1924-05-13

OFFICIAL REPORT


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Volume Volume Volume
I: Pages 1-1020 III: Pages 2013-3040 V: Pages 4037-4877
Volume II:: Pages 1021-2012 Volume IV: Pages 3041-4035 Volume VI: Index



VOLUME CLXII


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CA-IST^DA.
Mouse of Commons Debates
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Tuesday, May 13, 1924
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Report of the Grain Commissioners for Canada for the crop year ending August 31, 1923.-Hon. Mr. Low.

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Mr. THOMAS VIEN (Lotbiniere) presented the fourth report of the select standing committee on Banking and Commerce, as follows:
Your committee recommend that they be authorized to have their proceedings and such evidence as may be taken printed from day to day for the use of members of the committee and of the House, and that rule 74 in relation thereto be suspended.
Mr. VIEN moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.

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Petitions' were presented from certain members of the following congregations severally praying that the proposed legislation incorporating the United Church of Canada, be not enacted:
Falworth Street Presbyterian Church; St. James Presbyterian Church; St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, all of Sydney; St. Matthew's Presbyterian Church, of North Sydney; St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church of Sydney Mines; Calvin Presbyterian Church, of Louisburg; Union Presbyterian Church of Mira and Cat.alone, all of the province of Nova Scotia,-Mr. Carroll.
Petitions were presented from certain members of the following congregations and bodies *praying that the bill now before the House to incorporate the United Church of Canada be passed during the present session.
Methodist Church, Brantford, Ont.; North Broadview Presbyterian Church, Toronto; [DOT] Methodist Church at Gregg, Man.; William Mills and 124 others, Woodslee and Ruscumb, Ontario; Maryland Methodist Church, Winnipeg, Man.; Union Church, Joggins, N.S.; First Methodist Church, St. Thomas, Ont.;
Presbyterian Church	Bosanquet; Central
Methodist Church, St. Thomas, Ont.; Presbyterian Church, Kenton, Manitoba; Methodist Church, York ,	P.E.I.;	PresbyterianChurch, Bradwardine, Manitoba: Presbyterian Church, Lacombe, Alberta; Methodist Church, Strathroy, Ontario;	Knox	PresbyterianChurch, Wetaskiwin,	Alberta;	Methodist
Church, North Gower, Ont.; Union Church, Bod Accord, Alberta; Methodist Church, Mount Bridges; Presbyterian Church, Valley-field, P.E.I.; Presbyterian Church, Bear Stream and Kamsack, Sask.; Methodist Church, Plunkett, Sask.,-Mr. Stansell.


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Bill No. 105 (from the Senate), respecting a patent of Thomas Williams Pritchard.-Mr. Boys.
Bill No. 106 (from the Senate), respecting The General Animals Insurance Company of Canada.-Mr. Ryckman.
Bill No. 107 (from the Senate), for the relief of Amy Selain Slater Therrien.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 108 (from the Senate), for the relief of Harold Adrian Proctor.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 109 (from the Senate), for the relief of Harry Charles Arthur.-Mr. Martell.
Bill No. 110 (from the Senate), for the relief of Tony Bazar.-Mr. LeSueur.
Bill No. Ill (from the Senate), for the relief of Gordon Johnston Hutton.-Mr. Stewart (Hamilton).
Bill No. 112 (from the Senate), for the relief of Douglas Carlyle Bell.-Mr. Ross (Kingston) .
Bill No. 113 (from the Senate), for the relief of Elma Catheryne Caulfield.-Mr. Ross (Kingston).
Bill No. 114 (from the Senate), for the relief of Alice Bertha Boyce Baker.-Mr. Spence.
Bill No. 115 (from the Senate), for the relief of John Lee Williamson.-Mr. Church.

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On the Orders of the Day:
Sir HENRY DRAYTON (West York):: Might I ask the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) whether he has not omitted

The Budget-Mr. Preston

something to-da.y; whether there are no more budget changes to be laid on the table?


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance):: Nothing more to-day, Mr. Speaker.



DISMISSAL OF J. B. LEVESQUE

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Mr. ALEXANDRE J. DOUCET- (Kent,
N.B.) (Translation):	Mr. Speaker, on March
19, 1924, the House ordered the production of all correspondence exchanged between the Department of Marine and Fisheries and Mr. Jean Baptiste Levesque relating to the dismissal of this employee; on April 30 last, the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries informed me that the officials of his department would immediately furnish all the information required relating to this dismissal. I wish to know if I shall soon be given this information?
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) (Translation):: The corespond-ence to which the hon. member refers has just been laid on the Table of the House.



THE BUDGET


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The House resumed from Monday, May 12, the debate on the motion of Hon. J. A. Robb (Acting Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Woodsworth.
Mr. R. F. PRESTON (Lanark):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to address the House for a few moments on a question that I believe to be of great importance not only to the people whom I have the distinguished honour to represent, but also to the masses of the people of this country. I concur with what other hon. gentlemen have said in reference to the absence of the right hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), and I join with them in expressing the hope that in the near future providence will restore to him his health and strength and that he may be enabled again to take his place in the House. To the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) I extend my congratulations upon the bold and vigorous way in which he delivered his budget speech, but to the contents of it, Mr. Speaker, I cannot subscribe.
About a year ago it was rumoured about the country in the press and elsewhere that this government was likely to make some

changes in the tariff, and it was. suggested that if the changes were made the result would be disastrous to industry, especially to the woollen and textile industries. Following upon that rumour, more than one deputation came to Ottawa to wait upon the right hon. Finance Minister. One of these deputations which I have particularly in mind was made up of a body of able executive men, men of wide experience, who felt it their duty as business men to come here and give all the information they could to the Finance Minister. They laid their cards on the table; they appealed to the minister, and I personally was present and heard the appeal. He received them in his usual courteous manner but gave them no encouragement and when-the budget of that year came down it was found that nothing had been done along the lines suggested by them. The country has been placed in a most deplorable financial condition by reason of the fact that no relief was given to the industries I have mentioned.
Before the budget speech of this session was delivered, I understand, another deputation came down here and waited upon the Acting Finance Minister along the same line- men, as I say, of outstanding executive ability, men who knew their business and who wanted to give the Acting Finance Minister what guidance they could and to point out the need for some relief. I do not know exactly what the answer was, but it was stated that he did tell them they might thank God that they had this government in power. What he meant by that I do not know, unless it was that if the Progressive party were in power the condition might be even worse.
I propose to deal with this budget under several heads:	First, from the point of view
of its effects upon the industry of my own constituency; second, its effect upon the industrial fabric of the country as a whole; third, its adverse effect upon Canadian wages, Canadian employment and the standard of Canadian labour; fourth, its menace to the Canadian home market and consequently to the great mass of the agriculturists of Canada; fifth, its relation to immigration and emigration; sixth, its demoralizing effect upon Canadian stability and Canadian development and its equally demoralizing effect upon public confidence in the integrity of public life involved in the apostasy from the solemn pledges and undertakings given by the government to the people.
I wish to speak first in reference to my own county, with which I am most familiar.

The Budget-Mr. Preston
Many years ago we had two principal industries in that county, agriculture and lumbering. The farmers and their sons got work from the lumbermen in the woods in the winter and in the sawmills and on the drives-in the summer, and so they went along for some years; everybody was working and everybody was contented. During those days there was no distress, no discontent in the county. But there came a time when the lumbering industry in that part of the country passed out of existence and the farmers' sons were obliged to look to other sources of employment. Fortunately we had a protective tariff in this country, and under that tariff new industries took the place of lumbering and the lumbering towns of those days are now industrial centres. .
I propose to give a few figures as to the capital invested in that county in industrial concerns, the wages paid, and the number of employees. We have approximately $9,265,000 capital invested in industrial concerns in that county; they have an annual payroll of $2,026,200, and employees to the number of 2,344. This, Mr. Speaker, illustrates what industry means to one county in Ontario, and these industries have been developed as the result of protection. The figures I have quoted, do not include all the industries, just the major ones, and, of these quoted, two-thirds of the investment is in the woollen industry. These industries have kept our people in our own country, and in our own country they have furnished employment for the sons and' daughters of the farmers who do not wish to remain on the land, and further, they have furnished & market for practically the entire agricultural products of our country. Anything seriously affecting the prosperity of these industries will seriously affect the prosperity of every man, woman and child in my county, whether they are in the mills or on the land.
Permit me for a few minutes to deal with the general situation as it affects the woollen industry. This is one of the greatest of Canadian industries, having a total investment of $65,000,000 and 124 mills in the several provinces. It particularly feels British competition more than any other Canadian industry, as is seen by the imports. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1922, there was imported from the United Kingdom, under the British preferential tariff, goods amounting to $90,000,000. Of this, $22,000,000 were woollen or knitted goods, showing conclusively, that the woollen and knitted goods industry of Canada bears the brunt of importations under the British preferential ar-1281 [DOT]
rangements. Any increase in the British preference, as I will show further on, means an increase in the importation of British woollen and knitted goods, and a decrease in the Canadian production of the same goods, with consequent unemployment, and the migration of our skilled labour to the United States.
The 10 per cent increase in the British preference placed the woollen and knitted goods industry of Canada in most serious danger. In 1900 the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) increased the British preference to' 334 per cent of the general tariff. Between 1900 and 1907, eighty-eight woollen mills closed their doors and the woollen and knitted goods industry faced almost extinction. So alarming became the depression of this great industry, that the present Minister of Finance made a thorough investigation and changed the preference on these goods, to 14-29 per cent of the general tariff. This tariff practically remained unchanged until 1922, when the same Minister of Finance reduced the duties from Britain 24 per cent on certain items such as flannels, cloths, tweeds, undershirts, knitted goods, and so on. The effect of that was seen in the rapid increase in the British importations. For the ten months ending January, 1923, with an allowance to bring the figures up to the end of March, 1923, the following increase is shown in importations from Great Britain, of woollen and knitted goods brought about by the tariff reductions made that year:
Total value of woollen and knitted goods imported into Canada:
Year ending March, 1922	 $20,680,208
Year ending March, 1923	 29,484,079
Increase approximately 43 per cent.
Yardage, imported into Canada:
Year ending March, 1922	 12,208,523 yards.
Year ending March, 1923	 18,793,613 yards.
Increase approximately 54 per cent.
Hosiery and socks imported into Canada:
Year ending March, 1922	 257,089 doz. pairs
Year ending March, 1923	 610,372 doz. pairs
Increase approximately 138 per cent.
This shows what a serious effect the increase in the British preference had on the Canadian woollen industry. Few of the Canadian mills tb-day are running full time; in fact, the competition is so keen that any further preference to the British mills will have a most serious effect. The situation today is even more serious to the Canadian industry than it was in 1900. British industry is shut out from continental markets, as they cannot pay, and from the United States by the tariff, and they are now turning their whole attention to the Canadian market. Brit-
The Budget-Mr. Preston

ish industry is a most powerful and well-organized machine. Certain other factors enable the British manufacturer to produce more cheaply than the Canadian. They have 50 per cent cheaper labour; they have cheaper coal, lower bank rates, cheaper production and a depreciated currency. During the six months ending March, 1923, 15,800,000 yards of British cloth were sent into Canada, which has a population of eight and a half million, while during the same period only 7,220,000 yards of British cloth were sent to the United States, which has a population of a hundred and fourteen, million. The United States, with all its highly organized industry ana great capital, felt the necessity of protection against the cheaper imports of Great Britain, and they have successfully overcome this by their tariff, while the woollen industry of Canada has been left to bear this keen competition, and this government now proposes to put it out of business.
The reduction in duty was not enough to make any difierence in prices to the consumer, while it is sufficient to allow the British industry to undersell in many lines, throwing the men and women in Canada out of work, reducing our market, decreasing our population, and driving our skilled labour to the United States, where they are keenly anxious to get our people. To-day every country in the world, except Canada, is in some form or other increasing its protection to its industries. Canada is the only country in the world that is making it easier for the foreign producer to sell in our markets, and make it more difficult for our own people to retain their own markets.
What is the position of the Canadian woollen industry to-day? In a summary of the situation, as presented by the representatives of the industry who waited on the Acting Finance Minister (Mr. Robb) before the present budget was brought down it was shown that:
Twenty mills are closed since January 1st, 1923, out of 124 woollen and knitting mills on which we have reports. Idle machinery to-day in the-124 mills reporting is as follows:-Looms, 40 per cent; Cards, 33 per cent; Mules, 24 per cent; Dyeing and Finishing, 28 per cent; Knitting, 41 per cent; Sewing, 44 per cent or an average of over 40 per cent of the machinery idle.. There is considerable reduction of operating machinery over 1923, which was an extremely unsatisfactory year for the mills. To-day only 10,799 hands are employed in the mills reporting, while if these mills were working full time, they would employ 23,055 hands.
Out of the mills reporting, only 58 could report on the number of their employees who have gone to the United States since January 1st, 1923, and these did not give all those who actually left the country, but only those highly skilled workers they actually know about. The figures for the 58 mills are: Employed when mills are on full time, 11,244; employed to-day, 7,376; known to have left for the United States, 776.
[Mr. Preston.}
This represents over 10 per cent of those now employed in these mills.
While these figures reflect the serious condition in Canadian mills during 1923, and the more serious situation at the present time, we find that over 140,000,000 worth of woollen and knitted goods were shipped to Canada from abroad during the calendar year 1923 of which over $30,000,000 worth were shipped into Canada from Great Britain. On careful analysis of these imports, we find that there is the machinery and technical ability in Canada to manufacture from 80 per cent to 90 per cent of these imports, and if the bulk of the imports had been manufactured in Canada, it wouid have employed from 17,000 to 20,000 additional hands throughout the year.
It was submitted that the woollen and knitting industry, which is indigenous to Canada, and of which 94.4 per cent of the industrial capital employed is owned by Canadians, should be safeguarded by tariff adjustments, otherwise capital employed would be dissipated, and the employees thrown out of work or largely transplanted to the United States. In the present unsettled political and economic condition of European countries it may possibly be a fatal policy to rely upon an uninterrupted supply of necessities of life, such as woollen and knitted goods to Canada from European sources, including Great Britain. They asked that in the present budget, adjustments of the tariff and regulations regarding the tariff be made to safeguard this industry which is necessary to the full development of Canada along national lines. With this end in view they submitted certain points for consideration. Unlike any other industry in Canada, their main competition for the home market comes from goods shipped from Great Britain. Of the total imports into Canada dutiable under' the British preference, one third is in competition with their industry, and their industry therefore bears one third of the burden of the British preference. And since wages and overhead, which is wages in another form, are much lower there than in Canada, Great Britain would have a natural preference in Canada, even if preferential rates of duty were not granted. On examining wage figures supplied by the Ministry of Labour, London, we find that the wages in the woollen and knitting trade in Great Britain were 66 per cent higher in December 1920, than they are now, while in the industry in Canada, the wages are governed by the wages paid in the United States and have not been reduced more than an average of 10 per cent.
Duties on goods from Great Britain were lowered in 1922 and again in 1923. Invoices for duty purposes are valued at the exchange value of sterling on the invoice date, instead of at par value, thus lowering the actual amount of the duty as provided by the tariff.

The Budget-Mr. Preston
There is a large "invisible bounty" on all exports of goods from Great Britain to Canada owing to the purchasing power parity of the British pound to the Canadian dollar, and the rate of exchange. This amounts to practically the difference between 'the par value and the exchange value of sterling. Duties levied on goods from Great Britain imported into Canada are diminished by this amount. There are no tariff regulations compensating for this "invisible bounty". It is a factor in addition to other advantages for producers abroad, such as lower wages, overhead, and so forth.
Goods partially manufactured in continental countries by much cheaper labour than can be had in England, may be shipped into Canada under the British preferential rate. As an example, goods made in Great Britain can be sent to France to be dyed and finished. In this connection, they pointed out that Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa and the Bahamas have the following clause in their regulations, which prohibits such shipments to these countries under their British preferential tariffs:
In the case of goods which have at some stage entered into the commerce of or undergone process of manufacture in a foreign country, only that labour and material which is expended on or added to the goods after their return to the United Kingdom shall be regarded as the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom in calculating the proportion of United Kingdom labour and material in the factory or works cost of the finished article.
While they dealt in detail with the question of imports from Great Britain, many of the same points were applied to continental countries, especially France, which owing to the fact that the invoices are valued at the exchange rates and the "purchasing power parity" of the franc is much higher than the exchange value, is rapidly increasing its exports to Canada, to the detriment of our home industries.
In the circumstances, I believe it to be in the national interest to restore the tariff on woollen and knitted goods to at least the rates effective under the Fielding tariff of 1906-7. And particularly for the purpose of preventing commercial dumping now carried on to an extent that is devastating this Canadian industry as a result of depreciated currencies in Great Britain and on the continent, it is necessary that the dumping clause be amended so as to apply the dumping duty to safeguard against such depreciated currencies.
Surveying the government figures for last year of imports in competition with the cotton, silk and linen mills, as well as our woollen and knitting mills, we find that $14.40 worth of manufactured textile products for each man, woman and child in Canada was imported from abroad during 12 months. The total is $112,444,724. The bulk of these goods could be produced in Canada and as their value, outside of the cost of the original raw material, is all labour, the direct and indirect wages lost to the country amounts to almost the value of the imports. The reason why the bulk of these goods was not made here is that the customs duties are so low that the low-paid workers in Great Britain and continental Europe have an advantage in our home market over the better-paid workers in Canada. The wage scale in Canada is determined by the wage scale paid in the United States. Goods partially or completely manufactured by workers in European countries can be shipped into Canada from Great Britain under the British preference. Also there is no compensation given in the administration of the customs duties for the effect of depreciated currencies on goods from Great Britain, France, Belgium and Italy. To give an example, a paper pound will buy in England to-day just as much as a gold pound, but goods from Great Britain are valued for duty purposes at the exchange value of the paper pound as compared to the Canadian dollar. The effect is to actually lower the already too-low duties.
I have here the text of a letter addressed to the Prime Minister by workers in the Canadian textile mills which I desire to have placed on Hansard. I shall not weary the House by reading the communication, but with the permission of hon. gentlemen it will be inserted in the record:
[The communication handed in is as follows:
To the Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Ottawa.
Sir:
Great numbers of men and women in Canadian textile mills are being laid off and more are being put on part time. Some mills are shut down. Because of this, many Canadians have to leave their homes and go to the United States.
This is caused by the $112,000,000 worth of manufactured textile goods made by workers abroad which were sent into Canada last year because our customs duties are too low.
If these goods had been made in Canada, the wages would have been paid to the workers in the Canadian textile mills instead of to men and women in Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States and elsewhere.
Every spinner, every weaver, every knitter, in our Canadian mills would be employed full time and overtime, and the " Help Wanted " sign would be hung out if the wages for making these imported goods went into the pay envelopes of Canadians.
Take only a few items of the goods which came in last year and see what they would mean in work and wages if made in Canada:

The Budget-Mr. Preston
Yarns made from wool	
3,464,459	lbs.Tweeds	
4,741,113	yardsWorsteds and Serges	
7,044,753	yardsWomen's and children's dress goods. 4.922,192	yardsFlannels, plain	
1,509,600	yardsBlankets	
128,873	pairsSocks and stockings, wool	
7,897,320	pairsSocks and stockings, cotton	
6.429,660	pairsSocks and stockings, silk	
364,884	pairsYarns made from cotton	
2,095.428	lbs.Cotton thread, etc	
1,360,245	lbs.Cotton piece goods dyed	
22,253,023	yardsCotton piece goods printed	
6,238,647	yardsCotton in grey	
9,434.243	yardsWhite unbleached cotton	
5,904,495	yards
The above list of course only gives a few examples. The amount of knitted goods coming in is very great but cannot be shown in this way.
The countries from which, these goods, manufactured Tom wool, cotton, silk, flax and hemp, come are:
Great Britain	$65,090,565	worthUnited States	
27,168,120	worthOther countries	
20,186,049	worthThe wages paid in Great Britain and in	European
countries are only from one-half to one-quarter of the wage scale paid in Canada and therefore we cannot compete with these low paid workers unless the government protects our wages by increasing customs duties.
We therefore address this letter direct to you personally to ask that you advise your government of the necessity to raise the customs duties sufficiently at the coming session of parliament to protect Canadian workers.
We are,
Yours sincerely,
The Undersigned Workers in the Canadian .	Textile Mills.]
Some changes have 'been made in the tariff with respect to agricultural implements, and we have heard a great deal about this matter during the last few weeks. The notes that I have on the agricultural implement industry were prepared before those changes took place. However I shall make my statement to the House, and should I be guilty of any technical blunders I am quite sure hon. gentlemen will excuse me.
1.	The implement manufacturer to-day buys his labour at rates 113 per cent higher than they were before the war.'
2.	He must pay from 100 to 248 per cent more for his raw materials, steel, malleable castings, lumber, cotton duck, and so forth, and the incoming freight charges on these materials are 90 per cent higher than in 1914, while outgoing charges on the finished products are estimated to be 44 to 100 per cent higher than in 1913.
3.	Despite these increased costs of production the total increase in the price of farm implements since 1914 is but 80.4 per cent as against an increase of 100 per cent in farm labour.
4.	As a direct consequence, few, if any, of the implement manufacturing industries are paying dividends; fourteen of the leading
TMr. Preston.]
companies lost $9,393,000 in 1921 and $1,738,000 in 1922.
Yet it is this industry, which represents an investment of some $80,000,000 in Ontario alone, that this government has marked out for slaughter.' We are told by the government's apologists that it is merely carrying out its 1919 platform. If that be so, then how does it come that they have singled out the one industry that enjoyed the least protection? What of the boot and shoe industry? What of the automobile industry? Why are they not touched? The answer is because this is a political, not a scientific or economic budget. To touch boots and shoes would be to lay unholy hands upon some of the constituents of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). To touch automobiles would be to lay unholy hands upon the political chances of some other of my honourable friends. So these industries are left alone, the "poor masses" for whose sufferings the Prime Minister's heart bleeds so copiously, are let go hang so far as boots and shoes are concerned, while the poor implement industry is butchered to save the skins of this government and to make a Roman holiday for their friends in the West.
What is the fiscal trend of the world today? Everywhere, on every continent, the nations are seeking restoration of their economic strength through the agency of tariffs. Practically all of the new nations that were created by the Treaty of Versailles have gone in for protection. France, Germany, Italy and Spain have either heightened or are heightening their tariffs. Even the little Irish Free State has gone in for a policy of protection. And while all this is going on, while free trade is practically dead, and while the United States, the greatest industrial entity that the world has ever seen, continues to increase her tariff barriers, continues to take fiscal measures against Canada, Canada, through this minority government opposite, throws open its markets to the world. Sir, I say that in the modern history of the world there has seldom been greater evidence of incompetency and economic folly. And what is the consequence to this country? The consequence is that Canadian industry is terrified. Those industries that have not been touched feel that they are but out on suspended sentence. Last year the Minister of Finance gave the country a promise of stability. He said that with the United States standing by the Ford-ney-McCumber tariff it would be madness for this country to further lower its own tariff bars. To-day we see this minority government indulging in that madness, at

The Budget-Mr. Preston
the point of a gun pressed against its political stomach by the Progressive party, it is placing this country at the economic mercy of the United States. Today all over this country factories are closing down. Men and women are being thrown out of employment. Towns and communities are being depopulated. Farmers are being deprived of their home market. Canadian capital, that ought to be going into the development of the country, is being put into banks or bonds. British and foreign capital is being frightened away from the Dominion. There is unrest and uncertainty from Sydney to Vancouver. And what is happening to the young manhood of this country? At the rate of 10,000 a month, our young men, discouraged by what is taking place at home, deprived of opportunities at home, are fleeing over the border to rear higher the prosperity of a foreign land. The government cannot deny this. If they do deny it, if they challenge the truth of what I have just asserted, then let them look at their own official statement of the Settlers' effects that have come into and gone out of this country during the past two years. Let them study the figures as told in their own official blue books. The other day Mr. Grant MacNeil, Dominion secretary of the Great War Veterans' Association, addressed a meeting in the city of Ottawa. In the public press I read this report of that address:
Describing the Canadian immigration effort for 1923 as a "gigantic debacle", C. G. MacNeil, Dominion secretary of the G.W.V.A., presented some startling statistics to a meeting in St. Matthias' Parish Hall Saturday evening under the auspices of Flanders Lodge No. 1, L.O.L.
Quoting from Canadian and United States official records, Mr. MacNeil showed that during 1923, a total of 137,320 people had been brought into Canada from all sources, while 182.369 had entered the United States from Canada during the same period.
"We presented United States with a quota equivalent to our total immigration and 45,000 of our resident citizens in addition", he declared. "Why should the United States worry about immigration while the magnanimous Canada taxpayer is willing to spend about $80 per head for the privilege of delivering the very best of immigrants within the doors of that republic."
In his opening remarks Mr. MacNeil said that for some time past Canadian ex-service men as represented in the G.W.V.A. had viewed with growing alarm the increasing exodus to the United States. With branches of the association everywhere reporting removals an investigation had been undertaken. This had revealed that nearly one-third of the overseas strength of the C.E.F. had crossed the border. In consultation with immigration officials it had been found that this movement was regarded as a species of restlessness and that it was thought these people would return eventually.
"We have been thoroughly disillusioned on this score," said the speaker.	"Canadian ex-service
men have migrated to the United States for no other reason than to secure their bread and butter. Conditions have not been righted and as the years pass the prospects of their return rapidly fade."
"The most popular retort to any statement depicting this exodus is that all the Canadians are returning or are about to return. Let us again examine the official statistics. Included in the Canadian immigration total for 1923 are 20,397 people who entered Canada from the United States. We find that of this number only 2,587 had previous Canadian residence. It is clear that we have not recouped our losses, and that there is little joy in the quality of the negligible number received by Canada in exchange.
"We need not search far for the men to roam afield for a livelihood. It * is disclosed in the returns of the industrial census of Canada issued by the Bureau of Statistics, that for every 100 men employed in our industries in January, 1920, only 88 were employed in January, 1924. Employment has decreased by 12 per cent. We have no industrial expansion to provide employment for newcomers, and we have experienced a contraction of payrolls that has squeezed our men out of the country."
Mr. MacNeil said that in the face of these facts there was an insistent clamor from influential quarters for greater immigration. This was touted as a panacea for all economic ills.
"Can we safely continue to pour population through our country into the United States, which at the same time is washing away the elements of our own structure? Shall we strive for national stability, or shall we proceed with this mad attempt at exploitation of population turnover?"
. . [DOT]
That, Mr. Speaker, is the considered opinion of a man who has investigated the facts, who is speaking with information and without political bias. The situation which he discloses is a grave one; and I say to this House that unless the people of this country wake up, unless they determine to abolish this eternal political tampering with the tariff and give Canada a sound policy of ample protection, that drain upon our national life will continue until it becomes a veritable menace to our national existence. What we want in Canada is a tariff policy that will develop our own country, that will build up our own towns and cities, that will provide a home market for our farmers and traffic for our railways, a policy that will keep our young people at home and bring the right kind of immigration to our shores; a policy, in a word, which will do for Canada what protection has done and is doing for the United States. To-day the financial position of this country gives cause for grave concern. We have a debt which stands at $2,400,000,000- representing a fixed charge of $130,000,000 a year upon the people of the Dominion. We have a scale of taxation which, largely because of the extravagance of this government, has been continued at a war peak, and which is about the heaviest taxation in the world. Our trade continues to expand, but it should not be forgotten, that our exports are swollen by a drain on our natural resources-that we are much in the position of a man who s selling his estate.

