: Carried.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
George Newcombe Gordon: Vote 364 remains open.


Jacques Bureau: So far as one item is concerned.


George Newcombe Gordon: Yes.


DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
[Stage Direction]
Administration of the Migratory Birds Convention Act., $50,000.
Mr. WALLACE:: Mr. Chairman, I do not
know whether the information I require should be asked for under this item, but can the minister tell me if there is any provision in his department for setting apart certain local areas for the protection of birds? I believe they are designated as bird sanctuaries.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, throughout Canada there
are certain areas set apart for migratory and game birds where hunting is prohibited.


John Alexander Wallace: What protection is
afforded by the department?


Charles A. Stewart: We have
certain officers whose duty it is to administer the act in conjunction always with the local provincial game wardens. Most of the protection we get from these wardens. An agreement is usually made with the provincial authorities before the sanctuaries are established.


Robert Forke: Are any of these sanctuaries situated in the prairie provinces?


Charles A. Stewart: This is the
list of bird sanctuaries:
Xova Scotia: Seal and Mud islands and vicinity.
Quebec: Bird rock, Bonaventure island, Perce rock.
Ontario: The provincial authorities of Ontario do not favour the creation of sanctuaries under the Migratory Birds Convention Act, in Ontario, claiming that the provincial law provides adequate protection.
There are no sanctuaries in Manitoba as yet; they are to be created. In Saskatchewan there are sanctuaries at Last Mountain lake, Indian Head nursery station, Sutherland nursery station, and eleven other sanctuaries are proposed as follows:
Johnson, Chaplin, Basin, Lenore, Big Stick, Crane, Manitou. Cabri, White Bear, Quill and Redberry lakes.
In Alberta we have sanctuaries at:
Many Islands, Pakowki, Birch, Buffalo, Miquelon, Ministik, La Biche, Rideau island and Calgary.
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It is proposed to establish sanctuaries also at lake Newell and Bow River reservoir. In British Columbia we have sanctuaries at Vaseaux Lake and Victoria Harbour.


Robert Forke: I would like very much if it had been possible to create a sanctuary for the Franklin gull in Manitoba. That is the gull that is a great destroyer of grasshoppers, and it does no one any harm.


Mr. MILLAR:: Does this mean that -all birds are protected in the Indian Head nursery?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


John Millar: I have seen crows there in thousands, so numerous that they are very destructive to fields of oats.


Charles A. Stewart: We do not protect crows, of course.


John Millar: What birds are protected?


Charles A. Stewart: All the game birds, but crows are on the free list; you can shoot them op sight.


Oliver Robert Gould: Why is there a reduction of $5,000 in this item?


Charles A. Stewart: A considerable amount of the preliminary work has been done in connection with this vote, and we think we can get along with a little less. We could spend more money, it is true, but we have to economize wherever we can.


Oliver Robert Gould: The work will not suffer as a result of this $5,000 reduction?


Charles A. Stewart: No, we hope as time goes on to get more assistance from provincial game wardens, who are under salary from the provincial governments.


Oliver Robert Gould: I think it is generally appreciated that we should foster birds throughout the country. The dearth of birds has been considered the cause of many outbreaks of insects in the West, particularly in dry years. If we have lots of birds around it will minimize to a great extent the evils that come as a result of insects, and if an extra $5,000 would assist materially in bringing this work to a point where it would be of greater benefit, I would suggest that the item should not be reduced.


Charles A. Stewart: I am very glad to hear my hon. friend say that, because in work of this kind, as in forestry and kindred matters where we are adopting preservative measures, it is purely a question of educating the public. I am receiving a large number of protests from people living 
in the vicinity of these sanctuaries, particularly in the settled areas, complaining that they are creating a weed nuisance and other evils. It is a matter of education, pure and simple.


Mr. MILNE:: Is there any co-operation between the provinces and the department in establishing these bird sanctuaries?


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, yes.


Robert Milne: I understand that Manitoba has an organization for this purpose at the present. Have they made application for assistance in any way?


Charles A. Stewart: We are
.working in co-operation with all the provinces, ,but some of them, Ontario for instance, have not thought it necessary as yet to establish bird sanctuaries, believing that the breeding is going on satisfactorily. To show you the interest that is taken in this matter, just recently on the marsh at Burlington, right near the city of Hamilton, we established a bird sanctuary. Interest is growing in this work, particularly in the settled areas. In the unsettled areas it is not so important, because there is plenty of protection. In Manitoba there is every evidence of interest.


Mr. BROWN:: Was there not a bird sanctuary created at Jack Miner's place in Essex county?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, that is a provincial sanctuary.


Mr.   TIOEY@: A voluntary organization was established in Manitoba some two months ago, and I iwjught a membership card just prior to my departure for Ottawa. It is working independently of the provincial government altogether.


John Alexander Wallace: What sort of co-operation is there between the two governments in connection with the sanctuary at Hamilton?


Charles A. Stewart: Ontario,
owning its resources, works out the whole thing. We simply co-operate with them in protective measures. They are really in control. We cannot control the situation.


John Alexander Wallace: What is the nature of the co-operation of the federal government?


Mr. STL  WART@Argenteuil: We carry on an educative propaganda, and try to assist any such organization as my hon. friend from Springfield has mentioned, and the provincial governments, in setting aside areas for the protection of wild life.

