1924-03-06

PATENT ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. T. A. LOW (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 4, to amend The Patent Act (French version).
He said:	The intention of the bill is to
correct an error that occurred in the French version of the act passed last session. In the English version a period of one year is given in which application may be made for a patent and in the French version the period is two years. The bill seeks to correct that error.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: Will the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) please inform the House and the country when the Deputy Receiver General's office in Toronto ceased to function as a place for public deposits at interest, with right of withdrawal in Dominion notes, and whether it is true that deposits on similar terms are still being received by the Deputy Receiver General's office in British Columbia and in the Maritime provinces. If nqt to-day, I should like to have an answer to the question on another occasion.


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance):: If the hon. member will place his question on the order paper I shall see that the information is secured.


William Findlay Maclean: As a matter of
practice I think I am entitled to ask the question on the Orders of the Day.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The question is rather
complex, and it might stand for answer until another day.


William Findlay Maclean: Very well; I
should be glad to get the information, however.
PRIVILEGE-Mr. MACDONALD (Pictou) On the Orders of the Day:


Hon. E. M. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to
The Address-Mr. Marler

a question of privilege. A few days ago in my absence, as I note in Hansard, the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woods-worth) made a reference to myself in the following words:
Perhaps I should add that the Nova Scotia workers point out that the Minister of National Defence . . . has been, if he is not still, the solicitor for the coal companies.
I desire to say that I am not solicitor for the coal companies, nor for any other company, nor any person whatever.



THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH ADDRESS IN REPLY

[Stage Direction]
Consideration of the motion of Mr. Kelly for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, resumed from Tuesday, March 4.
Mr. HERBERT MARLER (St. Lawrence-St. George):: Like other members who have
preceded me, I beg to congratulate the mover and the seconder of the Address on the admirable manner in which they portrayed the situation to the House. Both hon. gentlemen discharged the task with honour not only to themselves but also to the House to which they belong. I desire also to extend congratulations, if he is willing to accept my congratulations, to the leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke) on the way in which he, too, placed his case before the House on Tuesday last. While I am free to admit that I cannot entirely agree with all that the hon. member may have said, nevertheless he brought forward his policies and the policies of his party in a straightforw;frd and manly way, in a way, indeed, that every member of the House could well understand.
I have heard it stated on another occasion that this debate was a more or less innocuous proceeding. I cannot view the debate in such a light. On the contrary, I believe it is. a very important proceeding, enabling the government to hear the views, through hon. gentlemen, that are held in the constituencies they represent. I think it is the duty of every hon. member so to enable the government, by such expressions of opinion, to formulate policies for the good of the Dominion as a whole. You are aware, Mr. Speaker, that I represent in this House the division of St. Lawrence-St. George of Montreal. I do not think it is improper to say that that division is an important one, perhaps one of the most important in this Dominion. It is important by reason of its commercial and financial activity, by reason of the wealth and learning of its people, and by reason of its undoubted 
devotion to the public good. I think I can safely say that no one can accuse the people of that division of narrowness nor of any lack of public spirit; and least of all can anyone accuse them of any failure to contribute to the taxes of this Dominion, for the administration of its affairs and for its development, a very considerable amount. Other qualifications these people have also; and I would ask hon. members to bear with me for a moment in that regard. The people whom I represent in this House are strong in their traditions. They reverence those old British and French traditions which in their opinion go so far as to make a nation idealistic rather than materialistic. And materialism, I think it is not improper for me to say may be found in many parts of this continent, more particularly outside of this Dominion. In addition to that, the people whom I represent are anxious to see maintained as their right and heritage the exercise of the English and French languages; and they desire to enjoy for all times the free and undisputed exercise of their various religions. All these things they regard as essential to good Canadianism. These traditions they cherish and desire to have maintained. While I am free to admit that what I have stated in this regard may strike some as being mere words, nevertheless, to the people I represent, and as well, if I may presume to say so, to the great mass of-the people of Montreal and of the province of Quebec, these same sentiments form a part of their daily lives, and they should be cherished and preserved for all time. It appears to me that they can be preserved only so long as this Dominion remains a free nation, both politically and commercially, under the British Crown. And it can remain free and retain its identity as such only so long as it progresses, and expands, and retains its population. If it loses its population, if it fails to go forward, if it retrogresses, then its identity will undoubtedly be lost; and when that is gone, beyond the shadow of a doubt those' traditions to which I have alluded will also be lost. That is one of the reasons, Sir, why I lay so much stress on the points which I have dealt with so far.
That being the case, there is a certain amount of alarm felt, and I think rightly felt, when we notice the lack of increase in population, and more so when we consider the great exodus of our people in the last few years. Happily the tide inwards is now increasing. But unfortunately the tide outwards is still very serious. Indeed if we look back and realize that for four long years this country poured out its blood and treasure,

