1924-03-17

GRAND TRUNK GRATUITIES

[Stage Direction]
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals): As I promised the other day, I beg to lay on the Table of the House the evidence and the report of the Royal Commissioner in the matter of an inquiry into the circumstances re payments made by the Grand Trunk Railway Company to its officers, directors, and so forth.

Home Bank Investigation
HOME BANK INVESTIGATION On the Orders of the Day:
Sir HENRY DRAYTON (West York):: I desire first to congratulate my right hon. friend (Mr. Mackenzie King) upon the renewed evidence of health and upon his being back with us again. I would ask him whether he is laying on the Table to-day the amended order of reference in connection with the commission which is to investigate the Home Bank affairs.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I thank my hon. friend for
his kind personal reference. I had anticipated that he might possibly ask the question he has and I therefore brought with me a copy of the order in council referred to, and which I will now place on the Table. I might read to the House the concluding paragraph of the order which refers to the extent to which the scope of the commission has been amended:
The Committee ot the Privy Council therefore advise that the powers of the Commissioner under the said order in council be not limited to the specifio years 1915, 1916 and 1918 referred to in the petition of the depositors, but should extend to an investigation of the affairs of the said bank during the whole interval between the issue of the bank's charter and the failure of the said bank, including any representations made to the government of the day, as to its condition, any action taken by any of the Ministers of Finance upon such representations as may have been made, and the effect on the position of the depositors of any audit under Section 56A of the Bank Act if made at any time in consequence of such representations.	...	,
In view of additional representations which have been made to the government that at divers times while the said bank was in existence deposits were made and afterwards withdrawn by various depositors, under conditions which might require explanation, the Committee of the Privy Council further advise that the attention of the Commissioner be especially directed to this feature in the course of his investigation.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I would ask my right hon. friend whether this now represents the final attitude of the government, or whether the government is still open to receive suggestions. One of the chief complaints made in connection with this bank is that the bank ought never to have received a charter. That whole inquiry is shut off by this investigation. The inquiry, therefore, cannot serve a useful purpose, if we have regard to one of the chief essentials upon which the country ought to be advised, not only in connection with the position of the Home Bank, but as regards what proper safeguards ought to be taken in connection with the incorporation of such institutions. I hope this is not a final delivery.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This is the first time I have heard it suggested that the government should go beyond the period at which
the bank was created to inquire into its affairs; but the government is always ready to receive suggestions and to consider them carefully..



ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. ROBERT FORKE (Brandon):: I also wish to extend my congratulations to the Prime Minister on his return. I think we are all glad to see him again. I wish to ask the government the following question: Whether it is a fact, as stated in the press, that the government has already appointed a national committee to study the St. Lawrence great waterway project. If so, will the government give the House information as to the personnel and terms of reference of the committee alleged to have been appointed?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I thank my hon. friend
for his opening word. I am not less pleased to see him again. I also anticipated that the question which he has asked might be asked, and I have brought to the House the correspondence relating to the deep waterway project on the St. Lawrence. As hon. members of the House observed, the correspondence was given out at Washington on Friday night, but it was not given out at Ottawa. The explanation of that circumstance is to be found by reference to the concluding paragraph of the despatch which was sent from Ottawa to Washington and which reads:
It is suggested, subject to the concurrence by telegraph of the United States government, that this correspondence be released on the night of Friday .the 14th instant, for publication simultaneously here and at Washington on the morning of Saturday the 15th instant.
Unfortunately, no telegram was received at Ottawa from Washington until Saturday morning, and in the absence of a telegram, concurring in giving out the correspondence on Friday night, the officials of the government did not feel justified in giving out the correspondence on this side.
In regard to the question which my hon. friend has asked as to the national committee, I can perhaps best answer him by explaining in a word exactly what is said in the correspondence. We have agreed that the engineering board which originally investigated matters be enlarged in accordance with the recommendation which was made by the International Joint Commission that considered the matter. The original board had two members, one Canadian and one a citizen of the United States. We have agreed for purposes of further inquiry to the enlargement of the
St. Lamence Waterway

board to six, three Canadians and three from the United States. The American government have agreed with us to this enlargement. In intimating to the American government that we were willing to enlarge the board in this way, we intimated that the government intended appointing a national committee to advise the government itself on various aspects of this important national question on which the government should be fully advised. When the Americans received our report, they intimated to us in reply that they also would appoint a national committee, and they suggested that our national committee and their national committee should meet together t'o decide what questions were to be referred to the enlarged joint engineering board. We intimated in our reply that to adopt that course would be to change the complexion of the national committee in a manner which would make it an international committee rathe: than a national committee; that we had intended our national committee to be distinctively for the purpose of advising our own government, not for other purposes, and we suggested, therefore, that for the present at least the American government should follow the suggestion which we originally made of appointing one or two representatives to confer with one or two representatives from our country to decide upon the questions that were to be referred to the enlarged joint engineering board. Our American friends have accepted that suggestion, and we are now awaiting the nomination of representatives from the government of the United States to meet with representatives of our government to decide on the questions that are to be referred to this enlarged joint engineering board. Two or three of those questions have already been set forth in the exchange of correspondence which has taken place. In addition, our government has appointed an inter-departmental committee composed of members of the Civil Service to accumulate information relating to this important project in its different bearings, to advise and'inform the government on matters that they think are important for consideration, also if so desired, to advise the national committee when it is formed.
I notice in the press that the impression seems to have gone abroad that while the United States government has appointed a national committee of representative citizens, we have appointed only a committee composed of members of the Civil Service. Our national committee has not been appointed as yet. It will be appointed in due course, and will be for the purpose of advising the 
government on various aspects of this question of great national concern. The committee that has been referred to in the press as an advisory committee to the government, is the smaller departmental committee which I have already spoken of, and of which Colonel Biggar, the government counsel, has been appointed chairman. On that committee there is a representative from the Departments of Railways and Canals, Marine and Fisheries, Interior, Public Works, Trade and Commerce, and Finance. Those six officials will form a small inter-departmental committee to sift information that is already in the possession of the government and to take any suggestions that are likely to be of service and of help to the larger committee which will subsequently be appointed.


Mr. MACLEAN (York):: Will the national committee have really more to say than the government in the report to be made by the joint committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The final say will rest with the government. The national committee will be advisory to the government.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Mr. Speaker,
arising out of what my right hon. friend has just said, the final solution of the question will depend to a great extent upon the manner in which these different subjects are left to the engineering committee. Am I to understand that this national committee is to have the sole responsibility of settling the different questions for reference? I should have though: that as what is to be left for inquiry and the manner in which it is to be left, really goes to the meat of the whole question, it ought to be submitted to this House.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government will appoint representatives to meet the representatives of the United States to decide what questions are to be referred to the enlarged engineering board. In that way the government will be able to control the subjects that are to be covered by the reference.
It is contemplated that the enlarged joint engineering board may take a little time to do its work, and during the interval other questions may be referred to it as may seem advisable, either upon representations of the inter-departmental committee, or of the national committee, or which may come to the government from any hon. member of this House. The government will be prepared to accept full responsibility both for what may and what may not be submitted.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I wanted to
find out whether the questions would be submitted to the House.

The Address-Mr. Guthrie


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No action
which will in any way finally bind the country will be taken without full reference to parliament.



RURAL CREDITS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. ALFRED SPEAKMAN (Red Deer):: Has the government received a report from the commissioner or commissioners appointed last year to investigate the question of rural credits? If so, when may we expect this report to be laid upon the Table?


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance):: As soon as the report is received
it will have the consideration of the government.
CIVIL SERVICE BONUS On the Orders of the Day:


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (East Calgary):: In view of the report in the daily press that the bonus to the Civil Service will be discontinued, and inasmuch as this has caused a great deal of disturbance among the postal workers, I would ask the government if they have so decided; and, in that case, if we may expect an immediate revision of salaries in which the bonus will be taken into account?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government's intentions with respect to the bonus will be made quite clear as soon as the estimates are presented to parliament. The estimates have been ready for the past week or so and will be placed on the Table just as soon as the debate on the Address is concluded.


Mr. McQUARRIE:: I was going to ask a
question on the same subject.



THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH ADDRESS IN REPLY

[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Mr. Kelly for an Address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his Speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Sutherland, resumed from Friday, March 14.
Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (South Wellington) :: Mr. Speaker, may I be permitted m the first place to associate myself with those congratulations which have proceeded from this side of the House to my right hon. friend the Prime Minister upon his return to this chamber in renewed health, strength and vigour, if we may judge from his appearance to-day? Let me assure him that during his
absence, under the genial leadership of the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Graham), we have conducted ourselves, I think, with due diligence and with due dignity. I doubt if a better choice could have been made for Acting Prime Minister than the Minister of . Railways and Canals. His genial disposition, his uniform good nature, coupled with his long parliamentary experience, made him an ideal Acting Prime Minister, and if we have conducted our proceedings aright, great credit is no doubt due to him for it.
I regret very much the absence from the chamber this afternoon of my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). I believe he is unavoidably away from the city.
I heard him in the address which he delivered in this House on Friday afternoon with the greatest of interest, and I had intended today to enter upon a reply to some of the questions which he brought to our attention on that occasion. However, I shall have to proceed in his absence, as I am sure he, of all men, will not charge me with any lack of courtesy in so doing.
What was most noticeable in the speech of my hon. friend the Minister of Justice was not what he said, but rather what he omitted to say. We all enjoy his good humour, his jocular manner, his clever epigrams, but after all I do not think anyone would say that his speech could be called a serious pronouncement by a serious minister upon a serious subject. It was extremely witty, in parts it was brilliant, but the most outstanding feature was its careful avoidance of any discussion of the question which has occupied the attention of the House during the last two weeks and of the business interests of the whole Dominion. A most courteous invitation was certainly extended to him by my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) a few days ago-if not to him, to some minister of the Crown-to state for the benefit of the House and for the information of the country what was the government's intention, what was its real meaning in portions of the language which it adopted in the Speech delivered from the Throne at the opening of this session. It has been said from this side of the House that the Speech from the Throne, on the whole, might be described as an election manifesto, and I do not think this criticism is altogether unreasonable. I do not propose for one moment to discuss the fulsome flattery of itself which the government has seen fit to include in the Speech from the Throne; if it pleases them, let them have the benefit. But the outstanding paragraph in the Speech from the Throne is one which, I

The Address-Mr. Guthrie
-flink, might be fairly described as ambiguous had the Prime Minister himself not under-*aken to remove the ambiguity and to elucidate the paragraph in question. It was assumed from the outset by the official opposi-* tion, and I think, likewise in the Progressive ranks, that the language employed in a certain paragraph in the Speech from the Throne was a direct reference to the government's intention with regard to the customs tariff. I am going to quote the exact language, though it has been quoted on several occasions in the House:
In the opinion of the government, such reduction of taxation as it may be possible to effect should aim primarily at reducing the cost of the instruments of production in the industries based on the natural resources of the Dominion, thereby aiding materially in the development of our natural resources, and through cheapened production, effecting a diminution also in the cost .of living.
Now, that clause as it stands, unexplained, might well refer to a reduction of some direct taxation other than the tax imposed indirectly by the customs tariff. But it has been assumed from the beginning of this debate by this side of the House that the reference in question was to a removal of customs taxation, and my right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) who spoke in reply to my right hon. leader (Mr. Meighen) on the opening day of this debate, made it abundantly clear, lay the justification which he offered for the presence of that clause in the Speech from the Throne, that the intention of the government was to make a reduction of taxation under the customs tariff in regard to the instruments of production.
This is how the matter came up: My right hon. friend the Prime Minister, speaking of the Speech of my right hon. leader, said,- page 31 of Hansard:
The impression he tried to convey to the House was that the Speech from the Throne was not the place to mention the tariff.
And then the Prime Minister proceeds to justify the mention of tariff action in the Speech from the Throne, and cites an instance which occurred in 1921, and another in 1897, where an intimation was given in the Speech from the Throne that tariff revision would take place during the ensuing session. There is no doubt, therefore, as to what was in the Prime Minister's mind; there is no doubt what was in the government's mind when this paragraph was inserted in the Speech from the Throne. The Prime Minister goes on and makes it doubly clear when he says again at page 31, in regard to the Speech from the Throne presented to this House in 1897;
That is the wording of the Speech from the Throne by a Liberal administration in 1897. That promise in the Speech from the Throne was implemented. . . and 
the promise made to-day by His Excellency will be implemented.
I think the Prime Minister has made it abundantly clear that the disputed paragraph in the Speech from the Throne is a direct intimation of a reduction in customs taxation, and also that the intimation there given is going to be implemented by legislation during the present session.
I agree with those who take the view that it is not proper to mention any question of tariff reduction or tariff" increase in the Speech from the Throne. I have been a member of the House for a good many years and I cannot recall a single instance in which this has been done. I can see very very grave reasons indeed why it should not be done; I can see no reason why it should be done. During the first session in which I had the honour to sit in this House, a constituent of mine requested me to ascertain if the government contemplated any change in the duty on books, as he expected an importation from the United States. In my innocence I approached the veteran Finance Minister of the Liberal party (Mr. Fielding), who was Finance Minister also at that time, and made the inquiry of him. Why, his very look was most staggering, and I remember well his language; he said: "Guthrie, I would consider myself everlastingly disgraced if I gave anyone any intimation as to the government's action in regard to the tariff before the budget was brought down." That was the principle he maintained throughout his long career, and I am inclined to believe that had he been able to occupy his place in the House at the opening of the present session, had he been able to deliberate with his colleagues in the preparation of the Speech from the Throne, no mention of contemplated reduction in the tariff would have been made. What is the effect of this announcement by the government? Merely to cause hesitation and uncertainty in all business operations which may possibly be affected by tariff changes; merely to cause a halt, lo cause delay; to stop contracts; to create uncertainty in the business world. What would be the effect in a moment if the government stated in the Speech from the Throne that; during the present session they would increase the tax on sugar? What would happen? Think of the speculation which 'would take place immediately in sugar. So it is with agricultural implements: the announcement that a reduction is going to be made has caused great business disarrangement in this country. Farmers will not order, jobbers will not order, manufacturers are fearful of going ahead;

The Address-Mr. Guthrie
they want to know what is going to happen before they enter upon any new engagements.
To my mind, the statement contained in the Speech from the Throne in this regard is a very grave impropriety. I do not believe that under normal circumstances the Prime Minister would have committed the error or have it allowed to be committed. But I believe there was a direct and positive reason why the statement was made at this particular time in the Speech from the Throne. This government is known as a minority government; it has not a majority of the members of the House m support of it-not openly, at all events. The government had to give some positive assurance. which would enable them to secure support from the Progressives in the House from the opening day of parliament; the government could not wait for the budget. Many important questions usually arise in this House ear.y in the session which are voted upon before the budget is brought down, and in order to feel secure from the very opening day the government deliberately placed this improper statement of fiscal policy in the Speech from the Throne-in other words, in order to secure for themselves a certain measure of Progressive support. I will say this on behalf of the government, that while its action looks to me like a very grave impropriety, it is fairly good political engineering. The government was out on a fishing expedition; it was out fishing for Progressive votes, and it determined to bait its hook with Progressive bait, and it thought the most alluring bait would be an announcement of a reduction of the customs tariff on the instruments of production. The government was wise in its preparation and in its arrangements. It had merely to cast its bait upon the water and it immediately landed the leader of the Progressive party.


Robert Forke: A pretty good fish.


Hugh Guthrie: And now I think the Prime Minister can congratulate himself that he has at the present time almost the whole Progressive party in his basket. That was the purpose of putting this tariff statement in the Speech from the Throne. I do not know that my illustration of fishing for Progressive votes is perhaps as apt as the illustration given by my right hon. leader in his opening speech of this session, where he referred to the philosophy of Samuel Butler as expressed in that simple couplet which he placed on Hansard, that-
Round white stones will serve, they say,
As well as eggs to make hens lay.
Such was the homely philosophy of a very ancient rhym,er and philosopher who lived in the days of the Stuart Kings in England. The philosophy is pretty sound to-day. Carrying the inquiry just a little further I wonder which particular member of the government devised this wonderful scheme of the nest egg. Thinking it over last night coming down on the train I thought that probably this scheme had its origin in the fertile mind of our good friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). He is such a joker and he knows something about egg-laying and egg-laying contests. Whoever devised the scheme should be rewarded; it was a good scheme for the purpose. The government took a round white stone as a nest egg, and artfully placed it in the Speech from the Throne with a deliberate purpose, and hardly had the nest egg sentence fallen from the lips of His Excellency the Governor General than the leader of the Progressive party at once began to lay and to cackle. I reside in what may be called one of the more or less rural districts of the province of Ontario, and I know that at this particular season of the year many of the newspaper editors in my part of the country, particularly the weekly newspaper editors, are deluged with callers who produce a big egg. There will be John Smith who brings to the newspaper office a large egg from his Plymouth Rock stock; John Jones brings an egg from his Brahmas, and John Brown brings an egg that one of his Minoreas has laid, and so on. But the country editors in my part of the country and in the province of Ontario generally this spring have all become back numbers. The Winnipeg Free Press has them all "licked a mile" because the leader of the Progressive party on the first day of the session brought into the Free Pre*s office a great white round, meaty egg saying, "Look at the egg that the Progressives have laid for the government on this occasion." I think the government may congratulate itself upon the result of the little device which it adopted to catch the unwary.


Robert Forke: I would like to suggest to the hon. member that a round white stone is better than a rotten egg anyway.