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Mr. GARDINER:: What obligation is there on this country with regard to the United States under the Migratoiy Birds Convention Act?


Charles A. Stewart: That will all be found in the Migratory Birds Convention Act. Each country undertakes protective measures, and takes responsibility for applying them. I might say, in passing, that it sometimes works a little hardship in the florth country where the natives have been in the habit of killing game birds when they return in the spring. Sometimes they are in rather desperate straits for food, but we are trying to the best of our ability to carry out our undertakings under that convention without creating hardship.


William Findlay Maclean: Around Toronto, right in the township of York, the lead that has been taken by the government in protecting wild birds has met with great success, and only last summer I saw very distinct evidence of that in the portion where I live. Not only was something being done by the government, but by the inhabitants of the township as well, by putting up bird retreats and bird houses, and the result is that you can hear any number of songsters there now that you could not hear years ago.


Robert Gardiner: Is it obligatory under the convention for this country to provide sanctuaries?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, that is one of the terms.


Robert Gardiner: How do you manage to carry out that undertaking in provinces that have control of their own natural resources?


Charles A. Stewart: We are under no obligation to enforce measures. It is well understood under the convention that we are to work in conjunotion with the provinces. We have no authority to go into any province owning its natural resources and compel the establishment of sanctuaries. We could do that in the three prairie provinces, but that is not the method we pursue. It is rather one of co-operation with the provinces, and it is of very great assistance to the department and the officials in charge to have voluntary associations working in conjunction with them.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: There is a feeling in some sections of the country that the Americans take advantage of this treaty. It is claimed that early in the year when the birds are commencing to move north along the Atlantic coast the slaughter of birds is
permitted in United States territory up till, I think, the last day of February or some time in March. The people of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island feel that when they are prohibited from shooting birds at that season the same restriction should apply in the United States.


Charles A. Stewart: Of course
the main feature of the treaty is the prevention of the spring shooting when the birds are returning to their breeding ground. The Americans have undertaken that there should be no shooting in the United States after the 31st January.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: That arrangement has been made lately.


Charles A. Stewart: It is a provision of the treaty.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Engraving, lithographing, printing and preparation of maps, plans, reports and kindred publications of the Dominion, including salaries and necessary materials for same, etc., $137,495.
Charles A. Stewart: The increase here is due to three items. I may say that $7,770 is required for the work of two engineers who are engaged in field studies of development problems. Their purpose is to establish direct touch with business men, boards of trade and other commercial bodies who are in a position to give first hand information on resources that are available for new development, or on openings for sound industries based on Canadian raw materials. The total cost of this new work will exceed $12,000, but roughly speaking $5,000 of this additional expense is being met by economies in other directions such as in the consolidation of mapping work.
In the next place $3,000 is required for a new edition of " Canadh-Natural Resources and Commerce." This publication has met with an exceptional demand from banks, bond companies, and so forth, who through their British and American offices are directly engaged in attracting investment funds to the Dominion from abroad. It will be necessary very shortly to prepare a new English edition as well as to publish a French edition.
Then $6,025 is required to permit a start to be made on the publication of a loose-leaf economic atlas. The Atlas of Canada issued in 1915 is now obsolete in many respects. To revise and reprint it in its present form would cost about $45,000. By issuing loose-leaf form, the initial cost will be spread over several years and replacement costs thereafter will be reduced to the minimum.
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These are the explanations for the items of increase. I may say that these are only items in the whole of these estimates in which there is an increase, the reason being that we are providing for the preparation of a very great number of maps, and also trying to bring to the attention of the investing funds both within the Dominion and outside as well, the possibilities for investment in Canadian resources. That is the object of the expenditure of this money. I have felt, notwithstanding the great need for economy, that I was warranted in asking parliament for a slight increase for this particular purpose, believing it will yield a very splendid return for the investment.


William Alves Boys: When does the minister expect to have the maps printed and ready for distribution?


Charles A. Stewart: There is one other matter I neglected to mention. I propose to charge for some of these maps. We have not been doing so in the past to any great degree, but I believe that by doing so we will more than make up the increase in this item. The charge will be made with discretion. We are not going to exact it in the case of school districts, and municipalities. Sometimes, however we have a demand for one or two hundred of the maps to be used for semi-private purposes and in such cases we propose that a nominal fee shall be paid in order to take care of this work.


Thomas Langton Church: Some of the departmental reports are too bulky; they contain too much detail.