The Budget-Mr. Preston
The great problem of the world to-day is impoverishment and debt. The great need of the nations, apart from development of their industrial and productive life, is retrenchment and economy. Great Britain has recognized this; the United States has recognized it, Australia and New Zealand have recognized it. Britain, despite enormous commitments, despite that' she is paying twelve times more than we are for defence, has been balancing her budget and paying her debts. She paid off hundreds of millions of her debts in 1923, and reduced taxation. She produced a surplus of more than two hundred millions this year, and reduced taxation again. The United States, through economies that were effected, has reduced the liabilities of that country by billions of dollars, and is reducing taxes. Australia and New Zealand have reduced expenditure, debts and taxation. Yet, while this has been going on, while these countries, often less favourably situated' than Canada, have been retrenching, this country has been plunging further into debt. This government has increased the debt of this country by upwards of $100,000,000. It confesses to an increase of $31,000,000 in 1923; its own figures show an almost similar increase this year-despite an effort to camouflage the truth. It promised economy; and it talked economy, but it has continued a profligate extravagance: it was willing only this year to pour out millions of the taxpayers' money to bribe the constituencies of Halifax and Kent. Its devotion to economy, like its fidelity to the rest of its pledges, depends upon its political life. Anywhere, at any time, it is willing to sacrifice retrenchment, and pour out the public's money, to buttress its tenure of office.
And it is this infidelity to solemn pledges, Mr. Speaker, that constitutes the worst feature of this budget. What confidence can the people of this country have in this government? Let us for a moment glance over its record:
It promised to reduce the cost of living. On the first of January of this year, two years after it had taken office, its own official reports-the reports of the Labour Department.-showed that the cost of living was actually 2 points higher than on the first of January, 1921.
It declared that it was going to abolish trusts and combines; and the Minister of Labour actually told us that Sir Charles Gordon should be sent to gaol. Sir Charles Gordon was sent to Genoa as our economic representative instead; and the only action

taken against trusts and combines is the creation of a combines act whose sole achievement has been to add to the burdens of the taxpayers of the country.
They denounced the government of my right hon. leader for failure to collect the Riordon taxes. I ask any hon. member of the government to rise in his place now and tell this House and country how much of these Riordon taxes have been collected?
They solemnly pledged themselves to give a cash bonus to our soldiers. They cynically abandoned that pledge, and instead told those same veterans, less than a year later, that the door was practically closed against them.
They denounced orders in council as autocratic and declared they would banish them from our government, but they have passed, and are passing, more orders in council than ever before in the history of our country. They have committed the country to the expenditure of millions of dollars by this very process which they so denounced-as in the case of the purchase of the Union Club in London.
They declaimed against royal commissions. This year we have six or seven royal commissions roaming up and down the country at prodigious expense, adding to the burdens of the taxpayer and relieving the government of the responsibility it was afraid to face.
They said 'that they would practise economy, but they have heightened the debt of the country by nearly $100,000,000.


Mr. MACDONALD (Pictou):: By how
much did my hon. friend say this government had increased the debt?


Richard Franklin Preston: By $100,000,000.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: As a matter of fact it has decreased it.


Richard Franklin Preston: You would have to produce a different kind of budget from the present one to show that.


Mr. MEIGIIEN:: "Decreased" it by endorsing its own notes.


Richard Franklin Preston: They have been the
most profligate and extravagant government in the English-speaking world at a time when extravagance is criminal.
They declared that they would reduce taxation. To-day taxation is higher than when they took office.
They said that they would promote immigration and bring back the "'golden era of Laurier." They have failed to produce an immigration policy of value, and almost a quarter of a million Canadians have left this country since they came into power.

The Budget-Mr. Preston
And so it is to the end of the chapter.
Mr. Speaker, the plain truth is that this minority party has destroyed responsible government in this country. It is in a minority in this House; it is in a hopeless minority in this country. It holds office simply on the sufferance if its masters from the West. Over there, Mr. Speaker, on the Progressive benches, sit the real rulers of this country. The Liberal party holds office; the Progressive party holds power. The hon. gentlemen who sit on the treasury benches are simply a cabinet in custody. The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) is the Rasputin behind the throne; it is he, not the right hon. Prime Minister, who dictates the policies of this Dominion. The hon. member for Brandon has a willing instrument in the person of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). That hon. gentleman visited the West last year and told the farmers that there was no difference between his party and theirs. "We want to do what you want us to do," he told them: "give us your orders and we will gladly obey them." Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentlemen from beyond the lakes have given their orders, and those orders are being obeyed. So long as men like the ex-Minister of Justice (Sir Lomer Gouin) and the member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding) were active in the cabinet, such- enslavement could not exist. But the ex-Minister of Justice who believed in protection, and the member for Shelburne and Queens, who also believed in protection, are gone, and the remnant of this 4 p.m.	government-anxious	to hold
office at any cost and a pliant instrument for the intrigues of the member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) who has high political ambitions-has bowed down before its masters. And so I say that the real rulers of Canada to-day are on the Progressive benches. They are governing this country, and they are governing it without responsibility. The whole thing is a sheer negation of the principles of representative government. And, Mr. Speaker, this is just the beginning. These hon. gentlemen tell us that this is but the "first step." They tell us that they have sounded the "death knell of protection;" they *warn us to wait until next year. The whole prosperity of the country is menaced by the cowardice of a minority on the one hand and the tyranny of a minority on the other. The truth is that it is impossible to point to a single administrative or legislative act during the past two years and say:	"Here the King
government did good." All along the line, anywhere that honest inquiry can look, the record is one of failure, of impotence, of defeat anS of humiliation.
And now, Sir, just a word in conclusion. I have spoken of the danger of this budget. I have tried to show the peril that confronts the national life of the country in any interference with the tariff. I have pointed to the lengthy story of failure, of impotence and of humiliation and surrender to selfish interests which have characterized this government's regime. I have surveyed its record of broken pledges, of bad faith, of recreancy to principle, a story without parallel in the political life of this country. But it is futile to appeal to this parliament. The servile band who sit behind the government, with some few honourable exceptions, have outraged political honour. That group have degraded the public life of this Dominion; they care nothing but for office and power. But, Sir, a day of reckoning is coming. Sooner or later this government will have to answer for its [DOT]stewardship to the tribunal of the people, and when that times comes we on this side of the House will confidently face the result.
Look over the history of this confederation, Mr. Speaker, and you will see that in every crisis in our national life the Liberal-Conservative party has been signalled by the people. I am confident that they are turning to that party again to-day. I am confident that they are turning to the leader whose experience and whose vision and courage place him high above contemporary statesmen, and that when the time comes to give their verdict, this government will be consigned to that oblivion which its record so richly deserves.
I have gone over briefly some of the reasons why this government have no legal or other right to occupy the position they hold to-day. They are occupying an impossible position, by reason of the pledges and promises they gave to the people previous to the last election. Did they carry out those pledges and promises? No, they did not. Finding themselves in a minority position, what have they done? They have done exactly what I have said:	They
have carried on negotiations with hon. gentlemen to my left. They have said to them: "We will give you whatever you want; we want to remain in power." I do not know how long hon. gentlemen to my left have lived in Can-ad, but I assume most of them have been in this country ten, fifteen or twenty years and have made great successes in western Canada. They have, I believe, built up good, comfortable homes for themselves and their families, and that, of course, is a source of satisfaction to us all. Many of them also, I presume, have large bank accounts. Now, Mr. Speaker, did they attain that prosperity under a free trade policy? No, they did not; they attained it under a protective policy placed upon the
The Budget-Mr. Preston

statute books in * 1879 and continued from that time up to the present, with some few slight changes. From 1879 to 1896 we had a protective policy. That great statesman, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, whose memory still lives in the hearts and minds of the masses of the people of this country-he and his friends opposed that policy when in opposition, but when they came into power they adopted it and continued it, and when Sir Wilfrid Laurier went out of power in 1911 he left a higher tariff than had been in force when he came in.
What I want to impress upon the House is this:	Canada is a young and growing country, a country of great opportunities; it only needs development. We have everything that any country could desire, but we must have a sound, sane protective policy that will give support and protection to our industrial concerns all over the country. Those who invested capital in our industrial enterprises did so. under a protective policy and in the belief that that policy would not be tampered with practically every day in the year. But what do we find now?-and I have particular reference to my own county. There we have two large mills closed down, one in the hands of a receiver. That four-storey mill is filled with the most up-to-date machinery that money can purchase for the purpose of producing for this country goods of the very best quality at prices that will meet the competition of the world. But what has this government done? As I say, in 1922 and 1923 they increased the British preference, which permitted foreign goods to flood our domestic market and drive our people out of business. Is there any sense or reason in this? I do not think there is. While the United States has built up a tariff wall so high that no outsider can get a look-in, we have been reducing our tariff protection, thus disorganizing our business and driving our people across the line. In my opinion we ought to have a fair and substantial protective policy that would prevent the United States or any other foreign country from dumping their surplus production here while we are not permitted to do business with them. We must trade on the principle of dollar for dollar, else we cannot live. This jug-handled policy is no good for Canada.
I hope I have made myself clear. I offer no criticism of the government except from a business standpoint. I believe they are on the wrong track. When I heard the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) the other day deliver his budget, which his colleague the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) later termed the "death knell of protection," I thought: Well, if that great man, Sir

Wilfrid Laurier, was here we would never have heard any such doctrine as that enunciated in this House. Because he was a protectionist, he knew the value of protection, and therefore he continued the protective policy up to the time he went out of office in 1911.
I know of only one remedy for the present condition of affairs. When the time comes that the government must appeal to the people-and the appeal may come sooner than some of us anticipate-when it does come, Sir, in my humble opinion the great and independent electorate, irrespective of party ties, will march to the polls with that sacred ballot in their hands and there deposit them, not for the purpose of retaining this minority government in power, but on the contrary, Mr. Speaker, to drive them out of power and put in power the most outstanding and capable man in the public life of Canada to-day-and that man is the Right Honourable Arthur Meighen.


Mr. L. P. BANCROFT (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, many hon. members are repeatedly advising the western farmer to discontinue his agitation for lower tariff burdens, lower transportation costs and the completion of the Hudson Bay railway, and to turn his attention to mixed farming. They tell him that therein lies the solution of his troubles. For instance, the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Dickie) who comes from a district noted for the production of canned salmon, said a few days ago:	Let the western farmers throw
away their can-openers and get down to mixed farming. Other hon. members have suggested that we might emulate the example of the great mixed farming province of Quebec. Now, these statements show an absolute lack of knowledge of farming conditions in western Canada, and they are both false and misleading, as I shall endeavour to prove in the rfiort space of time which I plan to take up this afternoon.
I have before me a comparison of the live stock production of Manitoba and Quebec for the past year, 1923:
Year 1923
Lira Stock and Dairy Products-Quebec and Manitoba Horses
Quebec	 361,651 or .145 per capita
Manitoba	 362,407	or	.604	"	"
Cattle
Quebec	
1,781,751	or	.75	"	"Manitoba	
691,711	or	1.15	u	"
Sheep
Quebec	
822,997 or .35 "	"Manitoba	
93,162 or .15 "	"*
The Budget-Mr. Bancroft
Swine	*
Quebec	 797,726 or .34 "
Manitoba	 291,236 or .48 "
Poultry
Quebec	 6,482,256 or 2.82 "
Manitoba	 3,289,051 or 5.48 "
Eggs
Quebec..	..	26,672,975 dozen or	11.5 doz.	"Manitoba	..	13,811,350 dozen or	23.5 doz.	"
Dairy Products
Quebec	$34,017,996	or $14.40	"Manitoba	
$10,576,407	or $17,60	"
In 1922 Manitoba produced 3,041,712 pounds of honey. The production of honey is increasing very rapidly in Manitoba, and it is noteworthy also that Manitoba honey is of the highest grade known on the North American continent. Recently a single shipment from North Carolina to Manitoba contained forty million bees valued at $10,000. Next I have figures with regard to the estimated value of field crops for 1923. They are as follows:
Manitoba Field Crops, 1923
Wheat	.. .. 24,807,000	bushelsOats	.. .. 19,181,000	"Barley	
10,533,000	"Rye	
2,617,000	**Mixed grains	.. .. 134,000	"Flax	.. .. 2,511,000	"Potatoes	
2,241,000	"Turnips	
694,000	"Hay and Clover	.. .. 3,245,000	tonsAlfalfa	.. .. 133,000	Fodder Corn	.. .. 987,000	"
In addition to this the production of fruit is extending very rapidly in Manitoba also. Apples are produced in commercial quantities in Lisgar, and small fruits do exceptionally well in all parts of the province; their production bids fair to become one of the important branches of Manitoba agriculture. Now, let me give the House figures showing the wealth produced by other Manitoba industries in 1921, namely:
Manitoba Industrial Products, 1921
Fisheries	$ 1,023,187
Mineral	production	 2,258,942
Furs	 1,679,812
Lumber	 1,461,466
Manufactures	 123,470,393
In view of these facts, Mr. Speaker, I do not see how anyone can accuse the people of Manitoba of having all their eggs in one basket. I want to point out that the amount of wealth produced in Manitoba bears little, if any, relationship to the condition in which the people of that province find themselves to-day. This condition, I venture to assert, is one of the most distressing and precarious through which they have ever passed, and cannot long continue without ending in disaster. The
problem, so far as Manitoba is concerned, is not so much the production of wealth, or a variation in the form of its production, but a more equal distribution of the wealth when created..
Now, Sir, in order to improve conditions in western Canada there must be established a modern, flexible credit system, suitable for agriculture. The report of Dr. H. M. Tory reveals in considerable detail the steps that have been taken to solve this problem in other countries. In Canada a solution of the agricultural credits problem is urgently required. If the first step in the rehabilitation of agriculture is to reduce living and production costs, and to reduce the costs of transportation, surely the second step is to devise some means to make farming profitable by establishing a credit system that will enable many thousands of farmers to carry on their indebtedness under some debt funding 'plan. Conditions in Canada may be somewhat different from those in other countries, but it is inconceivable that we in this country cannot discover some sound method of providing capital for the agricultural industry. Where other countries are succeeding in overcoming this difficulty, Canada ought not to fail. The onus rests upon the Dominion government to set about this matter in earnest. The provinces have attempted to do something along this line, but the history of other countries proves that this is a national undertaking demanding legislation by this parliament. The establishment of some such system as this would, in my opinion, do more to stop the exodus of farmers to urban centres and out of the country and to renew the hope of men experienced in farming who are still on the land than any other single reform of which I have knowledge.
Transportation is another great problem and an immense burden upon the western farmer. Situated as he is in the very heart of the continent, bearing the carrying charges of his product to market as well as paying the cost of carrying in all the commodities that he has to purchase, he feels that transportation is one of the great problems before the Canadian people to-day. The demand for the completion of the Hudson Bay railway is an attempt to reduce transportation costs to and from western Canada. The determined opposition to the completion of this railroad seems to come from those who are interested in the present transportation systems, and the general impression in western Canada is that they fear the competition of the Hudson Bay route. This railway was started for the purpose of connecting the
The Budget-Mr. Bancrojt

great producing areas of western Canada with the sea, and it cannot be abandoned when 332 miles are completed and it is only ninety miles from the sea. If it were right to construct the railway thus far-and both parties are responsible for its construction to that extent, and consequently for the awakening of the hopes of the people on the prairies and of many who have gone into the northern district-it	cannot be abandoned
now without a serious national breach of trust. The Hudson Bay railway must be completed, because not only will it move western Canada approximately 1,000 miles nearer to its Liverpool market, but it will establish new and direct competition with the Fort William-Liverpool route, and in tha? way will have a tendency towards restraining the excessive charges which we have to meet on that route.
In regard to the proposed tariff reductions, outlined in the budget, I am sure that in western Canada those reductions will be regarded as a step towards lowering production costs in the basic industries, and as an indication of the government's intention to reduce them still further in the future. Taken by themselves, the present reductions do not go very far towards relieving the burden of tariff taxation, but we welcome them as a sign of the recognition by the government of the absolute necessity for reducing the costs of all the necessities of life as well as the costs of the implements of production. But the conclusion cannot be avoided that the bulk of the immediate relief promised by the budget comes from the remission of the sales tax rather than from the reduction of import duties. We are confident that import duties can be very substantially reduced, not only without injury to the manufacturing industries, but with actual benefit to them. A reduction of the tariff will bring lower prices and lower prices will bring about an increased demand for manufactured products. I might refer at this point to a statement which I think should not be allowed to pass unnoticed. No doubt many members will have read the reports in the press of the speech delivered by Colonel A. F. Hatch, first vice-president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association on April 11. This speech was given some space in all the newspapers at that time. Referring to the tariff reductions in this budget, he said:
It is very far-reaching, and is giving the western farmer, who is really a foreigner, an award at the expense of other parts of the Dominion. The western farmer, as a rule, has no interest in the country. He eats out of a can and gets all he can from outside the country, and puts his wheat in in the spring. As soon as he harvests and markets his grain he goes off to California or some other place for the winter, and spends his money outside of the country.
[Mr. Bancroft.}
This is a curious specimen of the propaganda of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association for national unity. The supreme idea of the statesmen of the past was development of western Canada on the basis of brotherhood and goodwill, genuine national unity; whereas the Rally-round-the-Flag protectionist politicians of to-day would simply extend to the West a kind of colonial status, while at the same time suggesting that its people are foreign or inferior. For five generations my family has lived in this country, and I want to tell these gentlemen that I am proud to associate with and to represent in this House the people whom they thus choose to stigmatize as foreigners.
The hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Dickie) argues that only a prohibitive duty against imports of iron and steel enabled the United States to become a great manufacturing country. The facts might bear another interpretation. But assuming that the hon. member's argument is correct, has he considered at what cost to the consumers of that country its great iron and steel industry has been built up? I have in my hand a pamphlet issued by the Fair Tariff League of the United States under date of February 28, 1924. This is not a free trade organization; in fact its policy is very similar to that professed by the Conservlative party in this country It states that the purpose of the league is:
A just tariff adequately. .	.	.That is a very familiar word in this House. .	.	. .but not excessively protecting American industry and labour.
Referring to the steel business of the United States, I find on page 20 of this pamphlet:
On the basis of normal quantity production the present tariff makes farm implements cost farmers $100,000,000 too much and implement manufacturers $50,000,000 too much.
American steel makers add the duty and the freight from Europe to domestic prices. They export $230,000,000 at 30' per cent less than domestic prices. (Total exports steel products, all kinds, $700,000,000). To-day's price (October 22, 1923) of American-made bar steel, which is a criterion for all steel prices, is $2.40 per hundred pounds. The export prices of English bars is $1.61.
The American price, $2.40, is the English price, plus the duty of 27 per cent, or 43J cents, plus 20 cents freight to New York, plus 16 cents for good measure.
While thus charging the last farthing that circumstances permit, our steel manufacturers are exporting at the rate of $230,000,000 annually, and the profits of the greatest of them, the United States Steel Corporation, in 1923, were in round figures, $180,000,000 net, subject to interest charges and dividends. Dividends were declared for the quarter year ending September, 1923, at the rate of $6 per share on its $508,000,000 of common stocky once all water and sold for $8 per share, now worth intrinsically $260 per share. The Wall Street Journal, of November 2, says that 10 per cent annually, or $10 per share,

The Budget-Mr. Bancrojt
" would have been entirely conservative and proper, as the earnings for the current year are at the rate of 15 per cent after paying preferred dividends." Some other companies were as profitable.
American wages, measured in dollars, are the highest ever, largely because the tariff is exorbitant and profiteering, instead of honestly protective. Wages must keep up with living costs, even if the latter are not honest.
These and similar excessive costs of materials and wages and of freights, which are high for the same reason, (railroad equipment is figured on the above steel basis), make the factory cost of farm implements at least 10 per cent above honest protection, and likely 15 per cent. At 10 per cent excess cost the implement factories are obliged, if they live, to pass this excess cost on in the sum of $50,000,000 annually; further increased as the implements pass to the wholesaler, to the retailer and on to the farmer, to a total of $100,000,000.
Farmers cannot pass this $100,000,000 on to their consumers because 89 per cent of all American farm products are sold on free trade or export basis.
Farmers constitute 29 per cent of our population and fully one-third of its purchasing power; for farmers, as users of machinery and other appliances, are far greater purchasers than average citizens. Also farmers pay 40 per cent of all railway charges-far more than average citizens.
Again, on page 27, there is another paragraph headed. "Heavy Steel Products", which I would like to read:
Extensive analysis of the seven basic steel industries, pig iron, bar steel, rails, structural iron, cast and wrought iron pipe, tinplate and terneplate, and wire, and wire work shows that Congress in the Fordney law gave these industries the privilege of adding $351,000,000 to their prices, to cost consumers twice the sum at retail and in amortization charges, or $702,000,000.
Since the great steel consolidations, these industries have charged all the traffic will bear. It is overconservative to estimate that only one-half of the above tariff allowance is added by them to their prices, or $175,000,000 to the United States as a whole, to be doubled at retail or by amortization charges in freights and buildings, etc., making a total cost to American consumers of $350,000,000, or an average of $3.50 per capita. The steel duty, however, costs farmers half as , much again as other citizens, or $158,000,000 all told, for farmers are among our greatest consumers of steel, in machinery, in automobiles, and in the transportation of their crops on the railways.
There is no reason for this tariff except priceraising. We are the greatest and cheapest producers of steel on earth. Steel producers say so. We exported in the three years 1919-1921, of these heavy steel products, $733,787,285, against imports of $34,786,900. Exports were twenty times greater than imports. Exclusive of pig iron, which we are willing to export only in more highly finished products, we exported 50 times more than we imported.
The heavy steel duties are an enslavement of the public to a few of the wealthiest corporations in the world. Their annual profits aggregate hundreds of millions of dollars. The duties on these heavy steel products show clearly the difference in the value of duties to manufacturers and to farmers. Manufacturers, when they will, if only by winks and nods, can agree on prices and add all their duties to their prices.
When the steel schedules was before the Senate, Senator Underwood, of Alabama said: "I am in the business myself. I represent a great iron and steel district. I would not willingly harm a people that I
represented, but neither would I willingly betray a people I represented by taxing them unjustly for special interests. I know this iron and steel schedule, and I know that it is a fraud and a sham upon the people of this country. I know that it is not even in the interest of the industry in the end. It can compete anywhere in the world. We are the master iron makers of the world.
" Where the fallacy of this argument comes is that under the guise of doing something to help the farmers in some particular item, their support is asked for a bill of which, as a whole, it seems that for every dollar the farmers may derive from the bill they will pay $100 in taxes for the benefit of somebody else." .
I read that, Mr. Speaker, to show the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Dickie) that it cost the people of the United States something to build up the great iron and steel industry they have there.
Speaking a few days ago, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) said:-
The present reduction in the duty on logging machinery will affect thirty seven firms in British Columbia who are now producing this class of machinery at a cost no higher than is the production cost and the sale price in the State of Washington and taking no advantage of the duty.
Now, I have here a comparative list of prices published by the British Columbia Loggers' Association,' as follows:
	Seattle	Vancouver
	Price	Price
12 x 14 Two Speed Yarder..	.. .. $10,000	513.69212 x 17 Simplex	.. .. 10,400	14,2339 x 10 Duplex	8,104Locomotive 50 ton	.. .. 18,833	25.688Locomotive 60 ton	.. .. 21,277	29,702Locomotive 70 ton	.. .. 24,000	33,533High Lead Block 30 x 5.. ,	373High Lead Block 35 x 5..	.. .. 319	457Loading Block 14 x 2\..	. .. 91	132Loading Block 18 x 2.. ..	.. .. 128	184


Mr. LADNER:: Are	not those	the prices
in the State of Washington, not in Canada.


Leland Payson Bancroft: It is the Seattle price
in the one case, and the Vancouver price in the other. The two cities are from seventy to ninety miles apart, and the water freight rate should be added.
The hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Ross) speaking the other day referred to the slave labour of the southern states, and stated that where there is low tariff there is cheap labour. Now, Mr. Speaker, slave labour is not cheap labour. It is admittedly the most expensive labour there is, owing to its comparative inefficiency. The most highly paid labour as a rule is the most efficient, but high money wages are not necessarily high wages. In low tariff countries at normal times money wages may be lower than in some highly protected countries but their purchasing power is much greater, and the workers are better off on that account. What makes low tariff coun-
The Budget-Mr. Bancroft

tries so formidable as competitors is, that they can maintain high standards of living and efficiency at comparatively low cost in money.
In passing I may take this occasion to refer to the remarks of the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Ross), concerning a definition given by the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) of a political party. That was a very good definition and the attitude of the hon. member for Kingston towards it reminded me of some comments of Washington Irving on the same subject which seemed peculiarly applicable to the party to which my hon. friend belongs. Irving sagely remarks:.
And here I would note the great benefit of party distinctions in saving the people at large the trouble of thinking. Hesiod divides mankind into three classes -those who think for themselves, those who think as others think, and those who do not think at all. The second class comprises the great mass of society; for most people require a set creed and a file-leader. Hence the origin of party: Which means a targe body of people, some few of whom think, and all the rest talk. The former take the lead and discipline the latter; prescribing what they must say, what they must approve, what they must hoot at, whom they must support, but, above all, whom they must hate.; for no one can be a right good partisan who is not a thorough-going hater.


Mr. WHITE:: Does my hon. friend belong to a party?


Leland Payson Bancroft: It is the popular rebellion against that kind of partyism, Mr. Speaker, which is responsible for the presence in this House of the large group to which I have the honour to belong. I may be pardoned for advising both the old parties to live up to the definition of the hon. member for Brome unless they wish to be left entirely behind in these days of independent and progressive thinking.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I want to refer


Leon Johnson Ladner: May I ask the hon. gentleman if the prices he gave were in connection with duplex loaders or yarders?


Leland Payson Bancroft: Yarders. I had the
price of a two-speed yarder, a simplex yarder, and a duplex yarder.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I think the House should
be informed on a question of this kind.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I should like to ask my
hon. friend if he has certain information? I understood him to give the prices in Washington and British Columbia respectively.


Leland Payson Bancroft: Seattle and Vancouver.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I should like to ask my
hon. friend if he has this information:
	' jj'jfl
Washington Iron Works 12 x 17-3 drum
two-speed yarder	 $11,500
Willamette Iron Works 12 x 14-3 drum
two-speed yarder	 13,250
Vancouver built 12 x 14-4 drum simple geared yarder	 10,200
These prices are certified to by thirty-seven firms belonging to the Canadian Manufacturers' Association.


Leland Payson Bancroft: I saw the list to which my hon. friend refers but the list I read was issued by the Logging Association of British Columbia. They repudiated the price list my hon. friend speaks of.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I would ask my hon. friend if he has the loggers' price which includes the duty and freight to Vancouver? This information is necessary in order to make an intelligent comparison with the British Columbia price.


Leland Payson Bancroft: I gave prices for the
purpose of showing what the duty means to the logger in British Columbia, and to prove that full advantage is taken of the duty.
The passage a few days before the budget was introduced of a regulation abolishing the differential of 5 per cent in the valuation of imports under the dumping clause has given rise to doubt as to the reality of the tariff concessions in the budget. As a matter of fact if the dumping clause is applied to any considerable extent the real effect will be to neutralize the effect of the tariff reductions if not to actually raise the tariff.
The claim has been made on behalf of the Canadian manufacturers that the difference between the purchasing power of sterling and of the dollar gives the British manufacturer an advantage of about 2 per cent. The removal of the differential may therefore work in favour of the Canadian manufacturer to the extent of an additional two per cent or three per cent protection. Whether this is so or not will depend upon the extent to which the dumping regulations are applied. In any case the mere fact of the repeal of the 5 per cent differential just when strong representations were being made to the government that the tariff should not be materially interfered with, and just before the government seemed to have set its face in the direction of a low tariff, is of itself sufficient to arouse suspicions. The announcement by the hon. Minister of Customs that the old regulation creating this differential is to remain in force is in some degree reassuring. But there would appear to be nothing to prevent its being again suspended so soon as the budget is safely passed. Some more substantial assurances are required in a matter in which the minister seems to

The Budget-Mr. McCrea
have the power to modify the declared policy of the government without being under the necessity of consulting his colleagues. If such assurance is not given and if this regulation is not modified then I must regretfully conclude that the government has made some hidden concession to the manufacturers, and my vote on the budget will be determined by this consideration.