Hugh Guthrie: I am in perfect agreement with my hon. friend that a round white stone is better than a rotten egg, and I do not know anyone in the House who would think otherwise. However, this I am going to say to my hon. friend the leader of the Progressive party:	Now that he and his
party have started to lay and to cackle at the bidding of the present government, why
The Address-Mr. Guthrie
COMMON*
not go a step further? I have been told, and I am sure it is true, that the Progressive group in this House is made up of members of what we call the two traditional political parties in the Dominion of Canada. Formerly they were all either Liberals or Conservatives. They were elected to this House under the name of Progressives, but I have been informed that as we sit here to-day, of the Progressive group probably ninety per cent would have formerly lined up as Grits thoroughly dyed in the wool One man remarked that you had only to scratch the skin of a Progressive and out would come the virus of the Grit. Well, why do they not come out in the open? Why do they not do as two of their number did last session, cross the floor of the House and openly support the government? Why not go across the floor and lay and cackle and roost in the old Grit henhouse instead of trying to keep up the illusion any longer? What interests me is to know what that large body of Conservative voters who voted for these hon. gentlemen at the last flection will think of it. I know how it was in my own riding. In several townships "practically every Conservative and every Grit voted for the Progressive candidate. Tiiey thought that they were voting for a man who had grown sick and tired of the two old political parties, and that the Progressives were launching out on a new movement for themselves. They desired to elect a man who had some class consciousness as a farmer, and they voted almost solidly for the Progressive candidate. They came so near to defeating me that I did not know the actual result for a while, but I managed to get in by a somewhat narrow majority. I wonder what the tens of thousands of Conservative farmers throughout the Dominion of Canada think, who voted at the last election for the Progressive party when they see them practically pledging their support to their old Grit friends-and before veiy long I predict that you will see them going over bodily to their old party allegiance.
Passing for a moment from that branch of the subject, I would like to touch upon one or two of the more outstanding remarks of my friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). His first criticism was directed against my right hon. friend and leader for what he called his pessimistic view of the country's situation and his lack of anything in the nature of a constructive suggestion or of constructive leadership. It is not the part of the leader of the opposition to for-

mulate the policies of the country. Such is the work of the government. A great leader in this House, the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier, said upon one occasion in this House that
the first duty of an opposition was to oppose, to scan narrowly and to criticize. It is the prime duty of the government to bring forward to the House constructive legislation. Does the criticism come well from the lips of my hon. friend the Minister of Justice when he says that the leader of the opposition has failed to propose constructive legislation? Has he to do more than glance over the record of his own party during the last two and a half years to realize the utter lack of anything in the nature of constructive legislation which has been brought to the attention of parliament by this government? Do you think, Mr. Speaker, that the wheat board fiasco, that legislation of two years a'go could be considered as a piece of real constructive legislation? Would the Minister of Justice, the first law officer of the Crown in this country, commend that legislation as a fair sample of the constructive work of this government? Would he be inclined to boast of the legislation of last session in regard to the regulation of lake freights? Is he proud of the grotesque situation which arose last autumn when the people of this country were actually humiliated by this government telling foreign ship owners that they could violate the laws of Canada? Is that constructive legislation of which the Minister of Justice would be inclined to boast? Has there been any constructive legislation, think you, in connection with the Labour department of this government? It is a strange commentary to make on the administration of that department, that upon three separate occasions in two short years this government has had to call out the military forces of this country to overawe labour men down in the Maritime provinces. Does that constitute constructive legislation, I would, Mr. Speaker, like to ask the Minister of Justice?
What constructiveness has the government displayed in regard to the movement of population from this country to the United States? Has it suggested anything, has it devised any means to stop it? Has it originated any scheme which it is submitting to parliament to try to remedy that evil? It is an evil, and more than an evil, and it is a most melancholy thing to contemplate, but perhaps the most melancholy thing presented to us is to be found in the trade reports furnished by this government when, in order to magnify the figures of the total

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export trade of this country, it includes in its statement of exports $9,699,000 worth of settlers effects, the goods and chattels of people who are actually leaving the country. Does not that statement in the export returns of the country tell its own story? "Oh," but you say "there are the imports of effects of settlers who have come in." Yes, but for just one-half the amount, $4,640,000. I am taking these figures from the January statement published on the authority of the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Exports of the effects of settlers going to the United States in the same period, $9,699,000. These figures furnish a sorry tale. What constructive legislation does the government propose in regard to that matter? Is the exodus from this country one of the monuments to its skill, is it one of the monuments to its constructive activity, is it something to boast of? No, Mr. Speaker, rather to be ashamed of, I would say.
I only mention these matters as a few instances of. the government's misdirected activities. But the one, I think, of which the Minister of Justice was most proud, the one he was inclined the most stoutly to defend, was what we knew, or what we once knew, in this chamber, as the Halibut treaty. Now, no one knows so well as does the Minister of Justice that to-day there is no Halibut treaty in existence. There was a proposal for a treaty at one time. A proposal is one thing, and a treaty is another thing. That proposal has not been ratified by the Senate of the United States, and until it is ratified by that body it does not become a treaty. It is true that the Minister of Justice, speaking on Friday afternoon, said he had reason to believe that at some time in the near future the Senate of the United States would ratify the treaty; but how my hon. friend can view it as a government achievement, can refer to it as a piece of constructive legislation, can boast of it, passes my comprehension or the compehension of anyone who understands the real situation in regards to the Halibut proposal. There is no such thing as a Halibut treaty in existence to-day. There is merely a proposal now before the Senate of the United States in that respect.


Mr. MARTELL:: That is special pleading.


Hugh Guthrie: When you bring back
a treaty on this question from Washington, then perhaps, I may ask to have my special pleading removed from the record.
There is another statement I wish to allude to. It is a statement contained in the speech of the Prime Minister, to be found on page
35 of Hansard. The Prime Minister was criticizing the speech of the leader of the opposition and he used this language:
In the course of his speech he touched on some matters that appear in the Speech from the Throne, but he ignored other very important matters. He said nothing of what this government has done to reduce the public debt, to lessen taxation, and to effect economies in the public service-of these things my right hon. friend never said a word.
I was a good deal put about when I heard that language used in this chamber, and I did not know whether to feel guilty myself or not. I had during the parliamentary recess on one or two occasions made speeches, and in those speeches I had deliberately stated that this government had increased the net debt of Canada, and also had increased the direct taxation. Consequently I was considerably nonplussed when I heard this statement of the Prime Minister on the opening day of the debate, and the following day I went down to the Finance department to find out just where the mistake arose. I got the figures from the Deputy Minister of Finance, and I found that I was not very much astray in my statement, but that the suggestion of the Prime Minister-because that is all I can call it, it was not a positive statement-was entirely wrong, and that my figures were absolutely right. The figures which were given to me by the Deputy Minister of Finance were as follows: On the 29th February, 1924, -that is a few days ago-the total net debt of Canada was $2,419,162,174.71. I then turned to the public accounts of this country to know what the net debt of Canada was when the late government gave up office in December, 1921, and at page 48 I found the net debt at the end of the fiscal year 1921 was $2,340,878,983.69. Thus, by a simple process of subtraction one finds whether or not this government has increased the net debt. If reliance can be placed upon the official figures which I have obtained from the department the difference is $69,000,000 of a net increase in round numbers.


Mr. BELAND:: Did my hon. friend
give the figures for the net debt at the end of the fiscal year 1921-22 as over two billions?


Hugh Guthrie: The figures are $2,340,-
878,983.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Are you quite sure of your figures?


Hugh Guthrie: I am only taking them
from page 48 of the Public Accounts laid on the Table by the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Fielding) in the year 1922.
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Henri Sévérin Béland: I have secured some figures from the Finance department which show the net debt on March 31, 1922, was $2,422,000,000. [DOT]


Hugh Guthrie: I am giving it at the end of the fiscal year: At the end of the fiscal year, 1922, the amount was $2,422,135,801.


Henri Sévérin Béland: That is the debt for which the previous government is responsible.


Hugh Guthrie: For nine months of that year I think we were responsible, and for three months we were not responsible, and this computation does not take into account at all a sum, which I believe is $8,000,000, which has recently come to this country, and which really should have gone to the credit of the former government. It has been paid recently, but paid by the British government as a settlement of a disputed item of exchange. It should have gone to the credit of the former government, though the payment was delayed, and this government is now taking credit for that amount.
Then, turning to the question of the taxation of the country, my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) dealt with that question rather fully the other night, and he laboured to show that, in regard to taxation, Canada was really the most leniently taxed country in the whole British Empire. I think, however, that my hon. friend's figures in regard to taxation were somewhat misleading. In giving the figures for Great Britain and New Zealand, I think he gave the figures which represent the total per capita taxation of these countries. Then when he came to Australia and Canada he gave only the per capita taxation based upon Dominion taxes. In other words, so far as the Dominion of Canada was concerned the figures given by the hon. Minister of Justice on Friday night represented Dominion taxes only.
But we all know that in this coun-
4 p.m. try we have, in addition to Dominion taxes, provincial taxes, in some instances very heavy, and likewise municipal taxes, in many instances very heavy. I do not know that anyone can supply the exact figures pertaining to Canada at the present time,, but it must be pretty generally understood that taxation per capita of a citizen of this Dominion who resides in the province of Ontario is well over the hundred-dollar mark, whereas in the figures given by my hon. friend the Minister of Justice on Friday night he stated that taxation for the Dominion of Canada to be $36.67. I am sure, from the figure given that he has included Dominion taxation only. But what
[ Mr. Guthrie]
is the point in his remarks? He was criticizing my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) because he had stated that the taxation in the Dominion of Canada under the late government was low. What has this government done to change it? Have there been any decreases in taxation during the last three years that anyone can point out? I am referring to direct taxation. We know of several increases in direct taxation, such as the increase in the sales tax, the increase in the cheque tax, and the adoption of a receipt tax. These are all increases. What can the government point to, or what could the Minister of Justice point to if he were here, in the way of decreases? And the good showing he was able to make in the figures he submitted to the House on Friday afternoon last was entirely to the credit of the preceding government. Any action in the matter by the present government has been to increase, and in no case has it been to decrease, the amqunt of direct taxation per capita upon the citizens of the Dominion.
There is another point which I would like to take up with the Minister of Justice, if he were here, upon which we cannot agree. I have tried to verify my figures-and I hope his figures will stand a similar examination-but there is a great discrepancy between us. I refer to his statement in regard to commercial failures in Canada. The Minister of Justice said that mercantile failures in Canada had decreased fifty per cent last year. He did not give any figures. I had before me statistical returns as sent out by Dun and Company, a recognized commercial agency in this country, whose reports are generally accepted as reliable. What do they show? I will take the whole period during which the late administration held power, the years 1918, 1919, 1920 and 1921. In that period Dun and Company report a total of 5,157 mercantile failures, for liabilities involving $110,000,000. Then I take the two years during which this government has held office, 1922 and 1923, and I find the total failures 6,942 and the total liabilities $129-000,000. Still, my hon. friend the Minister of Justice stated that this year showed a decrease of fifty per cent over last year. It may be that he was misled by Dun and Company's report. If he takes eleven months of last year-in the latest chart the month December 1923, is not included-he would find the total liabilities were fifty per cent less than the total liabilities of 1922, but he will not find it if he takes the whole year and if he takes the total number of failures from Dun and Company he will find the figures which I have just now included in my remarks.

The Address-Mr. Guthrie
Another matter I wish to refer to is the question of the building of ships at Victoria during the year 1919. A rather severe attack was launched by the Minister of Justice in his speech on Friday against his predecessors in power in regard to the expenditure of money on the Pacific coast in the year 1919 or the year 1920. By his remarks he left a very clear inference on the minds of hon. members in this House that this expenditure was authorized and proceeded with for the purpose of assisting in a by-election then pending in that province. Now, the by-election was that of our good friend the hon. member for Victoria City (Mr. Tolmie), who joined the government of Sir Robert Borden in September 1919. The by-election took place in that month. But the shipbuilding contract was not launched until December, 1919. It could have no reference to the by-election. It had no reference to the by-election. Why was it done? The year 1919 was a very difficult year in this country for any government. The armistice took place in November, 1918, and within twelve months of the armistice we had brought back to this country probably
400,000	soldiers who had been performing their duties as soldiers of the Empire for one, two, three, or in some cases, four years. The question of unemployment was a very serious one; it was one with which the government had to grapple, and the government deliberately set about grappling with that question. In some cases, we paid out money by way of doles. In some cases, we provided work. Great expenditures were undertaken solely for the purpose of giving employment, particularly to returned soldiers. A great many soldiers, on their return to Canada, went straight to British Columbia. British Columbia, after the war, received more soldiers than she had contributed to the war, and labour conditions in the city of Victoria in December, 1919, were rather serious. The question was: Should the government pay out doles to the unemployed, particularly to the soldiers, or should it furnish them with work? The question at once arose: What work could be given them? It was decided that it would be better to build ships to provide necessary labour than to take any other course. The soldiers themselves approved that course; they wanted work, not doles. It was decided, therefore, to build at Victoria four wooden ships. Wooden ships were decided upon after some disagreement, and after much consultation. The Minister of Justice, (Mr. Lapointe) on Friday afternoon read a letter from the Hon. C. C. Ballantyne, at that time Minister of Marine
and Fisheries in the former government. In that letter, Mr. Ballantyne stated very plainly that he was opposed to the construction of wooden ships; that he had opposed this method of construction from the beginning. That is true. That letter was written in March or April, 1920, following the order given in the preceding December; but I am not transgressing any rule nor making public any secret when I say that Mr. Ballantyne was always opposed to a programme of building wooden ships; he advocated steel ships. The difficulty was this as regards building steel ships at Victoria, that a very large part of the work would have to be performed either in Nova Scotia or in the United States. The unemployment was at Victoria. Wooden ships would require labour right from the forest where the trees stood until the ships were finally completed. I know it was said by some that the days of wooden ships were over; I know it was argued that wooden ships would never again pay; but we had a very strong opinion from the veteran Finance Minister of the Liberal party (Mr. Fielding) upon that question, which is to be found at pages 350-351 of Hansard of 1918, when a discussion took place in regard to steel and wooden ships. In that speech the Minister of Finance said:
There has been in the past, and I believe there will be in the future, quite a demand for wooden ships of the smaller class. I believe the conditions that will exist at the close of the war, and for some years after the war, will be such that there will be large opportunity for the wooden shipbuilders of the country to engage in their enterprise. So that I feel that, in giving the preference to steel ship building as the hon. minister is doing, there is no danger of any injustice being done to the wooden shipbuilding industry. I believe that industry will flourish for some years to come without any particular aid from the government.
That was an opinion expressed when the matter was under discussion in parliament, but that opinion was backed by assurances of various men both in and out of the cabinet which then existed. An agreement was finally come to with a shipbuilding company at Victoria for the construction of four wooden ships, in the construction of which certain classes of returned soldier labour were to be employed. Unfortunately the government made a contract with a company which subsequently got into financial difficulties. The government agreed to advance $175,000 per ship and the company was to finance the balance, the government taking a mortgage on the ships for the amount. The company went into liquidation; it was wound up in the courts of British Columbia. The government was left with its contract not a quarter completed, with material unpaid, unpaid labour
The Address-Mr. Guthrie

bills, and unpaid board bills for some of the soldiers who had not received their wages. The government was compelled to take over the plant and ships, and took also the loss which the minister stated to the House on Friday afternoon. Were we right or were we wrong? Was it better to employ that labour or to pay the money out in doles? One or other course had to be taken. We employed the labour; we made a loss; but saved the unemployment situation as it existed at the time at Victoria, and I doubt very much if we would have got out of it any more cheaply had we decided upon the payment of doles rather than the employment of men.
But just now, when I speak of returned soldiers, when the Minister of Soldier Civil Re-establisment (Mr. Beland) is in his place, there is one thing that appears to me to be so glaring and shocking in regard to the expenditures of this government which claims to be such an economical government, that I would like to bring it directly to the attention of the minister and the House. I have been handed a statement of the expenditures of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment for the year ended March 31, 1923. It is compiled from the report of that year placed upon the Table by the minister a few days ago and from the Auditor General's report placed on the Table a few days ago. The minister will, I trust, give it his attention and further when the time comes, when his estimates are before the House, I hope he can show that in some respects this statement is inaccurate. I doubt, however, if he can, as I am assured that it has been very carefully prepared. What does it show? It shows that last year the department expended $13,375,134.89. No one would object to that expenditure for returned soldiers, for wounded soldiers, for crippled soldiers, or for their dependents; but when you find that of that total expenditure $6,000,649.30 went to pay official salaries and only $3,065,230.72 went for the maintenance of all the hospitals and $4,309,254.87 for all the pay and allowances to soldiers and their dependents, what do these figures mean when they are divided Up?


Henri Sévérin Béland: Has my hon. friend the figures for the preceding year?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes.


Mr BELAND:: Will he give them to the House?


Hugh Guthrie: I will. What do these figures show? They show that last year, in official salaries, it took over $6,006,000 to supervise the expenditure of $7,000,000, of which

the soldiers received in pay $4,000,000 odd and the cost of all the institutions was $3,000,000 odd. The percentages of expenditure are as follows:
Per cent
For official salaries	 44.87
For administrative charges, maintenance of hospitals, etc	 22.92
Payment to soldiers and their dependents.. 32.21
My hon. friend has asked me to give the figures for the preceding year. I have them. I have the figures also for 1920 and 1921 if they are desired. During the year 1922 there was a total expenditure of $17,818,646.70. Of this amount salaries of officials took $6,921,432.62, or 38.84 per cent of the total.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I know the hon. gentleman wants to be fair. Does he take into consideration the fact that in the year he is now quoting eight hundred officials were paid by the Board of Pension Commissioners, and therefore their salaries are not included in the figures he gives as being the salaries of the officials of that year? Moreover, when my hon. friend says that that amount is paid in salaries and does not go towards the support of hospitals, he is saying, unwittingly I think, something which is not accurate. Salaries include the salaries of all physicians in the hospitals.	*


Hugh Guthrie: I understood that. As it is detailed-


Henri Sévérin Béland: Does not my hon. friend
think doctors may be considered officials?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes. "Official salaries,"
it is called here.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Yes, no "s" after the "1."