Mr. MARTELL:: I am thoroughly in accord with the minister's proposition, but I hope that no legitimate request from any school section or any public body in Canada for a reasonable supply of these maps free of charge will be refused. In the past, school sections have always been supplied with maps when they asked for them, and I feel that the best way to get the youth of the country fully acquainted with the possibilities of Canada is by the circulation of these maps. Such a course, which is calculated to keep our young people at home when they arrive at maturity, is preferable to inducing foreigners to settle in Canada at the public expense. In my opinion one good Canadian is worth fifty foreigners brought in from outside.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
IMr. C. A. Stewart.]
Grant to Alpine Olub of Canada, $1,000.
John Alexander Wallace: Does the minister think we get a thousand dollars worth of value out of this vote?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, I think we do. This club published a great deal of literature. As my hon. friend knows we are spending a considerable amount of money on our parks, and quite a number of people are being attracted to Canada from the continent of Europe and the United States. Some of these people like to climb mountains and the publication of the Alpine Club serves a very useful purpose in that connection. I am told that the greater part of this vote goes to the preparation and publication of the club's report which, from an advertising standpoint, is very useful in attracting tourists to the country and adding to the revenue of our railways. In the main these tourists spend considerable money in Canada and I imagine we are getting a very fair return for the expenditure of this amount.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Seed grain advances-amount required to meet uncollected portions of advances of seed grain made in the western provinces by the chartered banks to holders of unpatented Dominion lands under the guarantee of the Dominion government; also for clerical assistance, travelling expenses etc., $50,000 .
John Millar: We should like to have a little information about this item?


Charles A. Stewart: This is an amount that is needed to clear up the collection of the seed grain accounts. Last year some exception was taken to the vote, but we have to maintain a staff whose duty it is to keep track of and collect from the individuals who still owe for seed grain. As my hon. friend knows in years of stress we do not collect very much, at such times we are not insistent, but we must of necessity maintain a staff to keep in touch with those who owe money and do everything possible to get these outstanding accounts cleaned up. The same thing applies to a vote later on.


John Millar: What progress is being
made in collecting?


Charles A. Stewart: Last year
$268,000 was collected!.


Robert Forke: The minister makes it plain that he is not using any surplus from the wheat pool.


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, no.


Robert Forke: That remains intact.

Supply-Interior


Charles A. Stewart: That is a trust fund.


Robert Forke: I hope it is.


Robert Gardiner: What was the cost of collecting the amount which was received last year?


Charles A. Stewart: The cost was $60,000.


Robert Gardiner: To collect $268,000?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes. That is occasioned by the fact that we do a lot of work for which we get no return. We have to keep a staff. I went into this matter rather thoroughly, because we are endeavouring to cut down our staff wherever we can. We are now collecting the fag ends, which are most difficult to collect. Nevertheless we must keep track and bill every individual who owes us if we are to clean it up.' It costs us twenty-one per cent to collect.


Robert Gardiner: Does the minister send out collectors, or merely bill them?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
think we have any collectors in the field; we just bill them. We have our regular field officers, such as the homestead inspectors, who are once in a while instructed to visit these people and ascertain why we are not getting our money, and recommend, if necessary, drastic action.


Robert Gardiner: Would it not be possible to collect these uncollected seed grain liens through the Soldier Settlement Board, and perhaps do it more efficiently?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not think very much would be accomplished by sending the actual collectors out on the ground. I am rather opposed to any drastic action. Usually honest people will pay upon demand if they are able to pay; and if we find an individual from whom we cannot get any response, then the nearest homestead inspector will visit him and report upon his case. These claims all represent liens upon the land, and I think it would be a mistake to be too drastic in forcing collection.


Robert Gardiner: I do not intend to
suggest taking drastic action in collecting the seed grain liens. I am quite aware of the fact that the people who owe the money to the government are usually not in a position to pay very much on their indebtedness, but the suggestion I made was that, instead of sending out homestead inspectors at; considerable cost, the staff of the Soldier Settlement Board might be utilized.


Charles A. Stewart: I think the
suggestion is a good, one except for the fact that this is largely work done down here in our central office. The bookkeeping, and the billing and, everything in connection with it would all have to be done here. The: mere visiting of the individual who is delinquent is not required in very many cases. It is, however, in some cases; and in such cases our homestead inspector can do it. There would be no reason why the Soldier Settlement official could not do it, except that he would not be very familiar with that particular work.


Robert Gardiner: Could the minister tell how much is outstanding now?


Charles A. Stewart: In the three provinces we have outstanding on principal $3,751,775, and on interest $1,504,996.44, or a total of $5,256,771.44. The $3,000,000 unpaid is the remaining amount of the $18,000,000 advanced.	*


Robert Gardiner: What is the rate of
interest?


Charles A. Stewart: Six per cent is the ordinary rate, and on an overdue account seven per cent.


William Alves Boys: Is $50,000 the full amount now in arrears?


Charles A. Stewart: Oh no. I just gave the amount, $5,000,000 odd.


William Alves Boys: Is that the full amount in
arrears?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, that is all in arrears. There have been no issues recently, so that it is all in arrears just now.


William Alves Boys: What is the total amount
unpaid?


Charles A. Stewart: The amounts are $3,751,775 of principal, and $1,504,996.44 of interest, making a total of $5,256,771.44.


William Alves Boys: The item in the estimates
reads:
Seed grain advances-amount required to meet uncollected portions of advances of seed grain made in the western provinces by the chartered banks to holders of unpatented Dominion lands under the guarantee of the Dominion government; also for clerical assistance, travelling expenses, etc., $50,000.
How is it you can get rid of a liability such as the minister has mentioned by providing $50,000, if it is all overdue?


Charles A. Stewart: This amount is only for the purpose of paying our staff engaged on this work. I might explain that
Supply-Interior

after the item was drafted we changed the wording but when estimates were sent over to the Finance department, through an oversight, they did not adopt our new wording, and it is somewhat ambiguous. This is merely payment for the service of the staff.