The Address-Mr. Marler
and for five years more has been subject to the most heavy imposts-when we realize all that and see our population still leaving us, some of us wonder if all those sacrifices have been made in vain.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that we should be amazed at the emigration of our people which has taken place to the United States, and which has been in progress for some years past. My right hon. friend who leads the opposition (Mr. Meighen) dealt with this very point in his address before the House a few days ago. He spoke with the most meticulous care of this loss of population within the last year, he quoted figures month by month, and it seemed to me that he endeavoured to lead the House to believe that this emigration had taken place only in the past two years.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: I gave the figures for three distinct and complete years.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Well, I have no doubt whatever that my right hon. friend stressed only the last couple of years.


Arthur Meighen: They are the worst.


Mr MARLER:: How much the worst?


Arthur Meighen: About four times.


Herbert Meredith Marler: From when?


Arthur Meighen: From 1923. They are about four times worse than 1921.


Herbert Meredith Marler: What about 1920 and 1921?


Arthur Meighen: I say 1923 was about four times 1921.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Very well, we shall now have the correct figures so we can see definitely the actual position. Although I am quite free to admit that this is a serious matter, it is no more serious under this government than it was under the past government. The figures I am about to quote are taken from precisely the same source as that from which my right hon. friend derived his figures, the Department of Labour of the United States. For the two years ending 30th June, 1919, 90,234 people left Canada for the United States; the two following years ending 30th June 1921, 162,342 left. Does my right hon. friend shake his head and say that is not correct?


Arthur Meighen: I do not think the figures are quite correct.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I would strongly recommend my right hon. friend to look up these figures himself. He will find that they are
correct, because I took them from exactly the same book as he himself used.


Mr MEIGHEN:: Go ahead, what is the deduction?


Herbert Meredith Marler: The deduction is this. For the two years to the 30th June, 1923, 163.000 people left as against 162,000 in the preceding two year period.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, but what about from June on to the end of the year?


Herbert Meredith Marler: The end of what year?


Arthur Meighen: The end of 1923. Why does the hon. gentleman stop in the middle of 1923 when the worst months are those that follow?


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend is
always most careful to fit in his figures to some broken period; he never takes a complete year.


Arthur Meighen: No, I took the whole
year, but you are breaking it in the middle.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend is
quite wrong. I am not breaking the year in the middle, I am taking the official year of the United States authorities.


Arthur Meighen: Take the calendar year.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Calendar year? We heard about calendar years in Montreal, and I shall go into that later on. Let us take completed figures, and not partial, such as my right hon. friend did.


Arthur Meighen: Does my hon. friend
say that my figures are wrong to the extent of one man?


Herbert Meredith Marler: I say these figures are absolutely right. The comparison shows absolutely that the departure of our population to the United States was just as great under his government as it is under the present administration.


Arthur Meighen: That is nonsense.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Why is it nonsense?


Arthur Meighen: Because the hon. member leaves out the worst months that apply to this government.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I do not leave out any
months at all, I take the United States fiscal year and I stand by these figures absolutely. I challenge my right hon. friend to say they are wrong.


Arthur Meighen: But that does not bring the figures up to date.

The Address-Mr. Marler


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Herbert Meredith Marler: No, but distorting figures
in this way-


Arthur Meighen: Try not to, then.