Hugh Guthrie: Department of Trade and Commerce. In a single year the imports of agricultural implements from United States increased by $3,716,000 as a result of a 2} per cent cut in the Canadian tariff.
Did anyone in Canada receive any benefit from the reduction? Did the farmers of the East or of the West receive one particle of benefit from that reduction? The opposition pointed out to them at the time that they would not be benefited. Do they now believe they did receive benefit? If so, in what respect, may I ask? Did the producers of Canada get any benefit? Certainly not? Did the workingmen of Canada get any benefit? Certainly not. I think the House will be of one opinion upon these questions and will answer No to all of them. Well then, upon whom was any benefit conferred by this tariff reduction? It was conferred solely and only upon the United States manufacturer and the United States workmen; and upon no one else. It is known by everybody that almost the lowest schedule in our customs tariff is that pertaining to agricultural implements; 10 per cent, 12J per cent up to 15 per cent on plows I believe is the range of duties in the agricultural schedule. To take it away would, in my humble judgment- and my opinion is not based on my own information, but on information that has been given me by men who ought to know-blot that industry out as a Canadian industry; it could not exist. What would be the result if you blotted if out? Men idle, certainly, many thousands of them. What are they going to do. Migrate to the United States, I suppose. Canadian factories closed, Canadian capital lost. Who is going to benefit? Did any Canadians benefit by the 2^ per cent reduction? They did not. Farmers, mechanics and manufacturers were all losers by this instance of tariff nibbling. Prices of implements to the consumer were not reduced; in fact they were increased. Upon this point I can only give the information received from the West by the Prime Minister last year and placed by him, on Hansard, in the shape of an advertisement from a western paper, which says:
We are still in business carrying a full line of International Harvester Agricultural Implements, but regret at this time to have to inform the public that prices on agricultural implements have been slightly advanced since last season, for which we are not responsible.
Advances on some of the more important lines are
as follows:
Binders	 % 8 00
Seeders	
12	00Mower and Rake	
3	50Gang Plow	
6	00Cultivator	7 50
and other smaller lines about the same proportion. 
This advance has been made notwithstanding the fact that we have a Liberal government at Ottawa, with sixty-five Progressives on the job and a Canadian Council of Agriculture in the background, all supposedly working overtime in the interests of agriculture.


Robert Forke: May I ask what paper
that was published in-the Yorkton Enterprise?


Hugh Guthrie: It is a paper published
in Saskatchewan; I ha^e not the name of it.


Robert Forke: I know all about it.


Hugh Guthrie: 
Robert Forke: May I suggest to the hon. member that perhaps he will pick them up himself again some day?


Hugh Guthrie: All things are possible, of course, but at the present moment there does not seem to be any great likelihood of it. I think, Mr. Speaker, that the case of the woollen manufacturers and of the agricultural implement manufacurers at this moment for substantial tariff protection is absolutely unanswerable. I have tried to turn this matter over in my mind, I have examined it with such ability as I have from all points of the compass, to see how it affects this community, or that community, this interest or that interest; but if viewed in regard to its general application to the whole Dominion of Canada, and that is the only fair way of judging, I believe it is a most essential thing for Canada and for the people of Canada to retain these industries working at their fullest capacity. I believe it would be a fine thing for Canada to manufacture all of these woollens in this country and give all this employment in Canada.

The Address-Mr. Guthrie

There is one further remark I desire to make, and in this instance I am going to address myself directly to my right hon. friend the Prime Minister. I remember an amendment which he moved in this House in the session of 1921, and I remember well the political conditions which existed at that time. I was a member of the government at that time which had in the parliament of that day a clear majority of twenty members. The present government,
I take it for granted on a statement I have heard, sits in this House in a minority of at least two; its supporters are a minority of the total membership of this House. The government of this country, in the month of March, 1921, was supported by a clear majority of twenty in this House; I think more, myself, but twenty is the figure stated by the present Minister of Justice in a speech to which I am going to refer. We had in 1920 and 1921,
. as we have had recently, a series of by-. elections in Canada. The government of 1921 was elected towards the end of December, 1917.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, that was
another government.


Hugh Guthrie: The Prime Minister had been changed, that is true. The last general election preceding that was in 1917. In July, 1920, on the retirement of Sir Robert Borden, the present leader of the opposition became head of the government, and that government was supported in this House on that day by a clear majority of twenty. There were signs,
I will admit it, to be gathered from the byelections in the fall and winter of 1920-1921 that the government of the day was losing support in the country. We had had a series of by-elections. I am not going to refer to ministerial elections or ministerial acclamations; we fiad a ministerial by-election down in Colchester which we carried with an enormous majority, and another in St. John, New Brunswick, with a still greater majority.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Is it not the case that in 1917 the so-called Unionist party promised the people that an election would be held immediately after the war was over?


Hugh Guthrie: No.


Lewis Herbert Martell: It was done in my county at any rate.


Hugh Guthrie: I see the situation I am going to portray is a little difficult for hon. members opposite, but here is the situation: There were one or two rather critical byelections in the autumn of 1920. The government carried the riding of Yale in British Columbia by a substantial majority; that was 
a party fight. The government lost a riding in East Elgin by a narrow majority in a three-cornered fight, but perhaps our most spectacular defeat took place in West Peterborough, where the present deputy speaker of the House (Mr. Gordon) carried the election by a very substantial majority. That was also a three-cornered fight, but his majority was substantial. The House met in the February following, and on the opening day of the session the government was met with an amendment to the Address moved by my right hon. friend the present Prime Minister in the following words:
We respectfully submit to Your Excellency that Your Excellency's present advisers do not possess the confidence of this House or of the country, and that their retention of office constitutes a usurpation of the powers of popular government.
That was a direct challange that the government had not the support of the country, and it was perfectly right to make such a challenge. The situation was very similar to the situation which exists in Canada to-day. The hon. member of the House who delivered the most important speech in that debate, and it was a very able argument, though I was not one of his supporters, was my hon. friend tihe present Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). He went into all the precedents on the subject and demonstrated to a conclusion, in the most forcible and cogent way that the government of that day, having regard to the verdict of the by-elections, should cease to govern, and should appeal to the people. Some of his statements I might quote. Here is one, not very complimentary to myself, it is true. At page 461 of Hansard he says:
The third reason in favour of the amendment is that this government is no longer in harmony with public opinion-
That was his reason.
-and has utterly lost the confidence of the country. Indeed, it has not only lost the country's confidence; it has earned its contempt. No government has the moral right to pass legislation under such circumstances. The result of the by-elections cannot be misread; they are bold, definite and unequivocal. The Canadian people have made it clear that they want a new government. They will not let the country pass through two more years of dishonourable history in order to allow a group of political gentlemen to show their consistency in their vices as well as in their virtues, and to gratify the human disinclination of my hon. friend the Minister of Militia (Hon. Mr. Guthrie) to become once more a private man.
The present Minister of Justice then proceeded in support of his contention to cite the late William Ewart Gladstone, a very high parliamentary authority, and a deep student of British parliamentary traditions and practice. He quoted him with great effect. I cannot read the full quotation because there are pages of it, but at page 46?

The Address-Mr. Guthrie
of Hansard he quotes from a speech Mr. Gladstone made in the House of Commons, which will ibe found on page 1126 of the British Hansard. Mr. Gladstone had been Prime Minister of Great Britain and had lost several by-elections by rather large majorities. Although he had a substantial majority in the House of Commons he suddenly dissolved parliament, and at the general elections Benjamin Disraeli was returned as Prime Minister. Many of Mr. Gladstone's friends rather challenged him on the question of dissolving parliament at a time when he had a large majority in the House and Mr. Gladstone's speech in reply is what my hon. friend the present Minister of Justice quoted with absolute approval:
It is repugnant to my feelings, and not compatible with the best interests of the country that a government should continue to govern, even with a numerical majority, when its strength is falling away, and when there are daily increasing evidences that it no longer represents the will and opinions of the constituencies.
Such then was Mr. Gladstone's opinion of the plain duty of a Prime Minister of a government which possessed a numerical majority. What think you, Mr. Speaker, as to the duty of the head of a government which is in an actual minority in the House of Commons and where recent by-elections furnish increasing evidence that the government no longer represents the will and opinions of the constituencies? The question as to whether a government has lost the confidence of the electors can only be determined by the result of by-elections. How else can we judge the question? We determine it by the by-elections. I appeal to my right hon friend the Prime Minister, and ask him what inference what meaning he can take from the recent by-elections? If he has any doubt in his mind as to the true significance of the by-elections, that is another question. If he believes that the country is against him, that a popular majority in the country is antagonistic to him, he has but one clear duty to perform and that is to resign. If he has a real doubt upon the subject then he should be bold enough to appeal to Caesar and submit his record to the people.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If my hon.
friend attaches any significance to his own words, why did his own leader not adopt the course which I took and test the confidence of this country in the government?


Hugh Guthrie: I am just coming to that. That speech of the Minister of Justice was delivered in this House on the second of March 1921. We wound up the session speedily, on the first of June, I think. The 24i
then Prime Minister immediately went to the Imperial Conference as was his duty. As soon as he returned from that Conference, he announced or virtually announced on the second of September at London the dissolution of parliament. He examined the precedents, he considered the citations, he felt the force of the speech which was directed against his government by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister and the present Minister of Justice. He felt that the arguments were unanswerable in view of the results of the byelections, and that by British parliamentary practice, in accord with the best principles of parliamentary traditions in Great Britain, it was his duty to test public opinion by an appeal to the people and he did so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will my hon.
friend tell the House how many vacancies there were at the time?


Hugh Guthrie: I do not remember.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon.
friend's leader was afraid to test public opinion by holding the by-elections.


Hugh Guthrie: That brings me to another question. The government have not the courage to create a single vacancy.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Hugh Guthrie: Why, sir, it is common
talk in the lobbies, it is common knowledge in the country that no vacancy can be created on the government benches to-day save for one cause only, and that is the act of God. There will be no more judicial appointments from the ranks of the Liberal party in this House at the present time. Members of that party may look longingly at vacant seats in the red chamber, but they will not be filled by gentlemen who have seats in this House at the present time. What is the record of the by-elections during the past year? It has been gone over so often that I need not repeat it. It forms a consistent record of want of confidence in the government. Does it not bring conviction to the mind of any man that popular feeling is against this government, that popular opinion is against this government, and that this government lacks the support of the vast majority of the electors of the Dominion. Now, will my right hon. friend the Prime Minister take the manly course, will he take the courageous course, will he take the course which his predecessor took, and make the appeal to Caesar? His government to-day is a minority government-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not agree with my hon. friend.
The Address-Mr. Guthrie


Hugh Guthrie: -not only in parliament but in the country. It has lost its popularity, it does not enjoy public confidence or support-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not at all.


Hugh Guthrie: -if we are to judge by the by-elections. That is a test that was imposed. That is the test which was imposed by my right hon. friend and his Minister of Justice in 1921.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about sectional
appeals?


Hugh Guthrie: I did not quite catch
the meaning of the hon. gentleman's observation.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Two by-elections in three years!


Hugh Guthrie: Will my right hon. friend take the manly course, will he take the courageous course, will he be as courageous as his predecessor in his leadership of the government, will he live up to British precedents and traditions? The Minister of Justice is fond of that word "Liberalism". He rolled it round his mouth so on Friday afternoon on several occasions as a sweet morsel.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Did you never do that?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes I have. What did my hon. friend the Minister of Justice say? He said the first principle of Liberalism is to trust the people. I wish he was here to-day.
I wish I could direct his mind to his argument in 1921, to that splendid speech of his made in this House which I feel convinced the then Prime Minister that he should make an appeal to the country. I wish my hon. friend the Minister of Justice would direct that speech to his own leader to-day. But there the government sit knowing that at this moment they cannot carry a single constituency in the Dominion of Canada-I should perhaps make a few exemptions-knowing that popular opinion is against them, knowing that they are in a positive minority in this House still hanging on to office, hanging on to office against British tradition, against British precedent and contrary to the courageous example set for them by my right hon. friend and leader'who as Prime Minister of this country boldly appealed to the judgment of the electors of Canada in December 1921.


Hon. J. H. KING (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I would join with those hon. members who have taken part in the debate in offering my congratulations to the mover and seconder of the Address. I am sure that both these hon. gentlemen derived a
(Mr. Mackenzie Bang.]
very considerable amount of pleasure in draw-mg the attention of the House and the country to this particular Speech. Because, Mr. Speaker, the Speech covers a large field, a proper field, a field dealing with facts, a field that truly sets forth the position of the government, and that forecasts proposed legislation. The manner in which the Speech has been received in the country generally is remarkable, and the reception accorded to it in this chamber is equally remarkable. We find the official opposition group to-day downcast and dumbfounded. During the time this debate has been under way there has been a studied effort on the part of the opposition not to deal fairly with points raised in the Speech, but to divert public attention from the issues raised by interjecting questions which should properly come up in connection with the discussion of the budget. The Speech has been so disturbing to my hon. friends opposite, that in some cases they have resorted to extreme sarcasm in order to try and weaken its effect. My hon. friend the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) who usually speaks in the most courteous and reasonable manner found it necessary to refer to the Speech in the following terms:
ilie Speech from the Throne has been described as perhaps one of the longest in our history, and I must confess that to me at least it appears to be filled-
I do not wish to he harsh, but still I cannot modify my language any further-with meaningless platitudes. There are recited there a lot of pious hopes, and so very indifferently and indefinitely stated that the result is a state of chaos in the minds of the public generally.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I contend there is no chaos in the minds of the public, or the people of Canada to-day, in reference to the Speech. If there is chaos it prevails in the ranks of my hon. friends opposite. What is the outstanding feature of the Speech that would appeal to the citizen or taxpayer of Canada? What I think would appeal to him as of primary importance is the promise of a balanced budget with a surplus in sight and a reduction of taxation. A balanced budget, I am satisfied, will be very gratifying to the people of Canada. It will probably be more appreciated on account of the insidious campaign that has been carried on by the party press and official leaders and public men throughout Canada during the interval between the last and the present session. It has been represented that Canada was being forced to the dogs by reckless expenditures and policies adopted by this government. But, Mr. Speaker, since the people have been advised of the accomplishments of this government during the short period of their time in office
-that is, successfully balancing the budget, indicating a surplus, and a reduction of taxes -we find that these people and the party press who have been making such representations during the summer are to-day exposed as false prophets and unreliable propagandists. But I can assure you, Sir, that the balancing of the budget has not been an easy or mean task. It has only been brought about by the most careful scrutiny of every item of expenditure. This has been reflected in the department which I have the honour to represent, the department of Public Works, being one department of government which has the largest controllable expenditure. The department, as is well known, has many ramifications throughout the country. It is charged with the responsibility or the taking care of our navigation, and dredging fleets are maintained on the Pacific, the Atlantic, and inland waterways, in order that the channels of our rivers and harbours may be kept clear from debris collected from time to time, and that the commerce of the nation may be carried over our waterways. In addition, we are charged with the construction of wharves and breakwaters, works which are continually exposed to the elements, requiring constant expenditure for maintenance and repair; the construction, repairs, and renewals of public buildings; also the operation, repairs to and renewals of some 14,184 miles of telephone and telegraph lines, 363 miles of cable, 1,342 offices, the service of the department being widespread and general throughout the whole Dominion. During the last few months it has been represented by journals of repute and public men that parliament has seen fit to grant large sums of money to this department, sums not dreamed of before. To the individual member who has been asking for expenditures in his constituency, the facts are well known, but I think it only fair that the truth should also be made known to the taxpayer or the man on the street; and I am of the opinion that the better way to refute the impression that has gone abroad is to take the expenditures that have been made over a period of years by the department, a comparison of the expenditures that the government of the day has thought necessary from time to time to ask parliament to vote, in order that the functions of that department can properly be carried on.
For the sake of comparison, I will 5 p.m. start with the year before the war.
The expenditures for public works were as follows-
The Address-Mr. King (Kootenay)

In regard to 1923-24, our expenditures are estimated for the financial year from knowledge we have in the department, and will amount to $16,115,000. It will be noted that during the years between 1916 and 1923 the expenditures were at the lowest ebb. It is well known to hon. members of this House that public works of importance have been allowed to go into disrepair and decay, and that for a period between 1915 and 1924 there have practically been no public buildings constructed throughout Canada. With the expenditures for the last two years-that is the years this government has been in control-it will be seen they are the lowest of any two years in the ten year period mentioned except for the war years of 1916-17 and 1917-18. I do not pretend that the department has been able to give proper service for the money placed at its disposal, for from personal examination and knowledge I am convinced that there is a great need of expenditures on public buildings throughout Canada. Cities and towns have outgrown the accommodation that was considered adequate ten years ago; new communities have sprung up requiring proper facilities to carry on the government's business; but with this knowledge the government has seen fit to so shape its policy as to refrain from any large new undertakings until the budget has been balanced and a surplus in sight. I am satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that nothing will give more gratification to the people of Canada than the balancing of the budget and following that reduction in taxation. The Speech from the Throne states that such reduction of taxation as it may be possible to effect should aim primarily at reducing the cost of the instruments of production in the industries based on the natural resources of the Dominion. Why should these industries be first, considered? Because they are basic in character, and their successful development makes possible the existence of subsidiary industries. If one will take statistical information relating to these industries he will not fail to be struck by their magnitude and importance to the people of Canada. I asked the statistical department four questions in regard to the four basic industries; that is, the
The
1913-	14.
1914-	15.
1915-	16.
1916-	17.
1917-	18.
1918-	19.
1919-	20.
1920-	21.
1921-	22.
1922-	23.
1923-	24.
374	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. King (Kootenay)
industries of agriculture, lumbering and pulp, mining, and fishing; first the amount of capital invested in each, the annual value of the product, the number of people employed, and the total wages paid. And I shall ask the House to bear with me while I read this statement. I will take first the agricultural industry:
Amount of capital invested, value of land, buildings, implements, machinery and
livestock, 1921	$6,586,648,000
Value of farm products 1922 estimated at. 1,420,170,000
Total wages paid	in 1920, cash	 98,332,000
Board	 33,344,000
Then I will	take the lumbering	industry,
and the figures are as follows:
Amount of capital invested	$189,622,000
The annual value	of production	 179,099,000
Number of people employed	 57,233
Total wages paid	$ 50,857,719
The figures for the pulp and paper industry, which is a basic industry associated with
the lumber industry, arc:
Amount of capital	invested	$381,006,000
Annual value of production	 148,123,000
Number of people	employed	 25,830
Total wages paid	 32,918,000
In the mining indust.y, which includes coal mining as well as metalliferous mining, the
figures are:
Amount of capital invested	$493,694,000
Annual value of production	 184,297,000
Number of people employed	 62,249
Total wages paid	$ 75,026,000
In the fishing industry, the figures are:
Amount of capital invested	$47,764,000
Annual value of production	 41,800,000
Number of people employed	 74,457
Total wages paid in canning and curing establishments	$ 3,641,000
No information available in regard to wages of fishermen.
To consolidate these figures, I am going to give the totals in these four basic industries :
Amount of capital invested	$7,698,214,000
Amount of annual production	 1,973,421,000
Wages paid	 320,480,000
Number of people employed	 1,153,504
' I am sure no member of this House will seriously contend that it is possible by building up a high tariff wall, to bring about an industrial development which will absorb the products of these basic industries. It is evident that the government should endeavour to assist in making the cost of production as low as possible, so that they may be enabled to supply the home market at reasonable prices and be in a position to go into the markets of the world and to compete successfully for the world's business.