William Alves Boys: I would say it is more than
ambiguous. It is absolutely wrong. I am not offering any criticism. It says that it is "to meet uncollected portions of advances", and that is not so. It is just for clerical services and travelling expenses.


Charles A. Stewart: We ask
for $50,000 as an amount required to pay the expenses connected with seed grain and relief collections. They did not adopt that wording, and we did not notice the difference in the wording.


Mr. LEWIS:: I think possibly just a little injustice is done by this department to some of the municipalities and to some of the village councils. The minister said a moment ago that the security of the seed grain liens was upon land, but in some instances, when the grain was advanced to farmers, they also put in as security village lots. Since that time a good many of the farmers have not been able to pay their taxes upon the village lots, with the result that the village lots have been bought by the villages at the tax sales. Now as a result of the seed grain lien still being held upon these lands, they are unable to get title, and are just as badly off as they were before. They bought the lots and I understand application has been made to the minister to release the seed grain liens upon village property, so that the village councils can sell the lots and get the results of the tax sales. But so far there has been no relief, and I ask the minister if he could not give relief to municipalities under those circumstances.


Charles A. Stewart: I am informed that in 1915 when the last redistribution was made, an individual who happened to own village property as well as his farm land, had all the property owned by him placed under the lien. This is something new to me, but I am advised that in many cases where we have ample security on the farm lands, the village property has been released. As my hon. friend well knows, it is not a very good thing to release security until the debt is paid. We have endeavoured to meet legitimate requests for relief where we, of course, are protected ourselves, because we would be subject to a great deal of criticism if we released security and took chances of a loss.

Wherever an individual has farm lands upon which a lien was placed, there would be no objection to releasing the village property provided that the farm land afforded ample security.


Arthur John Lewis: The instances I could cite are these, that the farmer left the land, left the district. He possibly made a small payment on the village lot and then it was put up for sale to meet unpaid taxes. No one bought it, so the village bought it in in order to resell it and it cannot get title to the property until the seed grain lien is removed.


Charles A. Stewart: None of
those cases has been brought to my attention. I would be glad to deal with each of them that might be brought up, upon its merits.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
To cover defalcation of A. C. Oxley, seed grain collector, for amount paid to him by Jacob Schneider in November, 1917, 1334.55.
Mr. McQUARRIE:: Will the minister explain this item?


Charles A. Stewart: This is a
case in which a collector named Oxley received from Jacob Schneider $334.55 as payment for seed grain indebtedness against a certain quarter section. He issued the subagent of Dominion lands' receipt for the money, but the money was never received by the department. Oxley was guaranteed by the Ocean and Accident Company for $3,000. His bond was cancelled on November 8, 1918; that is before we discovered the defalcation. In order to clear the land with the treasury, we have to issue the official receipt and we require this appropriation. We must vote this money.


William Garland McQuarrie: Have proceedings been taken against Oxley?


Charles A. Stewart: He is out of the country and we have been unable to locate him.


Mr. DOUCET:: The defalcation happened before the bond was cancelled. The company must be responsible for the amount even if the defalcation was not detected until the bond was released.
Mr.'STEWART (Argenteuil): The difficulty in this particular case was this. We find in western Canada that even transfers take place with seed grain liens attached. I know of one particular case in my locality which occurred before I came to Ottawa, in which a transfer had taken place and an innocent man was billed for the lien against property that he had purchased from an individual who moved

Supply-Interior
out of the country and went to the United States. A great deal of difficulty was experienced' in straightening that out. This was a case in which the man collected the money, made no return, and his bond had expired before the defalcation was discovered. When we billed Schneider we found that he had paid the money to Oxley and had his receipt. In the meantime Oxley was out of the country, the guarantee company's bond had expired and we had no recourse against the company. It might be inferred that some official should be made to account for this, but it can very easily happen. The only notification we get is when we bill the individual for the money, and in many cases, as my hon. friends who live on farms know, we get no response. This is a case that has happened just in that way.


William Alves Boys: Was the defalcation made during the life-time of the bond?


Charles A. Stewart: I imagine it was.


William Alves Boys: Why would the company not be responsible?


Charles A. Stewart: This happened in 1917, long before my day. I cannot tell the committee why action was not taken against the company, but I doubt if action could be sustained against the company after the expiry of the bond when no demand was made. My hon. friend will know that better than I.


William Alves Boys: I quite agree that it would depend on the wording of the bond no doubt but it struck me that, merely because the bond had expired, that might not be sufficient. This, however, is not a very large item and I will not detain the committee.


John Millar: When did the department
discover the defalcation?


Charles A. Stewart: In 1921.


John Millar: Four years afterwards.


Charles A. Stewart: I am told
that Schneider was billed repeatedly, but never responded, so that the defalcation could not be discovered until he produced the receipt, naturally the assumption in the department being that Schneider owed the money.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Amount required to provide relief by way of necessary supplies of food, clothing, fuel, etc., also fodder for animals, to needy settlers of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan by co-operation and agreement with the provincial governments or otherwise, and under regulations to be made by the Governor in Council, $100,000.
Thomas Langton Church: Somewhat similar conditions have existed in the northern part of New Ontario during the past few years and there was considerable distress which required emergency relief. I would urge upon the government that the principle of this appropriation should be extended from Alberta and Saskatchewan to New Ontario where a good deal of emergency relief is required and the provincial goverment have been responsible for it. New Ontario is a district which has been very much overlooked by this legislature. For example, the government of Ontario have to build their own provincial railway from the Transcontinental up to James bay. This legislature would not give them a grant. In Manitoba this was built by the government of Canada. I am not opposing this grant because no doubt this relief is badly needed and the money is wisely and well expended, but some consideration should be given as regards similar conditions of emergency relief in the northern district of New Ontario.