Herbert Meredith Marler: However, Mr. Speaker,
while this is a very pleasant digression, it does not cover the point that I desire to stress. This exodus to the United States is a very serious matter for us in Canada, and while some in this House and some outside will say that it is only temporary, as a matter of fact it has continued for the last ten years, and the balance in favour of the United States in that period exceeds the total arrivals to the Dominion from that country. Others will say that these Canadians will return to the Dominion. Well, if that be so, why do we find in the United States to-day over
1,200,000	Canadian-bom of whom 307,000 are French^Canadians? And why do we find in the mills of Massachusetts alone 260,000 Canadian-born of whom 108,000 are French-Canadians? Unfortunately these figures are only too true, you may read them to the left or to the right and then up and down and you will be forced to one conclusion only and that is that we are losing some of the best of our population to the nation to the south. Of course, if this had happened before the war possibly we would not have felt the same degree of anxiety as we feel to-day, but our position now is quite different from what it was then. Before the war we had not the heavy debt entailing the payment of some $140,000,000 a year in interest alone; we had not 22,000 miles of railway which can only be operated at a profit with ample traffic; we had not so far extended our systems of canals and elevators-and I am not criticizing this condition of affairs, I am simply taking the facts;-but we have all these things to-day and, wisely or unwisely, as the case may be, we have extended ourselves to accommodate a population five times as great as we can now boast. And yet, with only nine million people, we are still losing population.
It is usual to say that we desire more people to come to this country for the purpose of helping us pay our debts and to share the load which we are carrying. That is not our attitude at all. What we mean is that we desire more population to share with us in bringing to the greatest degree of productivity those great advantages which we enjoy and which, in my opinion, no other country in the world is so richly endowed with. That is the attitude we take

in asking people to come here; that is the attitude we take in asking our own people to remain in this country. But unfortunately, although these reasons should appeal to any Canadian who loves his country and who wishes to see it advance, they do not appeal to as many as we should like. Why is it that we cannot retain our population? I do not think we have to go very far for an answer: as I see it, it is because we do not provide in this country enough steady and profitable work to go round.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I do not see why the applause should all come from the opposition side. Well, we cannot ask as many as we would like to come to our cities; because we feel that there is not enough profitable and steady work to keep our artisans and others in continuous employment. We even feel that possibly we cannot ask as many to go on our farms as we would like to see go on them, because we are told-and I have no doubt that it is correct-that farming unfortunately does not always pay. In short we have not developed this country industrially and commercially to the extent that we should. The result is that our cities have not enough purchasing power for the farmer and the farmer has to pay more for his goods because we are obliged to manufacture too diversely instead of in large quantities. Furthermore, our production is not such as to give our railways a sufficient amount of business.
I think it is fair and sound reasoning that we in Canada should make ourselves not dependent rather than dependent on others, because in that way we shall build up our cities and develop our home market, and still have our export market in reserve. Therefore it is necessary that our policies should be such as to enable the farm to pay and our industries to live and in this-I see nothing incompatible or impossible, if only, instead of looking at the immediate present as we are wont to do, we turn our eyes to the near future. To dismiss an argument of that description in a few words is, of course, next to absurd.
Many things have to be done, many policies require to be adopted before our position can be altered. One of the questions which has a bearing upon our position industrially and agriculturally-and I will say with all due respect to my hon. friends of the Progressive party that I do not think they quite see how seriously it has affected them-is the question of taxation. Taxation as it exists and has existed for some time past is bound