I am satisfied that we in Canada who realize the great richness of our natural resources, who have familiarised ourselves with the extent and character of those resources, are of opinion that the greatness and future of Canada will depend upon the scientific and proper development of those industries. His Excellency, in his Speech, goes on to suggest to the members of this House and to the people of Canada:
That every effort will be made still further to develop the policy of Canadian trade via Canadian ports.
Action by this government last year in making the extended British preference applicable to goods brought in through Canadian ports has borne remarkable fruit, and it has enured to the benefit of Atlantic and Pacific ports. It has been found that since that legislation became effective, from the month of May to January of this year, over $50,195,000 worth of gjods coming in under the preference has been actually entered under the extended preference. And I find that on the seaboard where people are watching for development, they have already seen the result of this policy The St. John Board of Trade, an influential public body writes on March 11 as follows:
Dear Sir,
The St. John Board of Trade desires to state that it most heartily approved of the British preferential tariff clause which passed the last session of parliament, being of the opinion that it would be made wholly applicable to Canadian ports, and that these ports will be greatly benefited thereby.
The St. John Board of Trade would renew its expression of approval of this preferential arrangement and would earnestly request that it be made to apply altogether to Canadian ports.
A determination of this nature would undoubtedly lead to the development of the policy of development of Canadian trade via Canadian ports, as was suggested by His Excellency the Governor General in his Speech from the Throne.
Appreciating this expression on the part of His Excellency, and such action as the government can take in this great enterprise.
R. E. Armstrong.
Secretary, St. John Board of Trade.
I read this letter in order that the members of this House may have knowledge of the effect of the policy as introduced at the last session of parliament in the matter of British trade and British preference.
In this connection, I wish to speak with reference to recent activities in our Pacific ports, particularly the port of Vancouver, where there has been a development that has startled the people of this continent and which has largely been due to the remarkable development of the western grain route. In order that I may retain continuity in my remarks, I will submit a statement showing the

The Address-Mr. King (Kootenay)
increase in tonnage passing in and out of that port during the last few years:
Shipped for export
1920- 21	 700,000 bushels of grain
1921- 22	
7,000,000	"	"1922- 23	
19,000,000	"	"
In 1923-24, 25,000,000 bushels have already passed through that port, and there is a probability of 50,000,000 bushels being shipped during this crop year. The growth in the export trade in lumber has almost equalled, if it has not exceeded the development of wheat export.


Mr. MANION:: For the information of the House-how much of that went to Europe and how much to China?


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: I have not the
information here. If my memory serves me right, about four or five million bushels went to Japan, and the balance to the United Kingdom. I have not followed the report for this year. The figures in regard to the export trade in lumber are as follows:
Lumber shipped
1921	
179,848,000	feet1922.!	!!	
217,175,000	"1923	
429,600,000	"
In 1921, eighty-two vessels loaded at the port of Vancouver with 127,000 tons of freight, and pasesd through the Panama canal to the Atlantic. In 1923, 200 vessels loaded 677,000 tons of freight and passed through the Panama canal to the Atlantic.
The development has been rapid; but I think it has really only started, because we in western Canada, and, I believe, the people in eastern Canada, and the people in the Old Country, have begun to realize the advantage of the Panama canal and the possibilities of the extension of business in the Pacific and the Orient. The primary stimulus to this movement can, I think, be set down to the reduction in freight rates, resulting in a partial elimination of the mountain scale. In 1922 the government of the province of British Columbia presented argument to the Board of Railway Commissioners and succeeded in getting some relief under a general order No. 366, issued on the 30th June, 1922, by the board. I might say that there has always been a division of freight rates into class and commodity rates, the first being based1 on mileage and considered as standard, and second, commodity rates which are not based upon mileage, but are made by all railways as when they consider necessary in order to move traffic. About 15 per cent of the total traffic to and from British Columbia moves on class rates, the balance on commodity rates. Prior to the date of the judgment
the British Columbia class rates scale, generally speaking, was based on 14 times the prairie scale, which, worked1 out, meant that the mountain scale was about 33 per cent greater than the prairie scale. By this judgment the differential was cut in two and the mountain scale is now -about 165 per cent greater than the prairie.
At the time of this judgment the amount of grain moving to Vancouver for export was comparatively small. Grain and grain products for domestic consumption moved upon commodity rates. The board ordered that the commodity rate for wheat and wheat products for domestic consumption should be reduced by the same percentage as the class rate; but as the rate on grain and grain products for export was scarcely referred to in the argument before the board, the board did not take action in regard to it. However, on the issuance of the order the railways themselves made a reduction of 20 per cent in the export rates on grain and grain products. That was in the spring of 1922, and it will be noted that the exports, which were 700,000 bushels the year before, jumped to 7,000,000 bushels.
The British Columbia government, although receiving some concession at the hands of the Railway Commission, appealed from that judgment to the executive council. A hearing was had during the summer months, and I propose now to quote from the reference of the executive council to the railway board of October 2nd of that year the section relating to grain and other rates. It is as follows:
And it appearing that the question as to the rates on grain from points in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to Vancouver and other British Columbia coast points for export was not the subject of argument before the board and therefore not specifically dealt with in its said judgment;
And it appearing further that on the hearing of the said appeal the petitioners asked for reductions in the said rates on grain;
The committee therefore recommends that the subject of the said export grain rates from points in the said provinces to Vancouver and other British Columbia coast points be referred to the said board for immediate consideration and such effective action as it may deem necessary.
It will be noted, Mr. Speaker, that the reference was made at the beginning of October last year, it being the desire of the government that if further reductions could be made in the grain rates the matter should be dealt with early by the Board of Railway Commissioners in the hope of securing further relief. The Board of Railway Commissioners on the 10th October, 1923, issued the following order, No. 384:
Whereas by order in council P.C. No. 2007, dated the 2nd day of October, 1923, the Governor in Council referred the subject of the said export grain rates from

The Address-Mr. King (Kootenay)
points in the said provinces to Vancouver and other British Columbia coast points, to the board for immediate determination and such effective action as the board may deem necessary;
After fully considering the matter and applying the principles set forth in the judgment of the board, dated October 10th, 1923, and for the reasons therein contained-
The board orders that the current rates on grain and grain products to Pacific coast ports for export be reduced uniformly ten per cent; and that all the railway companies subject to the jurisdiction of the board file tariffs, effective not later than October 22nd, 1923, showing such reduction; also that all milling, malting, storage, cleaning or bagging in transit privileges on grain now contained in the tariffs be unaffected bv this order.
# Mr. CLARK: When the Railway Commission was directed to review these rates, did counsel appear on behalf of the province of British Columba?


John Warwick King: No, I think not. Counsel for British Columbia appeared before the Railway Commission in the spring of 1922, and they came before the executive council last summer, when they reviewed the general case and presented argument regarding the export rate on grain. It will be noted that the executive council directed the attention of the Railway Commission to the fact that further argument had been made in regard to rates on grain, and asking that the railway board review the argument.


Mr. CLARK:: Is the minister aware of the fact that the province has requested the Railway Commission to hear a further appeal?


John Warwick King: I think we will meet that situation. The executive council was anxious that there should be an early reference to the Railway Commission in order that, if a reduction were made, the shippers of grain would be able to take advantage of it in the shipping season.
A further reference was made to the railway board by the executive council on the 24th October 1923. I quote the following from it:
One of the main grounds of appeal dealt with on the argument was that regarding the export grain rates from points in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to Vancouver and other British Columbia coast points. This matter has been specifically dealt with by order in council of the 2nd October, 1923 (P.C. 2007).
The committee, therefore, recommends that all other subjects of complaint referred to in the said petition be also remitted to the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada to be dealt with as it may deem proper upon the evidence already adduced and the arguments presented before the board and before Your Excellency in Council.
The committee observes, however, that in view of the vital importance of facilitating the interchange of commodities between the various sections of Canada railway rates should be maintained at as low a basis as possible having regard to all proper considerations Accordingly the committee is of the opinion that in the future, should transportation and traffic conditions so change as to render practicable a nearer approach 
to equalization of rates as between prairie and Pacific territory, the board should in the exercise of its discretion take such action as may be necessary to bring about this result.
I have reviewed briefly the reduction that has taken place not only on grain rates but on class rates generally through the appeal made in 1922 and the action of the railway companies in their granting a reduction of 20 per cent, following the order of the board in 1922, and the further reduction granted by the Railway Commission last year on the representations made to them by counsel. As the matter stands to-day the Railway Board of Canada still have before them for consideration the advisability of further reductions in railway rates. In my opinion, with a proper development of our agricultural industry and of our natural resources in the West, further representations will be made to our railways from time to time in the interests of development, and in the not far distant future the discrimination that exists between British Columbia and Alberta will be finally wiped out.


John Arthur Clark: Is the minister aware that the Chairman of the Board of Railway Commissioners has refused to hear counsel on behalf of British Columbia in pursuance of the order of the Privy Council?


John Warwick King: I imagine that counsel from British Columbia or any province can, under a proper mode of procedure, present arguments to the Board of Railway Commissioners. I did not understand that there had been a refusal to hear further argument, but I am satisfied that if it is the desire to present argument, there is a procedure to be followed to that end.
I wish also to deal with a matter that is of some importance to western Canada as well as to the people of the East. Over a period of many years there has been an agitation on the part of British Columbia that the ocean route be made available for the transport of commodities from the East to the West. These representations have been made by public bodies in the form of petitions from time to time. Last year interest centred around a shipment of steel rails from Sydney, Nova Scotia, which was transshipped at New York for Vancouver. It is suggested that the local customs officer at Sydney indicated verbally that rails shipped in that manner would not be subjected to duty, but on arrival at Vancouver the Dominion customs officer informed the purchaser that goods so shipped would be liable to the same duty as if they had been manufactured in and shipped from the

The Address-Mr. King (Kootenay)
United States. This shipment being rather large and involving a considerable sum of money, very urgent representations were made to the Dominion government by the province of British Columbia. The Dominion government was impressed by the desirability of enabling the people of western Canada as well as of eastern Canada to avail themselves of the cheaper ocean transportation for the movement of Canadian goods. It has been decided that an officer will be placed in New York who will there clear goods in transit for western Canadian ports and also goods coming from western ports to eastern Canadian points. But in the order making provisions for an officer at New York the government have thought it wise to stipulate that goods so moved should be placed in British bottoms, that is, ships of British or Canadian register. It is hoped that by this provision there will be established sailings of British or Canadian ships from Canadian Atlantic ports which will fully accommodate this traffic.


Mr. LADNER:: May I inquire whether there are any lines operating ships of British or Canadian register which send vessels that way?


John Warwick King: Yes, there-is one line, and recently the Canadian National Railways have indicated their intention to put on two ships. I am informed also that there are two or three lines Which propose to establish a regular service between eastern and western Canadian ports this summer.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Has the government any definite arrangement with those lines, with a view to making certain that the goods will be carried?


John Warwick King: I am satisfied
that lines will be established if there are goods to be carried, and we have reason to believe that there will be a very considerable amount of business offering, because it is within the knowledge of the Minister of Customs (Mr. Bureau) that no less than two, and possibly three, lines are prepared to enter into this traffic.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Why would it not be in the interests of traffic to allow any competing lines which would give the service at the reduced rates to have the benefit of the establishment of the customs officer at New York?


John Warwick King: There will be a
customs officer at New York and goods shipped to that point will have an opportunity of entering into ships of British registry.


Leon Johnson Ladner: My question is, why not
other ships?


John Warwick King: I think it only
fit and proper that we should endeavour to keep this trade within Canadian channels. It will travel over Canadian railways to Canadian ports and will there enter into ships of our own register or of British register to be transported. We are satisfied that in the British merchant marine we have facilities which are sufficiently extensive to give accommodation and to bring about a competition which will control rates in the matter of this tonnage.
I regret to say that one important public body in Vancouver has taken exception to this ruling and contends that these goods should enter ships of any registry and be allowed to move freely. Now, as a representative of British Columbia and a Canadian I do not agree with this contention. I think it absolutely essential, if we are to grow as a nation, that we develop and maintain our national ports. No maritime nation can afford to build up the ports of an adjoining country at the expense of its own. I am satisfied that the people of British Columbia as a whole will endorse this attitude. I am sure that if the position were reversed and the people of Alberta and central British Columbia were to find it more acceptable to ship their goods via the ports of Seattle and Portland, our friends of the Vancouver Board of Trade would be the first to take exception and to insist on certain restrictions that would tend to confine this business to our own ports.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Is the government in possession of any assurances to make certain that the nature of that arrangement does not mean that the rates by water will be adjusted somewhat on the same basis and at the same rate as by rail in which case the advantages of going via New York would be virtually nullified so far as lower rates are concerned.


John Warwick King: The government will always have it within their power to amend that regulation if it is found that the people who are going to engage in this business are trying to make excessive profits out of it; but primarily, I think, we are on safe ground. It is the policy of this government to develop our own national ports, and this business, which I believe is going to become of very great importance not only to our people in western Canada but I think of even greater importance to our manufacturing friends in central and eastern Canada, should certainly remain in the channels where the
The Address-Mr. Hoey

people of Canada will derive the most benefit from it.
In closing, I wish to say that so far as the people of British Columbia are concerned they are desirous of seeing brought into effect by this parliament policies that will be for the development of the whole of Canada and for the benefit of all the people. We are desirous of seeing a united Canada, where there will be no suggestion of sectional discrimination as between the East and the West. We as a people are desirous of seeing a united Canada grow and prosper and become a great nation, and I believe that with the great natural resources this country possesses and with the people who are known as Canadians to-day, we have a great future before us, a future which will mean much to the Canadian people, a future within the great Empire which we are desirous to see remain as a unit not only for the benefit of British citizenship, but for the advantage of the people of the world.


Mr. R. A. HOEY (Springfield):: Mr Speaker, several speeches have been delivered during the course of this debate, the very nature of which indicated considerable study and research on the part of those responsible for their creation. There was one speech, however, that seems to have left an indelible impression upon my mind, and to that speech I should like to refer at the outset. It was the speech delivered by my hon. friend from South York (Mr. Maclean), the gentleman who sits to my extreme right on this bench. Viewed from the standpoint of political progress the speech was refreshing. To me it was stimulating. It was delivered in a spirit wholly non-partisan, and I should like to congratulate the hon. member upon the delivery of that speech. His was a voice from the wilderness, it is true, but nevertheless a voice I think in which we all detected very pronounced modem and progressive accents. It was significant to me, and must have been significant to others, that while one of the oldest members of this chamber, and I trust he will not think I am speaking disrespectfully, spoke in that tone, one of its youngest members of his party the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion), declared very eloquently and very emphatically, and in his own inimitable style, that he still believed in and stood for the policy that has now reached or almost reached its allotted span.
Might I add this to what the hon. member for South York so ably said? I sometimes feel almost instinctively that we are in the very presence of a new organization of human society on a co-operative rather than a competitive basis. I do not mean by that that
(Mr. J. H. King.l
we are going to witness any violent social upheavals, anything of a cataclysmic nature, but I do feel that we are in the grip of forward moving forces. Furthermore, I believe that Great Britain to-day is becoming the very spearhead of the forces that labour for the triumph of democracy and modern civilization. I recall to mind at the moment a statement that fell from the lips of a very distinguished American citizen immediately after the close of the Great War. Addressing thousands of his fellow-countrymen who had come to hear him, he said:
World civilization during the last four years has been passing through a revolution, a revolution which for magnitude of destruction is unparalleled in the history of human endeavour. The old social order has collapsed, and all attempts to restore it on the traditional competitive basis will end in disappointment and in disillusionment.
The discussion during the course of this debate has centred around and at times merged wholly in the question of the customs tariff. It seemed to me as I listened to the addresses delivered in defence of the protective principle, that I could detect in them all, indeed almost in every sentence, the same fallacy, a fallacy, Mr. Speaker, that in my judgment is going to influence many in this country and confuse the issue until it is successfully exploded. I refer to the fallacy of looking upon production as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end, and that the enrichment of the Canadian people. I refer to that pernicious fallacy of looking upon labour, regardless of the expenditure of human energy, as something to be desired and something to be provided, regardless of the expense of that labour to the nation. Let me illustrate what I mean. A few weeks ago we had an abundance of snow in the city of Ottawa. That snow provided work for a certain number of men ordinarily unemployed. They were paid for the services rendered out of the pockets of the tax-payers of this city. Had that snow not come those men could have been paid an equal amount, perhaps more, in working on constructive enterprises and the citizens of Ottawa would have stood to benefit in that they would have been saved from the slush and irritation associated in our minds with life in the Dominion capital a few weeks ago. Had this money not been spent in that way it could have been devoted to constructive enterprises with the return of spring. And so it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that we have reached this stage: The protectionist prays continually for more snow, the free-trader for the return of spring and the release of natural forces. This brings me to the end of the first section of my remarks, and if the House has no objection I should