Mr. F. N. McCREA (Sherbrooke):: With
your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall take up a little time in expressing my views on the budget. I do not wish to be harsh or to make any rash statement, but inasmuch as I differ from the government on the budget I desire to outline my reasons for coming to such a conclusion.
The present condition of the country is serious, its burdens are very heavy. Our taxation is almost intolerable and how long people can continue to bear their present burden is something I cannot predict. The question is, what is the prospect for relief? My own impression is that the only, sure relief is increased population and increased capital. How are we to get that increased population if we do not give these people something to do? We must have employment to offer them, otherwise they will not come. The people we have.in Canada at the present time are leaving faster than others are coming in. In my judgment we cannot place all the people on the land. Of course it is a good place to settle a great many people, but we cannot build up a nation with nothing but farmers. Therefore, we must give some real protection and farr play to industry if we want to increase our population. We have heard a good deal about free trade and about high protection, and all that sort of thing, I am not a high protectionist; I am a moderate protectionist. People who do not believe in my theories will say, "Oh well, he is a manufacturer and consequently speaks from a manufacturer's standpoint". I am and have been a manufacturer for years, but the branch of the business I am connected with, the paper industry, requires no protection. No paper, or very little at any rate, is imported, except tissue paper or something of that kind. The real paper industry makes paper for export and not for import; consequently a tariff on paper would not affect my business. I have been in business for some fifty years or more, and I speak with the information and knowledge I have acquired during all those years. The western farmer would lead us to believe that the panacea for all his troubles is free
trade, and that if the farmers had it they would be happy. They have dwelt on that theory so long and so much that it has become a hobby with them and it is more hobby than real. I think a reasonable amount of tariff or of protection would benefit the farming community more than any other class of the population of Canada, and I will tell hon. members why. This country needs population and capital, and if we get the population we must give employment.
Looking at it in the smallest possible way; suppose that an immigrant coming to this country is willing and able to earn a living and support his wife and three or four children by honest toil, with reasonable pay, the moment he sets foot on Canadian soil he becomes a consumer of fifty per cent of his earnings. If he is a common labourer earning S4 a day, fifty per cent of those earnings will go to supply foodstuffs and other commodities that the farmers should and do produce. That being the case, we need population. Suppose we doubled our population, and instead of a few labourers or farmers coming to this country, a million or two came over. That would create a market for a $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 worth of farm products every day of the year. I ask my farmer friends if that does not appeal to them as being to their advantage as farmers. What is the use of a farmer producing large crops of vegetables, butter, cheese, and other articles if he has no market for them? Everybody will agree that the home market is the best market for any country. Fifty per cent of the immigrant's earnings will be spent in foodstuffs, the balance going to the shoemaker, the tailor and for rent. I do not wish to speak in bitterness in discussing this question, because the tariff does not affect my business directly in any way. Of course, any tampering or gerrymandering with the tariff affects everybody, perhaps not directly but indirectly. Anything that affects the country of course affects everybody in the country.
The government seem to take great pleasure in the fact that they issued fifty million dollars of bonds for the purpose of equipment for the Canadian National Railway. They put out another issue of a couple of hundred million of refunding bonds. They take great pleasure in the fact that the bonds were taken up quickly and readily by Canadians. So do I. That fact indicates two things; it indicates that the people of Canada have money, and that they have faith in their country and in the government to some extent. But it indicates something else which to my mind is more serious. It indicates that the people of Canada, instead of putting their money info
The Budget-Mr. McCrea

industries for the development of the resources of the country, are putting it into bonds and securities. They are not going to take chances in putting their money into industrials, where they are not sure of the stability of the country or of the government; because the tariff policy may be changed at any time. Instead of being a proof of the good condition of Canada, I think this is an indication that the people of Canada are afraid to invest their money in industries and industrial projects.
The question of free trade has become a hobby with the western farmer, but I think their trouble lies in another direction, and I think I will to some extent convince my hon. friends that my theory is nearer right than theirs. The trouble is not so much the changes that are made in the tariff at this particular time as the indications that it is only a step, and God knows how long the next step may be. This, on the investor or the industrial man, whoever he may be, whether located here or elsewhere, has the effect that he does not want to take any chances. If his money is in his pocket or in a bank or in bonds, he is going to leave it there; he is not going to put into industry when he does not know how that industry is going to be affected by some changes in the tariff. Let me illustrate how the present tariff changes appear to me. I read a little of the Bible occasionally and I was reading a little this morning. In the fifth chapter of Exodus, seventh and eighth verses-there are some reverend gentlemen present and they can look this up-I find that when the Israelites were in bondage and were groaning under their load of persecutions and burdens, the knowledge of this came to King Pharaoh. It appears that in those times they were making brick from straw, and Pharaoh called his taskmasters together and he said to them: Take away the straw from these dissatisfied Israelites, but continue the tale of brick. Let them find their straw where they will. That is about the way in which this budget is going to deal with the industrial people-it is going to take away their protection, but to increase their burden. Pharaoh asked only that the tale of brick be not diminished; but as I understand the matter, when you diminish the taxation on one element of the country, you increase it on another. About half a billion dollars is required to carry on the country's affairs, and somebody has to pay that. If you relieve one element of their burdens either by reducing taxation or by reducing the sales tax, you increase the burden on somebody else, so that in that respect

the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) is one step worse than Pharaoh. He is not only exacting the tale of briok that was usually produced, but he is increasing the burden and taking away the protection.
Let me refer for a few minutes to conditions in my riding and in some of the other ridings surrounding mine. The city of Sherbrooke has about twenty-five or thirty industries employing, when they are running to capacity, or nearly to capacity, about 4,500 men. Twelve of those industries, employing about 2,400 men, are branches of American industries. Will any of those advocates of free trade, such as the apostle of free trade from Brome (Mr. McMaster) tell me why those industries came to locate in Sherbrooke and Drum-mondville? Was it on account of the good looks and the good behaviour of the people of that section, or what was it? I will tell you why they came, and they came for no other reason than this. They came, not because they could not manufacture those goods in their home town, only a short distance away, but because they wanted to get the benefit of the Canadian market to sell their goods in without paying the Canadian tariff duty. Someone will say: We do not want those American people to come and locate in this country, make big profits and take the money home. At the present time they are not taking very much money home, but they are putting some of their own money into their business to keep it going until they can get work. These people are employing Canadian labour; they are paying good wages; they are buying Canadian goods. They are building up, not only their own industry, but the city of Sherbrooke and other cities where they locate. They are buying Canadian goods and Canadian foodstuffs. Farmers from the surrounding country for miles, even some farmers from Brome where the apostle of free trade comes from, visit Sherbrooke, get good money for their agricultural products and return home satisfied. Would they have that market if it were not for those industries? The same thing applies to Drummond-ville. The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler) knows all about that section of country, and he knows that ten years ago the town of Drummondville, which was the county seat, was as dead as a doornail, with no business, no sale for anything and property scarcely worth the taxes. Today property in that town is worth three or four times what it was ten years ago. Not only has the town been built up, but the whole surrounding country has a market for

The Budget-Mr. McCrea
its goods. If we have not those industries, what are you going to employ people at? What are they going to do? Will they go across the line as people are doing now when they cannot get work in Canada?
I am not going to say much more at present on the tariff question, as I shall probably have a chance of speaking on some of the details, because there are a number of details that require explanation. I think the Acting Minister of Finance who, by the way, is, as a rule, a good level-headed fellow, and his colleagues who had to do with the framing of the budget, jumped at conclusions rather hastily, and when they investigate carefully, they will find that they will have to modify a number of the changes that they have made, exempting one thing, taxing other things and so on, before they will satisfy the people generally. I hope, when the matter comes up in committee, to have an opportunity of saying a little on many of the details.
I said a little while ago that I thought the special troubles that are affeoting the farmers of the West, and, in fact, not as much the farmers of the West as the farmers and all people of the East, are railway
5 p.m. freight rates. The farmers of the West are not suffering as much as the people of the East because, during the war, when on three different occasions rates were increased, those rates went up uniformly throughout the Dominion. But when the question came up of reducing rates about two years ago, the farmers of the West got a reduction on their grain of some thirty-odd per cent, while the eastern people got a reduction of seven per cent and sometimes not quite as much. Consequently the eastern shipper has suffered to a greater extent than the western shipper. I wish to say in this connection that our freight rates are at least twenty-five per cent higher than they should be and are higher than the people can afford to pay. I will take a little time to explain what I mean. There are three groups of people specially connected with this. First there is the producer. It does not matter whether that producer is a tiller of the soil or a manufacturer, he is an exporter of every kind and class of goods, and consequently the open market of the world sets the value of his goods. If we were consuming all we produce we might raise the price of our goods as the cost of production increased, but being exporters our price is, as I have said, fixed in the open market. The producer, I claim, is the farmer, the lumberman, the miner, the fisherman and the manufacturer-every one 129
of them is a producer. The second group is the carrier. Whether transportation takes place by land or water, everybody engaged in it bears a part in the carriage of goods from the source of production to the point of consumption. The third group is the distributor. It does not make any difference whether our distributors are jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, or even peddlers, every one of them selling goods is a distributor.
Now then, if any one of these classes gets more than its fair share of what the business will produce, the others get too little. For example, to-day the transportation people are getting far and away more than their share of what the business of the country produces.
In some cases the distributors are getting more than their share, but I must say that the farmers of the West so handle the selling and marketing of their grain that there is not a great deal of leakage to the distributors. But there is in some businesses. For instance, the spread between the price the manufacturer of boots and shoes gets and the price the consumer pays is sometimes more than it ought to be. But especially are the carriers getting more than their fair share of what our business will stand. Consequently at the end of the year when the producer finds that he has lost money he ceases to employ. Hence so many idle people in, or leaving, the country. In 1920 when wheat was selling for $3 a bushel and everything else at any price you cared to ask, freight rates were not so bad; but the products of the farm, the forest, the mine, and the sea have all deolined in value, fifty per cent, and in many cases even still more, and yet freight rates have been reduced only about twelve per cent, and the carriers are now scrapping to get an increase.
Let me say further that Sir Henry Thornton and Mr. Beatty, the presidents of our two great transportation systems, perhaps think they are managing their roads. Well, they are to some extent, but they have very little to say as to the rate of wages, the schedule of working hours, the classification of labour, and all the rest of it; they are practically powerless to deal with this matter. The only authority that can and should deal with it-and that is the reason why I am talking so much about it-is the government. I think there is only one road of any importance on this -continent which is really run by the owner, and that is Henry Ford's road. He says to [DOT] labour unions, international and local: Keep your hands off my business; I am running this road to suit myself and I will allow no interference. It is a pity that the government of Canada has not the collective courage that

The Budget-Mr. McCrea

is exhibited by that one man across the border.
I wish the government would wake up to the fact that the managers of our great railway systems are pradtically helpless to reduce freight rates with labour costs so high without creating deficits. This can be done on a government road; the Canadian Pacific cannot do it. They have got to earn a profit to pay their bills.
Now, let me give the House a few figures to illustrate the necessity for a revision of wages in order to balance economic conditions in this country to-day. Two years ago I referred to this subject, and a gentleman from the Senate undertook to correct my statements -not only to correct them, he even said they were false. So I got busy to find out whether I knew anything about what I was dealing with. I said then that the cost of operation of our railways had increased very materially although their earning power had not increased correspondingly. I find the following in connection with a particular station in the country where lumber, pulp-wood and so forth are the principal commodities moved. In 1910 the earnings to the railway company were $14,080.25; the cost of maintenance was $824.75-by-the-way at this particular station, and I think it applies to all country stations, the agent lives in the *station, or very close to it, and is supplied with free rent, free fuel, free light and free brooms, soap and other things to keep the station and his residence clean; practically the only thing he has to buy is his food and clothing. In 1920, ten years later the revenue was $17,992.76; the cost of maintenance was $3,092.64-almost four times the cost of 1910, with only 25 per cent increase in revenue. But, remember, the freight rates that prevailed in 1910 were more than doubled in 1920. Another example is that of a station on the Canadian National Railways, which is supposed to be operated economically for the benefit of the country. This statement is from 1st to 15th January, 1921-fifteen days. The agent's monthly wage was $145 based on 25 days to the month. His regular pay for twelve twenty-fifths of the month at the rate of $145 amounted to $69.60. But there was a holiday in t'he month during which he spent 8 hours on duty, and for that he received $5.70. Then there was overtime during that period of 72 hours at $1.07 3-4 an hour, amounting to $77.04. Then he had Sunday' overtime, 30 hours at $1.07 3-4 making $32.10 more.	Then he had a call some
time when he was not on duty and for that he got two extra hours at $1.07 3-4 or

$2.14. So that his remuneration for the period from the first to fifteenth, including holidays and all, was $186.58.
Now, I will give you a little more; there are one or two funny things here. Take the case of another man on the same road but at a different station, employed during the same period, from the first to the fifteenth of January, 1921. He worked twelve twenty-fifths of the month at $144 a month. He received as regular pay $69.12. He had overtime of 131 hours at S1.05J for which he received $138.53. He had another bill of Sunday overtime of 30 hours-I do now know how he got it in, but he did-for which he received $31.72. Then he had three calls when he was not on duty, making 6 hours at $1.05, amounting to $6.34 more. Then it was found that he was entitled to have had two weeks' holidays during that time, so he put in his bill for 12 days at $144 a month, or $69.12 more. So the modest compensation that he received for his services during that 15 days was $314.83. I would ask you farmers of the West, I would ask people all over the country-for it is not only the farmers of the West who are interested-if you are satisfied with a railway being operated under such conditions and on the basis of such wages as these, when you are working long hours at small pay? As I have said, the railway management is helpless to deal with the matter. If Sir Henry Thornton and Mr. Beatty jointly should decide to-morrow that these conditions would be changed, that they would ask their men to get away from these war conditions and McAdoo arrangements and back to something like what the conditions were before, they would immediately be advised that there would be a walk-out; international labour, located down in Indianapolis or some place else, would simply order the men out. We own the road and we are paying the bills, but the international railwaymen tell us how we shall run it, what the conditions of labour shall be, what the remuneration shall be and all the rest of it. The management is powerless to deal with the matter.
The Secretary of State (Mr. Copp) yesterday took very strong exception to the Montreal Star for having written such articles as the "Whisper of Death," and he showed that in the same paper there were eulogies of several enterprises and activities throughout the country and references to the prosperity that was prevailing. That all may be; there is some prosperity in some directions. But I ask any thinking man who knows the conditions, as the Star must have known them, existing on the railways, the classification of labour, the wages paid and so on, if the Star was so very far astray when it made

The Budget-Mr. McCrea
references to the whispers of death. If these conditions continue as they have continued without objection from anybody in authority, how long will it be before these whispers of death are realized? How long will it be before the death knell of this country is sounded? Well, I do not mean that; the country is too full of possibilities; its resources are too great. Millions of acres in Canada, the best land in the world, are still unoccupied; there are untouched forests, untouched minerals, untouched everything else that goes to build up a country. If we get good, sane government half the time we can exist, but we need it part of the time, anyway.
The Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) the other day, speaking on the budget consoled himself with the thought that this budget would sound the death knell of protection. I do not believe that; I do not believe it is the death knell of - protection. I think the people who are advocating free trade now will sooner or later repent, will realize that they have been wrong, and come back to a sound, way of thinkings I do believe this, however-whether it will be a source of gratification to the minister or not -that it has practically sounded the death knell of getting any more new industries into Canada, or any part of it. If that is any source of comfort to the minister; if he is delighted at our not only getting any new industries but at the killing of some of those we now have-well, I think his desires will be fairly well met. But as to the budget being the death knell of protection, the death knell of the prosperity of Canada, I think he is mistaken. I hope this government will very soon change their mind to a sound way of dealing with things. I do not know whether they really sincerely believe in the doctrine which they are preaching; if they do, I am sorry to say I think they are astray. If it is a question of expediency, let me say this: The very worst thing that could happen in any case would be for the government in power to be defeated on the budget. We -were told last year by the Minister of Finance that we might consider the tariff of last year as permanent, or as lasting for some time, with slight changes. This thing of gerrymandering it as has been done this year, with the intimation that it is only a step- God knows how -long the jump will be next time-is another matter. As I say, the worst thing that could happen the government would be its defeat in the vote on the budget, and to my mind that would be very much better than to ruin the country. That is my 129J
judgment; I may be wrong, but I do not think I am.
I have talked longer than I thought I would, Mr. Speaker, I did not expect to be able to continue so long, but the Lord gives strength where it is needed.
I have many other figures here as to the advanced wages and costs on the railways in the last ten years. As I said a moment ago, when everything was selling high there was some justification for these higher rates, but I do not think there was any justification for the short hours. I am a firm believer in every man doing a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, and I do not think short hours are in the interest of anybody. The rate of wages on the railways is not so high in itself, that is S89 for twelve days' work is not out of the way, but that same labour used to be performed if it took twelve or fifteen hours per day without extra pay. The agent lives at the station, and he has only to appear when his services are needed; he can sleep the rest of his time if he likes. He has only to attend to business when there is business to do. But it is this overtime and paying time-and-a-half for overtime that is sending up the costs. The same thing applies to other services. And I wish to say this-I have said it before, but it will not spoil it to say it again: I think it is about time this government or any other government that may succeed it, and which is taxing the people by every method and every means, as we are being taxed now, when they are getting all the money they possibly can get out of us, which goes in a great measure to pay for help-I think it is about time these people should be asked to work longer than five-and-one-half hours, as they do in the Civil Service, and many of them do not work half that time. This applies to every service under the administration of the government, I do not mean that there are not good men in the Civil Service, but the Civil Service is very much over-manned and very much underworked, and there is no reason in the world why this government should not say to the Civil Service and everybody else in their employ: We want a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. The pay is not out of the way but the service rendered is not in keeping with the wages paid, and at this time when we are being pressed for money to meet our bills I think the government should exact a fair and reasonable day's work from its employees. If we get that it will* help to lessen our burdens a whole lot.
The Budget-Mr. McCrea

There is lots of talk of retrenchment, but I do not see much of it in practice. I would like to see the people of this country adopt some of Henry Ford's methods. What are the conditions of labour here? Let me tell you a little more about the railway system. The train that runs between here and Montreal leaves here at four o'clock in the afternoon or thereabouts, and makes the run in three hours, and the employees get a day's pay for that. Can any of you gentlemen carry on your farms, or could any industry be carried on successfully where a day's wage is paid for only three hours' work. For a round trip the engineers and firemen get two day's pay and a little over, 'because they get a day's pay for one hundred miles. Is there no room for remedy in this kind of thing? If this country is going to be successful, if we are going to build up a country in Canada, we must have things distributed more evenly, so that when a man does a fair and reasonable day's work he will get a fair and reasonable day's pay.
You will probably say that I am opposed to labour. I am not. I come from that class myself and I know something about it. I am an employer of labour, and of a lot of it too, and in my business we find that we have got to exact nine and ten hours a day of hard work. We cannot afford to pay the high wages some of these other people are getting for four or five hours' work a day, and I claim that it is unjust and unfair that men in our employ who are quite as intelligent and as capable in every respect should be working nine and ten hours a day when these other people are working only four or five hours and are getting higher wages. If we paid les3 freight we could pay more wages, but we cannot do it now without going into bankruptcy. Those are the conditions, and I am asking the government, as the only authorities who can deal with the situation, to say to international labour: We are willing to do business with Americans; we invite you to come here and do business with us and spend your money here, but when it is a question of running our own railways and fixing hours of labour, we will do that ourselves, because we have to furnish the money. We do not object to our men joining Canadian unions if they want to. I think it is only right and necessary that they should unionize to some extent in order to bring what grievances they have before their employers, but, to use the phrase of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart), I say that international labour will sound the death-knell for this country unless we get some relief from the present conditions
(Mr. McCrea.]
and have something to say as to our own industries, and do not allow ourselves to be dictated to by international labour.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence and I hope that my good friends on both sides of the House will think over what I have said about these things. I have no hostility towards any class of men, but what I do claim is that conditions in our country at the present time are badly balanced, and if there were some attempt made to level up things and to give everybody a fair chance, there would be some inducement for our people to remain at home and for immigrants to come in here and help us bear our burdens. Unless we do that, I do not know how long we can stand the strain we are called upon to bear, but I am afraid not as long as it will last unless some remedy is provided quickly.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea) for having been candid enough and honest enough to tell this House what he thinks, and especially to tell us what he thinks of the government's proposals for the reduction of the tariff. It is a good thing, and I would there were more of it, that men here representing their constituencies should tell their leaders and the House and the country what they think of the problems of the day that beset this country in every direction.
Speaking of the increase in costs, I hope the government will take into consideration the statements made by the hon. member for Sherbrooke, and try and administer public affairs so that they will cost less money. It is costing too much at this time to govern this country, and people are complaining of the cost in every direction. The Civil Service may be over-manned; probably it is. There should be an equality of treatment and an equality of wages as between the Civil Service and other work in the country, for it has got to be that the Civil Service offers what we call now a preferred position; the hours are short and the pay is high, and what is done for the public is very small in quantity.
The hon. member also spoke of reducing prices. I say it is up to the government to set an example, and they can set an example in this way. There is no reason now why the government should not restore the postage to pre-war rates. Let us get back to pre-war postage and say that we believe in the reduction in some of these charges. And now that the government is in control of the Canadian National Railways I see no reason why there should not be a return to

The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
pre-war rates for passenger fares. I see no reason also why express rates, telegraph rates, and all similar charges should not go back to pre-war figures. If we do not commence we shall never carry these things out. In order to play on the harp we must play upon it; and if we want to get these charges lowered we must start to lower them. I hear complaints all over the country of these excessive charges and high prices and there is a demand for their reduction. Possibly that may be the justification of the government in cutting, as they think they are cutting, the tariff. They may be doing this cutting in the hope of giving people lower prices, but if that is their expectation I do not know that they will quite realize it. At any rate, we will wait and see.
Let me draw the attention of the government to these facts: The hon. member for Sherbrooke follows the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond) and the latter follows the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler). I also think we had a member of the Progressive party last night who said he could not vote for these tariff changes. It is time therefore that the government paid some attention to the public feeling, as exemplified by the representations of these hon. gentlemen. I am going to vote against both the amendment and the motioq to go into committee of Ways and Means to reduce the tariff. I have always been a protectionist. My father was a protectionist and brought me up that way.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Findlay Maclean: Some hon. gentlemen
may not like to hear that but I am proud of the fact. My father did a great deal to start the manufacturers' association in this country. He raised his family properly on ten or fifteen dollars a week although he gave his time to preaching protection. It did not pay us very much in the long run but my father was an honest protectionist. He believed in protection and preached it. I happened to know Sir John Macdonald in the old days, and the greatest thing he ever did for this country was to introduce the principle of protection for the development of Canada. I agree with my hon. friend from Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea) who said that no country has become great that has only developed one side. There must be an equality of development, the country must be developed from the industrial as well as from the farming side. If that is not done, you are going to have conditions such as my hon.
friend spoke of, and those are not in the interest of Canada or its people.
I want also to tell my hon. friends the Farmers' representatives that they are beginning to go back on their own ground. It has been pointed out here, to a large extent, that they believe in what they call farming or mining the land. Well, that will not do for the farmers. They are now beginning to engage in dairying and live stock activities. They are also in the bee business, and they will come to an industrial view of things later on. That is what I am going to discuss this evening. That being the case-with the change of sentiment in the government ranks and the statement by hon. members one after the other-five now probably-of their objection to the budget, the government may reconsider their course. Certainly the hon. member for Sherbrooke is going to raise his voice on the individual tariff items as they come up. If that is done-although I have very little hope of anything resulting from it-there may be some improvement in the government's policy. But I do say this- and that is why my remarks on the tariff tonight are so short-I am quite sure the question now before the people is the tariff issue. It is one of the great questions in the United States at the present time. The presidential election will take place this fall. I do not know what will happen over there but there may be a movement in the way of reducing the tariff. In the meantime I say to the Canadian manufacturers: Put up with what you have to put up with now. I say to labour:	Put up with what you have to put
up with now, and see what will happen next fall and next winter after this question has been threshed put all over the country. We shall hear nothing but the tariff discussed in Canada, and we shall get some idea as to what the people really think of this issue. If the Americans persist in closing their markets to us we may find a way of limiting them in certain of our markets to them. For instance, we may consider the putting of an export duty on some of the things they get from us. There are a number of measures we can resort to which may be in the nature of retaliation but are perhaps in the direction of fair treatment all round. The people are going to consider the tariff question and are going to talk on it and from the point of view on the whole that it is not so much the manufacturers who have to suffer as it is the workers in the factories. Many of our industries may be able to stand tariff reductions and may get through somehow; but the great trouble in regard to these changes is the effect they will have on our working people and on their wages.
2034	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
I am going to take a little time in dealing with some other public questions and this is the time to bring them up. When there is a motion before the House to go into commitee of Ways and Means on the budget proposals opportunity is given to discuss any question that affects the public interest. One of the matters I purpose discussing is the wide and far-reaching revolution that is taking place not only in Canada but in almost every other English-speaking community in the world, and even in other countries-I refer to the substitution of the group or three-or-four party system for the old two-party system. I am going to give the House an instance of what has occurred in this country. The change is taking place here and it has actually become effective with the Progressive party in this House. In a speech delivered here only about eight weeks ago I directed attention to the revolution that is coming and the substitution of this group system for the old two-party system. I gave some instances of it, and I told the House that the government now in office were practically in a minority and they were in a minority as far as I could find out. I said then that some changes would be made perhaps, but I did not realize then that in less than four weeks more I should see the recognition of the group system in this country and in this parliament, recognition in such a manner as to indicate that the system had actually arrived, under which a minority in the House dictated the tariff policy of the government in office. This revolution has occurred in England. In England to-day a minority government are in office and have tackled the budget and put it through, and have met with a great deal of approval from the British people. That minority is in office arfd carrying on. But in this country a minority in the House has dictated the tariff policy of the government, and I believe there is no particular deal as between the two, because if there had been a deal there would have been a document of some kind, an agreement, and a coalition would have resulted, and three or four members of the Progressive party would have been taken into the government. But we do not see that. But the hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. McCrea) states that the Progressive party may come back and make further demands on the government which is in power. That is such a far-reaching change that nobody knows where it is going to end, we see where they landed in the United States; to-day the Coolidge government is in office, or rather the Republican party is supposed to be in power, but minorities have been elected in both houses of Congress so strong that the farm-
erg' bloc, made up of insurgent Democrats and insurgent Republicans, in more or less alliance with the Democratic party in the main, have held up administration and all the legislation, and have compelled the President of the United States to remove two of his cabinet, and nothing in the way of legislation or administration is going through at Washington now, except with the approval of Senator Lafollette and the bloc I have just spoken of. These changes made in all quarters are so far-reaching that I do not know where they are going to land. A great change is coming on. People say: Party is party and will remain. But a great change is taking place in the minds of the people. A new remedy has been proposed. People are now taking more interest in affairs. The Progressives of the West have been compelled to take an interest in public affairs. I have been surprised to hear my fellow members during the session questioning the right of the Progressives to be in this House. They came here as the rest of us did, by the vote of the people; they have a right to be here, to state their case and to do as they are doing, dictating the policy of the government, if they see fit, and to carry it through.
I ask the Speaker to call it six o'clock, and this evening I intend to tell the House a romance in Canadian politics in connection with this revolution which has taken place, and I am going to submit on my own account a new national policy for Canada for 1924. I am going to tell the House of one of the greatest romances in history. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) is going to be one of the parties concerned, but he is not a hero in that romance.


An hon. MEMBER:: Have you copyrighted it?


William Findlay Maclean: No, but it will
be on the wire perhaps.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: I believe I can listen
to that.


William Findlay Maclean: But the real
hero, the lady in the case, is the Prime Minister.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not want to be a
lady.


William Findlay Maclean: You are not
the lady. I will deal tonight with the romance of the political changes that have taken place and will tell the House what I think ought to be the national policy of Canada for 1924.
At six o'clock the House took recess.

The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock. PRIVATE BILLS



SECOND READINGS

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 88 for the relief of Jessie Ruth Haverson.-Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 89 for the relief of Arthur Foord.- Mr. Arthurs.
Bill No. 90'for the relief of Harold Gordon Hendry.-Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 91 for the relief of Karl Peter Hansen.-Mr. Ladner.
Bill No. 92 for the relief of Ethel Hadden.- Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 93 for the relief of William James McLaughlan.-Mr. Ross (Kingston).
Bill No. 94 for the relief of Alyce Wilson.- Mr. Boys.
Bill No. 95 for the relief of Lemuel Burkett.-Mr. LeSueur.
Bill No. 98 for the relief of William Ewart Gladstone Pettinger.-Mr. Harris.
Bill No. 97 for the relief of Anna Mc-Geachey.-Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 98 for the relief of Antonio Pie-tranglo.-Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 99 for the relief of Ella Vear.-Mr. McQuarrie.
Bill No. 100 for the relief of Anna Welton. -Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 101 for the relief of Marjorie Mahaffy Cox.-Mr. Kay.	,
Bill No. 102 for the relief of Mary Elizabeth Milne.-Sir Henry Drayton.
Bill No. 103 for the relief of Georgina Myrtle Potts.-Mr. Mewburn.
Bill No. 104 for the relief of Guy Barrington Hutchings.-Mr. Spence.