Charles A. Stewart: It would be well to recite how this comes about. This is not a direct obligation of the federal government. As my hon. friend knows, in Ontario all the resources are owned by the provincial government. In western Canada the resources are owmed by the federal government. This sum represents really 50 per cent of the loss sustained. These obligations were incurred by the municipalities, the municipalities obligating themselves in the first instance. A secondary obligation was by the provincial government, and then an arrangement was entered into between the provincial government and the federal government that where the money was borrowed by the municipalities from the banks and where the municipalities were unable to collect and the banks refused to carry the loan longer, the two governments became liable for 50 per cent of the losses.
That does not mean that the money or some portion of it will not be collected eventually. The two governments are responsible on a 50 per cent basis for the amount that cannot be collected, and the only liability the federal government is assuming is a half responsibility with the province for such sums as might not be collected by the banks who loaned the money to the municipalities in the first instance.
Supply-Interior


Mr. ARTHURS:: I see no difference between the situation as stated by my hon. friend (Mr. Church) and such a situation as might occur in any province where the Dominion owns the land. It is a matter of distress in any event, and I see no reason why the government should assume responsibility for a situation of that kind in Alberta and not in Ontario. As pointed out by my hon. friend, the Ontario government has largely come to the relief of settlers in parts of the province where they are exposed to exactly the same dangers and where they have had in the past at least, precisely the same difficulties, and probably in many instances greater difficulties than have ever been experienced in any of the provinces mentioned by the minister.


Thomas Langton Church: Last fall the Lieutenant Governor of this province, as well as the premier of the province and the Hon. Dr. Cody, former Minister of Education, went over the James bay district. They came in contact with untold distress and witnessed many hardships in that vast hinterland of Ontario where the people are cut off from all communication in the winter. The district is inaccessible, there is hardly any medical attendance which the people can fall back upon, and there are no modem appliances of any kind; but the government of Ontario is doing its part to relieve the situation. And similar conditions exist in northern Ontario. I am not objecting to anything being done for either Alberta or Saskatchewan, but I do urge the minister to consider favourably the case for those settlers in Ontario who are in need of relief. We have in northern Ontario a vast new country which has been left to shift for itself, and no one will settle there. The early settlers in that part of the province faced many privations and they are to-day denied the conveniences which the people in well favoured parts of the Dominion enjoy.


Lewis Herbert Martell: If the Venerable Archdeacon Cody visited the district on a government delegation what was his report?


Thomas Langton Church: I am just asking the minister to let us have equality of treatment for all the provinces in these votes, whidh are supposed to be for the general advantage of Canada and not for the good of any particular province. When one province is given the benefit of the vote, any other .province in which equally deserving conditions exist should be given the same treatment. If there are circumstances that call for relief in Nova Scotia that province is entitled to that relief just as much as the others.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I was not complaining.


Charles A. Stewart: The conditions are not identical as between Ontario and the West. The federal government owns all the lands in western Canada; the provinces do not own a foot of them. The lands in that part of the Dominion come under the jurisdiction of the provinces only when they pass into private hands, and the federal government to-day is getting a revenue from those lands which it is not receiving from Ontario.


James Arthurs: After the lands are preempted, when they come under the control of the settler in the West, the Dominion government has no more control over them than it has in northern Ontario. So that the situations are exactly similar.


Charles A. Stewart: No. In Ontario all your mines are owned by the provincial government; and the forests all belong to the province. That is not the case in the West.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: Are the mines in the West not owned by the provinces?


Charles A. Stewart: No, by the federal government.


Arthur Edward Ross: All?


Charles A. Stewart: Those that have not passed out of our control by sale or otherwise.


James Arthurs: As I undertsand it, this vote is for the relief of distress in certain provinces.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon. friend has not caught my meaning at all. The situation in Ontario is so dissimilar from that in the West that I cannot understand why there should be any controversy on the matter.


James Arthurs: Is this vote, or is it not, for the relief of distress in certain provinces?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, it is for relief of distress, that is true; but the federal government owns the land in the West.


James Arthurs: That makes no difference.


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, well, if it makes no difference I have no argument, I am through. What I was going to say was that as the federal government had an interest in the West, inasmuch as it owned the land, it should go to the rescue of those people. In this case it has not done so.


James Arthurs: Then why the vote of
last year?

Supply-Interior


Charles A. Stewart: For this
reason. The municipalities took upon themselves the responsibility for any losses that might occur, and as the federal government was an interested party we divided the responsibility between the provincial and the federal authorities.


James Arthurs: The minister cannot get
away from the fact that when these lands are alienated from the Crown and come into the possession of the settler they are no longer under the control of the federal government.


Charles A. Stewart: That is
true.