The Address-Mr. Hoey
feel thankful, Mr. Speaker, if you would call it six o'clock.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Robert Alexander Hoey: When the House took recess
at six o'clock I was dealing with what I described to be a pernicious policy, a policy that looked upon labour or production as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end, a policy which if persisted in would have us destroy Canadian buildings and abolish modern machineiy in an attempt to provide employment. As a further illustration of what I have in mind, I want to quote some figures. During the years 1915 to 1918 inclusive a certain factory in this country produced 113,542 automobiles, and the excess price charged to Canadian purchasers over the prevailing price in the United States was $13,394,941. The wages paid by that concern during that period on the cars actually made and sold in Canada amounted to $9,083,360, and their total wage $11,960,807. That is their total wage bill on cars made for sab. in Canada and for export. They paid in taxes during that period $2,284,145, leaving a surplus of $2,027,436. What do these figures mean? They mean that during this period the people of Canada could have paid all the wages this firm paid, all the taxes this firm paid, and had a surplus in the national treasury of $2,027,436, or a sum sufficient in itself to pay more than half the duty paid by this firm on their raw material entering into the manufacture of this article. The honourable, unassuming and genial member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond) during the course or his speech a few days ago, told a st">ry the point of which I failed to get at the moment. The story was that of a boy, the son of a religiously-inclined mother, and the boy was anxious to secure a drum. He punctuated his evening prayer with a request for this drum, and when he received it he proved ungrateful. Just what relationship exists between a drum and those who demand free trade I could not detect. Those who advocate free trade advocate it not for themselves but for all. It is a doctrine of freedom as opposed to a doctrine of slavery. But I want to tell the story of a boy, not the son of a religiously-inclined mother, and not the son of a woman of questionable character, but the son of a mother who was described by all as an incurable flirt, particularly when in association
with politicians. She was consequently a very popular women, particularly with the older politicians. This woman had several boys, but I want to refer tu one of them in particular. His name vas called Industry Infant Industry. Just why he should have been given that name no one seemed to know. There were those, however, who contended that the name was given him by one Macdonald, a Scotchman, who declared that ultimately the boy would grow and discard that name; that is to say, he would, ultimately grow up and finally be knighted Viscount Monopoly. The boy was natural to begin with, but because of the position in which he was inclined to sit he developed spinal trouble-spinal meningitis. He became obsessed with a very unnatural obsession-
I presume all obsessions are unnatural-an obsession that the littie children with whom he played from day to day sought his destruction, and so he became persistent in his demands for a gun. Night after night, as his mother would attempt to teach him the evening prayer he would punctuate it thus-
Now I lay me down to sleep-
("I want a gun")
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
("I want a gun")
If I should die before I wake-
("I want a gun")
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
("Get me that gun!")
And finally the gun was provided. He woke in the morning, and, instead of proving grateful, he looked at it and said, "Where the devil did that toy gun come from? I want a gun, that will not only enable me to shoot those American kids next door, but those Italian kids that live at the end of the avenue, and those German kids who live on Kitchener street, and those English kids that live across the way." I think my hon. and genial friend from Brantford will agree with me that it is a dangerous thing to put guns in the hands of children, particularly children who seek the destruction of their fellows. The Canadian Manufacturers, that august body, at a meeting recently held in Hamilton passed a resolution which I shall read to the House. It is the very embodiment of modesty and reads-
The adoption of a stable and sound fiscal policy, based on an adequate customs tariff, will bind together more firmly the provinces of Canada in national unity, attract capital, commercialize natural resources, strengthen existing industries and create new industries, raise revenue, encourage immigration, provide employment, increase traffic through national ports, furnish passengers and freight for transportation systems, lower freight rates; make farming more profitable by pro-

The Address-Mr. Hoey
viding new markets abroad and facilitate profitable bargaining by means of tariffs with other countries.
I said that that was the very embodiment of modesty, because it leaves out two very important factors. It should have added unlimited campaign funds and political preferment for the party willing to espouse it. Indeed, I do not know but that they might have legitimately claimed that if you elevate the tariff high enough, that is from the low plane upon which it now is, up higher and higheT and higher, it will ultimately restore hair and thus protect the bald heads of those who advocate it. You can imagine then the embarrassing position in which the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) would find himself as opposed to that in which the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) would find himself. That is the difficulty with the tariff. It never evenly distributes the benefits that accrue therefrom.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens)-let me say with respect to him that I am just as anxious to lead him from the error of his ways as he is to lead me from the pathway of rectitude-during the course of a speech which he delivered, and with which I shall deal, deprecated the tendency in some quarters to speak of the principle of protection as an immoral principle.
I do not know that it is altogether accurate to speak of any economic principle in the abstract as immoral. It is, perhaps, not immoral as an abstract economic principle, but, in my judgment, it is immoral and vicious in its results. You ask, why? A system of taxation that slaps the mother in the face for every child that is bom into the world by adding a tax on the woollen garments with which she would clothe it; a system of taxation that takes eight .times as much out of the pockets of the mechanic with eight of a family who is earning $100 a month as it takes out of the pockets of a bachelor with the same wages; a system of taxation that has always led to monopoly, to centralization of wealth and the impoverishment of the rural districts, the only source from which national life can be renewed,-why should we hesitate to speak of the results which accrue from protection as immoral? The evils of protection are as wide-spread as the territory in which it operates, as deep as the distress into which our people have fallen, and for which it is in no small measure responsible. Then, having spoken of the tendency to speak of the principle of protection as immoral, he went on to speak of the woollen industry. I have no objection to a man defending the woollen industry or any other industry, provided that [Mr. Hoey.)	I
in so doing he does not attempt to pull the wool over the hon. members' eyes. He spoke of the condition in which the woollen industry finds itself to-day. Every one that is truly Canadian-and we are all truly Canadian- regrets that condition, and if that condition in itself had not been productive of compensating factors, it would be a catastrophe. He spoke of the number of skilled workers that were thrown out of employment, skilled workers that could not easily be replaced. I want to be fair; but it was news to me to learn that the modern woollen industry, with which I am more or less familiar, required workers to be trained over a period of years in order to operate successfully modern machinery. Let us, however, suppose that that is true, and that those workers cannot be replaced from Great Britain or from any other country. Let us suppose that they are trekking to the United States, as he contended they were, to the extent of one thousand. What about the agriculturists to-day who are leaving the land, agriculturists who have been anchored to the soil for generations, experienced men? Is this not even a greater loss? I have before me the figures, provided by the United States Department of Immigration, showing not only the number of Canadians who entered the United States during the year 1923, but classifying them:
Canadians entering the United States.
Year ending June 30,	July,	August,1923	1923	1923Weavers and spinners..	.. 426	54	48Farm labourers	.. 3,295	422	454Bona fide farmers.. ..	.. 5,409	827	697
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre compared wages paid in this country with wages paid in Great Britain. I did not think the comparison was altogether fair, for this reason, that comparing wages paid in Canada with wages paid in Great Britain means nothing unless you determine accurately and scientifically the purchasing power of the dollar. He did not, however, fall into the old trap, the trap into which protectionists sometimes fall, but which was very carefully avoided by him, that is the trap that protection is of itself responsible for keeping up wages, because during this discussion he admitted that the wages in the woollen industry were due, not to protection, but to a statute passed by the Ontario government. This admission is in itself an evidence that the tariff does not of its own volition keep up wages. How can the woollen industry be helped? The woollen industry can be helped, it seems to me, by reducing the cost of living, by substantial all-round reductions in the customs

The Address-Mr. Hoey
tariff, by releasing the natural resources and energy of this nation, and thus enabling us to build up industries that are truly indigenous. Without attempting to argue that two wrongs make a right, I want to compare the condition in which the woollen industry finds itself to-day with the condition of the province and the people of the province from which I come, a province with a population of almost 700,000 people. The provincial treasurer in his annual budget declared that the gross value of Manitoba's crops this year amounted to some 855,000,000; but I have in my hand a statement made out by the president of the Winnipeg Board of Trade, which goes to show that if you deduct threshing costs, elevator charges and transportation expenses you will find that the wheat, oats, barley, rye and flax crop of Manitoba this year amounted to 826,280,000 net. The total taxes amounted to 852,255,000. Let us take the estimate of the provincial treasurer that the gross value of the crop amounted to 855,000,000. It only meets our tax burden obligations which amount to 852,-
255,000.	What about our private obligations, what about our cost of living, what about tariff taxation that does not reach the national exchequer at all?
When you go to those farmers in Manitoba to-day and inform them that the woollen industry in eastern Canada is in a precarious position despite the fact that they, in common with the rest of the country, have been subsidizing it for forty years, but that if they wil. only decide to pay anywhere between 30 and 50 per cent more for woollen garments and continue to feed the employees in the industry at a price less than the cost of production, then they will have the advantage of witnessing the upgrowth of the woollen industry in the Dominion, naturally, our farmers are dissatisfied. But when we come down here and attempt to bring some measure of relief to the people we have the honour to represent, our actions are described as indicating "indecent haste!" Of course, you should not be in a hurry to relieve people whose taxes this year are double their revenue; that would not be seemly. Not only are our actions described as indicating indecent haste, but we are accused of "political intrigue"-whatever that means-working beneath the surface of things, entering into unholy alliances; and by the press we are taunted with being more interested in our indemnities than we are in the people. Well, is there a member in this House who, if he is honest, will not admit that he is interested in his indemnity? But these charges are
directed against us, not because hon. members believe them to be true. Deep down in their hearts they know such charges are false. They have not the slightest doubt in their minds with respect to our sincerity. This is mere political camouflage in an attempt to discredit us and build up the shattered remnants of the party to which they belong.
During the course of this debate we have been assured that Canada is in serious danger of being inundated with a superfluous; quantity of wealth; it is threatening to overflow the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the flood is coming from even' conceivable quarter. The hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) does not fear the United States so much, but he has a holy horror of Germany and France and Italy. Surely these nations, because of the government's action with respect to the tariff during the last two years, are dumping goods into [DOT] this country out of all proportion to what they ought to be permitted to send us! Well, let us take the case of Germany for the last two years. In 1922 we imported from Germany goods to the value of $2,041,016; we exported 84,409,547 worth. Not much evidence there of any inundation of wealth. In 1923-nine months-we imported from that country goods to the value of 84,115,295, and we exported 810,455,556 worth., -The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) was alarmed lest we should be flooded with French wines. Let us look at the imports from France. In 1922 they amounted in value to 813,482,005, and we exported 88,208,228 worth. In 1923-nine months-after that iniquitous treaty, we imported goods to the value of 811,749,515, and we exported over
813,865,000	worth. Let us look at the case of Italy. I think I remember the hon. member for North Waterloo referred to Italy. In 1922 we imported from that country goods to the value of $1,387,370; we exported 815,335,818 worth. Let us take nine months of 1923: we imported from Italy goods to the value of 81,430,284-let us keep our minds on the millions-and we exported 817,445,158 worth.
And now, Mr. Speaker, I want to turn to that perennial argument-the home market. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre during the course of his remarks turned himself completely in this direction. He admitted that he could not hope his thoughts would enter our heads-the natural inference I drew was that our heads at least were not empty-but nevertheless he discussed the home market. I do not want to be too severe, I do not want to indulge in castigations, but I must frankly
The Address-Mr. Hoey

state that I do not believe for a moment the hon. member expected us to take him seriously. I say that because I have too great respect for his intelligence and for his practical knowledge of modem business and its intricacies to think for a moment that he expected us either to take him seriously or to accept his arguments. Now, what were his arguments? Briefly they were these: That the Dominion of Canada should look forward to a time, by steadily developing and building up the home market, when it could practically absorb-not wholly but practically, absorb-all the wheat produced in this country. I hope this is a fair statement of his case, because I do not wish to misrepresent him.


Mr. STEVENS:: Will the hon. member permit me to observe that that is not a fair statement of my case?


Robert Alexander Hoey: It is exceedingly difficult to know just what a fair representation of his case would be; but that, in my judgment, was the position in general terms, that he took; that was the impression left upon my mind and, I think, upon the minds of those with whom I associate in this section of the House. I want to point out to the government, and -1 do so in all seriousness, that if this is the policy the Conservative party in this country intend to pursue, either in the immediate or in the distant future, then that fact in itself ought to have a tremendous influence upon certain expenditures that the government are about to make, and the first of these expenditures is with respect to the development of the harbour at Vancouver. The hon. member does not believe in the importation of goods into this country-that is a view to which I shall refer in a moment- and he looks forward to the time when there will be no necessity to ship wheat from Canada in large quantities. Then what in the name of Heaven do they want a harbour at Vancouver for? Do they want it for the incubation of mermaids? Do they want a modem pool of Siloam out there for washing and cleansing discredited politicians? I want to say that I was interested in the developments at Vancouver. I discussed the matter at some length with the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), whose firm contemplates making certain expenditures there. But if I believed that either in the immediate or in the remote future Canada was apt to absorb her own wheat crop, then I would absolutely speak against and vote against this appropriation.

Not only are we contemplating expenditures at Vancouver-and I trust that the people at Vancouver will grasp the significance of the philosophy that is being disseminated in and from this Chamber by their representative-not only are we attempting to build up harbour facilities there, but we are seriously considering the most pretentious and certainly the most costly project ever contemplated by the people of this country, the deepening of the St. Lawrence waterway. For what purpose? In order to facilitate the transportation of grain, not only during the immediate future but for a century, perhaps, to come. Well, if you look forward to the time when this country ought to consume its own wheat-and I put this seriously to the Prime Minister and to the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb); I can see evidences of interest in his countenance-if the policy advocated by my hon. friend has even a * semblance of truth, then why not spend the money that you are going to spend at Van-couvcer and that you are thinking of spending on the St. Lawrence-why not spend it in dumping immigrants into this country? That is the logical outcome; that is the point to which his reasoning must lead us.
Oh, of course he would let certain goods come into this country. He did not specify them, so I can only imagine just what goods he would let in. He is opposed to the importation of French wines. I have thought the matter over and I presume that he would not be opposed to bringing balloons into this country. Then visualize for yourself six or seven ocean liners sailing along the deepened St. Lawrence, loaded with balloons for western Canada! Of course he would let raw material into this country-raw material from where? From the countries where there is cheap labour and where they could turn it into the finished article more cheaply than we could. Of course he will argue that he does not look forward to a time when we shall be wholly able to consume our own wheat, and that leads us back exactly to where the United States is to-day, a country that last year exported a litttle less than one-tenth of its wheat. It leads us back to the position not only of the agriculturists in the United States but to the railroads in the United States, many of which are almost bankrupt. Mr. Speaker, I challenge absolutely and positively his statement that the power of consumption of wheat in modern civilization is static at 650,000,000 bushels. The best English statisticians, the best English economists, assure us to-day that wheat consumption in Europe is one-third below normal. If you exercise your reasoning

The Address-Mr. Hoey
faculties for a moment, you can easily understand that on a continent where thousands are out of employment, where there is destitution and squalor and poverty, particularly in the protected countries over there, wheat consumption is in no sense normal, and if in Europe it has been static over a period of years, that condition has been due to the shattered purchasing power of the European nations. While the number of wheat consumers in modem civilization cannot be increased-not by acts of parliament-you can immeasurably increase their capacity to consume. A question was put by the hon. member for Battleford (Mr. McConica), and it was this: If you bring ten millions of people from Europe and put them in this country, do you not deplete Europe's consumption power? The question, Mr. Speaker, was not answered, because in my judgment it is absolutely unanswerable, and I think I can explain why. Although it was not answered, that does not mean that the hon. member did not make an honest attempt, finding himself in an awkward position, to reply to it, and I thought as I sat here quietly and thoughtfully, what an ingenious answer! First he said that the people drawn from such countries would not necessarily be drawn from wheat consuming nations. Now, if he had not put in the term "Europe" there I would have said that he had become converted and that he was in favour of bringing orientals to this country, but I cannot believe that. Well, if he does not belive in bringing in orientals, can he tell me a nation in Europe that is not a wheat consuming nation?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, lots of them.


Robert Alexander Hoey: There is not in Europe, Mr. Speaker, a single nation the people of which do not consume wheat, and to stand up in this room and contend that there is is an insult to the intelligence of the men sitting here. That term "wheat consuming country" is occasionally used in the grain trade. It is a misnomer; it is a meaningless term in the grain trade, and it has no place here. When it is used in the grain trade it is used to denote countries that consume wheat, but do not import wheat. Let us suppose that we import from Russia five million people into this country. You increase the consumption here, of course, but you deplete the con sumption in Russia, and thus enable Russia to put that much more wheat on the Liverpool market.
The second explanation given was this, and it is perhaps more ingenious still. The second answer-shall I call it an evasion?-
was this: That the exodus of people from Europe to the United States or to Australia or any other country is more than offset by the increase in population. I have not examined the figures; I did not think it worth while. But if those people did not leave Europe at all, would not the population increase? To say that the exodus of people from a country, or the mere distribution of the population, by emigration or immigration, has anything at all to do with the gradual propagation of the race is positively absurd. Look where the reasoning leads. Here is a young man in England thinking of getting married and he says to his sweetheart: "I think we can get married now because I saw by the papers the other day that several carloads of people have left for Canada." That is the conclusion to which you are driven; there is no escape from it. I will admit this:	The
hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Hudson) is here. He has read and studied along this line a great deal more than I have. I do not know that he is a Malthusian, but I know that he has studied quite a lot of Malthusian works. I will admit that economic factors to-day have some influence on the propagation of the race, particularly amongst the better-off people, but certainly economic conditions have no influence on the propagation of the race amongst the great masses of European peasants from whom we draw our immigrant population. And so it seems to me that we are brought back to the position in which the United States finds itself to-day, that is, we cannot positively hope to build up the home market to a greater extent than they have built it up.
The hon. member fell into the same fallacy again when he referred to the one thousand employees in the woollen industry who had trekked to the United States and ceased to consume wheat in Canada. Of course, but they trekked into the United States to consume wheat there, and to the extent that they consume it there they will reduce the exportable surplus of the United States to Liverpool.
Now in reply to an interrogation with respect to the United States the hon. member attributed the position of that country to two factors: First to the fact that the United States was an exporter of grain, and second, to the depletion of the soil in that country of its plant food content. Now that is the exact position to which we are drifting in this country, to the depletion of our soil of plant food content. This is the effect in the Prairie West:
The effect of a generation of cropping to wheat has been to reduce the nitrogen of the surface seven inches
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The Address- Mr. Hoey

tannia", and as their closing hymn "God save the King", and choose as their text, "Buy only made-in-Canada goods", and who, if they were straightforward, would declare to their hearers during their sermons " As far as the East is from the West, so far have we removed your possessions from you". Loyalists, shall I call these men? They remind me of those bats that inhabit certain caves in Kentucky, of which scientists speak, bats that love darkness rather than light. Because they chose darkness, nature has robbed them of their power to see,-not of their eyes, their eyes remain, but they have lost their power of vision. There are other ways and means, but let me say that if the British preference were drastically increased to draw imports this way, what would be the effect upon Russia? Would she not still continue to be a competitor? She would. But with our cost of production reduced here, we would have a chance of competing successfully with her. But there is another factor. If the drastic increases in the British preference took place immediately, the tendency in Russia would be to go in more for diversified farming rather than wheat growing. The stage of her development lends itself to that form of agriculture, and frankly I cannot see the sense or reason of shipping live stock from Alberta or Saskatchewan to Great Britain; we cannot do it profitably, while at the same time they are shipping wheat from Russia to Britain. Why not have a reversal of the order of things? Why not, by a rearrangement of trade, ship wheat from Canada, and have live stock shipped from Russia? There are other ways and means that can be evolved; not only can the cost of production be brought down by legislation, but it can be brought down by co-operative effort. I want to say with respect to the co-operative project that it is on its way in western Canada at the present time. Whether it is successful or not, never did the western agriculturist attempt anything more worthy of him, never did the western agriculturist attempt anything more in keeping with the spirit and demands of the age, never did he attempt anything more ethical than when he attempted, as he is attempting now, to take this staple commodity from the producer and place it on the table of the consumer without enhancing its price by the superfluous intervention of unnecessary middlemen. I want to say that there are certain compulsory features about the present wheat pool that I dislike, but let me express'the hope that, in the course of time, those compulsory features will be relegated to the scrap heap, and that this pool will go on until it can establish a relationship 
between the co-operative exporting institutions in the Old Country. What could be more natural than that this great co-operative pool, marketing her commodity to the extent of $400,000,000 annually, should ultimately establish relationships between co-operative organizations in the Old Country? I think it would establish those relationships now were it not for the tariff barriers that keep British commodities from this country at the present time.