William Findlay Maclean: MI. Speaker,
just before six o'clock I was speaking on the motion before the House and I directed attention to the most peculiar and rather revolutionary event which has occurred, namely, that a government which was practically in a minority had had its tariff policy dictated by another minority. I know of no parallel case in our parliamentary practice. But I said there was a romance connected with this event which I would relate after dinner. Now, I am going to good authority-Sir Walter Scott-and if the House will permit I will read the Lady Heron's Song in the fifth canto of Marmion. It is about the
adventures of young Lochinvar who came out of the west. This is the song:
O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide border his steed was the best; And save his good broadsword, he weapons had none,
He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Findlay Maclean: My friends are
ready for the part.
He staid not for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone, He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had copsented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
So boldly he enter'd the Netherby Hall,
Among bride's men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:	.	.
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), "O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"
This is where the moderato furioso comes in:
"l long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied; - Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide- And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
To tread but one measure, drink one cup of wine. There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."
I will illustrate that a little later on.
The bride kiss'd the goblet: the knight took it up,
He quaff'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup. She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh, With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,- ''Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whisper'd, " 'Tvvere better by far, .
To have match'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."
One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood near;
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;
They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.
There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
There was racing and chasing, on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?
Now, for a few comments. Imagine this chamber to be Netherby Hall. Then who is the young Lochinvar? Perhaps my friend the
2036	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke) does not quite fill the bill. But what about the golden Apollo who comes from the West- Calgary (Mr. Shaw)?-or a dozen others? But I am quite satisfied with the Progressive leader; he is good enough for the part of Lochinvar if he does the right trick. Here is where the drama begins.
"There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."
Who are they? Is it my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) or the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton)? My advice to them is that Lochinvar is not through with his adventures; he may not go on the rampage, but he may go looking for a charmer. If I were the leader of the opposition I would be as chaste and as attractive as Diana, and I would wear a gown, not of the cut now in fashion, but of a discreet length. Then he would be able to do as Tennyson makes the Yorkshire farmer advise his son:
Doant thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny
is!
And if the right hon. gentleman should get in the way of Lochinvar the next time he comes around, we do not know what would happen. Then who is the fair Ellen? The fair lady sits over there-the Prime Minister! And the elopement? It took place when young Lochinvar from the West ran away with the Prime Minister of Canada! And between them they arranged1 the fiscal policy which is now before the House. Then I told my friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) that he was in the romance, but in another way. I was down in Quebec not long ago and I went to Wolfe's Cove where I used to go in the, old days down with the rafts to Quebec. There I saw an old. friend of mine, and I said to him, "How about the new Minister of Justice?" "Oh," he said, "Maclean, he good man, he bon gallon." I said, "In what way?" He said, "Well, he was over in. the Old Country; he went to see King 'George and- then he went to see the pope. The pope asked him how Mr. Hocken was getting on in Toronto and whether Tommy Church still played the kazoo in the People's band." Then I said, "Now, what about the minister?" "Oh" he said, "He is big man. He came back from that trip to England, he came to Quebec and said to me, 'You ride a horse?' and I said, 'Yes.' He said 'Then you come with me.' So we went right out to the West, up to Saskatoon or some place. The minister got a list of all the members of the Progressive party. We got on a couple of cow ponies 
and we rode out and rounded up all the members of the Farmers' party; we got the ropes on them, brought them into camp, and delivered them to the Liberal party." Now, my hon. friend the Minister of Justice did not say that; it was said by this friend of his, who had a great admiration for the minister's political abilities; he pointed1 out that the Minister of Justice had rounded up .the Progressives. Personally I do not think he did that, but a great many people in Quebec give him the credit for it. The real thing was that the Lochinvars of the Progressive party eloped with the Liberal party and the leader of the Liberal party, and a marriage took place.
Now, what about the morals of it? To my mind1 there was nothing immoral in it, but the Prime Minister should have admitted the whole case frankly. He had been an observer like I was, and [DOT]! observed this wonderful change in our political institutions, a change that has occurred not only in Britain but here and in the United States, namely, the substitution of the group system for the two-party system. He cannot get away from that; it is the predominating feature in politics today. In England a minority is in power; the same is true here, as it was in Ontario before the change, and even yet there are three or four groups in that province. I believe that when the election comes in British Columbia in a few days you will see the group system come out thare too. It is just a question of the signs of the times, and if you, are in politics and you are not guided by that fact I do not know where you are going to land. It is all very well to denounce the group system, but it is here and the proof of it is in the story that I have told you. My friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell), the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) and some other gentlemen get up and say to the House "We did not run away with the girl; she was always of our kind, of our tribe." Well, if that is so, if the two parties are the one party and the policies are the same, why all the rough riding that we see in this House? The member for St. Lawrence-St, George (Mr. Marler) is rough riding; the Eulers are out; the McCreas are out; the Raymonds are out; the Elliotts were out last night, and I do not know how many more. If the two parties were the same, you would not see all this rough riding, but there you have it. It is my one criticism of the Prime Minister that he should have frankly and freely come out and said: "I recognize the revolution that has occurred in parliamentary institutions and I am going to do what Ramsay Mac-

The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
Donald is doing to-day and what other politicians are doing elsewhere-carry on government by negotiation between groups rather than by the opposition of one party to another." That is the change:	The revolution
consists in the carrying on of government by negotiation between groups rather than by fighting between two parties. I know that many of my hon. friends around me will say: "Oh, we are going to get back to the old two-party system." Not quite in our time. So the criticism I make of the Minister of Justice and of the Prime Minister is that they should frankly confess the existence of this condition and the fact that their action was based upon it.
I want to get back to the question of how it all happened-this romance. All that happened was a gesture; one kiss and one whisper in the ear, and apparently the deed was done. That is the way politics are going to be carried on now for some time, rather than by discussion. These things cannot be called " deals," because if there was a real deal between two parties an agreement would be drawn up and the result of that agreement would be a coalition; there would be Lochin-vars in the government to-day if that were the meaning of it. But that is not the meaning of it, because Lochinvar says:
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,-
"Now tread we a measure!" said Lochinvar.
Lochinvar is going to tread measures with her half a dozen times before he is through, because as the member for Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea) said this afternoon, God knows where it is going to end. There is going to be another treading of measures. They talk about just " one cup of wine," but I watched the King's treasurer, the minister who has charge of revenue in this government-I watched him across the floor of the House the other day, and I did not think there was very much on. But somebody had evidently called out for a drink, and he jumped up in the House and he offered a goblet of the real old stuff. All kinds of further reductions are promised; there is to be another measure trod between our friends down the line and the Minister of Finance. There will be a great many more; we do not know where these things are going to end. But the point of the story-and I know all my friends here may not accept it, and hon. gentlemen across the way may not accept it-the real thing in politics to-day is the fact that, the world over, the two-party system is more or less at an end. The group system has come, and instead of the fighting between two parties there is the carrying on of negotiations. [DOT] You will have the greatest gxample of St in
history in the United States when they come to the issue as they will late this fall.
I asked you, Mr. Speaker, to pardon me for telling a romance on the floor of this House, but it is good to get back to romances occasionally. I would not have been able to tell that story to-hight had I not been brought up on Lochinvar at my mother's knee. She used to tell me that story of old, and when I thought of it the other night the whole thing visualized itself to me as I have attempted to depict it here to-night. It is just an elopement of two parties; it is up-to-date, and we do not quite know what will come of it.
Now, I promised the House that after I had told the romance I would give my outline of what a fiscal policy for Canada at this time should be.


An hon, MEMBER:: It is a tragedy, not a romance.


William Findlay Maclean: Well, it may be a tragedy. I told the House I would give my policy, and it is only my own, for 1924 for the people of Canada, and especially for the Parliament of Canada. I am going to read it, and then I will make some brief comments on it.
A New National Policy For Canada, 1924.
1.	A fiscal policy that will keep and build up our industries, gain for us new ones, and give employment at good wages to our home workers.
That is my idea of a tariff policy for today, and that would probably be the only plank that can be disputed in this platform. The next is a rather important one, and quite up-to-date.
2.	Public support of public services owned in whole or in part 'by the people; transportation, communications, power. Also co-operation and joint user with competing services where same may be in the public interest; all these services at cost.
3.	A national system of banking with rediscounts, including credits for farming as well as for business and industry, based on national notes and national currency; to include postal savings banks and marked cheques thereon.
This is a subject we had up for discussion in the Banking and Commerce committee today, and it will be up again to-morrow. I have given a real plank on banking for this country, I think.
4.	Development of the St. Lawrence waterway for navigation and power.
Now here is one I have especially for the Maritime provinces and the western provinces, and you will see where it leads to.

The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
5.	Electrification of the National railways, and in connection therewith, co-operation with the provinces or municipalities for the distribution of power in areas adjacent to the transmission lines of the National railways.
6.	Encouragement of national and other cooperation to develop saleS and export of Canadian farm products. Also to secure therefor the lowest transportation charges by land and sea.
7.	To defend our country and yet ever aim at reducing the evils of war by co-operation with other nations in disarmament and the erection of a world court of arbitration.
There is a plank that goes home to everyone. It goes home to all the mothers, brothers, widows and sisters who lost their friends in the war. I have not a word to say against war in the past, but the world is lost if it does not find a way to end war. There is no hope for humanity if we cannot stop war, and it will not be stopped by fighting tout by more courage on the part of public men and public women, and their getting together with church societies of all kinds and uniting, not quite to stop war for the present, for we will all fight for our country, every Canadian will do that, but in view of our experience we want to see if something cannot be done by co-operation between nations, first to reduce armaments, and then to get a world court to settle these disputes between the different nations.
Let me just go over this programme again and make a few comments on one or two things. First of all, on a national banldng system for Canada. We have had that up before us in the Banking committee, I know I am charged with being an enemy of the banks, because I have the hardihood to propose that we ought to improve the banking system in this country, something after the manner in which it has been done in the United States, and banking in the United States is based on the credit of the nation. They do everything there on the credit of the nation. They have any number of banks with an immense capitalization, and all these banks make a great deal of money, and they make it under the National Reserve Bank system. Why cannot we have the same thing in this country. As I told a friend of mine to-day who was speaking to me about the tariff: "True," I said, " the tariff is a great issue in this country, but the biggest issue in the next election is going to be the banking law of this country."
Now I pass to this other proposal of mine with reference to the St. Lawrence waterway. I am glad to know that the government is taking that up, and I was glad to see notice

given by the Minister of Railways, (Mr. Graham) the other day that he has already appointed his members on the Joint Advisory Commission, and I hope there will be a further announcement any day. I went over to the department here in Ottawa that has charge of the development of water-powers in Canada and I got their reports on the matter; they are available to any gentleman that wants them, and they show a system for electrifying the whole of Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Sir Adam Beck's system of hydro-electric development in Ontario is the most successful experiment in public ownership of any service like the distribution of electrical energy, and he is applying now for Cornwall island on the St. Lawrence, where he is going to develop an immense amount of power. It will have to be done there in an international way, and the Americans will get half of the power developed, I presume.
In the . province of Quebec, at Sault rapids, they have enough power to drive every train from Quebec right up to where they meet the Ontario system, and the Ontario system goes up to lake Superior, where you have the Nipigon hydro-electric power, and then on to Winnipeg. After you get out of the electrical influence generated at Winnipeg, you come to Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the experts of the department, as I see by their reports, have come to the conclusion that you must generate energy for these two provinces by means of great steam plants fired by coal or lignite. They have lignite in Saskatchewan and an abundance of Alberta coal. The great secret of the electrification of railways is the wonderful progress that is being made in high voltage transmission over long distances, and the Edison men are to-day perfecting a system whereby they can transmit a million volts through a wire over long distance without any great waste, and with a wonderful distribution of power. So that means that the electrification can be done at half what it costs now; it also means a substantial reduction in freight rates.
As to the Maritime provinces, my suggestion is that as they have no great water-powers, they develop these large steam plants at the pit heads of their mines for the distribution of electrical energy. I was reading in one of the American papers only yesterday that the American Electrical Company are building today generators that produce 75.000 horsepower in one unit, and you have only to increase the number of units to get all the power you want. So the real policy for Canada to-day, if we want to give some relief to the eastern provinces, and to do something to make' the West more satisfied, is for the

The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
Dominion to undertake the electrification of the National railways.
In the provinces outside of Ontario and Quebec-in the West and in the East-let there be co-operation with the provincial governments and municipalities in generating enough electrical energy not only to drive the railroads and provide power for the industries but to light and perhaps heat the dwellings of citizens. You in the West and in the East want power as much as we want it in Ontario. In that province to-day we have the distribution of electrical energy at cost. If they can have that in the East they can have it in the West. In Ontario we are spending money for this purpose and the money is a paying investment. The country will make money out of such an enterprise and it will reduce the cost of transportation. The railroads may have to scrap some of their engines, but the cheapest thing to do with equipment when you find something better is to scrap it. So my suggestion, and it is a practical suggestion, is to go on with the waterways right away, and with the electrification of the railways. If you electrify the railways you can connect up with the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario railway. Sir Adam Beck has a scheme for the electrification of that system and giving power to the mines. The railway service can be extended to the mining districts in northern Ontario and Quebec, and in that way there will be a great revival of business in Canada. The thing to do in this country in order to get industry going is to electrify the railways and give employment to the people. If that is done not one dollar will be lost. As Sir Adam Beck has shown, by doing this you realize a profit which meets all the costs, provides for a sinking fund and gives the people a service at a very low rate.
My principal reason for speaking to-night is to direct the attention of my hon. friends in the Maritime provinces and in the West to the proposal for the electrification of the railways so that they may embark upon an admirable scheme of development such as we have in Ontario.


Mr. CHURCH:: Could you get anywhere
with your programme under the group system of government you have been boosting.


William Findlay Maclean: I do not know
whether you would or not. My hon. friend knows as much about it as I do and can work the question out for himself. My idea is that even if we do have to go to the group system it will not be a bad way to bring about what we desire.


Thomas Langton Church: Do you think there would
ever have been a hydro-electric system if we
had had the group system of government at the start? Did not Ontario vote out the group system last June three to one?


William Findlay Maclean: I am not to blame for that. My hon .friend himself went out and fought in the campaign and as he says they were defeated. I do not blame him, I know what took place. There is a fight of the big interests against Sir Adam Beck. There I leave the matter.
Now, I want to say a word or two in regard to the great railway that opposes the National Railway system in this country, and that is the Canadian Pacific. I have much admiration for that road, it has been made a great success; but there are men in Montreal who have joined the Mount Royal bloc, as I would call it, the exponents of which are the Montreal Gazette and the Montreal Star. They are preaching a queer doctrine-not only the doctrine we heard this afternoon, "that gloom, and the whispers of death, and everything else will come to Canada"-but there are men in Montreal who are saying- I put it right up, perhaps, to the Canadian Pacific, certainly to some of the banks and Bankers' Association-that in some way what I would call "the Mount Royal hookworm" has got- into the National railways and into Adam Beck's hjMro-electric system in Ontario. They are continuing Ijo preach that doctrine, and that is the attitude of this Mount Royal club, if we may call it such. Now, that cannot go on in this country. There is lots of room for the two railway systems, if we have to have them, but it is going to be an expensive thing for Canada. I should like to see the Canadian Pacific, in some way, join up with the Canadian National Railways. In the platform I lay down here to-night I left a saving clause:
Co-operation and joint user with competing services where the same may be in the public interest.
There is no reason why the Canadian Pacific should not work in with the Canadian National Railways. There should be joint user, at least, and other things of that kind. They should take an example from the Hudson's Bay Company; the great thing for the Canadian Pacific to do would be to cash in like the Hudson's Bay Company, so that our two railway systems might get together. Some people might not like that. They might say, "We want competition, and amalgamation would not pay." But we heard from the hon. member (Mr. McCrea) this afternoon about the awful charges on the country in the way of railway cost. And the railway costs have got to come down in Canada. We have
2040	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Maclean (York)
too many railroads for the population, there is far too great a mileage, and some plan ought to be worked out in the future by which we could greatly lessen the cost. It may be that a government made up of groups will yet take up this problem and find a solution for it. There never was such a fine, complete and well organized system as the hydro-electric system of Ontario. There is not a bit of graft in connection with it. Some mistakes may have been made but no graft has been shown. There has been an amortization of the whole cost and the people get electricity for light, heat and power at a very low rate. It is the greatest public ownership service in the world. Another fine example that is attracting a great deal of admiration is the street railway system of Toronto, which the people there now control. It is the best street railway system owned by the people to be found anywhere.
I want to point out to the Minister of Railways that all the steam railroads of the United States have their plans made for the electrification of their systems by the development of electricity from steam. They have their plans and estimates and are going to do it. Plans have been made for the same thing in Britain. But we in Canada are in a .position to be there first. With the transmission lines of the Canadian National Railways we will be able to put power into the Maritime provinces and into the western provinces, to say nothing of British Columbia. We can develop all the electric power we want and can move every railroad train in Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by electrical energy generated either by coal or by water-power, and cut the cost of transportation in two. That is the way relief will come to the farmers of the West. Perhaps when they get some electrical energy for distribution out there they will cultivate some new industries and may ultimately become protectionist to some extent-because farmers have turned protectionist before-and will come to view the question in the same way that I do. At any rate I throw out the suggestion.
I will not detain the House any longer. I should like to have followed my hon. friend from Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea) to a greater extent, but coming right back to the issues of the day that confront us here, I want to know if the policies of the Liberal party and the Farmers' party are the same. If that is the case why do we see the "rough riders," the several hon. gentlemen that I have named, riding up and down this House. At any rate the two parties have found a way to get together even if that

was brought about by an elopement. There has been an elopement and there may be fusion now but perhaps there will be disunion later on. If the young Lochinvar is going to ride again my advice to my hon. friends on this side is "Watch him and look your prettiest."


Mr. HAROLD PUTNAM (Colchester):: In common with other hon. members of this House, I am sure I enjoyed the interpretation of the hon. member for York (Mr. Maclean) of Lady Heron's song. We on this side of the House consider it distinctly complimentary that the Lochinvar from the West should come to this quarter for his bride. It is absolutely true, even on the hon. gentleman's own showing, that the lover who was not a laggard in love and a dastard in war, passed over completely the old-time Tory party. In that particular respect the party at the head of which the hon. member for York (Mr. Maclean) sits to-night, reminds me of a title of a play on a billboard. I have not seen the play but the title is " The Unwanted Child."
Now, Mr. Speaker, to be a little more serious, I know that just now we have superior critics who are apt to regard the whole debate on the budget as a rather academic, lame or rather useless affair. I do not share that view. I think at no time in the history of the country was it more important or useful that we should have, as we have been having, a fair and intelligent debate upon the issue of high protection on the one side or of lower protection upon the other side, and I have comfort in the fact that as yet we are to be followed by the great leaders on each side, belonging to each group; and that therefore we who are private members will find ourselves in the good company of the leaders who are taking this discussion seriously, and who are regarding it as useful, or of course we would not hear from them at all.
Allow me, Mr. Speaker, to pay my humble tribute of congratulation to the Acting Minister of Finance upon the manner and the clarity of method with which he presented the budget this session. As that occasion approached we on this side at least were almost prone to think that a budget deliverance in these latter days of Liberal rule without the great Fielding would be something like the notable play of Hamlet without the central character of Hamlet himself. All the Empire knows, that, overshadowed as he is to-night by an illness which we trust is temporary, there is only one Fielding, and to-day Canadians in general know and realize

The Budget-Mr. Putnam
that there are very few Robbs. As a Liberal of the old school, I hail with frank gladness the fact that this particular budget takes a practical step away from the device and the idol of high protection in this country. In my view and according to my teaching, customs tariff is nothing but a tax. It is as surely a tax as a disease is a tax upon one's physical strength, just as surely as in the time of the Bible and ever since we have had the unwelcome presence of the tax-gatherer in one form or another. I have no doubt that to-day the overwhelming mass of the people of Canada accept as a maxim the fact that the customs tariff is a tax.
If we go back to the year 1878, we find a time when a young politician came upon the horizon, and a time when commercial depression was to some extent overspreading the whole world. We were then even a younger nation than we are now. In the throes of those dull and slack times the people were in a mood to listen to something new, and the man who afterwards became Sir John A. Macdonald painted a picture which predicted that villages would spring into towns and towns into cities, and that the very music and hum of industry and a perpetually balanced life between the urban and the rural population would obtain. It is too bad that just then too many Canadians forgot the wholesome axiom that the customs tariff was after all a tax. But now, after almost fifty years of an experience, which has been disappointing to say the least, I think that the man who to-night would come forward and dispute the proposition that a customs tariff is a tax would be in that position where he would find that none were so poorly equipped with economic knowledge as to do him reverence.	.
How has this fallacy of protection been supported by its own sub-fallacies for so many years? Because there are a few clearly defined fallacies which have been kept alive. One of the first is the very fallacy which was born under the promise of Sir John A. Macdonald himself that it would be of brief duration, and that it would be removed when once the manufacturers had ceased to be any longer infants and babes' in their career. There is no doubt that that promise was made and that it is historic; and in that very promise we can see that at that time this astute young politician, as he then was, did perceive that throughout Canada there were those who well knew that the customs tariff was only a tax, and to placate them he made this promise that the burden would be of brief
duration. We know that that promise has not been fulfilled. We know that the fallacy consisted of a carelessness in allowing such a condition as that to go on, forgetting that once a protected beneficiary obtained a hold under the device and1 the advantage of the tariff, the beneficiaries would fight to the last gasp to retain that hold, as the hon. members on your immediate left, Mr. Speaker, are fighting at this particular stage.
Another fallacy-and I refer to it only briefly-is the fact that in the semi-sacred name of loyalty time and time again this policy of high protection was allowed to live, on occasions when, in 1891 and again in 1911 at least, there was a fair opportunity to largely do away with it, so that we might have unhampered trade with our great neighbours to the south. Again it is difficult to see just the connection between the theory that to lower the customs tariff here would mean any lessening of our devoted ties to the Old Land; but that fallacy seemed to be very pronounced at that time. Allied with that we have the fallacy that we should not trade too freely with our border nation. We have been told-though we have nothing but the snow, the ice and the Eskimo in the North with which to seek commerce- that we should not think of trading too freely with our great neighbour to the south, and that there would be a loss of our selfrespect in doing so. Again I say that by the fallacy of pretended patriotic duty we were buncoed out of a fair share of trade with our neighbours to the south.
There is one more fallacy which occurs to my mind-I do not for a moment say that I have given the whole of them-which has kept the greater fallacy of protection alive and going for such a long while. That is the fallacy that if you help the secondary industries of the country, no matter how prematurely, no matter how ridiculously, you thereby help the initial and primary industries of the country and the consumers in general. It is especially held up to view that if you pile up tariff walls as high as Hainan's gallows around the factories and industries, you will thereby provide markets for all the agricultural interests of this great and diversified country. It seems to me that those who come forth as bargaining orators with such a proposition as that have a very heavy burden of proof against themselves, because at this particular time they do not dispute that if you crowd protection upon these secondary industries, you will produce higher prices for what has to be bought by those engaged in primary industries and by
The Budget-Mr. Putnam

consumers in general. Nobody disputes that at this stage of our economic argument. Having submitted to the bargainees, the consumers, farmers, labourers of this country, the proposition that protection itself means a higher price for what they have to buy, is the burden of proof not strictly against those who proclaim that? Yes, but they say, we will give you compensating advantages in the shape of a stiffened and enlivened market for what you have to sell. The burden of proof is against those who propose that bargain or proposition. I say with all confidence that that burden of proof has not yet been discharged in all the arguments, real and academic, which we have had for half a century in Canada. Throughout this discussion, nobody on your immediate left, Mr. Speaker, has discharged that burden of proof or shown that in return for the detriment of those higher prices and that higher cost of living, they have got or can get back any corresponding advantages which will outweigh that disadvantage in the welfare of the country at large.
This budget proposes to reduce the customs tariff, and thereby it reduces the expense of production. Thereby, it reduces the cost of living, and for that blessing I, as a consumer, feel profoundly thankful. But that is not the main significance and importance of this budget, which lie deeper. I take it that the main significance of this budget lies in the fact that it provides recognition of this fact, namely, that you must relieve the primary industries in this great country of the burden of high protection in order to have the fiscal soundness for which we seek.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Does the hon. gentleman
state that we have high protection in Canada?


Harold Putnam: That, to me, is much a
matter of the viewpoint of the one who analyses it.


Leon Johnson Ladner: What is the hon. member's viewpoint?


Harold Putnam: From my poor remarks thus far forth, is the hon. gentleman still under the belief that I consider that at this time the protective tariff is not too high in Canada?
Mr. LADNER.: I have not heard the hon. gentleman's remarks thus far forth; I might have heard the ones that he has just delivered; but, in my judgment, he has made a very general statement in regard to the tariff without specifying.


Harold Putnam: I should hope that the hon. gentleman might be able to draw a very

few palpable deductions. I do not propose to be questioned for the mere sake of interrogation. It is a tribute, I think, which I pay to the hon. gentleman's intelligence that I refuse to answer his question. I was going to illustrate that if I were a wanderer in an arid country and very thirsty, I think, as a man still retaining my common sense, I should look for water.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why water?


Harold Putnam: Because this is Ontario. If I should reverse the process by looking for some dish out of which I might drink the water if I should find it, I should be in the position of those protectionists who tell the farmers that if they would only first and now give them ample protection on secondary industries, all would be well with the farmers. I remember travelling in the Rockjr mountains and meeting there an Irishman. He was taking frequent drinks from a bottle, not of water -this will interest the last interrupter-and he did this under the pretence that when he poured whisky down his own throat, it was an excellent cure for his wife's corns. While the connection may be a little remote, I think it is just as intimate and logical as in the case of the protectionist who is telling the men from the plains on his left that protection in Canada is the cure for all their ills and that high protection will assure them the prosperity of which they have long been in fruitless search.
At this particular time, if any policy could be devised which would be really a national policy, it should be hailed with delight. We have been taught over and over again, and correctly, to act nationally, to think nationally, in this Canada of ours. I submit that protection itself is the very reverse of a national policy. It' subsidizes some industries at the expense of others and of the consumers in general. I listened with interest to the amendment which was moved by the newly elected hon. member for Kent, N.B. (Mr. Doucet). It seemed to me that, when we have here a place for the leader of the opposition, a place wherein he is paid for his distinguished and, in the present instance, I will say faithful services, it is almost a pity in a constitutional sense, not questioning for a moment the ruling of the Speaker, that that amendment had to go by the board because here was an opposition led by a leader highly paid for the job and they could not use their own amendment as a nucleus round which to rally and express their views upon this tariff. But having said that much when I come to the merits of the amendment itself, when I come to the con-

The Budget-Mr. Putnam
tradictions in terms in that amendment, I am exfteedingly glad that it received the stillbirth which it did, because it claimed that we should consistently maintain protection. I do not think the most fervid or perfervid protectionist in this House or in this country will maintain in his reflective moments that there is any such thing as consistent protection. I do not think Mark Twain, in the very height of his deliberate drollery, ever put words together which were more self-contradictory than the word " consistency " and the word " protection ", We all know, and every man especially, I take it, who has ever been in the cabinet secrets of any government, will know that when delegations come to them asking for more protection, it is absolutely guesswork as to when you are arriving at a system of justice if you are going to monkey with protection at all. I challenge any man to frame a protective policy which will be consistent and deal out even-handed justice. And the converse is true, as we heard the other day from the entertaining glimpse which the hon. Solicitor General (Mr. McMurray) gave us behind the cabinet scenes. He said that as delegations arrived to oppose various reductions in the tariff on one item or another, their never-failing argument was that if one particular reduction went into effect some other cognate or similar industry would be more favourably placed. I am free to confess that you cannot reduce duties wholly consistently, even if you do so gradually, as this government is proceeding to do. As it is axiomatic that you cannot build up tariff walls with absolute consistency, so you cannot take them down with absolute consistency. Therefore I have no doubt that of necessity criticism will be levelled here and there against the government in that its downward trend of tariff duties is not entirely harmonious and consistent. The tariff itself being inconsistent and mischievous, unless you do away with it at one fell swoop, you have to go through a period of conflict and inconsistency in getting back to a normal business basis. Consequently I humbly ask our Liberal friends throughout the country to bear with the administration in avoiding as best it can glaring inconsistencies in tariff reductions while making no pretence that its policy of tariff reductions can go on without inconsistency any more than that a tariff can be built up without inconsistency.
Mr. RYCIvMAN:	Is my hon. friend in
favour of or against any measure of protection at all in the tariff of this country?