James Arthurs: Therefore they are in
exactly the same position as the lands occupied by settlers in any other province in which the province owns the land. This vote is to provide relief by way of necessary supplies of food, clothing, fuel, and so on, for certain settlers; and as the situation in Ontario is identically the same as that in western Canada there is no reason why the same relief should not be given in the former province.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend must not forget that the homesteaders are included in this list-


James Arthurs: That may be.


Charles A. Stewart: -and they are on property that may revert to the federal government.


James Arthurs: That does not alter the
federal government's position in the slightest. The fact of the matter is that this is really a vote for the relief of the municipalities and not for the settlers; it is for the relief of the provincial governments and the municipalities concerned.


Thomas Langton Church: When was this agreement made with the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, what is the nature of the agreement, and how long is it to continue? Further, how much are the provincial governments contributing per annum?


Charles A. Stewart: The agreement was made in 1920.


Robert Gardiner: Perhaps I can throw
some light on the situation, having been at one time associated with municipal life in Alberta. The federal government gave no assistance to such settlers as held the title to the land they occupied; any assistance it gave to needy settlers was given to those who were on lands held by the Crown. Owing
to the fact that the provincial governments could not pass any regulations whereby the municipalities Could place a lien against the land belonging to the Crown, it became necessary for the federal government to step in and offer some assistance. I can assure the committee that all this assistance was given to people who occupied Crown lands and consequently it was not incumbent upon the provincial governments to come to their aid.


Thomas George McBride: Would this apply to the
Peace river block where 3,500,000 acres of land are owned by the Dominion government?


Charles A. Stewart: It applies
wherever the Dominion government owns any land.


Thomas George McBride: It would therefore apply
to the Peace river block?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


James Arthurs: Can the minister give
us any information regarding the agreement between the two governments? The language of this vote is very comprehensive; it speaks of lan agreement
-with the provincial governments or otherwise.


Thomas Langton Church: What is the significance
of the phrase "or otherwise"?


James Arthurs: It leaves the matter very wide open.


Charles A. Stewart: Well, I was the individual who made the agreement in the first place. The plea I made upon that occasion was the plea I make to-night.


James Arthurs: Why "or otherwise?"


Charles A. Stewart: The wording is somewhat ambiguous, but I hope you will not hold me responsible for all the wording here. There is an agreement between the provincial governments and the federal government. I might read the order in council, but it does not throw any light on the agreement. Briefly, the agreement provides that where relief is needed in the province the money is borrowed from the banks and guaranteed-


James Arthurs: By whom?


Charles A. Stewart: By the municipality in most cases; by the province itself where the territory is not organized. Both the municipality and the province borrow money from the bank and accept responsibility for the administration. The federal authorities come in where there is inability to collect
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loans and the banks refuse to carry the accounts any longer. That does not mean the security upon the land is cancelled. The two governments agree within a reasonable time to recompense the banks in cases where overdue accounts are carried too long. We accept the statement of the provincial government that there is, say, $25,000 to be repaid to the banks, and we pay half and the province pays the other half. It is hoped that eventually this money will be collected. That, in a nutshell, is the agreement.


James Arthurs: When was the agreement made?


Charles A. Stewart: In 1920. It is renewed year by year.


William Garland McQuarrie: What payments have
been made by the federal government on account of the agreement?


Charles A. Stewart: The following is a statement of the sums paid for relief to date:
Alberta- Year 1919-	20	 1920-	21-22		Total Security $595,778 40 385,397 79	50 per cent paid by Dom. $297,889 20 192,698 90
	*981,170 19	$490,588 10
Saskatchewan- 1919-29-21	
1921-22	$163,085 85 34,596 45 94 40	$ 81,542 92 17,298 23 47 20No security (1920)	$197,776 70 2,996 68*	$ 98,888 35 1,498 34$200,773 38	$100,386 69
*Difference between price paid and price charged settlers on fodder.


MUNICIPAL DISTRICTS
[Stage Direction]
Albert a-	Assumed by prov. Paid by Dom.
1919-20	 $491,039 99	$245,519 99
Saskatchewan-
1919-20	 130,372 77	65,186 38
Total paid by Dominion government
Alberta	$736,108 09
Saskatchewan	 165.573 07
[Stage Direction]
Mr. McQUAlRRIE: Has any of this money been repaid to the government of Canada?
Charles A. Stewart: The province of Alberta has repaid up to date $46,090.23, and Saskatchewan $15,336.62, or a total of $61,426.85.


William Garland McQuarrie: What efforts are being made to get this money back? For instance, are you taking the same procedure as

in the case of loans to returned soldiers. These men, I understand, are being continually asked for repayment and threatened with all kinds of dire consequences should thej fail to pay?


Charles A. Stewart: We do not
collect this money; the provincial authorities have that responsibility.


William Garland McQuarrie: What are they doing?


Charles A. Stewart: They are
trjdng to collect it,


William Garland McQuarrie: In what manner?


Charles A. Stewart: I cannot give my hon. friend particulars.


William Garland McQuarrie: Does not the minister think he should find out whether the provincial governments are endeavouring to get the money back?


Charles A. Stewart: They tell us they are.