The Address-Mr. Marler
to affect any industry or profession-and it affects industry whether it be commercial or agricultural in its character. Before the war we raised our revenue by means of customs and excise. In 1914 we raised from customs and excise $126,000,000 out of a total revenue of $136,000,000. excluding post office and railways because the revenue and the expenditure under those heads just about balanced. With that $136,000,000 we governed the country; we expended such money as was necessary, and with a very slight addition to our public debt we went our way in peace and happiness. For the period of about fourteen years before the war our public debt increased only to the extent of $67,000,000 odd, or less than $5,000,000 per year. That was all changed with the war, and instead of the old system of indirect taxation we had tax after tax imposed bj' other methods. Without doubt that taxation was necessary, and I am not at all questioning its propriety, but I am drawing a comparison between the taxation which was in vogue in this country before the war and that which was imposed subsequently. As I have said, after the war, tax after tax was imposed. We had the income tax, the business profits tax, the taxes imposed under the Special War Revenue Act; various other taxes were imposed and still prevail. In 1923 we collected $154,000,000 from customs and excise, or comparatively little more than we collected in 1914, whereas from direct taxation we collected $199,000,000. In other words, direct taxation was greater than the old indirect taxation which in the past had been in vogue.
In 1914 our total revenue from all sources was $163,000,000. In 1923 our total consolidated revenue was $394,000,000. In other words, in that ten year period taxation had increased to the extent of 225 per cent, while our population had increased in the same period by around 1,200,000 or a little over 15 per cent. That meant that a population only slightly increased had to bear an enormously increased load of taxation. And what was the effect of this taxation? There could only be one effect, nothing else could happen, any tax that is imposed, no matter how or where it is imposed or how it is collected, must be borne by one person and one person only, namely the consumer-that is where the tax eventually rests; it cannot be otherwise; there is no in-between point where that tax may land and remain; it goes on down the line until the consumer, buying his boots, shoes, farm implements or anything else, has to include it in the price he pays for the goods. So that, when taxation
like that has been imposed; where it has been necessary, in part at least, to impose it, we cannot wonder that the struggle for life has become more and more acute. We cannot wonder perhaps that our population is leaving us. We cannot wonder perhaps that some part of our population casts eyes on other countries where taxation is lighter and where the struggle for life is not so acute. But if we want prosperity in Canada we must have population; that is essential. Increase in taxation or the imposition of heavy taxation means a diminution in our population, whereas lighter taxation in any form means an increase in population.
A great deal has been said in the public press and elsewhere, even by my right hon. friend who leads the opposition-and he has been most vehement in his remarks-about the reduction of taxation. Some have stated that the taxation should be reduced by ten per cent, others twenty-five per cent, and so on. Various opinions have been given, but as a matter of fact, with all due deference to these various opinions, Mr. Speaker, they do not get us very far. They do not help us very much. They are far too general. They lack distinctiveness and definiteness in every respect. There is nothing on which one can hinge an opinion at all. I believe in spending less money; I have said so on the floor of this House time and time again. But those we have to look to as regards spending less money in this country are the people of Canada themselves, and it does not matter what this or any other government does, unless the people of Canada are willing to do without the things they have now and are willing to restrict their expenditure, taxation will never, and can never, be reduced in this country. If we are to proceed as we have proceeded certainly to some extent in years past, with everybody desiring to be government employees in this country, never in the wide world can taxation be reduced. If the provinces come forward, as they have come forward, and ask the Dominion treasury to put up money for matters that the provinces themselves should have undertaken in the past or should undertake now, then without the slightest shadow of a doubt taxation cannot be reduced. But let us turn to a happier trend of mind. We have, in so far as this government is concerned, spent less money. My hon. friend from West York (Sir Henry Drayton) smiles. We have spent less money. A great deal of the money which this government had to spend was not due to its fault at all, it was the making of the hon. gentlemen who sit opposite.

The Address-Mr. Marler


Arthur Meighen: I have no objection to taking the credit for making the money.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I do not grasp the ambiguous answer which my right hon. friend has given. How has he made money for the country?


Arthur Meighen: That is what the hon. gentleman said. He said the money they had spent we had made. I think that is correct.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I was not clear just what he meant. No, I put it the other way. The money has been spent in matters relating to legislation which my right hon. friend and his party put through. My right hon. friend has expressed his opinion on this matter on more than one occasion. He no doubt remembers his various joumeyings in the province of Quebec. The province of Quebec was very ready and very glad to" see my right hon. friend; the city of Montreal was very glad to see him and to listen to him. He no doubt will remember the address which he made in the city of Montreal in January last, in that gilded hall, surrounded by his ex-cabinet ministers, ex-bankers, ex-shipbuilder and various others, to some of the people of Montreal. Of course, we were not all expected in that gilded chamber. The ordinary people like myself listened in from our humble homes, but unfortunately, it may sometimes be, in these modern days and the ever-present press, that which a prominent and able man like my right hon. friend says is invariably recorded and given to the world. I intend to read one or two extracts from the speech that my right hon. friend made that night. He said:
To return to expenditures, up to 1920 restriction had not been possible. But from April 1st to December 31, 1921-
That, of course, is during the fiscal year 1922.
-there had been a reduction of expenditure in ordinary revenue totalling *44,000,000. In the same period of 1922-
That is, from April 1 to December 31, 1922, being part of the fiscal year 1923.
-no reduction had taken place, but there had been an increase of approximately half a million dollars. And in the same period, 1923-
That is, from April 1 to December 31, 1923, being part of the present fiscal year, 1924.
-there had been a reduction of about $1,500,000.
Then he goes on to speak of capital expenditure and is reported in these terms:
In capital expenditure for the first nine months of the fiscal year 1921-
That is, from April 1 to December 31, 1920.