Harold Putnam: That question, Mr. Speaker, could be easily and categorically answered, but I am going to inflict only a short speech upon my hon. friends, and I should like them to take it for granted that I shall not resume my seat and leave that obvious question wholly untouched.


Mr. RYCKMAN:: I accept that statement.
I hope my hon. friend will not sit down before he answers the question.


Harold Putnam: When we are asked whether or not we should do away with protection altogether we have to take into account the particular industry which will be affected. * It is very hard to lay down in one sentence any rule that will suit my hon. friend or any other hon. member. WTe have to take into account that there are factories which may have been in operation and getting on nicely before protection was adopted as the fiscal policy of this country. In such a case I do not deny that this factory could make more profit after protection came into effect, and consequently it could pay better dividends. In this event what will happen? If dividends are doubled by the application of protection, the owners of the industry will resort to the very common device of watered stock in order to conceal from the consumer the extent to which he is exploited. But a factory which springs up under protection is in a different category altogether. Protection itself raises the price of everything that goes into that industry, it raises the price of labour and the cost of living, and the result is that the factory will require a larger genuine capital and will be started under more onerous conditions. Now, if you take protection away from that industry what happens? Unless the protection is withdrawn gradually that factory will be subjected to certain hardships. Therefore the two cases are dissimilar. When you are dealing with a factory founded before protection was applied, the process is comparatively simple; you have only to scale down the capitalization, in other words, squeeze out the watered stock-and if somebody gets burnt by having dealt in that watered stock he is not to be pitied. But the process is altogether different when you are dealing with a factory established under protection; the scaling down of tariff duties has to be done gradually with due regard to the new conditions which that factory may from time to time have to meet; and this, I take it, is the policy of the government in regard to the present budget.
With respect to the amendment which the hon. member for Kent has moved, and where-
The Budget-Mr. Putnam

in he speaks of "consistent protection," I am sorry he is not in his seat to-night, because I did want to wish him all the joy he can anticipate in telling the people of the Maritime provinces-who are depressed and sometimes .discouraged as a result of half a century of the experiment of high protection-that "consistent protection" is the panacea for all their economic ills. He came up here as a new recruit with all the prestige which accrued to him from being a Tory representative from the Maritime provinces-they are so scarce- and with the tumult of his by-election still ringing in his ears, he propounded the doctrine * that consistent protection is the cure for the economic ills of the Maritime provinces, I hope he will enjoy all the favour he shall find in the eyes of his people when he goes back and tells them a story so old, so ridiculous and so well disproved by weary decades of painful experience,
Now, Mr. Speaker my proposition is that a genuine national policy of tariff reform must assert the principle that freer trade is essential to the welfare of the nation as a whole, that the tariff must be regarded purely as a means of raising public revenue, and must proceed to the attainment of these objects by degrees. Protection in the best sense of the word is neither a national blessing nor a truly national policy, because it ignores the natural sequence of industries. What is that natural sequence? What is the business of a great and young country like Canada? Is it not in the first place to develop its primary industries, to see to it that there is a fair economic condition obtaining amongst the farmers, the miners, the fishermen and the lumbermen? They were here first. We have millions of acres of cultivated land: How many of them were selected by the hardy tillers of the soil with any regard to the nearby location of some so-called home market? In some cases there may have been such choices, but in the aggregate the farmers of Canada ignored the question of home market, realizing full well that they had to depend for a return for their products upon the unfettered market of the world. The farmer wants to be let alone. He realizes that he must sell his products in open competition with the world. The protectionist says to him. "You shall not buy what you wish in the open market; we are going to make you swallow protection and make you pay an inflated price for what you have to buy." The more healthy the condition of the primary industries the greater will be the field for the development of the secondary industries. When you attempt to

induce too premature a development of the secondary industries, at once you infliot harm upon the primary industries, increase the cost of living and make it more difficult for those engaged in the primary industries to get their products ready for such market as there is, the surplus product being destined for export to the market of the world.
We are told, and correctly told, that one of the great hopes for the future of Canada is multiplied immigration. It has been agreed by all parties and by all governments that our immigration should consist of selected agriculturists, of those who can make a success of farming-bona fide farmers who will stay on the land. My Conservative friends agree with me in that as well as my Progressive and Liberal friends. It has been the tenor and tune of the speeches of those to your immediate left, Mr. Speaker, in this debate that the welfare of farming depends upon the protection of the secondary industries. I would ask hon. gentlemen to your left if they think we should modify our propaganda among prospective immigrants in the congested parts of Europe? Dare we put a rider in our immigration propaganda to the effect that the ultimate success of agriculture in Canada depends upon whether or not a high protective tariff is maintained? I challenge my hon. friends opposite to this test of their honesty and sincerity, when they say that farming is dependent upon the protection of secondary industries. Dare they, in the light of common sense, say that the immigrants should be warned that if protection is whittled away in Canada the success of farming will go with it; that if we adopt a purely revenue tariff or aim at the goal of free trade, the field for farming in Canada will be over?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I accept the challenge, and I say yes.


Harold Putnam: The hon. gentleman thinks we should make that change in our immigration propaganda?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: If you say that this country shall not have a protective tariff that will reasonably protect industry, then the farming community will suffer and we have no reason to ask immigrants to come here and undertake farming.


Harold Putnam: Will my hon. friend tell us what sort of tariff would reasonably protect industry, to use his own phrase?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I have spoken once in the budget debate, but I hope I may not have to speak again. I can only reply by asking my hon. and esteemed friend to answer the question that I put to him before, and I hope

The Budget-Mr. Putnam.
he will not sit down without answering it: Is he in favour of a protective tariff for this country-any protective tariff?


Harold Putnam: I did not forget my hon.
friend's academic question, although it was very much out of order just at that stage. Let me ask the hon. gentleman another question-because I am not afraid to make the discussion a little conversational. When he says he believes in modifying our immigration policy to the extent of warning immigrants that if our present protective tariff is lowered the field in Canada for those immigrants will be uninviting, does he speak for himself or for his whole party?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I generally speak for
myself, and I am prepared to take the consequences of what I say. If the hon. gentleman wants to advertise to the world that this country is prepared to accept a tariff that is not protective he will not have any sympathy in connection with the result obtained if he seeks to get immigrants. He cannot hope for success if the policy of this country is going to be no protection at all-or free trade, which the hon. member would seem to be arguing for.


Harold Putnam: If the hon. member were
in a position of enough prominence-and I say it without disrespect-to look to the good of the whole world, would he advocate a protective tariff-


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Looking to the good of
the whole world I am simply a back bencher.


Harold Putnam: I put an "if" to it, as
my hon. friend must have noticed. I suppose my hon. friend agrees that very largely the products of the farms of Canada must be exported to foreign countries to find a market.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Less than 20 per cent.


Harold Putnam: My hon. friend seems to
be in favour of every country in Christendom putting up tariff barriers and having its own protection. Where would he find a foreign market if every country resorted to the device of protection, a device which has the effect of keeping out the products of other countries? Occasionally we are told-and I dislike repeating what I very poorly said in the short speech I made in the debate on the Address-that the protective policy of the United States is proof that protection itself will not disturb the sequence of events in the building up of the industry of a new country. I deny in toto that proposition. The United States has a great variety of climate and soil conditions. The labour of man applied to the various sections of that country in all its 130
different capacities produces a variety of products almost infinite in their complexion, and within that country those products are exchanged on a basis of free trade. It was not until the period between 1816 and 1830 that any tariff legislation was enacted in the United States.
From 1830 to I860 was a period when the tariff of the United States was entirely non-proteetive in its aim and in its scope. I want for a moment, with a very few figures, to show hon. gentlemen that in that particular period the United States had the greatest percentage of growth in its population, and an enormous growth, and I think the greatest percentage growth, in its property values. From 1830 to 1840 the increase for taxation purposes in the property values of the United States was 53 per cent; from 1840 to 1850 an increase of 80 per cent, and from 1850 to 1860 an increase of 126 per cent. I have not the later figures, but my reading leads me to believe that there has been no such percentage of increase in property values after 1S60. when high protection was more frankly applied.
In 1800 the United States had a population of 5,308.000; 1830, 12,866,000; 1860, 31,443,000; 1890, 62,947,000; 1920, 105,710,000, Enormous as those last growths of population are, they do not represent as high a percentage in growth as those earlier figures which I quoted, which were given as and for a time when the United States had a tariff for revenue only, and when there was no element of protection in their tariff whatsoever. Thus we see quite clearly that this high protection was not the basis and the nucleus of the great growth of the United States, and therefore that furnishes no lesson at all for Canada.
The United States for every dollar of its total products produced exports only six cents' worth, showing how very largely it relies on its great internal trade, upon its great system of free trade as between state and state. That shows the fallacy of holding up the United States as an example for us to follow in the matter of high protection or even moderate protection.
When we come to our own country, we find that in 1920 our total production was $4,485,487,785, and in that year our total exports were $1,189,163,701; in other words, with a population one-twelfth that of the United States, Canada must export and does export about twenty-five cents' worth of every dollar of her total products, in comparison with six cents' worth exported in the United States. In other words, we are four or five

The Budget-Mr. Putnam.

times as much dependent upon foreign trade as is the United States. I am delighted to see the hon. member for Brome (Mr. Mc-Master) nodding his head, because I consider him an authority in all respects in these matters. As I was saying, those figures show that we are very much more dependent on foreign trade than is the United States, from which our friends to your immediate left, ' Mr. Speaker, are so insistent in endeavouring to draw lessons. My hon. friend asked me if I was prepared for the elimination of the tariff.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Are you in favour of
any measure of protection?


Harold Putnam: I hope for some far off
Divine event of which Tennyson speaks. I hope the whole creation, including my hon. friend and his friends, are moving to that goal. I do hope for a time when protection will be exterminated root and branch; destroyed, horse, foot and artillery. I agree with my hon. friend that it will not come suddenly. The tariff was built up under a vicious and mischievous system, and I believe that just as fast as we can stand it, and without undue dislocation of industry, and with due protection even of the mushroom industries, some of which should never have been started-


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Artificial silk for instance, established last year.


Harold Putnam: Artificial silk and artificial arguments.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: That is not an answer.


Harold Putnam: My hon. friend is very
discriminating to-night. You cannot build up a system by quoting artificial silk or any other isolated item, and we have not time to make a new tariff even for my good friend from Toronto. But I want to answer him frankly. My position is, that just as fast as we can get the tariff down to a revenue tariff basis, and I do not pretend to judge how fast that should come about, we should do it. I believe that is the solution of the tariff problem for Canada. I believe that in time we shall gradually weed out all the tares from the wheat and get down to a purely revenue tariff, with the revenue raised wholly and solely for the public service. I think in that process, if my hon. friend is really referring to my wisdom, there will be a very long term of protection, geographical and incidental, yet, but I confidently look forward to the undoing of the mischief that was done by Sir John Macdonald in 1878. But it should be done slowly, and I hope it can be done

without undue hardship to any legitimate business.


Mr. STEVENS:: My hon. friend has used
a phrase which is quite frequently used, and that is that the tariff should be reduced to a revenue basis. Would he be good enough to say at what point he expects the element of protection to be eliminated and the tariff to be simply a revenue tariff? The reason I ask him the question is that a moment ago he asked for a definition of an adequate tariff.


Harold Putnam: I do not know that I entirely apprehend the full meaning of the question.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am sorry I did not make myself clear. The question was, at what point in the reduction of the tariff does my hon. friend expect to arrive at what he terms a revenue tariff, where there will be no protective element, but merely a revenue tariff element. My hon. friend has had two ministers helping him.


Mr. GRAHAM:: You should not object.


Ernest Lapointe: I can answer it.


Harold Putnam: In the main it is a tariff
that will get the revenue into the treasury, and not into the pocket of the protected manufacturers. I am a little bit surprised at that particular brand of courtesy which prompted my hon. friend to say that I was receiving help in answering the question. It so happened that I did not receive any help, and I am surprised at that little departure from the splendid courtesy which I have always associated with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), when he twitted me that I was waiting for help before I answered. I think it was just a little unworthy of him.


Mr. JACOBS:: He was encumbered by help.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I think my hon. friend is correct.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: The hon. Minister of
Justice said that he would come to his assistance, and I would therefore ask him where the .protective tariff on boots and shoes would cease, and the tariff remain only a revenue tariff.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I am absolutely in
order. I ask the hon. gentleman where the protective tariff on boots and shoes would cease and where the revenue tariff would come in? Give it to us in percentages and, with the permission of the hon. member for

The Budget-Mr. Putnam.
Colchester (Mr. Putnam), I have no doubt the Minister of Justice will now speak.


Harold Putnam: Does the hon. gentleman
expect me to give the exact data that would produce that result?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: As nearly as you can.


Harold Putnam: My hon. friend would
like me to give approximate figures?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Yes, you asked me to.


Harold Putnam: I do not know about
that. I do know, however, that there is an obligation upon the leader of the opposition to give us information upon that point. I do know this-that before the right hon. gentleman went to the country at the last general election he told the people of Canada that he had still a long time to put up what he called a campaign of education; that before he would touch the tariff he would have a commission that would tell just the digit above which the tariff should not be raised as being too high, and just the digit below which it should not be lowered as being too low. If my hon. friend would use his good offices with the leader of the opposition and get him to redeem that promise he would really be in a better position to obtain an answer to that question and doubtless he would obtain some data from that source. I do not think the commission in question was ever dismissed.


George Perry Graham: No it was parked.


Harold Putnam: I have spoken at greater
length than I intended.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Harold Putnam: It must 'be remembered
that I alluded to the fallacy under which this protective policy of Sir John Macdonald was born, namely, that the tariff would be wiped away just as soon as the infant industries ceased to be babes and infants. That promise is still outstanding. Hon. gentlemen opposite twit us about every hour because they allege we have not carried out all our preelection promises and particularly the platform of 1919. I believe, Mr. Speaker, in taking up these pre-election promises in their historic order. I would therefore carry my hon. friends back to that undoubted promise of their greatest chieftain, Sir John Macdonald, in 1878 when he said specifically, in terms the whole country is familiar with, that "protection was only a temporary evil, endure it for a little while until these industries get upon their feet." To-day in these belated days the Liberal government is making an attempt to redeem that promise 130i
of the great Conservative chieftain. We ask hon. gentlemen opposite to take up the alleged broken platform and broken pre-election promises in their proper historic order. Let us dispose of the promise referred to first. The platform of 1919 is a platform which tries to honour the dust of Sir John Macdonald and to implement that chieftain's promise-a promise which in point of honour is as compelling as though it were only made yesterday; a promise which is all the more overdue because during the intervening decades the industries aided by the protective tariff have ceased to be infant industries. Sir John Macdonald passed away when this country was a good deal younger than it is to-day. I give credit to my hon. friend's great former leader for realizing that that promise was long overdue and that he intended to fulfil it. I do not think the late Conservative chieftain would sleep serenely in that quiet cemetery at Cataraqui if he felt his promise would remain unfulfilled. I do not think he would sleep so well if he knew we were going to break faith with him, and therefore I call on hon. gentlemen opposite to support this budget and join with us in implementing the promise of Sir John Macdonald.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Before the hon. gentleman sits down will he tell us at what point the revenue tariff was fixed for boots and shoes, and at what point the protective tariff was fixed for the same industry?


Harold Putnam: In reply I would ask my hon. friend at what point rubber tires should be fixed in the tariff?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I did not hear the
question of the hon. and learned member for Colchester. I want to make my question very plain and I think I can do it in very few words. I understood the hon. and learned member for Colchester-


Harold Putnam: Leave out the "learned".


Edmond Baird Ryckman: -would tell us before he sat down where the line was drawn between a protective tariff and a revenue tariff on boots and shoes. If he can do so it will enlighten this side of the House.


Harold Putnam: That would depend upon conditions.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Take conditions as they are to-day.


Harold Putnam: I think we shall get help when the tariff commission appointed by the late government brings down the exact digits
The Budget-Mr. Beaubien

as to every item as was promised. I should like to know the point at which the hon. gentleman thinks that protection to rubber tires approaches the right figure? Why bother so much with boots and shoes when in these days of Liberal government the people are walking so seldom and riding so much in automobiles?
Mr. ARTHUR L. BEAUBIEN (Pro-vencher):	In rising to take part in this debate, it is not my intention to again consider many phases of this vast question, most of which have already been discussed. I want to limit my remarks to one or two points on which, in my estimation, not sufficient light seems to have yet been thrown.
The budget does not seem to bring very substantial changes in our tariff situation, but no matter how short the step in the right direction may be, I believe it should be accepted. I readily admit that all desirable changes cannot be made in one day or even one year. It is only by seeing the good results of Slight changes in the tariff that the people will press their demand for more alterations in our fiscal policy. When I say the people, I do not mean the agricultural class only. As you know, Mr. Speaker, it has been said that we favour class legislation. Of course, this statement comes from an advertisers-controlled press and from bawling politicians who work first and last for power, and who have misrepresented, by hook and by crook, the Progressive group and their ideals. When I speak of the people who will demand changes, I mean all elements of our population, except, perhaps, the get-rich-quick and the reaper of excessive profits in exploiting others' brains and labour.
The progressive group stands for justice to all classes, for the progress and welfare of the whole population. We have been accused of asking special privileges for the agricultural class. Nothing is further from the truth. If we have asked that justice be given to the farmers and that they be afforded an opportunity to reap all advantages from their work, it is because we feel that other classes of society could not logically reap the full benefit of their activities unless the farming class, which is the basis of public welfare, receives fair play and justice.
The fact that farming is the very foundation of national life was demonstrated a long time ago. Cicero in old Roman times, proclaimed that: Among the productive arts, none was better than agriculture, none was more fruitful; none was more agreeable or more distinctive of a free man.

One of the foremost economists, if not the greatest of the last century, Le Play, has expressed the same idea in a beautiful passage which I will quote in French first, and which I will try to translate afterwards. He said:
L'agriculture a 6te pour les societes humaines le principal moyen. de multiplication, d'independance et le progres moral. Plus que toute autre branche d'activite, elle caracterise la vie nationale. Elle est, dans l'ordre materiel et dans le regime du travail, la force qui complete le mieux l'ordre de la cr6ation.
The English translation reads:
Agriculture has afforded to human societies the principal means of expansion, of independence and of moral progress. More than any other branch of activity, it characterizes the national life. It is, in the material order and in the regime of labour, the power which best completes the order of creation.
It being admitted that agriculture is the basis of our national welfare, let us glance at the world's conditions to-day. People have just emerged from the stupor resulting from the most horrible war of all times. They are all trying to devise means, according to their conditions and power, to effect a recuperation of their former strength. In other w-ords, everywhere the world is facing the problem of reconstruction. In all countries public men are busy building up a new national life. Since the beginning of the session, you have heard speeches on national unity, national problems, and national reconstruction. How is it to be brought about? Will you build from the roof down or from the foundation up?
I do not hesitate to say: If you want to build up a prosperous nation, in this agricultural country, start at the foundation. Try firstly to better the farming life. The farmers are ready to share the sacrifices in this present crisis; they never shirked their duty on co-operating with other classes in order to make this country prosperous. They are still ready to toil on the land to extract from it most of our necessities of life, provided you instil in their hearts hope instead of discouragement, contentment in place of dissatisfaction, and so create in their homes a little happiness. If you adopt means to improve the disastrous condition the farmer is in to-day, the unemployed of the cities will go to the land, instead of emigrating to the United States, and those who would under other conditions, desert their farms will never think of leaving them. Immigrants coming within our borders will become good settlers and will trade with other industries which will again enjoy the sunny side of prosperity. I repeat in all sincerity, if you want to reconstruct our national life, start at the basis, the farmer.
In the February Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics, it is stated that:

The Budget-Mr. Beaubien
Low prices, high wages, freight rates and costly machinery have taken all profits from farming in the West.
The products of our agricultural industry which are by far the most important in Canada, so much exceed our home consumption that necessarily, we are a community of exporters. Lower cost of transportation, better marketing facilities and a better control in the selling of our grain will largely contribute to replace low prices by fair prices, as would also a reduction in the cost of machinery and other necessities of life. I am glad that a grain commission, presided over by Judge Turgeon, is inquiring into the wheat marketing problem, and I hope that our farmers, through the elimination of all useless middlemen and profiteers, may, in the near future, be able to get a better price for their grain.
The question of freight rates also demands immediate attention and action. May I express the hope that in order to relieve the great western farming community, steps be taken to complete the Hudson Bay railway as soon as possible. This question will be dealt with fully, I expect, during the present session. I wish, however, to draw the immediate attention of this House and the government to the fact that a certain section of Canada has never been enlightened as to the facts that led our public men to undertake the building of that road. The press of eastern Canada, supported by its big advertisers, had to follow their suggestions. Big interests connected with the lakes, or other shipping companies were holding a firm grip on almost every newspaper of this part of the country, where the people were made to believe that the practicability of that road, as a paying proposition, was a myth born in the brains of vote-catching politicians. The people never knew the real facts. Moreover, certain official reports containing those facts and conclusions favourable to the completion of the road, have never been translated into French for the information of the province of Quebec. Was it done purposely? I have in mind one special report of a committee of the Senate, in 1920, which should be translated into French and distributed widely in the province of Quebec, since the newspapers of that large province thought proper not to give their readers the two sides, and, more especially to keep in the dark the favourable side of this important question.
In connection with high wages mentioned in the quoted bulletin as one of the causes of deficits in farming operations, I may say that the farmers of this country do not object to pay fair wages for a fair day's work, and
that they would rather suffer themselves than deprive labourers of the opportunity of earning an honest living. There, again, the sincerity of the agricultural class in co-operating with other classes for the general welfare, is manifest.
The fourth point mentioned in the Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics as being a burden on the farming life of this country is "costly machinery." The budget announces a slight decrease in the tariff on farm implements, and this is gladly accepted by this group as a partial measure of justice.
I was astonished to read declarations of certain manufacturers, or of their representatives in the press, and of certain members in both Houses of Parliament, to the effect that this reduction in the tariff would mean a serious loss to the revenue of Canada. I was astonished because they are the same people who, after the formation of the Progressive group, always claimed that the farmers were practically exempt from taxation. It is only now that they seem to realize that the farmers who are subject to all forms of taxation like the other consumers, are big contributors to the revenue of our country. The only taxes that they do not pay are taxes on luxuries which they cannot afford to buy. I say, without any hesitation and free from any influence whatsoever except my deep interest in the general welfare of my country, that any measure that this or any other government may bring in to improve conditions of rural life in Canada, will receive my hearty support.
Amongst the measures that are expected to be adopted is the establishment of a federal farm loan board, which, with the help of a federal reserve bank, will extend, by a system of rural credits to agriculturists, the period over which moneys are now being lent. The elaborate report of Dr. H. M. Tory, published by order of parliament, contains very valuable and interesting information which, I hope, will enable the government to establish the necessary institution for financing the farmer's needs in such a manner that he will be in a position to wait and not to sell his wheat until market conditions are favourable, or to do greater development on his farm without incurring a great risk of losing his property.
Again, I submit that our national reconstruction should begin at the foundation. What we need first and most in this agricultural country is more population on the land, as is admitted by everybody, and means are being taken to bring in more immigrants. Let me say, however, that the large expenditure for immigration will be a complete waste of money, if the new settler, as well as the

The Budget-Mr. McKillop
old Canadian farmer, is not content with his life. When our Canadian farmers are compelled to leave their farms on account of deficits accruing every year in spite of their hard labour, how can one expect that new immigrants, who are not yet tied up to this country by the many bonds of residence, environment, laws, social and family relations, public or private institutions, will stick to a meaningless home? I appeal to this government and to all men of goodwill in this parliament; let us get together and unite our efforts to adopt legislation to relieve, first of all, our agricultural industries. It seems to me that such a unanimous effort is our main national duty at the present time.
If we want again to enjoy prosperity, let our next budget tend more towards eliminating the causes of the farmers' critical situation, that is, low prices for their products, high freight rates, costly machinery, and high duties on the necessaries of life. Let us adopt measures that will improve the lot of our rural population. Let us contribute to keep our own Canadians at home, on the land, in the cultivation of which they will find some happiness. Our farmers, respectful as they are for the moral and natural laws, will see their numbers increasing by natural expansion and by a large immigration coming to share their contented life. Thus, through our efforts, Canada will become more prosperous, and we shall have done for our country more than those who wave the flag for the sake of a small group having special privileges and a large protection, or for the sake of a few ambitious politicians.
Mr. HUGH C. McKILLOP (West Elgin): First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) on the very able manner in which he brought down the 1924 budget. While not at all in sympathy with What the budget contains, yet at the same time I want to give the hon. minister all credit for the prompt and quick despatch he gave it. About a month ago the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), during a speech that he delivered in this House, referred to me as being one of a deputation that waited on the cabinet one day last winter in reference to the Home Bank depositors. In this statement the Prime Minister was correct. I was invited by members of the deputation from the constituency which I have the honour to represent to accompany them to Ottawa. This kind invitation was accepted gladly, because although not a loser by the failure of the Home Bank, yet I was always in sympathy with the de-

positors, many of whom lost their all in this disaster; and when everything in connection with this failure is taken into consideration ' I am strongly of opinion that something should be done for them. For instance, it is a well-known fact that the government was fully aware, before the collapse of this bank, of the condition it was in. Such being the case, why did they not make some move to prevent this failure and save the depositors from the loss of their money? What a difference between the course of this govern ment in regard to this matter and the action of the provincial government of Quebec. In this latter case, as soon as the government found that one of their large financial institutions was in danger of failure they moved at once, took prompt measures, did not allow the bank to fail, saved the depositors their money and prevented what otherwise would have been a financial calamity. Not so with our Dominion government, who, although they knew that the Home Bank was in a bad condition, never raised a hand to prevent this bank from failing, thereby allowing many people to lose so much, and in many cases their all, and spreading hardship and ruin from one end of this country to the other, when they migfiit, by prompt action through the Bankers' Association or by some other means, have prevented this catastrophe from taking place.
Now, I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that taking all these facts into consideration, I think the depositors of the Home Bank should be reimbursed to the full extent of their losses, and I for one will support any measure brought forward in this House with that object in view. Of course I know that the argument is advanced that the Home Bank depositors cannot be given back their money without the depositors of the Farmers Bank getting their money back also. Well, all I have to say to that is this: When the Farmers Bank failed my sympathy was with the depositors, and I thought they should have had their money back, but two wrongs never made a right Therefore, I claim that just because the Farmers Bank depositors did not get their money back is no reason why the depositors of the Home Bank should not receive theirs, and I sincerely hope that the government will find a way to give back to the depositors of the Home Bank all the money they lost.
Last year I drew to the attention of the government a condition of affairs that existed between the tariff duties on beans coming into this country and the bean producers of Canada. I am very sorry to note that no change .