Mr. EULER:: May I ask a question?


Robert Alexander Hoey: Yes.


William Daum Euler: I understand from the hon. member's statement that he is in favour of the British preference. I ask then how could he consistently say that, if he is not in favour also of tariffs against other countries? Because a preference, I would say, must assume that there shall be a tariff? You cannot have a preference unless there is a tariff.


Robert Alexander Hoey: My reply to that thoughtful question is simply this, that I am dealing with conditions as they are,-


William Daum Euler: That is what I was doing.


Robert Alexander Hoey: 
Mr. HAROLD PUTNAM (Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, I fully realise the disadvantage, which I must bear as cheerfully as I can, the pronounced contrast, of having it fall to my lot to follow a speaker so very entertaining as he who has just resumed his seat. That hon. gentleman (Mr. Hoey) certainly combines five or six very valid factors which constitute him easily one of the most acceptable speakers in this parliament. Whether or not to-night he was in possession of that moderation which is almost always so characteristic of him, I will say this, that all his aggressiveness and all his pointed, but unpoisoned, humour were more than justified in exposing the immoderateness of the position of the "neck Or nothing" high protectionist in this country and in this House. In so far as they represent some small wing of public opinion-
25i
and I say this in kindliness-they are to-night a distinct barrier across the path of all the major numbers of true and patriotic Canadians who are looking for some honourable compromise upon this crucial question of the tariff.
Hon. members in this House are generous as to the latitude, range and scope of topics which they call in order in this particular discussion, and I hope my remarks, perhaps rather rambling, will be at least technically in order, and I also hope, for the good of my auditors, that they shall not be of undue length.	I did not hear, but I read the
speech of my colleague, the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan). He reviewed with his masterly fidelity the rights and aspirations of the Maritimes, a question and a subject which may possibly appear to stale a little on the ear of those in this part of the Dominion, but which is still dear to us and a matter of trust. The hon. gentleman did so well that I do not propose to review what he reviewed with a masterful hand, except to refer to one subject, unimportant, perhaps, in one sense, and yet important in another sense, a subject which relates to the honourable and successful management of our great National Railways in this country. In my home town, which is a strong railway town, there are to-night three old employees of that road, who were old employees of the Intercolonial, and they stand under the stain of a dismissal by this railway board. The charges include irregularities and the grave claim that these men were pilfering money which they took from passengers by way of railway fares. I need scarcely say that if the charges were true, such a man would deserve little or no consideration. I need however, scarcely say that it will be a truism to every lawyer at least in this House that on a charge so serious the proof should be absolutely satisfactory and convincing and obtained in a thoroughly judicial way. These men are men of splendid reputations, men with such a standing in their community that those who know them would be sorry to believe they would do a single thing that was wrong. I read over the typed evidence in the case of the investigation which resulted in one dismissal, and I found that the method of trailing these men was to put spotters, as you may contemptuously call them, or detectives, if you prefer the more dignified term, upon their trail, and upon their train to clandestinely watch their actions, to see if the appropriate document was punched and handed to the passenger in cases where the latter did not obtain a ticket at the railway depot. They

The Address-Mr. Putnam
made their investigation like wolves, in a pack, and claimed that they found that some of these old and honoured conductors had held back and appropriated fares. The principle is the same, whatever the amount involved. Well, Sir, at that investigation only one of the detectives appeared and manfully faced the conductor whom he had accused. In the case of the other spotters, though they, the deponents were not there, their bald affidavits were used to convict and dismiss the accused.
That is the state of affairs we have there, the railway board hiring these detectives to trail the conductors, securing from them affidavits to do their cowardly work while the deponents were shooed away. Instead of having every accuser face the accused, with the right for each to look the other in the eye, and for the conductor or his friend or his counsel to cross-examine his accuser, and so enable the investigator to judge of the credibility of the opposing witnesses-because the conductors denied the charge-and make a judicial finding, we have the condition I have described.
I complained of the action to high officials of the board, including Sir Henry Thornton himself. I received an answer from them and from him which was neither satisfactory nor judicial in its tone, and I find it my duty, as the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) has found it his duty, to put this matter before parliament. I hope no hon. member will say that this business is unimportant, and that the owner of no heart is so callous that he would advise us to go back to the board, and if we cannot get justice there, that that is the end of it. The management of this great system of railways by a board of directors is as yet in its infancy and upon trial, and the board itself is but a child of this administration, indeed of this parliament, and therefore I ask the sympathy and the interest of hon. members in this connection. Surely we are spending money enough on a large legal staff to advise the board in all the intricacies of its work wherein questions of law or equity arise, and I hope these highly paid legal experts will be able to build up a proper British system for investigating any alleged wrong-doing by the employees of the road. It may be said that an employer has the right to dismiss his employee. But these cases are not parallel with the ordinary case. Where an individual or private firm dismisses an employee he suffers no public injustice, there is no undue publicity, and the man can go off and, whether guilty or innocent, has a fair chance to (Mr. Putnam.]
get a living at some other work; but to dismiss an old and honoured conductor of a publicly-owned railroad casts suspicion upon him all over the country, and he has no chance of recovering his reputation for honesty or of securing some other employment. Worse still, in this case the railway board say the dismissed conductor shall have no claim to any benefits of the pension fund to which he has contributed for many years and in absolute good faith. I say that these men should have a new trial, or get the benefit of the substantial doubt that exists and be restored to their positions; or that at worst their pension rights should be restored to them.
As a Nova Scotian, Mr. Speaker, I feel a sense of sorrow for the illness which is responsible for the absence from this House of the right hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). The reports from his residence concerning his health are, I believe, decidedly cheering. We know that he is paying the penalty for having exerted his patriotic energy too long after that gcod grey head which all men know became white with the blossoms of the almond tree We do trust, in fact we have a lively hope, that even this session he is going to be with us for a while. We all sincerely hope that, restored to all the health which might be expected of one in his somewhat advanced years, he will long enjoy a period of comparative rest wherein this country shall still have the benefit of his courageous and sane optimism and of his ripe experience am* sage advice.
I equally regret that the hand of illness is upon the ex-Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin). Fortunately his illness does not seem to be so severe and we have the prospect of seeing him back with us very soon in this House.' The hon member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie) the other night indulged in a joke by relating an anecdote to the effect that when the ex-minister was asked how he was, he said he was sick, but not half so sick as when he was administering his department. Well Sir, I think we could name two or three at least of the fifty hon. members in the Conservative group who would not feel the least bit sick if they saw the slightest possibility of succeeding to the portfolio of the Minister of Justice. But whether the country at iarge would not have some qualms of conscience and some warning qualms of the stomach in the happening of such an event I think is entirely another question.

The Address-Mr. Putnam
I was led to reflect on the record thus far of our new Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) when I heard the magnificent speech to which he treated us the other afternoon, and I am sure that in him the Liberal party and the country at large have found a worthy successor to his immediate and distinguished predecessor. Higher compliment I could not pay.
As a comparatively new member in this House, I want to personally welcome those who have taken their seats here since last session. I do that without prejudice to my view of. the fallacy of the cause which may have sent a couple of them here. In the case of the hon. member for Kent (Mr. Doucet)
I agree with the talented member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) that the newcomer exhibited no nervousness in the making of his maiden speech. But I think he should be congratulated upon his good fortune in not having his fire returned by hon. members who sit around me on this side of the House, because I must say that he made a very questionable use of the white flag in prefacing his remarks by a request that we accord him the concession of consideration because it was his maiden effort, and then proceeding to launch an attack upon us which, to put it very mildly, was not as free from partisan extravagance as he was physically free himself from the demon of nervousness. But, Mr. Speaker, I notice he has left his seat, and therefore I shall refrain from half a dozen other observations which I intended to make respecting his initial speech m this chamber.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) in the course of his contribution to this debate put on a very earnest look-and I assume he was really earnest- and said that there was a distinct impression of anxiety throughtout the business world of the Dominion as to an impression that we were actually going to reduce the tariff. Well, he may call it anxiety in the business world, but I would call it a rattling of the dry bones of those infant industries which, with nearly forty-six years over their heads, refuse to grow up and stand alone.
I was interested in the speech of the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) the other day. The hon. member has an honourable military record and I am entirely sincere in congratulating him on that. The hand that for our country fought, whether it grasped a sword, whether it helped to heal the wounded, whether it ministered to those who died in battle-harness, is a hand I hope that as a citizen of this country I shall always properly honour. But my only regret is that the hon. member from that constituency is by no means as good a statesman as he is a warrior. He made an exceedingly partisan speech from the purely Conservative standpoint. One illustration he took to prove that the Conservative party was actually more democratic than the Liberal party was this: He said that we should go to the country; that his party went to the country when they had a majority of twenty-five over all. Well, many a bankrupt has quite a showing of goods in his shop, and the way to get at his real condition is to foot up his liabilities and his assets. They had that asset of twenty-five or thirty members and they had this liability facing them: just as often as they opened a constituency _ they would lose it by an overwhelming majority that indicated unmistakably the feeling of the people. I think the picture of Medicine Hat was one of the last that came into their dreams; and then, like a man doomed to cross a river where the ice was thin, they got into that state where they did not know whether it was safer to go on or to turn back. They actually opened another county; they spent the people's money in issuing the writs, in engaging a returning officer and in getting the machinery ready. But all this was done as a camouflage with regard to the time of bringing on the general election; either that, or it was done in a state of hysteria when they did not know their own mind. Well, that by-election had scarcely got under way when it was submerged by the larger issues of a general election. Yes, they had a majority of twenty-five or thirty when they went to the country. I am reminded of an occasion when I was out in a boat on Cobequid bay, a branch of the Bay of Fundy. Joseph Howe once told the people of Nova Scotia to boast of their province, that if they could say nothing else for it they could say that it had the highest tides in the world I am a poor sailor, and I found myself in a small, frail boat at the flood tide, with too many in it even for calm weather. The conditions were such that our lives were actually in danger. Not far away from us was a sand bar a few acres in extent which was rapidly becoming covered by the stormy water. A little girl in the boat pleaded with her father to run the boat over to that island in the sand, which, as all except her knew, would within an hour be entirely submerged by the tide. Of course we did not take that advice; we made for the shore, and by good luck we got there. These gentlemen do not deserve any particular thanks for choosing no
The Address-Mr. Putnam

longer to stand upon that majority of twenty-five or thirty, around which there raged the tide of public indignation, but rather to go to the country. They took a chance, as we did, to get to the shore of a new lease of power, and, as history has shown, they went down. But their position with that majority of twenty-five would have been just as untenable and as ridiculous as ours would have been had we disembarked on that little area of sand in the path of the tide.
The hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River has told us that what this country needs is a redeclaration of the National Policy. I am sure that anyone who has that idea is behind the age; in fact, Rip Van Winkle himself was up to the minute in comparison with him. A redeclaration of the National Policy? Why, you are going back to something that had more than a fair trial and that was more than a colossal failure. A redeclaration of the National Policy? The country will know that that implies an absolute repudiation and repeal of every vestige of the British preference. I remember the days when the National Policy was dragging on its weary length, when 1 was a young man; like Micawber we were waiting for something to turn up. At every Tory political meeting to which I would go the statement was made that our foreign trade was increasing literally by millions, and this was put forward as a wonderful argument. I to-day took the trouble to get the figures on that, and I find that with eighteen years of trial of the National Policy, from 1S78 until 1896, the total trade of Canada increased from $169,000,000, in round figures, to $221,000,000. That was an increase of about $50,000,000 which was flaunted from every Tory platform in those days and was put forth as proof of the success of .the National Policy. But what was the increase during the next fifteen years under the Lauries' administration, which saw the institution of the important incidence of the British preference? I find that the total trade of Canada increased from $221,000,000 in 1896 to $742,000,000 in 1911, or, roughly, ten times in fifteen years the amount that it had increased in eighteen years under the National Policy when it was functioning under the supervision of its own authors and finishers.
I cannot for the life of me see any reason for turning back the hands of the clock and making a redeclaration of the National Policy. I suppose every one of these forty-six year old infant industries would then want to be rebaptized and to assume the state of newborn babes. I can imagine that in future generations there would be a recurrence of this condition. Suppose the tariff were established

as at the time of the National Policy and there were a gradual policy of attrition in respect to customs duties in response to public dissatisfaction. The future beneficiaries of that wonderful policy would come back to the parliament of that future day and say, "We want a rebaptism; we want a redeclaration of the National Policy; we want a second or third life, a second or third chance." If it were the case of a cat I could conceive of her modesty coming to an end at about the ninth visit, but with the insatiate greed of the high protectionist I am afraid the process would be perpetual.
The hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River-and I will give him credit for it-was decidedly original in two or three of his remarks during the course of his address. He told us boldly, and it was a complete reversal of the whole song that we have heard sung by his political associates since the election of 1921, that the country has been plunged into the alleged slough of despond in which it now flounders because, chiefly, we did not carry out our pre-election promises. I think the thing was all the other way. That is, his party that said our promises were utterly unsound and ridiculous and that their fulfilment would be the ruin of this country. It reminds me of the little boy who was asked by his school teacher to write an essay upon Pins, and he proceeded to write a little essay on the subject. His first sentence was: "Pins save thousands of lives." "Why Johnny", said his teacher, "How do you make that out?" "Oh", he says, "it is because people do not swallow them." And I suppose that if the hon. member had lived in Bible times he would have said that the only sure way to compass the death of John the Baptist would have .been for King Herod to deny the dancer when she asked for John's head upon a charger. I say that the avoidance of the fulfilment of our promises, according to the Conservative party, was the salvation of the country.
It makes me just a little bit doubtful in so far as I can keep my mind from confusion in that state of facts, whether after all his heart really turned away from those sound economic propositions which were his when he was advocating that we should accept the proffer of reciprocity from the United States. He tells us that he went back on that, and he quoted Lincoln for his authority. I am afraid his authority was very far drawn. He professes to have seen the light like Paul. I do not think it was sun, moon or stars. It may have been the light that never was on sea or shore; or the light that failed. As for giving
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us any satisfactory answer or any semblance of a reason, he did nothing except to quote Lincoln from this long distance of time. I listened in vain for any real explanation of his somersault.
The hon. gentleman did tell us that we must look to the United States as a great example of the success of protection. Well, Mr. Speaker, I think we have said many times, and I think it is a truism and an axiom, that the United States herself is a great example of the success of free trade. I do not care what technically you call the tariffs which from time to time are found upon her wide walls; she has a great diversity of soil anl clime, f fruit and grain and mineral and fish, of resources vast and varied. She has the advantage of a seaboard that is wonderful. I say that the United States is a great example of the success of free trade. I do not think there is an area in the world which can boast in the same mileage such splendid resources, or such a splendid example of the success of free trade as the United States itself. We cannot adopt any parrot rule and say that because protection is good for the United States it is good for us. Our situation is vastly different, as I would like to show, or rather to review, for every sensible member knows it. The cases are by no means parallel; in fact, they are very dissimilar.
As I said before, the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Logan) has so well dealt with the Maritime provinces that I am not going to weary you with that subject, except to quote a few figures of population which I think raise a prima facie case that we were not given a fair deal in the device of confederation. In 1871 the population of Ontario was 1.620,851, and in 1921 it had increased to 2,933,622, or an increase of more than 80 per cent; Quebec's population in 1871 was 1,191,516, and in 1921 it had increased to 2,361,199. or over 100 per cent; Nova Scotia's population in 1871 was 387,800, and in 1921 it had increased to 523,837, or an increase of less than 40 per cent; New Brunswick's population in 1871 was 285,594, and in 1921, 387,876, or an increase of less than 40 per cent; Prince Edward Island's population in 1871 was 94,021, and in 1921 it had decreased to 88,615, or about 5 per cent. Without wearying the House I wish to contrast the difference between the Maritime provinces and the central provinces by this test of increase m population, and I say that on the face of it, it raises the presumption that confederation is economically a comparatively bad thing for us. In putting this claim before you I ask this administration and this parliament to
seek carefully for the remedy, and for the British principle of fair play and of evenhanded justice to all. I was going to make this suggestion, Mr. Speaker:	It is possible
when we find ourselves up against the serious conditions that obtain in this country at the present time that we are now paying the penalty for having Been a little too boastful of our own great country. I would be the last in the world to disparage the natural greatness of Canada, but we must take a sensible and a judicial view of these matters. We live side by side with a country upon whom a munificent Providence has seen fit to shower natural blessings which are even greater than ours. Take the climate, for instance, I admit that a man from a cold country may prefer our cold and rigorous climate, but a man from the average country of Europe prefers that of the United States, and that is one of the reasons why the early settlers chose to settle there, and from that nucleus the United States has built up a population of about one hundred and ten millions, whereas we have only the paltry number, by comparison, of eight or nine millions. They can grow corn. We have the soil for that too, but we have not the sun. Our quantity of corn is almost negligible, but we all know what an imimense natural asset that product is to the United States in an agricultural sense. They can grow cotton, an enormous natural asset to them, while we, of course, cannot grow any of that. When you come to fruit, it is true that we have some of the finest-flavoured fruit in the world, but in quantity it is small compared with the gigantic areas of fruit that are to be found in California and Florida, and we are glad to import their fruit despite the plaint the other day from the right hon. leader of the opposition. Take the rainfall. In 1918, when the hurricane of the war had reached its height, we were disposed to claim that this country was the granary of the Empire, but in that very year Providence saw fit to withhold very largely the rainfall from our prairies, and He saw fit to give the United States their rainfall, which is usually more dependable than in our great West, and it fell to the United States to help feed England whose tenacity was being tried to the utmost, and we had a very small part in that particular work for that year. Take our seaboard. We all know when we look at the map that we have a comparatively short seaboard on the Atlantic, and it is very jagged too. In winter the greater pait of it is in the grip of the ice king, but that is not so with the Atlantic seaboard
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of the United States. The great ships turn their prows for the United States as coming to a climate which is just a little bit warmer and more comfortable, and to harbours which know no ice and which average a better approach than they find on our shores, and the great freighters and the ocean greyhounds put into United States ports, and it is hard indeed to persuade their owners to give us any fair proportion, of their traffic. Now, I do not want to be misunderstood as to all this. I trust that no man, or no woman, would be cowardly enough to go out and say I was running down my country: I am simply trying, Mr. Speaker, to preach a little lesson in modesty. I think that we sometimes have run away with the idea that our country was unique in its natural resources and in its opportunities. It is not. But I do proclaim, and very broadly, that after all we have comparatively a very great country and its greatness, one of its assets, will be the raising of a virile, an intellectual, a spiritual and an imaginative people. Mr. Speaker, in so far as we have the will to win, in so far as we conquer difficulties, in so far as we overcome the obstacles of geography, the obstacles of distance-the fact that the habitable and the cultivable part of this country is largely found stretched, almost like a shoe string, along only the southern part of it-all that is an inspiration for us to put our best brain, pur best patriotism, and our best patience into working out some solution, some honourable compromise, whereby we shall make an ultimate and glorious success of Canada. It is going to take patience. The competition from the United States is such that if you spend money in bringing immigrants here, we know very well they are apt to percolate down to the United States, and the money we have spent in bringing them here goes for nothing. That is one of the objections which the armchair critics on this question of immigration do not take into account. They say "Why do you not encourage immigration as Australia did?" But the Australian continent is a great island, with a warm climate, with frost and snow almost unknown. When you get an immigrant there, it is no matter if he is dissatisfied, there is no United States border for him to slip across; he has to stay there and make the best of it. That is one of our difficulties and my point, if I may be clear is this: We should try to solve the problems of our country. It is all a fallacy and a waste of time to sit down and enumerate only the features which indicate the greatness and the advantages of our country. Let us diagnose the case. Let us look at our difficulties along