William Garland McQuarrie: What do they say they are doing?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Garland McQuarrie: I think that is a fair question and not a joke. I know it does not seem to be a joke so far as the returned soldier is concerned. I should think it would be the business of the minister to find out what the provincial governments are doing to get back this money. It is hardly sufficient to say, "Well, the provincial governments say they are doing something." We do not know what they are doing. Has the minister made any serious effort to find out what steps the provincial governments are taking to get this money back?


Charles A. Stewart: Surely my hon. friend knows that the provincial governments are responsible for the collection. They report to us every three months what collections they have made. I have not inquired as to what methods the provincial authorities are pursuing, and therefore cannot give my hon. friend the information that he asks for. As to the returned soldiers, please do not blame me; I have nothing to do with the collection of the loans made to them.


James Arthurs: Mr. Chairman, I have every sympathy with the settler in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and I have no doubt that at the time this agreement was made such help was absolutely necessary. But four years have elapsed and this grant is going on from year to year. In other provinces, in northern Ontario and northern Quebec, for

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instance, men are in such circumstances, due to no fault of their own, that they should receive the same treatment. I cannot see why we should not have organizations in those provinces doing similar work. The mere fact that the land in the western provinces is under federal control does not seem to me to make any difference in the circumstances. I would suggest to the minister that he discontinue this grant, or find out why it should be continued from year to year.


Charles A. Stewart: We are not continuing it.


James Arthurs: You are, apparently, by
this vote.


Charles A. Stewart: That is not correct.


James Arthurs: There is a vote of $100,000, and there is already, according to the minister's own figures, $750,000 outstanding. It is continued from year to year. At the same time the settlers in the other provinces have no provision made for relief of this kind.


Arthur Edward Ross: I have heard the
word "resources" used quite a bit, and for my own information I would ask what resources has the Dominion in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.


Charles A. Stewart: All the
crown lands and all the timber which has not passed into the hands of private ownership, and all minerals of every character.


James Arthurs: As soon as they pass
into private hands-


Charles A. Stewart: That is a different thing.


Arthur Edward Ross: That is different.
When land passes into the hands of the settler, all the resources in connection with it go too?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


Arthur Edward Ross: And they pass
then to the province?


Charles A. Stewart: Not the
mineral resources, since '98.


Arthur Edward Ross: The land passes
to the individual, and it is then an asset of the province?


Charles A. Stewart: Certainly.


Arthur Edward Ross: So what the Dominion did was to pay a certain amount of
money to the Hudson's Bay Company for the purchase of the land, and the guarantee and obligation for that money fell on the older provinces. There were practically no settlers in these districts except a few brought in by the Hudson's Bay Company.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend is perfectly right. The individual who lives in the Northwest Territories helps to pay his share of the purchase price just the same as the individual living in the older provinces.


Robert Gardiner: So that we can understand the situation, when was that debt actually paid?


Charles A. Stewart: I have not the date with me.


Robert Gardiner: In 1904, I think.


Arthur Meighen: What does the minister mean by saying minerals have not passed since '98?


Charles A. Stewart: The minerals did not go with the grants; they remained the property of -the federal government.


Arthur Meighen: That is only surface rights have passed since '98 to the settlers, but the policy as to releasing instead of selling mineral rights was inaugurated in 1913.


Charles A. Stewart: What I mean is that since '98 the crown grant did not carry the mineral rights with it.


Arthur Meighen: On the general question of the natural resources-


Charles A. Stewart: Don't bring that up now.


Arthur Meighen: I suppose that is as near a solution as it was a year ago.


Charles A. Stewart: I could not give my hon. friend any further information than was given a year ago.


Arthur Meighen: I think that is about
right. It is just where is was a year ago, and two years ago. It is just where it was at the time of the housetop pronouncement that a solution had been found for that question. That was about two years and four months ago, and the solution is still on the housetop.


Charles A. Stewart: This question of the natural resources is bound to be a matter of very great controversy, and I think my hon. friend knows that as well as anyone.
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Arthur Meighen: I never announced a solution.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend is very discreet.


Arthur Meighen: I hope the minister will
underline that remark of his in Hansard and hand it to the Prime Minister to-morrow.


Charles A. Stewart: I think he understands that.


Arthur Meighen: He ought to; he has had enough lessons.


Robert Gardiner: I would like to ask a question of the minister with reference to a communication I received recently from southern Alberta, where in certain parts of the province the land is of such a quality that it is almost impossible for the settlers to make a living and stay there. In the first place the Dominion was responsible for bringing these settlers on to that land. These settlers have spent the last ten or fifteen years of their fives there trying to make a living on that land, and the communication I received asked if there was any possibility of the government coming to their assistance by paying the transportation expenses of their moving out, that is, taking their stock and implements to some other part of the province where they could start operations on land that might possibly yield them a living. I put that before the minister and would ask him if there is any possibility of giving assistance to these settlers. I would call the attention of the House to this important fact:	So far as the province is concerned, they have no responsibility at all, for these settlers went in there at the direction of the Dominion authorities, and we maintain that to all intents and purposes the federal government is responsible for settling them on this land on which they cannot make a living.


Charles A. Stewart: For a period of two or three years there was a sum of money granted by the provincial and federal authorities for moving these settlers out, but no request has come to me officially within the past two years for a continuation of the grant. There was an attempt made to make it possible for these people to take up new homesteads in the northern portion of the province, and some assistance was given, but not to any very great extent. Like many other problems it is very difficult to work out.