The Budget-Mr. McKillop
in the tariff on this particular commodity has been made. The duty on beans coming into this country is 25 cents per bushel, while on beans going into the republic to the south of us, the duty is SI.05 per bushel. This,
I claim, is not fair, equitable or just to the bean farmers of this country. Last year the production of beans in this country amounted to 1,041,700 bushels valued at $2,773,000, while at the same time beans to the amount of 342,224 bushels valued at $843,763 were imported. Now, what does this mean? It simply means that owing to the low duty on beans coming into this country, the bean producers of this Dominion have to compete with other countries, such as Japan, Austria and Belgium, where living conditions are so different and labour so much cheaper. In fact, in this respect I have it on good authority that a labourer in the fields in some of these countries does not receive as much for a week's work as one in this country receives for one day. And further, Mr. Speaker, just let me point out that 'last fall when the Canadian bean crop was ready to market, the farmers received a fair price per bushel for their beans, the price then being from $2.60 to $2.75 per bushel, but this price lasted only a short time because of the heavy shipment of foreign beans arriving on our market, with the result that our bean farmers and dealers had to take a lot less for what they could sell of last year's crop. In fact some of them had to take as much as 75 cents per bushel less than they received when their first beans of last year were ready to market. The result is that while shipment after shipment of foreign beans is still coming in, thousands of bushels of our own production are being held by our farmers and dealers. This, Mr. Speaker, I claim is not as it should be. No one in this country is being benefited by allowing this state of affairs to continue, with the exception of the dealers who are buying these foreign beans and selling them to the consumer at the same price as one would have to pay for the home-grown product. In this connection let me say that I have been told that there is one firm handling these foreign beans who cans them and labels the container " Made in Canada," puts them on the market and sells them for the real Canadian bean and at the same price as the genuine, home-grown article.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I protest against this discrimination against our bean producers, and I claim it is high time this tariff was changed and they were given the necessary protection to compete successfully with those foreign countries with depreciated currency, where
labour and living conditions are so much cheaper. Just think-nearly one million dollars of good Canadian money gone to enrich foreign countries for beans alone this last year, while thousands of bushels grown here in Canada are still* in the producers' hands, the consumer not benefiting a particle by it.
I hope the government will take action on this matter right away, adjust the tariff and give the bean producers a fair show.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I am a believer in protection; I believe that what this country needs is protection, and high protection at that, the higher the better for all classes. I would like to see our tariff walls raised higher even than the tariff barrier of the republic to the south of us. I am satisfied that if this were done the wheels of industry would turn, there would be plenty of labour for the working man, a better home market for the farmer, there would be plenty of money circulating around and everybody would be happy and contented. However, Mr. Speaker, in this matter I do not wish to be misunderstood, as I would want the farmer protected as well as the manufacturer, and this is how he could be protected -have an amendment made to that slow-acting combines bill passed last session, making it possible to punish severely any manufacturer found guilty of charging an unduly high price for any of his articles the farmer buys.
Now, Mr. Speaker, just let me say here that I am convinced that quite a few of the ills from which Canada is suffering could be cured if the tariff were so arranged as to stop the exporting of so much of our unfinished product, taking, for instance, our pulpwood. Last year we exported in the unfinished state over ninety-nine million dollars' worth of this commodity alone; I contend that if a bill was passed prohibiting the exportation of pulpwood in its unfinished condition, and as a consequence it had to be manufactured here in Canada, the result would be that large plants employing thousands of workingmen, distributing large sums of money for wages, material and so forth, would be established here in Canada, from which the people of the Dominion as a whole would greatly benefit.
Mr. Speaker, there is one other matter to which I would like to refer, and then I am through, and that is the coal situation here in Canada. This Dominion has within its boundaries very large quantities of coal, coal fields undeveloped with millions, and millions of tons of coal in them. I think, if the government really wanted to do something for the people

The Budget-Mr. McKillop
of Canada, instead of buying a Scribe Hotel in Paris or a Union Club in London, England, -things I am convinced could be done without for years to come,-they would be well-advised to turn their attention to the development of our coal fields and making arrangements whereby this coal could be delivered to all parts of Canada, wherever needed, as cheaply as possible, thereby assisting the people to obtain all the fuel they require. Not only that but at the same time it would stop the sending every year of over one hundred million dollars of good Canadian money to other countries for fuel alone when we have so much of it right here in our own country. I claim that if the government would attend to this at once they would be performing a great service to the people as a whole.
Mr. 0. R. GOULD JAssiniboia):	Mr. Speaker, at this late stage in the debate one finds it difficult to introduce new matter, and this might almost be sufficient justification for closing the discussion. But on paying a visit to my people in the West I find that they are very much interested in the budget and are paying close attention to the varied expressions of opinion that are being delivered upon the floor of the House.
I wish to join other members in complimenting the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) on the generalship which he has displayed in the presentation of his budget. I do hope that a year from now my praise may be just as unstinted as it is at this time. What I have in mind is that the dumping clause can be so interpreted as to nullify all the apparent benefits of the budget. I sincerely hope and trust -using the word "trust" in its fullest sense- that the minister or the government will not exercise the dumping clause too drastically, if they exercise it at all, for there is a fear in the minds of the people that its restrictive features may be unduly enforced.
I have noticed, particularly in the early stages of this debate, that our Conservative friends prefaced their remarks by expressing their appreciation of the Acting Minister of Finance and their regret that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) himself was not in his seat. In explanation of that they stated that had the Finance Minister occupied his usual place. in the House he would not have brought down a budget such as the present budget. That is to admit that the Finance Minister is greater than the whole Liberal party, in other words that the part is greater than the whole, which none of us can believe to be possible. The statement of the right hon. Prime Minister that the Finance Minister endorsed this budget was satisfactory 
to me, and it must have been satisfactory to our Conservative friends, for since that statement was made they have ceased from introducing their remarks by an expression of sorrow at the absence of the Finance Minister. During the years that I have had the honour of occupying a seat in this House, when the Finance Minister was in his place and introduced the policies which hon. gentlemen now give him credit for perpetuating, I cannot recall that they bestowed upon him the fulsome praise which they now offer in his absence. It is something like writing an epitaph on a tombstone; if they believed the Finance Minister was furthering policies which were beneficial to Canada as a whole, why did they not commend him while he was in the House rather than wait until this late day?
Since 1875 all elections in Canada except two have been fought upon the tariff or economic issues. The two I refer to were the elections of 1908 and 1917. The 1908 election was fought largely [DOT] on the Transcontinental railway question and the 1917 election was the occasion of the formation of the Union or war time government. Had1 the government of 1908 devoted their time to a discussion of tariff matters it would have been much better for the people of Canada, whether the election was lost or won, than the making of arrangements in connection with that huge expenditure on railways. However, it is not my purpose to enter upon a discussion of railway matters. I am very much interested, of course, in the tariff question and the few remarks I shall make will be largely devoted to that subject.
In passing, though, I wish to make a remark or two concerning the very able address delivered by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens)-and I am pleased to see that he is in the chamber. The hon member stated that in his early days he had been a student of Adam Smith, Henry George, and John Stuart Mill, and what puzzles me is how the hon. gentleman, having studied these political economists, could in 1924 support a policy brought into effect in 1878, the National Policy. It does seem strange, Sir, but I have no doubt that I can get an explanation from the hon. gentleman in conversation with him. Since the days of Sir John A. Macdonald agriculture has made the greatest strides of any industry in Canada. It is well known that last year Canada produced the largest amount of exportable grain of any country in the world. Consequently our grain crop is the basis of our national wealth, and from an economic point of view

The Budget-Mr. Gould
it would seem to be wise to pay some attention to this basic industry. I argue that the National Policy is diametrically opposed to the best interests of agriculture.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre argues for a home market for agriculture, and by the same token he argues for a home market for manufactures. The manufacturer, he says, must have protection which will eliminate opposition, but he becomes partial at that point, because the agriculturist has no protection and is made more or less the victim of the protection which is afforded to the manufacturer. The hon. gentleman by his arguments would oblige all governments in Canada to assume the monetary obligation involved in protection in our relations with other countries. That is to say, if Canada has a high protective tariff which has the effect of keeping out the goods of other countries, the task is imposed on the Canadian government of bargaining with other countries to give us favoured nation treaties or access to their markets in other ways. I do not see the logic in that argument.
At this point it may be well to ask, what is a home market? The market is represented by the purchasing power of the agriculturist, of the labouring man and of the professional man. The purchasing power of the agriculturist is limited by the amount he can receive in the market of a free trade world. His products are sold in competition with cheap labour all over the world, with conditions obtaining in other countries where agriculture is carried on. On the other hand our manufacturing friends oppose that principle, claiming that they cannot compete-and they will not if they can avoid it-under conditions which are nevertheless forced upon the agriculturist. The wage earner, the labourer, is circumscribed in the labour markets of the world; he is in competition with labour everywhere. The professional man's purchasing power is circumscribed more or less by the competition of those of his own profession. The total of these represents the purchasing power of Canada or of any other 'country.
Now, the imposition of a 10 per cent tariff minimizes the purchasing power in the home market to that extent. If you impose a 20 per cent tariff the purchasing power in the home market is limited one-fifth. Consequently the protectionist meets no competition until the purchasing power in the home market has been diminished by that 10 per cent or that one-fifth. The whole purchasing power of the people under a tariff is nullified by the extent of the tariff, be it 10, 15 or 20 per cent-it is nullified and becomes of no effect. The amount of the- tariff also represents what the
beneficiaries of the system receive for which they give no adequate return.
If that argument is followed out to its logical conclusion and every country would impose a tariff having the object of keeping out the products of other countries, we would then have Canada for the Canadians, America for the Americans, Great Britain for the British, Germany for the Germans, Russia for the Russians, China for the Chinese, Japan for the Japanese, and so on. So we come back to greatly enhanced prices, to a nullification of the purchasing power of the whole world due to the operations of this impostor, protection. The only benefits they might get are through the extra genius shown by statesmen in the various countries who exact a better bargain than the statesmen of other countries. Now when an individual feels himself a victim of a system or a principle, no amount of argument will soothe him or persuade him that he is not a victim, and in that regard I argue, as I have done frequently in this House, that the agriculturist is justified in feeling that he is a victim, and no amount of talk by our Conservative friends or other advocates of protection in Canada will ever persuade the agriculturist that he is not the victim of a vicious system. I believe that that feeling will remain in his breast just so long as he is denied equity in a country with great natural resources, which should give him a fair return for his labour.
I hold in my hand an article that appeared in the Journal of Commerce some time ago, and I am sure our Conservative friends will not dispute the authority of that Journal. I wish to present a case to the common people of this Dominion, whether they be agriculturists, professional men, or labourers in our towns and cities or villages, to show the enormity that is practised through this vicious system of protection, and how the masses are victimized for the benefit of a few people. I think that the presentation of these figures will prove conclusively that the beneficiaries of protection are not so much concerned with providing a job for the working man, as in perpetuating this vicious system and taking the benefits that accrue from it-a system that has been followed by all governments in this country since 1878.
Tlie object of this writer was to give to the people of Canada the idea that the tariff is a very small thing, and he purports to give a list of the implements that are necessary on a 160-acre farm. This is the list: gang plow, spike tooth harrow, scuffler, disc harrow, disc drill, spring tooth cultivator, com cultivator, corn binder, manure spreader, mower, horse rake, binder and wagon. He states that this
The Budget-Mr. Gould

table represent# the ordinary equipment for an average farm of 160 acres, and the duty payable on these implements. When my eyes fell upon this article it occurred to me that if the editor of this paper knew no more about the matter than the writer of this article, he might be justified in printing it, but if he did know more, he should have met him at the door with a baseball bat, because he has presented the strongest possible argument in favour of low protection. He has done this unconsciously, because he did not know what he was talking about. He has calculated that $175.77 will be payable in duty on these implements on the average farm, but he does not give half the implements that are necessary before a man can engage in farming on that scale. In the' first place he has no harness, and in passing I would say that I would like nothing better than to have the writer of this article go on a 160-acre farm and try to make a living with the equipment that he has listed as necessary. He would be like a buttercup in the Sahara desert. Nevertheless, this man purports to be an authority on protection. Possibly some sensible people may have seen his ridiculous statement and may believe in it and therefore, I propose to expose the fallacy of it. He has no provision for harness, and hon. gentlemen know that there is quite an extensive duty on harness, and that you cannot do much farming without harness. The implements he has listed require four horses, and he would be obliged to provide harness, to the amount of approximately $100. He has no walking plough, but as he has furnished a gang plough he can perhaps do without it, although I could not; he has not got a wagon box with which to draw his grain to market and his seed to the field; nor a fanning-mill to clean the grain before taking it to market and to clean the seed before sowing. He has no pickier, and as the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) and my Progressive friends know, that is absolutely necessary on account of smut and other things. He has no engine, no ensilage cutter; he has not even a sleigh or a cutter. Evidently he expects that a Chinaman lives on the adjoining farm for he has made no provision for a washing machine or a wringer for the farmer's wife. He has no buggy, forks, shovels, spades, axes, hoes, chains, clevises, no roller or packer, and no thrashing machine. I have made what I think a very fair list of the articles which I think are necessary, and if you take the duty as given by this writer, $175.77 and add the items I have given, you get a duty of $375 on the implements the 
farmer will absolutely require on a 160 acre farm before he can engage in farming. My urban brother in the city is not obliged to pay that tax. Only the man who chooses agriculture as his vocation is obliged to pay this $375 extra tax over and above what his brother in the urban centre pays, and that is why we cry out against this system of which we are the victims. I may say incidentally that if my words ever reach the ears of this writer, I hope he will mend his ways.


Mr. HOEY:: No provision is made for a Ford car?


Mr. GOULD:: There is no provision for a Ford car. This writer goes on to say:
Implements at all properly cared for will last on the average in Canada ten years, so that allowing for manufacturers taking every dollar in duty that they can, we have an extra cost per year of $17.50.
I have shown that that average would be $37.50, as the tax amounts to $375. He goes on:
Assuming an annual crop of 100 acres and an average yield of all kinds of grain of 174 bushels to the acre, this duty would add to the cost of producing the grain one cent a bushel.
That is very generous. We have in Canada at the present time 60,000,000 acres of land under cultivation, and I shall endeavour to show the huge amount of money which the agriculturist is obliged to pay before he can engage in farming. Sixty million acres under cultivation means 375,000 quarter sections of land. Taking the writer's own computation of $375, that means a total fine of $140,425,000 which is placed on the agriculturist of Canada before he can engage in his chosen occupation. Is it any wonder, Mr. Speaker, that when the people become aware of these things they protest and they send representatives to parliament to register their protest. As I have already stated every election in the past has been fought upon economic issues and the same issues will come up at every election in the future until justice is done to the people that suffer -from this system.
The writer also argues that the charge in question will have to be renewed every ten years. That is to say that this huge expenditure of $140,425,000 is repeated every ten years. If we take that for forty-five years it means a total payment in the way of penalty of $631,912,500. That is what those sixty million acres will pay in the course of forty-five years. This is a huge sum to be taken out of the pockets of one class of the community. Is it any wonder, as I stated a few moments ago that the manufacturers, the beneficiaries of this system, are not as anxious

The Budget-Mr. Gould
to provide work for the labouring man and prevent his migration to the United States as they are to retain their profits.


Mr. CALDWELL:: Are the figures that
my hon. friend just quoted based on the present duty?


Oliver Robert Gould: Yes.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Is it not a fact that
in times past the duties were higher than they are now and consequently the total would be greater?


Oliver Robert Gould: I am pleased my hon. friend reminded me of the fact. If we went back to the times when the duties averaged 17i, 20 or 25 per cent the figures would reach the staggering total of billions of dollars. We have 300,000,000 acres of arable land in Canada potentially available and in view of this magnificent prospect we can well imagine how the manufacturers would like to perpetuate the system so that they could multiply the total of $631,912,500 by five-because we have five times as much arable land to bring under cultivation yet. I ask again, is it any wonder that we raise our voices in protest, and does not our argument rest on a logical basis? I only ask permission to present these facts in a simple way so that the ordinary reader may grasp them more quickly than if they were couched in technical language.
Now, as I read it the writer went on to argue that the tariff takes the paltry amount of one cent per bushel. Very well, let us accept that estimate. We will find according to the terms that practically 994,000,000 bushels of grain were produced in Canada last year which, according to the writer's own computation, would represent $994,000 annually. These figures, no matter how you take them, represent an unwarranted and unjustifiable fine upon agriculture. Avarice and greed stalk forth on this land under the guise of morality as represented by the beneficiaries of this vicious system of protection for a few. The system lends itself readily to incompetence and the perpetuation of an antiquated system. It fosters hatred and class domination. Wars and famine follow in its train and its sponsors laugh at the writhings of its victims.
I hold in my hand a little pamphlet which
was prepared under the directions of the present government for distribution at the World's Fair in London this year. From this pamphlet I want to cite a quotation which reads as follows:
During the last twenty-five years her manufacturing industry has enjo$red a remarkable growth-
Yes it has.
-and there is good reason to believe that this will continue in the future.	[DOT]
So there is.
This expansion is partly attributable to Canada's natural advantages, amongst which are plentiful and diversified raw materials; an unusually extensive transportation service both by rail and by water, which facilitates the assembling of raw products at points favourably situated for their manufacture and distribution in finished form. Abundant water powers supply ample and cheap energy. The expansion of agricultural, mining and other branches of basic industry has the effect of enlarging the domestic market for manufactured products.
Every word of the statement is true and such being the case there is no reason why Canadian manufacturers should ask that a certain class of the community be penalized for their benefit. That is the attitude I take.
I regard it as almost sacrilege that in a country such as we have, endowed with such wonderful natural resources men should ask to be accorded such privileges as are granted in the tariff.
Our Conservative friends have been indulging in all sorts of prophecies of impending doom. Industrial Canada, for example, is filled with accounts of meetings that have been held at which it was stated that if such and such a thing occurs some other thing will happen. These are nothing but false predictions, unjustifiable and groundless prophecy. No consideration at all is paid to the statements that were made here last year with respect to the actual condition of agriculture in Canada and the effect this was having on the general business of Canada. The thing necessary to do is to re-establish the purchasing power of the people not to perpetuate a tariff that would weaken that power still further. The manufacturers and their friends do not recognize that the purchasing power of the people of Canada is gone and even if the tariff were raised to a point high enough to satisfy the hon. member who preceded me it would have no effect because the people have not the money to purchase goods. That is the fact not only in Canada but in other countries.
In the government ranks we find some hon. gentlemen declining to support this budget. The hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Mc-Crea) the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler) and the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler).


Mr. FORKE:: There is the hon. member
for Brantford (Mr. Raymond).


Oliver Robert Gould: Yes and the hon. member for Brantford. We have listened for two or three weeks to the lamentations which have gone forth from the sponsors of the protective interests in Canada, as to what would happen if

The Budget-Mr. Goidd
changes were made in the tariff. The hon. member for North Waterloo-in whose constituency the city of Kitchener is located- both in his speech on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne and in his speech on the budget, lamented these changes and predicted that a very sad state of things would result to industry in Canada. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have here a press despatch which may be of interest in this connection, and which ends as follows:
Kitchener, Ont, May 4.-A price of 100.71 has been received by the city for a block of $258,000 debentures, the Dominion Bank being the successful tenderer. They range from ten to thirty years.
Evidently the Dominion bank, or those who tendered for these bonds in the city of Kitchener do not believe the tales which were repeated by the hon. member in this chamber. I would not ask for better evidence to the contrary than is given by these people who keep ;heir ears well to the ground and know the actual financial conditions in Canada. They nave faith in the city of Kitchener and prove their faith by buying its bonds above par.
Now I wish to make one or two references to the amendment of the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth). It seems rather unfortunate that the majority of the gentlemen to whom I have occasion to allude are absent from the chamber, but that is not my fault. I would not like to accuse the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg of playing politics, and yet I do not recognize in the speeches he has addressed to this House any advocacy of the principles embodied in that amendment. Nevertheless, for my part, let me say that I have on divers occasions spoken much along the lines suggested in this amendment. I know that I have supported amendments in this House along the same lines. I have been more or less active throughout the country advocating the majority of the principles outlined in this amendment, and I cannot see why, with the belief I have in these principles, the government should take an amendment to the budget in the sense that it is a vote of want of confidence. If I were to support the amendment it would be my explicit desire, as shown by my action, my action should not be regarded as a vote of want of confidence. If the government should not insist upon that principle or idea, I think that I could support the amendment. I also want to support the budget. I support the amendment simply because on principle 1 have always advocated such ideas in the past I believe in the principle of taxing unearned increment. I do not want to go into the question to-night, but my mind goes back to 
the West where I see that this government and past governments have been obliged to spend millions and millions of the people's money to provide facilities for settlers who have been driven into the back settlements because the land speculator held the lands close to the railway. These huge expenditures have been forced upon the Dominion government because of the fostering of the individual who held land out of use close to the railway. That same land that was held out of use has obliged neighbours to live miles apart who should be settled closer together. We have taxed ourselves to build schools and roads. These vacant lands have been the homes of all the insect pests which agriculture has suffered from. And yet we have a government sitting idly by and refusing to tax the unearned increment of that land which has increased in value as a result of the activities of you, Mr. Speaker, myself and others here and there.


Robert Forke: You have a provincial wild
lands tax.


Oliver Robert Gould: Yes, we have, if you take
that into the consideration. The day will come when there will be a reorganization of the Dominion and provincial system, so that there will be no overlapping. But when land which was bought at three or four dollars an acre, is through your activities and mine, sold later at thirty dollars an acre, I say that is an unearned increment, and the state should step in and take a large proportion of the money, rather than allow speculators to take it away to a foreign country. That is what I mean.
I could follow the matter up and present the same argument in regard to terminal elevators, but I use that as a justification for the adoption of the principle whereby we may largely offset the loss we would have from the taking away of the tariff tax.
Again let us look at the sales tax. We will find all our manufacturing friends on bended knee to our government asking them to take away the sales tax. I am not such a strong advocate as to urge taking away the sales tax because I believe in the principle of a direct tax. It will necessitate education on the part of the people, but until we have more education and more understanding by the people of the principles of taxation, the result will not be accomplished in the manner it should be. We should have a system of direct taxation to supplant and not to supplement indirect taxation; then progress will be made in Canada, business will be carried on much better, people will pay more attention to the principle of government and Canada will

The Budget-Mr. Humphrey
benefit. Therefore I am not so anxious as some people are for the taking away of the sales tax. I want if relief is to be given let it come from the reduction or removal of indirect taxation. I think that would be much better.,
I do not think I shall carry the story further. It becomes interesting to me and I feel like talking, but I have broken the ice and I have given expression to a few points that have a direct bearing upon the questions involved in this debate. If the people want more of the story they can find me in my office, or I would be pleased to discuss it with any hon. gentleman who wishes to pay me the compliment of visiting me.


Mr. L. W. HUMPHREY (West Kootenay):: I feel that it is fitting that I should at least state my position in relation to the budget that has been brought down by the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb). Before going into the question that I would like to touch upon, I would like to associate myself with those who have directed kind words to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). I sincerely trust he will be soon restored to health, and that we may be privileged to see him again in this chamber.
It is not my purpose to go into details in discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the free trade and protection issue, or the advantages or disadvantages of this budget; but simply to express my opinion as to how the budget will affect my own district, and at the same time keep in mind how it will affect the whole Dominion. First let me say that, as I vietv this budget, it will appeal to the majority of the electors in the district I represent, and in my own opinion will result in a greater degree of prosperity in the farming, lumbering and mining industries; as the district I have the privilege of representing is given over particularly to farming, with some lumbering and a good deal of mining, I feel that what would be good for the interests I have mentioned would certainly be good for the whole district.. It is very gratifying to have before us a financial statement of the Acting Minister of Finance, and to know that the financial condition of this country is as good as it is, and especially in the face of the organized system of propaganda that has been circulated in the country during the past six or eight months. As the province of British Columbia is now entering a period of prosperity I do not believe that this budget will in any way interfere with the future of that province, or have any detrimental effect upon any of these industries, I believe that there are
many factors and conditions that affect the prosperity of a country outside of the tariff issue.
On some of these questions, that are of vital importance to the whole country, I should like to touch very briefly, and also endeavour to bring out a different view from that which has been expressed by some hon. members in previous debates. At the beginning of this session I believe that practically every member of this House was primed up to a certain extent with a system of propaganda which was spread throughout the country crying for economy and for every government to practise and to bring about a policy of economy in every way. Although I am in accord with the policy that has been brought to the notice of the whole country, I do not feel that I can be in any way stampeded into supporting a policy that I would believe to be one of false economy. No doubt as regards many forms of expenditure it will, perhaps, not be necessary to practise the most rigid economy, but at the same time it will be necessary to economise to a certain extent. My position in regard to the budget-and I should like to state my position now-is that I feel I can support the budget as it stands to-day, believing that it is in the best interest of the whole Dominion.
Some questions that I should like to take advantage of this budget debate to touch upon pertain to the whole of the Dominion, while perhaps, they have some small particular reference to my riding. The first question to which I should like to refer is that of immigration. In the past year, more especially than any other year, I feel that the present government have been putting into . effect a policy of immigration designed to promote the future development of this country, and the few remarks that I propose to make now, I should like to direct to the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Robb), so that he, if possible, may profit by the experience that we are having in British Columbia. During the last session of this parliament, legislation was introduced in this House providing restrictions in regard to the Chinese and, in my opinion, that is legislation upon which the country can compliment the government and that will bring about effective restriction of Chinese immigration. We in British Columbia have a complicated immigration problem. We have the Chinese; we have the Japanese; we also have a mixture of many other nationalities, and in that connection I should like to draw

The Budget-Mr. Humphrey
the attention of the Minister of Immigration and Colonization to the class of settlers that we have through the interior of British Columbia, that at the present time are not complying with the laws of the province, that , are not complying, as I believe they should, with the laws of the whole Dominion. This class of settlers to which I refer is termed the Doukhobors, if I may use that term. We have in the constituency that I represent somewhere in the neighbourhood of two to three thousand of this class of settlers, who came in some few years ago and settled under a colonization scheme. During the past few years they have isolated themselves in their own colonies. They have not complied with the laws of the province respecting births, deaths and marriages, and in the past year they have become a class of people that are continually filling our police courts and our civil courts more than any other class of people that we have in the district.
We, having had experience with different nationalities during the past few years, feel that these questions should be brought to the attention of the federal authorities, so that in some small way they may be able to profit by that experience in working out their immigration policy. Within the past three or four years these settlers have burned down practically every school that we have in the district, and although I am not here to place the blame upon any particular class,
I am placing this upon Hansard so that the Dominion of Canada or some other part' of this country may benefit by our experiences. In the district which I represent somewhere in the neighbourhood of eight or ten school buildings have been wiped out by these people, and it is a well known fact that this was done by no other class of people than the Doukhobors themselves. We feel that this is not a healthy condition for settlers to build up in any province, and that the Immigration department should endeavour not to bring in settlers that will produce this state of affairs. In British Columbia and, I believe, in every other province, we want a class of settlers that will comply with the laws of the province and of the Dominion and that, if possible, in time will assimilate with our people and become good Canadian citizens. As regards the constituency which I have the honour to represent, I feel that we are not receiving the class of settler that we should receive. I have stated, for the benefit of the hon. members, the position as regards our school problem. This is only one of our problems, and in that connection I would ask the House to bear with me for

a moment while I place upon record a letter published in the Nelson Daily News under date of April 28, showing the situation of this class of settlers as applied to that particular district. This letter is sent from Brilliant, B.C., under date of April 25, 1924, and is as follows:
John Oliver, Esq.,
Premier of British Columbia,
Victoria, B.C.
Dear Sir:
Last Sunday night towards Monday morning, 21st of April a lot of buildings were burned in the Doukhobor colony at Brilliant, namely three schools and a small house of mine which was built on a rock about two years ago with beeautiful architecture.
At the time of a fire I was in the province of Alberta and had been informed by Brilliant office immediately after which I have returned to British Columbia. The indication is that the fire took place intentionally therefore I decided, dear sir, to inform you more fully regarding this matter what is going on in colonies of the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood.
The spirit of socialism had widely spread in Europe, and the American continent in general, which passes in to middle perpetual principal of barbarity, robbery, and attempt on others' property.
The Doukhobors came from Russia with good principles and absolutely peaceful life, but here in Canada under the influence of the different character of settlers and circumstances so to speak a "free life" a different opinions were formed in the Doukhobor Society result of which three parties came out.
The first party which is under my control carries a name of "The Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood Ltd.," duly incorporated and although with big physical labour yet the people of this corporation are getting their subsistence and are arranging more or less on good terms. This party is upkeeping the principle, religion and customs which the Doukhobors have had in Russia.
The second party, this is the people who left the Doukhobor Society and have accepted the homesteads in the province of' Saskatchewan and Alberta and became British subjects. These people had commenced to use meat as food, drink whiskey, smoke and chew tobacco. Younger people have started to buy automobiles, frequently visiting pool rooms and acquired all the corruptive civilized principles. Now this party is absolutely ruining in Saskatchewan and Alberta, leaving their land and are going to proletariat. It is quite possible that they will be good socialists. These are the products of the American free spirit.
The third party, although very small in number that left the Doukhobors Society under the name "Nudes" are absolutely anarchists acknowledging no moral laws, desire to work nothing, hatefully looking on all the cultured progressive arrangements such as good agriculture, orchards, and general adaptability of agricultural improvements, Such party, is under suspicion are the ones who is setting fire amongst Doukhobor colonies in British Columbia. I have decided to bring to your notice and respectfully ask you to remove this party from the nearby Community colony settlements, otherwise these people are threatening tc start burning up the good arrangement as possessed bj the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood such as jam factory, a factory which makes wooden pipes, sawmills, warehouses, and other buildings. If the government will not take quick action to remove these people to some other province then some night it may happen that they would set a fire for hundred thousands of cultured arrangements. These people under the name of "Nudes" have worked out a principle