with our advantages. Let us face them candidly and frankly and let us in this investigation quit us like men. We have a great country, but we are subject to great competition from our neighbours to the south.
Mr. Speaker, I am trying at my age,-because I sometimes feel that I have ceased to be a young man,-to disabuse myself as far as I can of any prejudice and party spirit, and I am trying to look at things calmly as one judging a game from the side lines wherein he can see the mistakes and the excellencies of the players of both opposing teams. It is almost a truism that this party spirit should long ago have been abandoned; and I- am glad to say that, as far as my observation goes, it is pretty nearly at an end in this country.	I loath this intense
party spirit on which we were brought up, and point to the fact of sixty-five Progressives being here as a significant proof of the truth of what I am saying. The hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) turned to them the other day, and he put to the Progressives from the prairies this rhetorical poser: "Do you think all the wisdom of Canada is centred in you?"
I think that ex-soldier was playing with a double-edged sword. I think a fair implication as to the meaning of that remark was that he possibly thought that in his own mind there was more wisdom than in the minds of the whole of these dwellers upon the plains and their splendid representatives in this House. I must state in all good nature that I resented the question. I have two brothers in the West. They went out there just as strong Liberals as my hon. friend now professes to be a Conservative. Just as strong Liberal as I am. If I were out in the West I have no doubt I would see with the viewpoint of the people who dwell there and the representatives who come here from those districts. Those two brothers of mine supported the member who is now here from Medicine Hat (Mr. Gardiner). They are no longer Liberals, they think that party spirit is an absolutely foolish fetish and they lament having wasted so many years in the worship of it. Now they are Progressives. They belong to no party. They are dissatisfied with both the old parties.
I say that in this present state of affairs we should all try fo sink, as far as possible, this ridiculous handicap of frenzied party spirit. We can get an even wider outlook. Mr. Speaker, I lately saw the review of a book.
I forget the name of the author, but the subject of the book was The Patriotism of Humanity. That author put forward the position, and I saw it most favourably reviewed, that
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the man who to-day thinks that all the virtue is confined to his own country, and that all the undesirable elements of a nation are limited to some rival or some foreign country, is an antiquated specimen in the civilization of to-day, and I fancy that is the right way to view it. Do you imagine if our blessed Master were back on this earth that any more now than when He was here, we would appreciate Him as belonging to one country and being a partisan of that country and an enemy of every other. He and His great doctrines were intended for the whole world, and the sooner we learn to take that infinitely wide outlook the better for all concerned.
Mr. Speaker, I know that some recoil at the very word "compromise", but I remember reading a speech by Sir George Foster, who now adorns the Senate, in 1895 or 1896, when a troublous question was before this House. He said: Let us grasp and bear aloft the torch of friendly compromise under which the Fathers of Confederation marched in times far less prosperous and far more troublous than our own to an era of progress and continued peace. I think that view is peculiarly in point in presence of the problems of the present day.
In conclusion I merely wish to say that, as I judge the atmosphere at this time, at this capital city, and in this parliament, I am in hopes that the budget, which the present administration is working so hard to evolve, will be one in which the greater number, and the preponderating influence in this country will find a magnet upon which to unite in a friendly and an honourable compromise that will be to the lasting benefit of this Canada of ours.


Mr. G. C. WILSON (Wentworth):: Had it not been for the announcement of the Minister of Justice the other evening touching the extravagance of this House in regard to time, I do not think I should have stood up in my place to, in the first place, review some of the statements that have been made from both sides of the chamber, for I must
10 p.m. confess that here outside appearances do not always reflect inside experiences. But, Mr. Speaker, I can plead that perhaps in the past I have not taken up the time of this House at any too great length, and when I have spoken I trust I have been enabled to place some matters before this House, at least believing them to be true.
In the first place, I would like to congratulate and offer my felicitations to all the sons and daughters of the Emerald Isle upon the 17th of March, the day they honour their patron saint. May the land of the shamrock be favoured with prosperity and blessed with
national unity, tempered with equality and justice. I am sure that these words express the view of all those living in the Land of the Maple. I trust that any remarks I may make will be devoid of offence to all, and if I err, Sir, I hope it may not be a serious error.
I might as well say at the outset that I am of Irish and Scotch parentage, but I am a Canadian, and if, in the course of my remarks, I demonstrate some of my Scotch or Irish traits, kindly remember that one cannot refuse an inheritance, especially the Scotch. It did not cost me anything. You know an Irishman is reported to have said that every man should be proud of his native country, whether he was born there or not. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am proud that I am a Canadian and born in the county I represent, and, for your information, may I add that I am in rather a distinguished company in this House, because the hon. Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) was-born in that county; the dean of this House, the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) was born in that county, and the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark) was also born in that county. It is a good county, a county where industry and agriculture work hand in hand, a little different from some of the counties I have heard from in this debate. If sentiment at any time draws me to the side of the birthplace of my parents, it is only, I hope, because I love both the shamrock and the heather, but not more than the maple leaf.
We are all delighted to see the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) back in his place; and may I express the hope that, during his recent visit to our cousins in the South, he has been physically benefited, nay even inoculated with that American spirit and principle of looking out for number one, and that he may transmit to his cabinet and followers in this House, and through them into the veins of public life of Canada, that serum which will result in a return to a sane policy that a Canadian government should look after Canadian interests, especially when every other country is adopting such a policy. If the Deputy Speaker had not been in the Chair, I would like to refer to the long political experience of the Speaker of this House, of some 28 years, and I would ask him if he had ever, in all the records of this House remembered such a situation as we have today. Last session we found the government in the position of practically being afraid to bring in legislation without first stating that the measure would not be considered a party measure. This session we have no sign of improvement, no signs of stability, but rather
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symptoms of a nervous break down, a complication of internal disorders that may result seriously.
I will review some of the strange situations during the Prime Minister's absence. But before doing so, may I remind the hon. Prime Minister that I read the other day that an Italian had invented a delicate instrument whereby he could tell where earthquakes were going to take place and when; and I would suggest to the hon. Prime Minister that he equip his department with one; in fact some of us may have the opinion that he already has one, and that when he heard the murmurings and rumblings in his own party he decided, perhaps, that a visit a little further South might benefit him. No doubt, Sir, what has taken place during his absence has been placed before him, but I would like to refer to it. I may refer to-what shall we call it-the anguished indecision of the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler); or the position taken by the hon. member for St. Lawrenee-St. George (Mr. Marler), the supporter, we will say, who longs to bless, but who is constrained to curse; or the position of the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond) who, having heard his leader promise at Brantford that. no legitimate industry would be interfered with, and1 which upon comparing this statement with the announcement of reduction in the tariff on instruments of production, must lead him to add perhaps to1 what he has already so well said. I thought when the ex-Solicitor General, Hon. D. D. McKenzie, left the House that we had no authority left on Biblical quotations but I notice the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) is an adept at it, and I will have to be Very careful with any statements, I may make in that respect; but I would think that the attitude of the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond) will be found in these words-
Yea, mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.
And I suppose to this the Prime Minister will no doubt reply-
They profess me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.
Then another incident took place, and I am mentioning these things in an endeavour to find out, if we possibly can, what the policy of the government is, or what their attitude to the country is. The hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. McBride) suddenly became converted, but his conversion will only remain permanent provided' certain things are done in his riding. Then we have the hon.

member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) who, in a statement given to the press-and strange things are happening now-comes out in favour of one of the greatest combines, mergers or trusts, that this country has ever heard of, and he announces himself at the same time in favour of the protection of the minority. I do not wish to put him in a false light, but the hon. member has come out strongly and declared himself in favour of the greatest ecclesiastical merger or trust that he can conceive; that is church union.


Mr. BROWN:: Hear, hear.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: My hon. friend says, "hear, hear". While in my public career in municipal life, when I was a member of the local legislature, and also in this House, I have never been afraid1 to face any question, and I resent very much some of the campaign literature of one of the sides of this question. If my hon. friend had not said "hear, hear", I doubt whether I would have gone into it; and especially had I not been sent a printed pamphlet in connection with one of the contesting parties in the Presbyterian church, which I attend, on this question, which pamphlet states that no doubt when this question comes up in the House politicians and members of parliament will take the line of least resistance. That has never been my attitude. I will not take the course of least resistance; but I will exercise that liberty of conscience that, I claim, is my right, and when the time comes, I will vote the way I think, in spite of petitions or letters that may be sent to me. I think I have a perfect right to hold to the views that I maintain, as part of our civil and religious liberty.


John Livingstone Brown: That is the Scotch coming
out now.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: It may be Scotch, but I
am proud of it. I am proud of this, that I practise what I preach. I am not like some other people that preach and do not practise.
I would also refer to the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster). I do not know, to be candid, what position he was in, because, while he spoke from this side and he received the greatest amount of applause from my hon. friends to my left, in the absence of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) he was not making love to the then leader of the government (Mr. Graham), but he was practically what I would say skylarking with the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). To-night, I saw him sitting over on that side, and I wondered if something had taken place, because while there is no doubt in my mind he is an ardent free trader, I think he is in the position

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of a prodigal son. I remember his speaking about the corn; I suppose there were corn husks where he was, and he evidently is anxious to get back. I suppose when he considers the statement made by the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond) about dropping the pilot, he may think there may be a change and it is pretty nearly time for him to get back.
I said that we were anxious to know what the trouble was. The other night the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) inquired of different members sitting on the government benches if they would enlighten us as to what the Speech from the Throne meant. I know there are still certain members from whom we on this side would like to hear. I should like to hear from the hon. member for North Essex (Mr. Healy). You know the hon. member for North Essex says:
King needs Tim; Tim needs King;
Tim and King, that's the thing
We would like to know the position of the hon. member for North Essex on this tariff question at the present time. It would be well worth while having the opinions of the hon. member for Welland (Mr. German), the hon. member for North Bruce (Mr. Malcolm), the hon. member for St. Antoine (Mr. Mitchell), the gallant member for Quebec South (Mr. Power), the hon. member for Lothbiniere (Mr. Vien), and the hon. member for Chamblv and Vercheres (Mr. Archambault). As regards the last three members, I can remember in previous sessions when they were sitting on this side, they were very active critics of the government; they never failed to express their opinions, and I wonder how they stand on this question to-day as presented by the government. There is another one in the ranks of the Progressive party that I would like to hear from. We have heard from the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler). I would like to hear from the hon. member for South Waterloo (Mr. Elliott). It is, however, for the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) to tell what the trouble is. I have wondered, as a great many people have wondered, what the trouble was, but you know the Minister of Agriculture has that-what should I call it?-sort of perambulating "roaming in the gloaming" style of telling you, and you know just about as much after he is through as you did before he started. His statement, however, will perhaps, convince some of the members of the House and the country what the trouble is. I hope my hon. friends of the Progressive party will agree with what he thinks of it, because I think he advocates mixed farming in the West and some of them do not take kindly to that.
This is an address given by the Minister of Agriculture before the Womens Liberal Association in Ottawa, and it is taken from the Journal of 22nd January, 1924. Speaking before a women's club, this Sampson of politics had to fall for a Delilah of the Liberal Club; he had to tell wherein his strength lay or wherein the weakness lay. What does he say? The paper said in its report of his speech at this club:
It was not a prepared speech. . .
The report continued:
While believing in the two-party system of government, which he traced from the Cavaliers and Roundheads of Charles I, if people desired more than two parties they must make up their minds to have unstable government, said Mr. Motherwell. That of which he was a member was an example, carrying on without a majority, but still able to carry on. More parties invariably meant more confusion. It would probably do neither Great Britain nor Ramsay MacDonald harm to have the Labour government experiment in England. ThingS would look differently to Mr. MacDonald when he got into power.
I want to say this to my Progressive friends that if they ever happen to get into power, things will look differently to them. Further on he says:
In Canada at present politics had descended to "cut-throat euchre", with the government in the position of the dealer. It was regrettable at a time when the country needed strong legislation that the government's hands should be tied, "and that we should have to count noses before we move".


Henry Herbert Stevens: Who said that?


Gordon Crooks Wilson: The Minister of Agriculture. The Assistant Clerk of this House deserved great credit when he could call the names of the members of the House; but I hope the Minister of Agriculture has no intention to introduce legislation to compel him to count noses when a vote is taken. The Minister of Agriculture has just come in. Let me repeat that I am talking about him and his wooing of the ladies of the Liberal Club of Ottawa.


Mr. MOTHERWELL:: Hear, hear.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: The minister says, "hear, hear." The minister described the position of the government in saying that the game was " cut-throat euchre." It may be euchre, because as I look across at the other side of the House, the Prime Minister is not in his place, but I know that he has lost his right bower and also his left bower, and the only thing which he does now is to appeal to my hon. friends to my left and to take his partner's best, in this case the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke). I want to tell him that that game is out of date. It is not according to Hoyle. You cannot take your partner's best.

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Lewis Herbert Martell: The joker is over there.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: I might ask the Minister of Agriculture if the embargo is still on, and if it is still on, what does it prevent from coming into this House or this country? The hon. member, as I stated, goes further as regards the cut-throat euchre. He said:
It was regrettable at a time, when the country needed strong legislation that the government's hands s'lou'd be tied, and that we should have to count noses before we moved. Yet the people in their wisdom placed us in that position.
Further on he says, as regards the National Railways:
Sir Henry Thornton had made good-
And then mark this:
-and so long as he continues to make good be wih have the same freedom he enjoys to-day.
So Sir Henry had better be careful, he had better "watch his step," or he will get, into difficulties, too.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to deal with certain statements that have been made during the course of this debate. In calling attention to a prediction made by the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey), I would add that if his other predictions are all as far at sea as this one we do not need to pay much attention to them. He said:
The Conservative party is coming back-
Then he paused, and added:
-but with reduced numbers.
Some hon. MEMBERS. Hear, hear.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: My hon. friends applaud. Drury said that. Drury said the Conservative party was coming back with reduced numbers in the province of Ontario. If my hon. friends to the left, or my hon. friends across the floor, will count noses first, or if they will give us a chance of letting the electors of the Dominion decide, they will soon find out that the Conservative party will come-back to power with ever increased numbers.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Premature consolation is but the remembrancer of sorrow, as Goldsmith says.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: 
An hon. MEMBER:: What about the Ontario Temperance Act?


Gordon Crooks Wilson: Well, that is going to be
put to the test pretty soon. Prohibit dancing, prohibit card playing, prohibit oleomargarine, prohibit smoking, prohibit drinking and prohibit betting, and I am sure the hon. member for Brant will not find the conditions as vastly improved as his theory would lead us to believe.
I happen to have been a follower of one of the greatest leaders that this province has ever produced. I sat in the local legislature under the late Sir James Whitney, and although, perhaps, some of the statements he made have been forgotten by many, they at least contained truth and embodied practical suggestions that have turned out to be well founded. He said on many occasions that you had to have a preponderance of public opinion behind any measure before you could enforce it. Now, somebody said something about the Ontario Temperance Act. I do not know whether he referred to me or not, but so far as that is concerned I am one of those who do not preach temperance but practise it. I have never been off the water wagon in my life, but I do not insist on forcing my views on the other fellow.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton):: Not even
protection?


Gordon Crooks Wilson: No. What I think we
should do is get together-the East and the West. In fact, there should be no East and no West. The hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Bird) says this:
There is the debt under which the farmer is labouring ; there is taxation; there is the tariff; there is transportation.
Well, I may tell my hon. friend that in Ontario the greatest part of the debt is due to the farmer administration. The debt of Ontario increased from $97,000,000 in 1919 to $243,000,000 in 1923, and this by the party that had promised economy, this by the party who said that, on the good roads policy, they were going to build roads for all the people and not certain roads for certain people. I well remember that some three years ago, I think it was, when I tried to present to this House what I thought at that time was the correct view to take in connection with the building of roads in my county, I was met with determined opposition by the then hon. leader of the Progressives, the hon. member
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for Marquette (Mr. Crerar). I did not blame him, in,a way, because I think somebody on the opposition benches at that time said we were making political capital, getting ready for an election. That may be true or it may not, but the statements I made then were not exaggerations. I pointed out that in the county which I represented, roads were being built, water-bound macadam roads, with asphalt top, at a cost of $82,000 a mile; and somebody on this side of the House, a member of the then opposition, wanted to know if those were the streets that were paved with gold. And what do you think? In a return brought down in the local legislature this year the cost was stated of the construction of the road between Toronto and Clap-pison's Comers which is in my county. I wish the Progressives could coihe and see that work. They may talk about extravagant expenditures, but they should come and see how the ex-Minister of Public Works of Ontario built roads under the Parmer administration. This road, thirty-two miles long, cost over $96,000 per mile. The hon. member says, " there is the debt under which the farmer is labouring."