That was the report to me of the Minister of Agriculture from the province of Alberta, and as I say, I have not been notified by the provincial authorities that there was any further interest in that direction.


Robert Gardiner: The information I received did not. come from the provincial authorities, but direct from the settlers themselves. I should like to know if the minister would be inclined to favour such a proposal again. I would point out to the House this very important point, that we are spending millions of dollars each year to bring people in here from other countries. Now we have brought here these settlers of whom I speak and they are settled on land they cannot make a living upon, and I ask would it not be better for this parliament to vote money to aid these settlers already on the land, who are experienced and are of much more value to Canada than the new settlers we are spending millions of dollars each year to bring in. I think some effort should be made at least to pay or assist in paying the transportation expenses of these settlers, so that they can move somewhere else where they can rent or buy land and start fife over again. I think the money would be well spent, even if it was taken out of the immigration estimates. I think it would be better spent in that way' than in bringing in the people we are getting at the present time.


James Arthurs: Is there any portion of
this amount for the relief of returned soldiers, or is that chargeable to the Soldier Settlement Board?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
think any portion of this would be for returned soldiers, because that is an obligation directly of the Soldier Settlement Board and the federal government. I would not like to be absolutely definite on that point.


Robert King Anderson: Is there no obligation
on the part of the provincial governments to return this money to the Dominion government, provided they do not collect from individual settlers? Is there not a term in the agreement that compels that?


Charles A. Stewart: The agreement provides for our half of the advance upon collection, but there is no obligation on the part of the provincial government to return the money if they cannot collect it. But as I pointed out, all these advances are made upon the security of land, and the obligation remains against the land.

Supply-Interior


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister say the agreement of 1920 bound the government for 1924-25?
Mr., STEWART (Argenteuil):	No, only
for one year.


Arthur Meighen: Only for one year?


Charles A. Stewart: Just for one
year.


Arthur Meighen: The piinister simply
found the terms fair, and has carried them on year after year himself since?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, that is correct.


Arthur Meighen: It is a pity we have
not decided some other things. May I ask what is the present condition of the immortal, the historic Hoppe leases? Are they still reserved or has the government done any bedevilling in that situation?


Charles A. Stewart: I think hon. members will recollect that last year the Hoppe leases were put under control of parliament.


Arthur Meighen: They are still there?


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
know how they would get away.


Arthur Meighen: I have heard rumours,
that is all.


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, yes, I
have heard those too. I believe our names are connected in rumours of that character.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
George Newcombe Gordon: There is still an item
of $8,000.


Charles A. Stewart: That stands at the request of the ex-Minister of Finance. It has to do with the Chicago drainage matter and I prefer to let it stand until the hon. member is in his seat.


Arthur Meighen: May I ask if the $1,000
vote to the Alpine Club went through without any protest from the member for La-prairie and Napierville (Mr. Lanctot) and the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster)?


George Newcombe Gordon: Without any question.


William Garland McQuarrie: In regard to the vote
of $8,000-


George Newcombe Gordon: That has not been
called; it stands.


William Garland McQuarrie: I know it is standing
in order that the return of correspondence may be seen by the ex-Minister of Finance. I made inquiry last night in regard to the matter and the minister's secretary stated we would get it to-day. I should like to have the fde so as to go through it.


Charles A. Stewart: The file is
here and contains the correspondence with the exception of a despatch to which we have not had a reply.


William Garland McQuarrie: I have been trying
to get it and have not been able to locate it.


Charles A. Stewart: My recollection is that the Prime Minister placed the file in the custody of the Clerk of the House There is, as I pointed out to the committee, one despatch that has not been brought down for the reason that we have not had a reply to it.


Arthur Meighen: The correspondence
brought down that I saw was only up to a long time ago. It was not a bit of value at all-much like nearly all that is brought down, sketchy and patchy. I do not know that it was patchy up to t'he time it ceased, but it ceased long ago. The correspondence brought down is certainly not up to date in connection with the Chicago drainage canal


Charles A. Stewart: I had something to do with looking into the correspondence before it was brought down and the officers concerned were instructed to include in the return everything except two despatches. There are not more than two- perhaps only one-that have not been brought down. If they were not included in the return it is not the intention of the department to withhold them.


Thomas Langton Church: Has the government communicated with the British authorities on this subject?


George Newcombe Gordon: The minister has informed the right hon. leader of the opposition as to that. The item is to stand; it is not to be debated to-night.


Thomas Langton Church: We should like to have all the correspondence bearing on the subject.


George Newcombe Gordon: This item has not
been called. It is not proper to discuss it at present, it still stands for debate.
Crowsnest Pass Agreement


Thomas Langton Church: The country is far from
satisfied that the government have taken a proper attitude in this matter. It is pretty nearly time they did take a firm stand.


George Newcombe Gordon: I again remind the
hon. gentleman that the item has not been called. Is it intended to proceed further in committee of Supply?


Arthur Meighen: I think we have done
very well to-night.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does the right hon .gentleman not wish to go on?


Arthur Meighen: I think we have done
very well. We have got through with the estimates of two departments practically.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 11.10 p.m.
Friday, June 6, 1924