The Budget-Mr. Humphrey
absolutely against the cultured arrangements. They understand that it was I. Peter Verigin, who had opened up the schools in the Doukhobor colonies and this is why they have burned my house together with the schools as accordingly their belief I am working together with the Canadian government, I am very much surprised that the setting a fire to the schools had been started sometime ago and the government does not take any steps what ever in order to punish the guilty one's in this process.
Now the same party declares and there is talk amongst the people that if the children will be taught in the dwelling houses then they also will burn such houses. To my regret I must inform you that all the schools at Brilliant will be closed because there isn't a single school that is left unburned. I cannot invite the children with school teachers to use the dwelling houses with the possible danger that these houses will also be burned by "Nudes" and if the fire should happen at night time then the people that live in houses can be burned. Please take the most suitable measures that you can set at earliest convenience.
There will be about twenty or not more than thirty of such people who are living around the Community colonies. The government could have arranged for them some kind of enterprize so they can work and keep themselves by their own labour. Just at the present these people are causing only a terror on the peaceful dwellers in the Christian Community colonies. Whenever there is a meeting in the Christian Community then these "Nudes" are getting in by force and are causing disorder, very often they are beaten badly for indecent actions, but I consider this altogether unlawful. The British Columbia government should take more cultured measures for removing these people from the settlement of peaceful inhabitants. If the government will appoint an inspectorate to pick out the "'Nudes" or in other words Anarchists I will give exact list of names and surnames of such people.
I beg to remain with the hope that you will take quick action on my report.
Respectfully yours,
Peter Verigin,
President.
I have read this letter to the House because the question it refers to is becoming quite critical in British Columbia, and eventually it will have to be dealt with by the federal authorities. It is my opinion that the question should be carefully studied by those in charge of immigration, so that these conditions may not be duplicated in any other province. All we ask is that we may have immigrants whom we can assimilate and associate with and whose children can be . educated with our children. Unfortunately in these Doukhobor communities to-day there are no school facilities and the people are broken up into warring factions.
I would commend the government, especially the minister in charge of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment (Mr. Beland) for the promise made a few days ago to establish the present bonus to disabled veterans upon a permanent basis. That message has been very gratifying to our returned men throughout the whole Dominion. During the past few years these veterans have been labouring under more or less disheartening conditions, and consequently they have been in a state of unrest, not knowing just how they stood in respect to their cost of living pension bonus. I believe many people are more interested in the welfare of our returned men and the widows and orphans of those who died at the front than in a good many of the questions which have been discussed during the course of this debate. It appears to me that it should not have been necessary for our returned men to maintain an expensive organization for the purpose of securing what undoubtedly the country generally considers is only their just due. I trust that parliament may pass legislation that will place our veterans upon a still better basis. It would be much better to give the benefit of the doubt to the returned men, establish them on a good percentage basis as to pension and eliminate a great deal of the enormous overhead in the administration of soldiers' civil re-establishment and pensions. It is only necessary to compare the returns brought down in this parliament and in previous parliaments to see that the overhead expenditure in connection with that administration is running enormously high.
I would like to touch briefly on a question in which I believe many people throughout Canada are interested to-day, that is, expenditure covering military and naval operations. I speak particularly of military services, and as one who, I say it very humbly, had some few years' active experience during the war period. I notice that there is a reduction this year in the military expenditures of 31,078,854.67. I am thoroughly in accord with that reduction. With all due respect to those who think differently, I feel that the time has come when there should be a change of thought and of policy regarding military expenditures and military operations. Some few years ago I was a great militarist; I thought that we could not go too far in our military expenditures. But after some four and a half years of practical experience of a varied character I am of the opposite view, and I commend this minister or any minister of any government who will proceed along the line of curtailment of military expenditure. I am thoroughly in accord with the position taken a year ago by the party at present in power that no action should be taken regarding military operations without the full consent and approval of parliament. Whatever action this government or any government of Canada may take in the future should look to the establishment of some permanent peace. I consider that the policy that we have worked on in ,t.he past has not been such as to make for permanent peace. The only way to attain that end is to take all possible steps to bring about disarmament, and speaking as I do from

The Budget-Mr. Humphrey
experience I wish to associate myself with those who are working along these lines. If steps taken in this direction go hand in hand with the curtailment of military expenditures, then by all means let us direct our efforts to that end with a view to arriving at some permanent peace policy.
Certain references have been made by some hon. members this session and in previous sessions, from which I desire to dissociate myself. I refer particularly to statements made by the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) and the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea). In connection with the question of what policy -would be best for this country in view of agricultural, industrial and general conditions, many hon. members have stated in this House and out of it that the cause of" the difficulties involved would be found in the amounts paid in wages. It is only fair to the railroad men throughout the country that I should state briefly another view of the matter. I listened attentively to the address of the hon. member for Sherbrooke and particularly to his reference to the question of railroad men's wages, the conditions under which they are working, and so on. I do not wish to deal unfairly with my hon. friend. Let me first, however, refer to the remarks of the hon. member for South Oxford in the debate on the Address. The hon. gentleman must have been under some misapprehension. I am sure he was sincere in the statements he made, so far as his knowledge went, but I may be permitted to make a few remarks in reply, based upon some twenty-odd years' practical experience in many different phases of railroad work. He suggested that on occasions the men deliberately aimed at getting time and a half of overtime. I may say that there is no part of western Canada where railroad men receive time and a half except in one class of service, namely, the switching service. On the eastern lines they do have a provision for time and a half after a certain period. The statement to whidh I refer was made on March 7, last, and was as follows:
By reason of the fact that after a railway employee had put in so many hours, if he could delay a train service he would obtain pay and a half for the overtime. I know as a matter of fact instances where this has been deliberately done by the employees operating trains, particularly freight trains, in the province of Ontario. Hon. members can easily see what an incentive it would be to do something of that nature.
Now, I think that any official of any railway company and anyone connected with railway operation in Canada knows that there is no such thing as a man deliberately delaying any train for the purpose of compensation,

and if such a case was brought to the notice of the officers, steps would be taken to see that it did not occur again. There may have been isolated cases, but certainly it is not a common practice, nor one that is sanctioned by the railroad officers and employees throughout this Dominion, and I am sure they would be very glad if the hon. member would draw such a case to their attention. In connection with the statement made by the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) in the early part of the session. I do not want in any way to take a mean advantage, but my attention has been drawn to his statement by so many different parties throughout the Dominion that I wish to place on record a reply to it that appeared in the Edmonton Journal under date of April 3rd last:
Editor, The Journal.
Sir-It would perhaps be scarcely fair, on the subject of " the big wages paid to engine drivers, etc." (whoever that very compendious phrase may indicate) to expect too much from your evidently ill-informed correspondent, Emmeline Gibb Taylor, in tonight's Journal; seeing that only very recently Donald Sutherland, M.P., has been quoted all over Canada to the same effect, with much wild and wholly unauthenticated assertion about $5,000 and $6,000 salaries per annum.
It does not seem to be understood that engine service on our railways is governed by seniority. I have myself nearly 13 years' rights as fireman and engineer, and the highest sum I ever made in one year is $2,326.65, and I have only once besides exceeded the $2,000 mark. What is known as the Chicago joint agreement is in force on Canadian, as it is on United States railways. This arrangement entered into by ourselves, restricts the monthly mileage of passenger men to 4,800 miles, and of freight men to 3,800 miles. This is to divide the work in order to help the spare men who cannot command a regular engine. Allowing for the very largest and highest paid class of engine running out of this city, and assuming that the engineman could make maximum mileage on that run, and lost no time throughout the entire year-a state of things which hardly could be and which I know as a matter of actual fact, is not done, the maximum results in passenger and freight service respectively would work out at $3,473 (four men only) and $3,210 per annum. The men who are able to command anything like these figures have reached this position after years of such service as in the opinions of those best competent to judge is not very adequately characterized by the word " luxury." When they get there I say that $5,000 per annum is impossible. There are certainly times when money may be made at a rate that might approach that figure if kept up for 52 weeks a year; wrecks, when men have to remain on duty until the road is clear, sleep or no sleep; snow blockades, when we have been stalled, without food, for 12 and 18 hours in a drift, and the very delay has necessitated turning the engine out again the moment she reached the shop; a rush of business, when men have been called for duty before their rest period had expired-all these are highly eloquent of " luxury "! So far as the class of spare men are concerned, however, (and we are a large class), this morning I drew a pay cheque of $82,35 for two weeks' work as engineer. This is not the highest I have drawn for such a

The Budget-Mr. Humphrey
period; neither is it the lowest. During this two weeks I have had to be within reach of the 'phone at all hours: if I miss a call, I go to the bottom of the list, and if delay thereby ensues I am held responsible.
When a wreck is narrowly averted, we often hear a lot about the " coolness and skill " of some engineer, and " the lives which hang on his vigilance and judgment," and so on; the same man is apparently a mere thief at pay day. The passenger man is often entrusted with half a million dollars' worth of equipment; so, likewise, the freight man, who is often required to make fully as high speed with valuable freight and with vastly inferior facilities for stopping in a hurry, if need arise. -
The true answer to incompetent criticism is that railway officials, the best judges of the facts, have recently agreed on several American roads, to an increase in enginemen's wages. I suppose we shall be told that we have " used the club to them." Those who could say so only exhibit their utter ignorance of our methods of negotiation, the type of man by and with whom these are conducted, our general excellent relations with our officials, and, in short, can only demonstrate their entire incapacity to sit in j udgment.
F. G. Roe.
Those are the conditions that exist, Mr. Speaker, and I am glad to have been able to make a reply to the statements that have been made. <[DOT]
Dealing for a moment with the remarks made by the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. McCrea) this afternoon, if I remember correctly, he spoke in almost the same language both last year and the year previous. A reference to Hansard leads one to believe that he was quoting from a previous speech that he made to the House. I do not wish to be unfair to him, but I am simply taking the record as it stands. I feel that it is my duty to reply to some of his statements, but first may I be allowed to quote what he said in this House in the budget debate of two years ago? This is what he said- Hansard, 1922, page 2316:
Now, I am not interested in the railways; I have not a dollar in railway stock. But I ship as much freight as any man in this House. I ask hon. members who criticise the railways and find fault with them: how are the railways to cope with this condition? The railways should be in a position to say to these men: "You must do thus and so, as you did before; conditions have changed; you also must change and come back to normal conditions." When a strike is called, who calls it? Mr. Carey of Indianapolis, or some other loader of an organization. In thfe election of 1911 we heard a great deal from our friends on the other side of the House to the effect that there should be no truck or trade with the Yankees. Well, so far as the Yankees running our railway system is concerned; so far as their dictating when and how and how many hours our men shall work and what pay they shall receive, I say it is time that we had no truck and no trade in that direction. We ought to say: "Hands off; we will run our own business."
I believe it is my duty to reply to the hon. member's remarks as quoted, as they are almost identical with his language to-day. I 131
should like to state for the benefit of hon. members that the different labour organizations throughout Canada are no doubt international in their character but nevertheless their affairs are entirely in the hands of Canadian representatives. The moneys of these different organizations run up into many millions of dollars. The money collected from the Canadian members of these organizations remains in Canada and is invested here, it does not go to the United States. More than that this money is deposited in Canadian banking institutions. As to the officers of these organizations, let me say in reply to the hon. member for Sherbrooke that although our unions are affiliated with international organizations the officers, and those having jurisdiction over legislative and protective work, are entirely Canadian. Furthermore, we have no connection with the American bodies in respect to negotiations for higher wages or improved conditions-these, if we take the railways as an example are undertaken and carried out by Canadian representatives, with the entire approval of the men themselves. I feel that the amicable relations that exist to-day between railroad men in Canada and the officers of the different railways are as strong as they are in any other country in the world. The officers of the great railway corporations welcome the plan of collective bargaining, of co-operation on the part of the employees, and they also cordially receive any suggestions tending to bring about more efficient operation. My hon. friend should not be afraid-nor indeed any member of the House-of any labour organization that is conducted on sane and businesslike lines. That remark applies to the action of the rank and file of the members, and is equally true of the officers. It has reference more particularly to the organizations responsible for the negotiations between the railway corporations in Canada and their employees. The railroad men, to whom reference has been made by different hon. members, only want a square deal so far as their wages and conditions of work are concerned and, according to representations that have been made to me are only too willing to lay their cards on the table, and to have the questions at issue thoroughly discussed with the representatives of the companies in order to arrive at what may be considered the best solution of the existing difficulties. I believe that by having recourse to this plan of co-operation and joint consultation greater progress towards efficiency in railway affairs will be made than by any other method.
That brings me to a consideration of what attitude should be adopted in reference to the



The Budget-Mr. Thompson
government of the day. Let me say briefly that where the people of the country have confidence in their government, and that confidence is not weakened by the carrying on of false propaganda, we can look forward to the future with greater confidence and with the prospect that it will not be long until a more prosperous and a happier day dawns for Canada. ,


Mr. THOMAS HENRY THOMPSON (East Hastings):: At this late hour. I do
not intend to take up much time. But a number of hon. members have spoken of conditions as they exist in their respective constituencies, and I should like to present some of the conditions that exist in the constituency which I represent and how the industries there are affected by the tariff. Before doing so I wish to jo;n with other hon. members in expressing my regret at the illness of the right hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). May I be permitted to hope that he will soon be restored to his usual health and vigour and that before long he will be found occupying his accustomed place in this House.
I should like to consider for a few moments how the tariff affects the fluorspar industry in my county. For the benefit of hon. gentlemen who may not be aware of the fact I may explain that fluorspar is a mineral largely used as a flux in the production of steel. Prior to the year 1914 none or very little of the mineral was produced in Canada. The local market was supplied with 'spar imported from the United States and Great Britain. The outbreak of the war, however, led the Canadian manufacturers of steel to engage in the manufacture of steel for ammunition purposes and so a great demand arose in Canada for 'spar beyond the then existing capacity. The county which I have the honour to represent has large deposits of fluorspar, and the managers of the mines were able to open up and operate some of the mines and supply a portion of the great demand at that time. The mineral was shipped as far West as Sault Ste. Marie, as far east as Nova Scotia, and also to the United States. The quality of the mineral, I may explain, is of the very best and there is a sufficient supply to meet the needs -of the Dominion. Fluorspar is protected in the United States but has no protection under the Canadian tariff.
In 1920 the operators of the Hastings mines became alarmed. They had a vision of what might happen. They got together, passed a resolution and forwarded the same to me. That resolution asked that the Canadian producers receive the same consideration as the producers of fluorspar in the United States and recom-
[Mr. Humphrey. 1
mended that the government impose a duty on fluorspar entering Canada corresponding to that levied on Canadian fluorspar entering the United States. Surely that was not an unreasonable request to make. I may say that I took the matter up with the Minister of Finance at that time, and he promised that in the forthcoming revision of the tariff the matter would receive every consideration. The mine owners pointed out at that time that as the steel business would slacken, as it was bound to do in the United States, the supply of fluorspar would overtake the demand and that the old established and well equipped mines in the adjoining republic would dump their surplus production into Canada to the detriment of the recently opened fluorspar mines in Ontario. Fluorspar can be produced more cheaply in the United States than it can in Canada owing to climatic conditions. I should explain here that fluorspar requires to be washed, and in a cold climate such as we have in Canada that process is a very expensive one. Well, the fears of our mine owners were well founded. The United States raised its duty from $1.50 to $5 per ton. This practically closed the door to Canadian fluorspar, and as the result of not being able to ship the mineral to the United States-where they are able to produce more cheaply than in Canada-the mines in Ontario are closed.
When the mines were operating the Americans quoted prices so low that the operators of the mines in Canada could not compete. But just as soon as the mines ceased to operate and were allowed to fill with water and there was no competition in Canada, the United States raised the prices $6.50 per ton, which the Canadian consumer is now . paying in excess of what he paid when our Canadian mines were producing. The people of the county of Hastings appreciated very much the benefits derived from the operation of these mines. All classes were benefited, the labouring class, the merchants and the farmers. As a result of the mines closing down the Canadian National Railways has lost the increased tonnage created through the operation of these mines. There were five mines operating within three miles of my home, so that I know something about the benefits that were being derived from the industry. The labouring men have had to seek employment elsewhere. A number have gone to the United States to work in the mines there which now supply the Canadian market. The merchants have been deprived of the business that came to them as the result of the operation of these mines. The farmers have also been deprived of the increased home market for their produce. Capital is idle.

The Budget-Mr. Thompson
We have also talc mines that have been operated steadily for the last 20 years. I believe they are the only talc mines in the Dominion of Canada, and they too have to meet very unfair competition, as the United States duty is 25i per cent, while our government imposes a duty of 174 per cent. As a result since the United States raised the duty, the mines have not been running to full capacity. A great many other minerals are affected in the same way. The budget of course puts mining machinery on the free list, but what good is that when the mines are closed down? These mines are closed down as a direct result of this government failing to impose a tariff equal to that imposed by the United States on our Canadian fluorspar. If that duty were imposed the mines certainly would be able to operate, but at present the fact that mining machinery is on the free list will not enable those mines to open up and operate. I believe one of the planks in the government's platform was the encouragement of the development of natural resources, and this is one of the natural resources of our country; but instead of encouraging the development of these resources certainly the policy of the government is to close them down and put them out of business.
Our farmers have to meet very unfair competition as a result of the high tariff wall against their produce, such as butter, cheese, eggs and live stock. When we take into consideration the enormous quantities of farmers' produce brought into this country, surely we will all agree that they have to meet very unfair competition. The chief market for the farmers' produce is the villages, towns and cities of Canada, and these villages, towns and cities are supported very largely by the factories and manufacturing establishments. These depend on the tariff for their prosperity. If the purchasing power of the urban community is doubled the home market of the farmer is also doubled, and if cut in half the home market is also cut in half. The farmers have been told that the tariff is responsible for most of their troubles, and yet after every tariff reduction the condition of the farmer has grown worse. A tariff policy that sends hundreds of thousands of the farmers' best customers out of Canada into the very country that has closed its markets to our agricultural products, and permits $78,000,000 worth of agricultural products to come into Canada under a very low tariff in competition with our Canadian farmers' produce, cannot be shown to be in the best interests of Canada, or the best interests of our Canadian farmers. These markets belong to the industrious people of Canada, and they must have a chance to produce profitably and abundantly.
I have nothing to say against our freight rates from the West, but I believe the lowering of the tariff, or free trade would work disastrously to Canada. I do not believe it would work out as they have anticipated. I think the same thing would happen as happened to the fluorspar industry in my district. I believe when our industries are destroyed, as they certainly will be if the present government pursue a policy such as they have intimated-which is alleged to bf the death knell of protection-that the power ful organizations of the United States will get together and raise the price, just the same as they have on the fluorspar, and that our farmers will pay just as much for their implements as they did before. I would be in favour-and I am speaking for myself-of doing everything that I could to assist the farmers. I am in favour of the merchant marine being used to further their interests, and I am very much in favour of subsidizing the merchant marine to enable them to carry the produce of the farmer, flour and live stock at very low cost. I think flour especially should be carried at a very low rate so as to encourage the milling of the wheat in Canada and keep the by-products here for the Canadians. I believe this would lower the cost of production and in that way lower the high cost of living.
The hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Cahill), the other night, spoke about the opposition favouring the big interests. I want to say just a word about the stamp tax. In my opinion, this government have favoured the big interests in connection with the stamp tax. Very soon after they got into power, they fixed the maximum amount of stamp tax at $2 on cheques from $5,000 and upwards. This, in my opinion, works to the detriment of our farmers. Most of the farmers deal through their cheese factories and butter factories in amounts under $5,000, and this tax turns over to the farmer four times on every transaction weekly in the sale of his butter and cheese. But the large broker, who is dealing in amounts of $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000, has to pay a tax of only $2 on those amounts. In my opinion, that works out in the interest of the big interests of which the hon. member for Pontiac speaks.
I am in hearty accord with the reduction in the sales tax. but I think the government should have gone a good deal further. The sales tax has not been removed from lumber and cement, building materials. If this were

The Budget-Mr. Thompson
done, it would affect all classes. I believe in tax reduction that benefits all classes, and I urge upon the government to take into consideration the advisability of removing the sales tax from lumber and other building materials.
What Canada needs is a stable condition. With stable conditions, millions of dollars are ready to be invested in this country. During the last few years we have lost great opportunities, because capital is always nervous and will seek investment where stable conditions prevail. In the last two years we have had a government that has been talking about reduction of tariff, free trade, and during this budget debate we had the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) telling us that this budget sounds the death knell of protection and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) talking free trade. How can we expect capital to be invested in the industries where such a situation prevails? This action is certainly driving capital out of Canada.
There are many other subjects which I should like to speak on, but at this late hour I will not detain the House. I want to say, in closing, that, in my opinion, this budget will go down in history as the most iniquitous piece of legislation that has ever been forced upon an intelligent electorate.
Mr. EDWARD N. HOPKINS (Moose Jaw): Mr. Speaker, I have been delighted with this debate, not particularly with the arguments, but with the candour of the speakers. If there ever was a time in the history of Canada when we should have plain speaking, it is to-day, and I am going to try for a little to discuss the problems of Canada in a very plain way. I am naturally going to commence near home in the Canadian West, which is a new country. When the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), who, every hon. gentlemen regrets, is not in his place to-night, was making his maiden speech in the province of Nova Scotia, that great land to the West was a hunting ground for the Red man and a pasturage for the buffalo. No territory on this continent was ever developed with such rapidity as the Canadian West, and no other country ever will be in the future because it is the last great West. In the early days the farmers went into that country to solve a problem. They thought that problem was: Can we produce grain successfully west of the Great Lakes? After they had solved that problem, they found out that it was only the tail end of the problem; that they had yet to grapple with the real trouble and that is: Can we get a remunerative price for our product after we have
fMr. Thompson.]
produced it? We are well aware of the fact that we have to produce the grain, ship it across the whole continent and across 3,000 miles of water, land it on the hearthstone of the English farmer as cheaply as he can produce it and also compete with those not so remote from the Atlantic seaboard. In 1923, we produced in Saskatchewan, just in one of the provinces of the three, as follows:
Spring wheat	
Oats	
Barley	
Rye	
Peas	
Beans	
Mixed grains	
Flaxseed	
Potatoes	
Turnips, mangolds, etc,
Hay and Clover	
Alfalfa	
Fodder corn	
252.622.000	bushels
218.075.000	"
19.278,200	"
8.582.000	"
55.000	"
22.000	"
944.000	"
5,493.800	"
4.370.000	cwt.
585.000	" 425,100 tons
16,000 " 304,800 "
Livestock-	1923	ValueHorses	. .. 1,137,301	$.59,931,000Milch cows	. .. 403,813	15.645,000Other cattle	. .. 1,131.274	24,133,000Sheep	. .. 137,240	874.000Swine	. .. 679,867	6,893.000
Total,
$107,476,000*
Let me give the values received:
Field crops	 $248,778,000
Farm animals	 11,912,000
Wool	 142,000
Dairy products	 19,366,000
Fruits and vegetables	 2,461,000
Poultry and eggs	 8,670,000
Fur farming	 7,000
Clover and grass seed	 103,000
Total agric. revenue	 $291,439,000
That looks as if they were doing a little mixed farming. These are just a few of the figures, but the tragedy is this: We produce them without a profit and that cannot continue. The problem of the West to-day is to get remunerative prices for our products after we have produced them. What are we going to do about it? There are just two things we can do:	We
have got to raise the price of products; we have got to lower the price of the materials that enter into the production of those products. We are trying to raise the selling price of our products by co-operative marketing. I am very glad to say that the wheat pool is likely to be a success, and we have great hopes from it. The reductions in the tariff will to a certain extent also help us to produce cheaper, but those reductions are not enough. The problem of the farmer is-to get a remunerative price for his products. Something will have to be done to this end or he cannot continue.
We have been told that some of us in the
West believe in class legislation. That is not

The Budget-Mr. Hopkins
so. Let me say that I represent a constituency in central Saskatchewan, one-half rural and one-half urban: Twenty-five thousand people live in the city of Moose Jaw, and twenty-five thousand live outside. When I try to improve conditions in the country I do not have to apologize to my city friends, for they look upon the farmer as their life blood. Before I came down here I made a survey of local conditions, and I will describe what I found. The city of Moose Jaw is sometimes called the "Mill City". I went over to the mill in the first place, and said to the miller: "How are conditions?" He looked up with that smile that never comes off, and answered, "Pretty good." I said, "Don't you want a little protection?" "Oh, no," he replied; "all we want is a fair field and no favour." "But."
I persisted, "is there not anything you want?" "Well," he said, "I wish they would build that line from Mawer to Dunblane, and give the wheat and coal a fair chance to flow down to Moose Jaw in its natural channel, and so help the other end of the Canadian National. We have $200,000 to increase our mill to five thousand barrels a day; it now has a capacity of three thousand ; and we will make this investment if that branch line is built."
I said, "You are easy." Then I walked over to some of my wholesale friends. Moose Jaw is a distributing centre and has five or six wholesale grocery firms. I went to one of them and inquired of the manager, "How are conditions?" "Well," he said, "pretty fair; the buying power of the people all through the country is decreasing, but we are trying our best to buy in the cheapest markets so as to give them bargains. The great trouble, however, is that sometimes when we get a bargain the anti-dumping clause comes along and spoils it all. Get that dumping clause removed so we can secure something cheaper for our people." I said, "All right." In the city of Moose Jaw we have the headquarters of seven or eight large lumber companies, having from forty to one hundred and twenty distributing branches throughout the three provinces, and I thought some of these people could tell me pretty well what the conditions were. I went to one company and asked the manager, "How do you find conditions? You are getting letters all the while from your distributing branches, and should be able to tell me." He replied, "To tell you the truth, the buying power of the farmer is decreasing all the time". I inquired, "Anything I can do for you?" He answered, "Yes. Lumber is a prime necessity in this country to house our people, and if the government took the sales tax off lumber that would be
a help." I told him, "Likely if the government have not forgotten they will do that, for nobody will object to it and it will be a great help to the people." Moose Jaw is a railway and mill centre; thousands and thousands of people there wear the overalls and carry dinner pails. I go to some of them and ask, "What [DOT]is your problem?" They reply, "Well, we get fair wages, but with the high cost of living we can hardly keep our families and educate them." Then I go to the salaried people, and I find it is the same thing all the time-the high cost of living. It begins to get on my nerves, and I go over to some of our retail stores. I say to the proprietors, "Here, the trouble with this country is the high cost of living. They tell me you get one-third as much for passing your goods over the counter as the people do who produce them. What have you got to say about it?" They reply. "Well, we cannot help it. Look at the rents we pay. We pay $400 a month for this store."
I said, "I will see about that; " and I go to the landlord. "Why do you charge the storekeepers so much rent that it aggravates the high cost of living?" He answers, "I cannot help it. Look at the taxes I pay." I walk over to the mayor, and say to him,"What do you mean by charging these taxes?" "Well," he retorts, "two-thirds of our taxes are not controllable; we have got to pay interest on our bonded indebtedness; that is the trouble." I begin to think this thing out. I see hon. gentlemen here from Toronto. One of them tonight said, "We have got a magnificent street railway system." Another of the city's representatives said a few days ago, "We have expended so many million dollars to fix up the waterfront, and so much on the agricultural building. What a wonderful city it is!" And it is a magnificent city. But the cities all over Canada are copying the example of Toronto. That is the trouble. Let me quote from a newspaper report which I read the other day. It is as follows:
la sounding a note of economy in a report to the city council, finance commissioner Ross said, "It is not an extravagant statement to say that a sort of financial madness is over the whole land. As private individuals we are living beyond our means, as citirens we have spent without thought and mortgaged the city so heavily that we and our children will groan under the burden.''
Now, all the things hon. members have been talking about in this debate do not touch the real problem. I hope I am wrong in the opinion which I am about to express. I hope that five years hence if any hon. member stumbles across to-night's Hansard and reads my remarks he will be able to say. "That man did not know what he was talking about." But I am going to put it to you
The Budget-Mr. Hopkins

straight and tell you what it is. All our life as business people we have seen one man get another man in an iron grip financially, and cripple him. We have seen that all over the country, and our comment has simply been, "That is only business;" and the world rolls on. But when a certain class of the people get another class in their iron grip and won't let go, in my opinion there is going to be a calamity. Now, I am going to tell you in as few words as possible what I think the problem is.
The problem is the great burden of debts that hangs over the people of the world like a cloud. If the year of jubilee would come, our supposed problems would disappear like the dew before the noonday sun. What is the result? A few of our people are struggling to pay the interest on their debts, which they cannot do; consequently the debt is piling up, while too many of our people are eating, drinking and making merry as a result of their toil. This cannot go on indefinitely. What is the remedy? The interest on these debts must be reduced to a point where the debtor can pay the interest on his debts and some part of the principal or he will become a slave to his debts. Let me give you a concrete example. At the close of the war the German Empire was the greatest debtor in the world. All the years since her creditors have been endeavouring by all means in their power to collect those debts, and they have not got very far. They have now agreed to accept an amount within the ability of Germany to pay, this amount to be fixed by a commission appointed for that purpose. If all debtors and creditors in the world would make their adjustments on that basis, I could see some hope ahead.
But what of ourselves? I do not mean the government, but every member of this House. We surely all have some responsibility. We have a heavy debt in this country considering the population, and we must remember that that is not the only burden our people are called upon to bear. Our provinces and municipalities also have heavy financial obligations. The cry of economy and retrenchment is in the air and I think it would be well for us to heed it. We in this corner of the House had little to do with the creation of our debt but we are very much interested in the matter and would like to see the debt reduced. The question is, how can it be accomplished? Business men would say, . economise, cut down the overhead, take some of the advice you are giving so freely to our people; cut out the automobile, save gas, and come down a little nearer to the simple life.