Mr. BIRD:: May I ask a question? Has the party which the hon. gentleman represents discovered any political corruption in relation to those roads?


Gordon Crooks Wilson: I am glad my hon. friend asked the question.


Thomas William Bird: Will the hon. gentleman permit me to finish? Perhaps he is equally well acquainted with the debt that burdens our Manitoba farmers at the present time, and its sources.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: Increased by the present Bracken government. But in the province of Ontario we have good reason to know what the debt is.


Thomas William Bird: I was not referring to any increase on the part of the Bracken government, but rather to the sources of the debt under which the farmers of Manitoba are labouring at the present time. That is what I was referring to in my speech, if I was referring to that particular phase of debt at all.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: If you go into it, you find that it was a general statement-the debt under which the farmers were labouring. When I rose in this House and condemned the expenditure of money in my own constituency, 1 took an attitude which, I think, is not often enough taken in this House. I condemned the extravagance of that govem-
ment. I condemned the attitude of the exMinister of Public Works of Ontario, who sits in the seat I formerly occupied in the local legislature. I condemned it because it was extravagant. I said it was not fair for Ontario or for this government to be compelled to hand over its share of the $20,000,000 grant and give that large proportion to the county of Wentworth. I want to say to the credit of the Department of Highways that they did not approve of the roads that I condemned. The late government did not approve of them, and this government, to their credit, have not approved of them. Mr. Drury, Mr. Manning Doherty and the other satellites came into my constituency during the last Dominion election and did everything they possibly could to defeat me. They stated that I was opposed to good roads, although they knew I was not, but that I was opposed only to the extravagance of their road policy. I told the farmers of that community that although the minister was saying those roads would not cost them anything, I was satisfied that when they got the bills the story would be different. And what is the position of the county of Wentworth to-day? Twenty per cent of the cost, which we have to pay, means that the county of Wentworth has to issue debentures for $842,-
000.	That is our share, and we have to pay it.


Mr. WARNER:: I protest against the time of this House being taken up with matters that are outside of our control. I would rather have the hon. member talk about the $300,000,000 that is left to us of fixed charges which should have been partly discharged during the war.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not
know but that I am perfectly in order. The hon. member is using the tactics that were adopted by the leader of the Progressive group when I was speaking once before. He tried to prevent me, and I was saved on that occasion by the present Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy), who was very anxious to get the facts; and I may say that if my speech was in error at that time the Liberal Association of the province of Ontario ordered 10,000 copies of it. When my hon. friend from Strathcona (Mr. Warner) gets up in this House and says that I should talk about something that is connected with this House, he apparently does not know that the Department of Highways under the Dominion has something to say as regards the expenditures on roads in this country. I might retort that I have never taken up the time of this

The Address-Mr. Wilson
House in talking about the agricultural show held in my county, as he has done on many an occasion.
I would suggest this to the Department of Highways. I understand that the appropriation has been spent; I think I am correct in that as regards the province of Ontario at least, and an appeal has been made, and further appeals will no doubt be made, to this government for additional money for road building. I approve of the principle of road building, but not of the extravagant principle of road building, and I also suggest to this government that; when they draw up the next regulations in connection with the paying out of money for good roads, they take a tighter grip of it and first approve of the project before it is started. I am not casting any reflections on anyone, but I know what happened in the past in the province of Ontario, and I think it is well to offer th;s suggestion which I have done in the best interests of the country.
Now let me tell my hon. friends to my left, and the hon. member who just recently interrupted me, and who may not realize the fact, that the extravagance and non-fulfilment of their pre-election pledges led to the defeat of the Farmer government in the province of Ontario. The hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Bird) speaking in this debate a few days ago said, referring to what is promised in this clause of the Speech from the Throne: "There is transportation." I trust that the hon. member does not preach that the transportation problem will be solved by the panacea for western ills, the removal of the tariff on agricultural implements.
I also want to take exception to a statement he made in regard to residents of cities, whom he called parasites. The constituency I represent is perhaps one of the largest urban and rural constituencies in the province of Ontario. We have a great number of workers, and I do not know that it is very becoming for the hon. member to refer to them as parasites, or very becoming of him to refer to the cities as big swollen parasites that suck the life-blood of the producer. We do not look upon them in that way in the constituency from which I come, because we have there the best home market for the farmers than is to be found anywhere in the province of Ontario. I believe it is the largest market in the Dominion of Canada.
My hon. friend for East Lambton (Mr. Fansher) said, "Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the vultures be gathered together." That was the statement the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) corrected for him. Now
in the urban centre of Hamilton we can truthfully say, and this is the revised version, "Where industry thrives there are the fanners gathered together." Let me prove my point by a reference to the Hamilton market. It is a great thing to hear these Progressives and the United Farmers of Ontario say-and we heard the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey) say the same thing to-night: Do away with the middleman. In the city of Hamilton market the middleman is eliminated. Yet we are told that the home market is of no value to the farmer. I have here some figures furnished me by the market clerk of the city of Hamilton. The Hamilton central market is for the sale of fresh meats, poultry, fish, butter, eggs, flowers of all kinds, fruit farm and garden produce. To that market in the city of Hamilton which is the urban centre, we have brought in each day, 9,000 gallons of milk to the two city dairies from 450 producers in the country. Yet they say the home market is of no use. Here is some further information about this home market, this Hamilton market that we are so proud of. It can accommodate 1,000 vendors of all classes in one day. I do not wish to go into all the details, but I will take just one month, that of September, 1923, and I will show you how many farmers attended that market:
Transient farmers	 4,795
Farmers reserving stands	  2,213
Butchers reserving stands	 258
Fishmongers (all citizens of	Hamilton)	
72Stalls occupied by different	dealers	in produce. 144Florists	
279
In the butter hall where the farmers' wives sell their produce there were 1,621, or a total of farmers and their wives selling on the Hamilton market in the month of September, of 9,382. Yet our friends from the West tell us that the home market is of no value to us. Let me tell them what is sold there. You know, there was a United Farmers of Ontario organization-there is not much of it left to-day-for co-operative dealing, co-operative buying and selling. We heard a lot about that, but the farmers in our county have realized that it does not pay to sell through that organization, and the farmers bring their produce into the market. In the month of September there was sold on the Hamilton market, carcasses of beef, 468; calves, 599; lambs, 700; sheep, 78; hogs, 180.
I resent, Mr. Speaker, any member referring to the residents of the cities as parasites, and I want to say this so far as my constituency is concerned:	In 1914 those so-called parasites toed the scratch. They were the men who went without conscription. They walked right in, and signed up, and fought for the protection of this country and of the British
The Address-Mr. Wilson

flag. They may be parasites, but we are proud of them. I do not mind anyone calling me names; you can call me what you like, but I do resent the people I represent being called names.
On one occasion Mr. Biggs, ex-minister of Public Works of Ontario, made the statement that "politics was the dirtiest game he ever was in." I sometimes get sick and tired of hearing people say that if they had the opportunity they would do the same as others have done for their own profit. Any game is just what you make it. If you play the game fairly you would never be able to say that politics is a dirty game. But I think if we possess our souls in patience we will find that the declaration I have just quoted will be established,-that it will prove a boomerang to the man who uttered it.
I wish to say this as regards the policy of protection. I represent a manufacturing town, the town of Dundas. I also represent a large portion of the city of Hamilton. In that portion there are more American industries than in any other city in the Dominion. To those who claim that protection has not been a good thing I want bo know how it is these American industries came to Hamilton. Was it because of free trade? No, it was because there was a tariff against their goods coming into this country, and they decided to come to Canada and to manufacture in this country. That I consider is a benefit to the Dominion. In my constituency we believe in the protection of labour, we are not in favour of creating a standard of living lower than that which exists to-day. We maintain that the artisans of Wentworth county are entitled to protection; are entitled to the fair-wage clause in public contracts; are entitled to the eight-hour day; are entitled to the Minimum Wage Act; are entitled to the Workmen's Compensation Act as it exists in Ontario; and are entitled to better their condition of living. We not only believe in a policy of protection for the working men but we believe in a policy of protection for the fruit growers and market gardeners of the Niagara peninsula. We say they also need protection, and we ask the government to grant this protection. We say to our friends in the East who declare they wish to encourage agriculture : Is it fair to ask the workers in our county, in our market gardens, who work early and late, to compete against the southern states where the climatic conditions are such that it is utterly impossible for us in this Dominion to produce fruits and vegetables at as early a season as they do. I heard the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) refer to producing pineapples under glass. {Mr. Wilson.]
That may be a debatable question-putting a tax upon oranges, bananas, pineapples and lemons.


Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: Grapes.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: There is a duty on grapefruit, and there is a duty on grapes. But let me ask this question:	Do hon. members
know what made the price of grapes go up in the province of Ontario?


Joseph Archambault: Prohibition.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: Yes, it is due to the fact that hon. gentlemen to my left, the Progressives and their friends who pronounced in favour of prohibition, absolutely refused to interfere with native wine. They preach one thing and practise another. To-day we are in this ridiculous position in the province of Ontario: It is perfectly legal to make wine from the juice of the grape, but you must get a permit if you wish to make it out of dandelions; it is perfectly legal for a wine manufacturer to sell wine containing 20 per cent of alcohol, he can manufacture it, but if he advertises it he violates the law; we cannot have 2( per cent beer but we can have wine with a 20 per cent kick in it. I believe in temperance, I make no bones about it-


Joseph Archambault: Who passed that law?


Gordon Crooks Wilson: The Conservative government. I am not in favour of the repeal of the Ontario Temperance Act, I am in favour of sane legislation, and I commend the Premier of Ontario for the fact h.e has backbone enough to fulfil the pledges he gave to people when he was appealing for their votes. This should be an example to my right hon. friend the Prime Mininster of Canada. The trouble to-day in our public life is that the leaders of thought in religion and in municipal, provincial and Dominion politics are not living up to the pledges they gave the people.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: My hon. friends may laugh,
but they should remember that Drury laughed at one time. I ask them to remember the old saying "Empty vessels make the most noise".
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to go further and refer to the industries in the city of Hamilton as an evidence that protection is a good thing. The leader of the government the other night made a strong appeal in peroration to the Grand Old Man of Hamilton, Mr. Adam Brown. We are proud of Mr. Adam Brown in the city of Hamilton, and the Dominion should

The Address-Mr. Wilson
be equally proud that when he was in political life he was a man of vision. He was one of those who believed that Canada had a great future. Mr. Brown was a member of the House in 1887, and speaking of the protection that was being afforded to the iron industry, a protection that was opposed by the Liberal opposition, he said,-and I quote from Hansard of May 17, 1887, page 494:
Mr. Brown: Hon. gentlemen opposite say hear, hear.
I hope they will get some sense knocked into them before long that they will see this in a proper light. They do see it, Mr. Speaker. The wriggling way in which they have gone through the question to-day shows that they see it. Here and there some of them try the circus trick, riding on the backs of two horses, free trade here and National Policy somewhere else. At the same time they feel that the country is so sound on the question of the National Policy that they dare not come out openly and speak against it. This change in the tariff, I believe, will secure for the National Policy a position which it has never had before, because it strikes at the root of the whole matter. It protects the labour that is required to produce the article.
The letter was read stating-
Your telegram received; we wired you this morning: "We think changes made in the tariff will be found satisfactory and will, as intended, rapidly develop the iron business." We are surprised to know the decided stand made by the government upon the tariff, the same arguments having been offered before and no result came. We had feared that the matter would be left as before, especially as such strong protests are made by prominent parties. The action of the government in taking this firm and comprehensive stand will, before long entitle them to the praise of all who take an interest in the development of this country. Increased wealth and population are sure to follow. Every ton of the ore and coal that now lies worthless in the ground, that is manufactured, adds so much to the wealth of this country.
Has Mi. Brown's prophecy been fulfilled?
This government haa been presented with a petition on behalf of the industries of Hamilton. It was moved in the council by a Liberal controller and was seconded by a Conservative controller, and another controller a Mr. Davis, who was past president of the Liberal Association, said that this was a question that certainly interested Hamilton, and what he was in iavour of was not a reduction on agricultural implements, but that he was in favour of a return to the Laurier tariff. Now if you give the manufacturers the Laurier tariff on agricultural implements I think they will be more than satisfied, and that comes from a gentleman who was a Liberal candidate in the last provincial election. This petition is addressed to the government and is from the city council, and has been sent to the Acting Minister of Finance. It says that a reduction in the duties 26
threatens the life and existence of many other Hamilton industries. They are referring to the Libbey-Owens Glass Works, and more especially to the agricultural implement manufacturers. In the city of Hamilton we have some 72 branches of American factories, and you ought to know what is taking place by the reduction even of last year. We have what is known as the International Harvester Company,-and I cannot understand why the government would single out any one industry, and especially why should they single out practically the hospital ship of Canadian industry, and they are not even going to give it a fair burial, but they are going to torpedo it; there is no question what it means. At the present time the International Harvester Company have an investment of fifteen million dollars in Hamilton and Stratford. They pay one million dollars per year in freight rates. They have in Hamilton,-under ordinary conditions in the past, an employee list of four thousand. To-day they have four hundred and fifty. That is four hundred and fifty as against four thousand. The National Steel Car Company, with a list of fifteen hundred employees, has today twelve hundred. Why have they twelve hundred? Why is it when the other company has a great proportion of their men out of work, the National Steel Car Company seem to have a large number of men at work? The reason is that the department of the Canadian National tailways has given an order to the National Steel Car Company for a thousand cars. We have another industry which so far has not been affected,-and if the hon. member for West Peterborough (Mr. Gordon) were in his place, he would bear out this statement-I refer to the Canadian WTestinghouse. They ordinarily employ three thousand people. They have at the present time twenty-five hundred, and the reason they have so many is because the elec trieal industry has not been disturbed to a great extent. The Hydro-Electric development in Ontario has been a factor in keeping these men employed. But to sum up, in the past, the 72 American industries had on their payroll 17,463, and they paid out $360,000 per week. To-day they have only 7,939 on their payroll. That is a reduction in the number of 9,524, and their payroll has been reduced in these industries alone from $360,000 per week to $165,210. Now, we have in the city of Hamilton other industries, and I just want to mention this fact because when the hon. Prime Minister referred to the former member from Hamilton, Mr. Adam Brown, I want to



The Address-Mr. Wilson
know if the prediction made by that gentleman in this House has come true. In 1879 the population in Hamilton was 34,208, and the assessment was 815,168,280. In 1923 the city of Hamilton had a population of 120,235 and an assessment of 8145,000,000. There are employed in the Hamilton industries 30,454; capital invested 8142,000,000; payroll per year 840,000,000. Then we have an annual incoming railway tonnage of 750,000, we have an outgoing railway tonnage of 2,500,000 tons. We have a lake shipping, outgoing of 53,000 tens, and incoming shipping of 46,000 tons.
What is the trouble to-day in the Dominion of Canada? In the first place, a great deal of our troubles arise from unemployment. And unemployment is brought about by what? The failure of someone to provide industry, the failure of the government to bring in a stable fiscal policy and the fact, as I said before, that a great many people have lost faith in the present leader of the Liberal party. They were talking about the emigration to the States. I will give the House one instance. I am not talking in the calamity strain that I sometimes hear in this House, but I will refer to one of the employees of one of the industries in Hamilton who had been for seventeen years with the same company. He has a family of eleven children, all Canadians, seven of whom are of working age. But they cannot find employment now, so he has had to resign his position, and with his family, go to the States. You talk about the policy of immigration, but do you not think, in the first place, Mr. Speaker, that we should have something to which we could invite the immigrants to come? We do not want to be a clearing house for the United States. That is what we are to-day. We are paying for the education of the people who come here, and they drift, and drift, and drift, over to the United States. Now then, if this agricultural implement industry is torpedoed, if they are driven out of business, what will happen? I would like to know from the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) and leading members of the Progressive party what is going to take place supposing we do not get the tariff reduction. We heard the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey) say to-night that he would be satisfied, and the leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke) said that he would be satisfied, with the government. I think it would be better if they would approve the idea of practically crossing the floor of the House. They cannot any longer admit that they are an independent group, because practically every one of them has said: We will support the government provided that so and 
so is done; we will support the government if they build the Hudson Bay railway.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Gordon Crooks Wilson: My hon. friend says: "hear,
hear." I do not deny that perhaps the Hudson Bay railway should be built, but certainly what should be done is first to have a careful investigation whether it is going to be any good or not. I have been an advocate of public ownership; I stumped the whole province in the interest of public ownership in connection with the Hydro-Electric; but I could not follow Sir Adam Beck entirely when he advocated the system of hydro-radials that he did advocate, I voted against it in my own constituency; my constituency voted for it. I am in favour of electric raliways; I am in favour of railways being built where they are needed; but I am not in favour of a policy in Ontario as regards electric roads similar to what we have in regard to steam roads. If you go into Cobourg or any of those places on the way to Ottawa, you will see three railways within a stone's throw of one another. We should be careful of what is done and we should spend our money to the best advantage.
I have already delayed this House at too great length; I apologise if I have taken longer than I should; but I hope the government will realise that the country expects something from them. The country should have had some announcement, if not in the Speech from the Throne, then one that will set at ease capital and industry in Canada. Our problems to-day, as I said, are unemployment, stagnation of business, sectionalism, transportation and proper marketing. I think one of our solutions would be the appreciation of the industrial East of the agricultural West, and the appreciation of the agricultural West, of the industrial East. Let me conclude by saying what I believe should be-and I quote in verse-the policy of this country:
Consider well 'tis not the time to stunt our growing powers,
And place this country's destiny in other hands than ours;
So let our final answer be, and let East and West be told.
We'll weld together what we have, and what we have, we'll hold.
On motion of Mr. Graham, the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Graham the House adjourned at 11.15 p.m.

The Address-Mr. Graham
Tuesday, March 18, 1924