I notice on the order paper a resolution calling for the reduction of the sessional indemnity. I do not propose to argue that the present indemnity is too large, but I do say it would set the country a good example if we did reduce this indemnity, and I will have the greatest pleasure in supporting the resolution if it comes to a vote. It is generally conceded that we as a country are over-governed. A suggestion has recently been made that the membership of the Upper House should be reduced by about one-third. There is no doubt this could be done and the country would get as good legislation as it does today and a large amount of money would be saved. However the move to reduce the number of legislators is in the air, and I may say that a resolution to do this in Saskatchewan actually passed the legislature. We also hear it seriously advocated that the number of provinces in the East and West be reduced, and there is much to be said for this.
These are serious days, and the governments of the world are not facing the debt problem. These are not the days for the optimist or the pessimist. We want men of clear vision and stout hearts. If the creditors of the world will go on adding the unpaid interest to the debt and then demand their pound of flesh, we will only have two classes of people in the world. That great class that we are so proud of, which is commonly called the middle class, will have disappeared, and that would be a calamity. Government by party prevails in the world to-day; with all its faults we have never been able to evolve a better system. But I have often thought there might come a time when we could lay aside party consideration for a little and get around a common table for the country's sake. Has that time come? I think it has.


Mr. JOHN EVANS (Saskatoon):: Mr. Speaker, the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) in his budget speech this year made it very clear that there are certain basic industries on which the prosperity of all others depends. Agriculture is mentioned as the chief of these. One thing must be apparent to all, even to those who have during the last forty-five years become somewhat stupefied by privilege-that before the manufacturing class can realize any benefit from a system of protection there must be at least a larger class that cannot be protected and is unprotected in every way. This class in Canada is the agricultural class. Did the agricultural class have the same privilege by law to fix the price of its product as the manufacturers enjoy, there could be no benefit to either. I take it from the words of the budget speech

The Budget-Mr. Evans
that the government has at last realized this fact, since agriculture is mentioned as coming in for more equitable treatment. But at no time has particular stress been laid by the party to which I belong upon the necessity for free agricultural implements as apart from everything else; in fact there may be an unfairness in singling out any particular industry for a cut in the tariff while the cost of living will be maintained at its present altitude. The agricultural implement industry has been in this position ever since the National Policy was inaugurated, and they know well what this means.
In the manifesto of the Canadian agricultural implement manufacturers as presented to the government they stress the idea on page 6 that if the tariff is taken off and their home market is open to competition their export trade is bound to languish and die, and they admit that the export trade was built up on the tariff when it was even higher than it is at present. Well, what is the inference? What do they mean by this statement? The inference is that the home consumer has been charged a price that ensures a profit over the whole of their sales,. export and home trade alike. There is no other meaning to be taken from it, and the facts of the case bear out my deduction. They say they have never sold implements in foreign countries cheaper than at home, but let us see what the facts are. Any one who followed the events of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's visit to the West in 1910 cannot fail to realize the truth of the matter. If we take the Grain Growers' Guide of February 16th and August 2nd, 1910, we find that Ellis Mumford, Palmerston, Ontario, noticed on his visit to England in that year that Massev-Harris 6-foot binders sold for $130 with full equipment. At the same time he saw ploughs made in Canada selling at $3 less than the price in Ontario, close to the factory. The binder selling at $136 had full equipment and a tarpaulin cover to put over it when it was idle in the field. The price in Saskatchewan at that time was $160, or $164 for the privilege of two payments.


Mr.   McM ASTER@: With tarpaulin?


John Evans: No, without tarpaulin. The Toronto Globe of August 5th, 1910, which
had a representative with Sir W ilfrid when he made that tour, says:
Talk to any man whether he be farmer, merchant, banker, or real estate agent, and he will inevitably revert to anathemas on the protective tariff and on the prices of implements in the different countries', he is loaded with prices and dates too.
Now the retail prices of implements as given by the firm of John Wilders, Hall
Foundry, Reading, England, for the same year, on April 10, 1910, over the signature of Mr. Wilder himself, are as follows: Massey-Harris, 6-foot cut, $140.94; McCormick, 6-foot cut, $121.50; Deering, 6-foot cut, $126.36. The Saskatoon retail price at that date was from $160 to $164.
Also at that time Mr. C. H. Hart in the Grain Growers' Guide of October 26, 1910, stated that there was a difference of 30 per cent between the price of a binder in Manitoba and Dakota. Now these facts have never been refuted, and they suffice to show to what an extent the agriculturist has been exploited. But after all, be it said in fairness to the implement manufacturers in Canada, they have never indulged in this form of exploitation to the extent that many of our other protected manufacturers have done, and the worst offenders in this case have been those who have used the raw product of the farmer himself, such as wheat, oats, hides, wool, and so on. There has never been any relation practically between the price of wheat and flour, oats and oatmeal and rolled oats, wool and clothing, hides and harness, and so forth. The operators in these things have been the worst ofenders, and our protective tariff has enabled our Canadian millers even to dump flour on the European market against the very best mills in the world, those of Britain and Holland, to the detriment of the price of the farmer's own wheat in western Canada.
To return to the implement industry, the late manager of the Massey-Harris Company told the Drayton Tariff Commission in 1920 that given free trade in the materials that enter into the production of their products, they could make as much money under a free trade system as they are making now. There was an utterance regarding our protective tariff by one of the best business men in Canada at the time. It is significant from the fact that here was one manufacturer who had at last realized that even did he want to make of this Dominion an industrial country, with big cities and tall chimneys, there was only one way of doing it, and that was to make manufacturing as cheap here as in any other country in the world. That is Why Britain has led the world in manufacturing industrialism and civilization, during the last half century particularly. Anything in the way of a tariff that drives the cost of production out of line with world prices is bound to prove a boomerang even for those for whose benefit it was inaugurated. No Canadian exporter hopes to successfully compete in the world's market only as he
The Budget-Mr. Evans

relies on the price charged to the home consumer to give him a profit on the whole of his sales, domestic and foreign alike. There is no other meaning to be taken from the manifesto of the Canadian implement manufacturers, and it is the same with the rest of the manufacturing industries too. I say :hat this is a regular feature of the protective tariff, that the cost of manufacturing is driven to such a height in this protected country that the class that is unprotected is exploited by high prices to ensure a profit for the manufacturers at home and abroad.
Now I want to speak for a short time on on another feature of the tariff, a feature that throughout this country is not as well understood as it should be, and that is the dumping act. After the capitulation of the Liberal party in 1897 they soon became fast friends with their old enemies, and between them they evolved new methods to further the interests of the protectionists, or I might say, to further the interests of the paternalism of pelf, and in 1904 the dumping act was evolved. Now, just as the Tariff act was amended in 1922 for the sake of the British Columbia apple growers, so in 1904 the dumping act was added to the Tariff act for the sake of the steel industry of that time. The steel industry had not been long established, and notwithstanding the fact that they needed an anti-dumping measure in addition to all the privileges which they had enjoyed previously, the Canadian Steel' companies are notorious to-day as the greatest dumpers of goods in the foreign countries of the world. At that time the people of Canada were paying 87 a ton bounty on steel rails in Canada, and this enabled them along with the tariff, favoured railway rates, exemption from taxation, and so on, which this country was giving them, to dump their rails at a price very much below the world's prices at that time. Let me give an instance. The Dominion Iron and Steel Company was dumping rails in the southern Punjab that year at $24 a ton, while for the government section of the Transcontinental railway in Canada the people of this country were paying for their rails, including the bounty, S39 a ton, at the very time this company was dumping their rails in India at below the world's prices.
Jacob Viner, in his book on dumping, relates how in 1910 the United States Tariff Commission received complaints of dumping by Canadian producers of even harness leather, sole leather and particularly lumber, while it is questionable if the agriculturists of any country were paying as high for these goods as we were doing at that date. Dumping is 
essentially a feature of a high protected country. There is no dumping in England. England never fears any dumping, and England does not engage in that nefarious practice herself against other countries. There was at that time no such law on the statute books of any other country in the world. In fact, it may safely be said that Canada has led the way in devising ways and means to fool the public for the benefit of professional politicians and privileged interests in the greatest system of legalized pilfering that the world has ever known. It is doubtful if any other country would have such a law on its statute books to-day if Canada had not set the example. It was not until 1921, that the United States enacted legislation which in any way resembles our dumping act of to-day. The five self-governing dominions of the British Empire also have a law of this kind following Canada's example. Now I think it is one of the greatest political incongruities in the world that history may record that the professedly free trade government of this country has led the world in protection or legalized pilfering. It is a shame. The anti-dumping measure enacted in 1904 by the Liberal government was put into force largely to offset the demand of the manufacturers at that time for higher protection. It was for this reason the anti-dumping act was enacted. By that time the politicians of both parties had placed themselves in such a position of relationship to and community of interest with the protected manufacturer that they could be dictated to, and could refuse only to their own hurt. Again, as Jacob Viner naively puts it, the manufacturer was the one important source of campaign funds for both parties. For that reason they have been able to exercise control over the trend of tariff legislation in Canada. Faced with this dilemma the government had to find some ingenious way of escape because about this time the Agrarian revolt was almost in full swing. So the anti-dumping law was placed on our statute books in the hope that it would please the manufacturers and fool the farmers into the belief that the government had resisted the demands of the manufacturers for a higher tariff. This surely is a most humiliating thing for history to record. Mr. Fielding declared at that time that all that was needed was a temporary measure to deal with a temporary condition. Twenty years have passed since then, and the dumping act has been so strengthened by amendments that it has become a more complete measure for price-fixing and eliminating com-

The Budget-Mr. Evans
petition than the original act itself. I want to state right here that a real reign of terror has been inaugurated by the Customs department, by the board that administers this act, and so effective is this court of the inquisition that none of its victims will dare to give information as to the treatment they have received, lest the screws be put on a little tighter next time, and the rack be screwed a little further. Indeed, the whole idea of the dumping act is to make it absolutely impossible to import goods of any kind. A paragraph in a letter from one of the great distributing firms in western Canada has this to say regarding the dumping act:
The imposition of the clumping duty means we are trading in the dark not knowing just exactly what our costs are until after the goods are received and reshipped out, the duty in some cases being applied after we have even made collection.
Now, while in some years the duty collected under this dumping clause has not exceeded $75,000, yet we keep an army of inspectors in foreign countries to harass the exporters there, and to examine the books of the manufacturers to see that they are not falsifying their invoices. In face of this I ask is it any wonder that our foreign trade is falling off when we invite the foreigner in this way to treat us always with suspicion.
I am glad to see that the government has seen fit, on second thought, to cancel the regulation made on April 8, this year and restore the regulation of September 1, 1914. Coming as it did concurrently with the changes provided for in the budget it looked as though the manufacturers had again been satisfied that the budget provisions would not in any way hurt them. Here let me again state that changes of this nature should not be left in the hands of any one man or even a board to administer, more especially a board that is appointed with the sanction of those who are interested in tariff protection only. The dunrping act is administered to-day in the interests of the manufacturers by a board trained by themselves, the head of that board being in former days a servant of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association as their tariff expert. I want to tell the House that no statutory regulations govern it at all; each case is decided according as they see fit and the exigency of the matter from the viewpoint of monopoly and exploitation.
As far as the consumers of this country are concerned the dumping act is a piece of galley-slave legislation, robbing citizens of their rights as such and giving a favoured few the right to exploit the rest of us. The old dumping act as redrafted in 1907 was surely bad enough, and gave the Minister of Customs wide latitude of privilege on the one hand while it permitted exploitation on the other. Our agricultural societies have for many years been discriminated against in its application, in that those who have had to administer it would not concede to co-operative companies the right to be classed as jobbers or dealers in any lines of goods they wanted to import notwithstanding their continuance in the business or the amount of goods they were buying. I maintain, as I have done before in this House, that in the matter of importations no government has the right to discriminate between one citizen and the other. If I can go to the United States, or any other country and buy from a manufacturer at manufacturers' prices, all that I should be expected to do is to pay the scheduled rate of duty on my purchases on entry into this country.
That is my right as a citizen and unless I am accorded that right I am not exercising my citizenship to the full as I should do. To-day the Minister of Customs can actually determine the purchasing power of the dollar of the workers, or the meagre earnings of the agriculturists, who have to shoulder the burden of providing for the protectionists' voracious appetite. The dumping act with these changes mentioned is the one thing to-day that stands between us and the lowering of the cost of living in this country and bringing the cost of production in line with world prices. My protectionist friends to my right and protectionist Liberals opposite wish to distract our attention from this to the state of Europe. Here, they say, lies all our trouble. Europe may be in the best state imaginable as to trade, but here is a measure that prevents the non-protected class of this country from coming in line to take advantage of any improved world conditions. I say it is at the bottom of all our troubles to-day. Abolish the dumping act now and next year you can abolish the bonus to the civil servants, and they will thank you for it. Abolish the dumping act and wages on the farm and in the factories and on the railways can be immediately lowered. Production will come in line with world's prices, and transportation rates will be cut so that the commerce of this country can move freely to and from the markets of the world. It is certainly a sorry business for a government to step in between one citizen and another and to say to one, "You may import on the manufacturer's invoiced price", and to say to the other, "You will have to pay a dumping duty, equal to the difference between the price you bought the goods for and the fair market value for
The Budget-Mr. Evans

home consumption in a retail way". The farmers of Canada have repeatedly tried to lower their cost of production by buying at first cost. When they could not do this in Canada there was nothing for it but to import. They have been met at every turn with the dumping act, and because they are not recognized under the rules of combine as jobbers or dealers they are by law denied the right to purchase except at retail prices. I have here a lettergram from one of my constituents who was assessed under the dumping act a large sum of money because it was charged that he had imported too cheaply some goods that had gone out of style in the country of origin. Just fancy our tariff board at the instigation of the manufacturers dictating to us what we shall wear, and what we should not wear.


Mr.   McM ASTER@: That should be left to the Minister of Customs.


Mr. SALES:: It should not be left to anybody.


John Evans: Again let me say that I always thought the sales tax was a percentage on the transaction, but here again discrimination js practised, and the same lettergram states that the import sales tax favours the wholesale importer as against the retail importer. I think this is a state of affairs, when taken altogether, that is unbearable to a free people if they know the conditions. This country is in a position today of having a combination of politicians and privileged interests which have been formed, and they together have agreed that the cost of living shall not be lowered; in fact they have the power to-day to say what the standard of living shall be. The dumping act is a piece of legislation dictated by greed, with the one idea of creating a monopoly to control everything as to price which our people need to buy. It is slavery. I have made the statement that the dumping act as administered is arbitrary and tyrannical in its application. Not long ago a gentleman was sent all the way from Nelson, B.C. to Winnipeg to assess two cars of apples. These apples were of a class and kind not grown in Canada; but is it reasonable to bring a man 1,200 miles to assess a car of apples? I suppose if someone in Saskatoon happens to get a car of apricots next season too cheaply according to their idea, a man from Niagara will have to be sent up there to adjust it.


Mr.   McM ASTER@: Were they Northern
Spies?


Mr. EYANS:: No. I suppose if Vancouver gets a consignment of cotton from Great Britain at a price below what the Minister of Customs will consider a fair market value for home consumption, at the instigation of a representative, say, of Dominion Cottons Limited, somebody from Montreal will have to go 4,000 miles to adjust the duty. Is this the way to collect revenue? I think it is time the common people of this country inquired who Canada belongs to anyway, and for whose sake and for whose benefit its affairs are administered. Is the purchasing power of our earnings to be determined by the Minister of Customs with all these privileged interests at his elbow? The people of the prairies have to do without many things. They have to do without fruit to the detriment of their health because of the present protection. It is not too much to say that British Columbia cduld have found a sale for 1,000 cars of apples more on the prairies had the price been in line with the price of what we have to sell; and that would have been the case but for the duty and the arbitrary application of the dumping act. It is a sorry plight to which any country can be brought when the manufacturers and producers can set the price of their product, and have their exploiting tendencies recognized in the legislation of the land1. This letter from the Western Canada Jobbers' Association has the following to say regarding this matter:
The fair market value this year, for home consumption in the United States, as set by the growers in British Columbia on C. grade apples, was $1.10, and the jobbers were assessed 15 per cent on $1.10 because the apples purchased in the United States were purchased at a price which was more than 15 per cent below $1.10. If it can be proven that United States growers are selling for export to Canada at a lower price than for home consumption, then probably our industry should be protected. But we could buy good apples in Washington for 80 cents which was the price at which they were sold in the United States. Why pay dumping duty because the British Columbia growers claim that the growers in the United States should be getting $1.10.
I always thought that the meaning of dumping was that they were being sold for export at a cheaper rate than they were being sold at home. This is not the case, and yet the dumping act is being applied. Again this bears out the assertion I have already made.
In Washington the cost of packing a box of apples is figured at 42 cents, everything included, while in British Columbia they figure their cost up to nearly 80
cents.
The trouble with the British Columbia apple grower is the same as with the manufacturer. By protection the cost of doing anything is driven altogether out of line. Relations between the British Columbia apple

The Budget-Mr. Evans
packers and the buyars on the prairies are very much strained. The prairie provinces will be glad to buy their fruit in Canada, but I would advise the producers or British Columbia salesmen not to antagonize their best market.
Some beneficial changes have been announced in the budget. The one great change that I want to see yet is the elimination of this dumping act, and until then the people of this country will not have the freedom to which they are entitled.
Another change which I should like to see is that all bounties which were granted last year to certain industries should also be abolished. Why should we give a bounty to what is called the artificial silk industry? It is protected under the ordinary duty relating to cottons, and cotton it is. Why should we also give to a rich company in this country a bounty up to a quarter of a million dollars for making their own copper or brass rods, while on all that the people will have to buy and use, they have to pay 30 per cent duty? Is there any fairness in this? Will any member on the government side, when he speaks next, tell us why they have to link up with all those industries by tariff, bonuses, and bounties? Why are the people shackled through the tariff in all their operations?
Let me deal with a few of the general remarks that have been made in this debate. A good deal has lately been said regarding the Laurier-Fielding tariff, and our protectionist tariff friends here have sighed for Fielding and his stability. As regards the Laurier-Fielding tariff, there has never been anything in Canada by way of a tariff that could rightly be called by that name, and the name of the Grand Old Man should not' be coupled in this connection with it. The development of what I like to term as the "communism of pelf" reached its height, it is true, under the Liberal administration in the year 1906 or 1907. Despite the fact that Mr. Fielding was a member of the resolutions committee at the great convention in this city in 1893, at the tariff revision of the session of 1906-07, he piloted the Tariff Act through this House in the spirit of a Dingley or a McKinley. It is a noted fact to-day-and let history be fair-that the Prime Minister through it all was significantly silent. He was a disappointed man with his party. Being a free trader, he was disappointed, and through the whole piloting of that Tariff Act of 1906-07, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was significantly silent. The one thing that surprises us now is that Sir Wilfrid Laurier stayed with his party trying to please two factions, with a consequent stultification of his better self. But it is
wrong and an injustice to couple his name with that of the Minister of Finance of that date as regards the tariff.
I was pleased the other day to see in a Montreal paper a statement by the Massey-Harris Company. I do not think I need trouble to read it as this House is pretty well acquainted with it. It is a statement that is calculated to create a better feeling between the different classes of this country. Let me read one part:
The Canadian ' manufacturer of farm implements has been in a measure compensated for the loss of protection on the finished goods by modification of the customs tariff on the materials and so on which he uses. Heretofore, many material items carried a rate of duty greater than that which applied to the finished implements, and in this respect the industry was handicapped. The lowering of these duties, together with further adjustments just made, has remedied these inconsistencies and so far as the Massey-Harris Company is concerned, we shall endeavour to adjust ourselves to the new conditions and we will give to the Canadian farmer every possible advantage arising out of the changes made. We rely upon him to do everything within his power to stimulate Canadian industry by the purchase of Canadian made machines.
That is a significant utterance coming at this time. I would advise other Canadian manufacturers to show something of the same spirit.


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: How much of a
reduction will the hon. member expect in the price of agricultural implements as a result of the changes in the tariff? What reduction on a binder will be satisfactory?


John Evans: I could not say offhand
what the appraisement of a binder is.


Donald Sutherland: It is $280 or $300.


John Evans: It is more than that.


Donald Sutherland: The hon. member
would naturally expect to have a reduction of as much as the sales tax would amount to.


John Evans: Quite that and we are
promised even the reduction of the tariff. How puny are such statements made by the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Church), when he says that the present budget will close down our industries and that we shall lose the industrial supremacy we have. At page 1754 of Hansard he is reported as saying:
The International Harvester Company can now close its doors in Hamilton and manufacture in Chicago. The money invested in Hamilton is just so much waste and the plant can now be scrapped.
I have heard it said that Hamilton is a city that was built by protection. All I say is that what has built Hamilton is what has de-
The Budget-Mr. Evans

stroyed the rural life of Ontario itself, to say nothing of the other provinces. In fact, our system of class privilege has destroyed at last the very foundation of our industrial and agricultural life. What shall be said of the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond), who says that although ploughing a lonely furrow, he will still do so with a Brantford plough? He will stick to his course. The trouble with our protectionist element is that they have been stupefied by privilege granted by law. They look upon it now as their "inherent right. Protection at the best is a national imposition, any phase of it. Sir Richard Cartwright called it robbery by law, and robbery it is; but the pitiful thing about it at this late date is the fact that those who were given the privilege in the first place fail now to discern even that robbery is a sin. The only thing that hurts now is the fact that the pocket they have been accustomed to pilfer is empty.
I should like before closing to call attention to some statements of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens). I wish he was in his seat. In a most passionate speech the other day he undertook to tell us what was wrong with the country at this time. He said that tariffs should protect against a lower standard of living. Everyone in the party to which I belong knows that those today engaged in the basic industry of this country have their standard of living lowered by the tariff itself to the very limit of existence. In this connection, too, I would point out that the favourable balance of trade mentioned by the Acting Minister (Mr. Robb) is more due to the fact that our people have sold to the poverty line than to any general prosperity.
Now, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) implied that our trouble is attributable to the farmers raising but one commodity-a most erroneous idea and made in actual ignorance of existing facts. His philosophy is terribly astray when he says that we should have a tariff that would give us advantageous admittance to the markets of other countnes. Yet he deplored the fact that Canada bought $4,900,000 worth of goods from Germany! He said, "This is an evil." But we sold to Germany nearly three times that amount of goods. He also said that we could gain favourable access to other countries by a tariff. And he believed that we should treat other countries as they treat us. Yet when asked by an hon. member from this side if he would be willing to treat Britain,-free trade Britain-as she treats us, by giving her free entry to our market, he answered, "Oh, no, that would be 
an evil too." And th^, notwithstanding the fact that over four hundred Canadian firms are to-day successfully doing business in Great Britain selling Canadian goods! But the protectionist mind is always a mystery. It has now become so callous as to demand a preference in the British market because we, in our erroneous idea of fair play, give Great Britain a nominal advantage only to climb our virtually inaccessible trade barriers.
The hon. member also says that we must protect our factories so that our railroads will have the tonnage needed to make them pay. It is surely a well-known fact that manufacturing can only be carried on successfully when the raw material may be had on a very short rail haul. This as things go is natural. I know a factory can function any old place under protection, but no one is able to purchase its output and live. Surely any Canadian who looked into this matter at all will know from experience that such is the case.
Again, the hon. member advocated a spirit of co-operation-national co-operation between the different classes. Now, this co-operation was never questioned so long as the agriculturist, like a faithful beast of burden, was carrying all the others on his back; but since he has lain down under the load the hon. member is crying to the government, "Give me a pair of new spurs." Failing that he says, "Give me a sword, for now I would slay thee," as Balaam said to his ass.
The hon. member deplores the fact that our iron ore is going to the United States, but he never dare hint-at the expense of spoiling his own argument-the reason why. I will tell him the reason. Those for whose benefit protection has been created have so driven the cost of working that ore altogether out of line with world prices that they themselves have no longer any confidence in their own policy, and instead of investing Canadian liquid funds in the Dominion, these funds are being remitted to other countries for investment in concerns competitive to our own. Then these patriots cry out at election times, " No truck or trade with the Yankees or any other foreign country." This surely is a new brand of patriotism.
The hon. member advocates that a protective wall be placed around the British Empire. What does he mean? This is nothing more than a protective scheme to embrace the whole British Empire and place its inhabitants at the mercy of an empire-wide combine,- similar to the combine which the people of Canada have been in the grip of for the last forty-five years. I say this country needs a

Banking and Commerce
change. Agriculture has been nearly choked to death by protection. Our protectionist friends tell us that all other industries are in an awful state. Protection is ruining agriculture, our basic industry. Our farmers have been delivered over to the tender mercies of those who by their wealth have power to secure legislation that can be called by no better name than that which the late Sir Richard Cartwright gave it, "Robbery by law". The woollen manufacturers tell us that their industry is about to fall; that the country is going from bad to worse. Our banks are tumbling one after the other; no one can tell what is going to happen next; there is no confidence in any of our banks. At the same time politicians in this House have successfully resisted any effective method of bank inspection.
What shall be done? The one thing to do to-day is to free the agricultural industry from the burden of protection. Take nil protection off the cost of living and the cost of production. The farmers themselves then will redeem this country from the state it is now in. Production on the farms will be increasedour vacant lands will be filled up without any expensive immigration policy either; our factories will be busy again supplying goods for the country; and. best of all, there will be a virile contented population on the land, without which no country in the world can survive.
On motion of Mr. Hoey the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Graham the House adjourned at 1.20 a.m. (Wednesday).
Wednesday, May 14, 1924