-the reduction had been $20,000,000. In the same period of 1932 the reduction had been less than $3,000,000, while last year the reduction had been less than $1,000,000.
Now, with my hon. friend's permission, let us examine somewhat in .detail that statement which he made to that well-picked crowd in Montreal which had been brought together to listen to his speech, but which the poor and humble people like myself had to listen to in another way.


Arthur Meighen: It was a public meeting.


Mr. RYCKMAN:: How much does a radio set cost in Montreal?


Herbert Meredith Marler: A very small amount, but it was quite worth the amount for what we heard that night. My right hon. friend said that restriction up to 1920 had not been possible. He will correct me if I in any way inadvertently misquote him in reading from a newspaper report of his speech.


Arthur Meighen: "Reduction," I said.


Herbert Meredith Marler: It is reported as "restriction", which is very much the same thing; let us use that word. Up to 1920 restriction of expenditure had not been possible, according to my right hon. friend. I suppose he meant that restriction had not been possible on account of the war. He nods his head, and I expected him to nod his head at that, because, no matter how prodigal and extravagant he was in any expenditure, in any action which was not taken that should have been taken or any action that was taken that should not have been taken, on the public hustings he always laid it to one of two causes, the war or unemployment, one or the other.


Arthur Meighen: Oh. no; very often to the railways that my hon. friend's friends built.


Mr. GRAHAM:: To the ones that you bought.


Herbert Meredith Marler: It will be found that in
this case my right hon. friend did not attribute the extraordinary expenditure to railways; he put it down to war and unemployment These are his two trump cards on which he relies in one case or the other as the occasion may demand. I suppose that none of these restrictions were possible at all not even in that monument of efficient bungling-the merchant marine.


Arthur Meighen: No, the Liberal convention decided that it was not possible in the case of the mercantile marine.
The Address-Mr. Marler


Herbert Meredith Marler: The Liberal convention
had nothing whatsoever to do with the merchant marine. The merchant marine was a product of the brain of the government of my right hori. friend. Not one ship was put into the water except under that government. First of all, they were being built by the Imperial Munitions Board; my right hon. friend's government took the building out of the hands of the Imperial Munitions Boari' and decided to create, themselves, a great Canadian mercantile marine. That is what happened. Is the right hon. member ashamed of that policy; it was simply a mistake on the part of the government of my right hon. friend. Very well, why do they not acknowledge their mistake?


Arthur Meighen: Because I differed from
that view. The hon gentleman differed from it too in 1919, because he castigated us for not building a mercantile marine for all war purposes.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I am much obliged to
my right hon. friend for reminding me of what occurred in 1919. Unfortunately for my right hon. friend I was not in the House when these merchant marine estimates went through the House. Had I been in the House they would not have gone through, and my right hon. friend would not have been landed in these difficulties.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I suppose my right hon.
friend will say to me in a moment that he went into all these things with a light heart. Will he say that?


Arthur Meighen: I will say what I want
to say.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Certainly. Well, I venture to say this: If my right hon. friend did go into these things with a light heart he would have been glad to have got out of them with a fleet foot.


Arthur Meighen: Has the hon. gentleman
got any knowledge of what the present management of the National Railways has recommended in regard to disposing of the mercantile marine?


Mr. JACOBS:: The railway management
recommended the acquisition of the Hotel Scribe.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend
stated there had been a reduction in expenditure totalling $44,000,000. That is for the period from 1st April, to 31st December, 1921.
Why does my right hon. friend take broken periods?


Arthur Meighen: Because that was the
period given in the return I asked for from the Finance department.


Herbert Meredith Marler: What has that got to do
with it?


Arthur Meighen: Oh, oh.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend made all the estimates for the fiscal year 1922. There is no question about that. But in any event up to the 31st March, 1922 there was not a reduction in the expenditure for that year of $44,000,000, there was a reduction of some $13,500,000, and the reduction at that time was due solely to the fact that war services had been diminished to the extent of $20,000,000 and non-war services actually increased to the extent of $6,000,000. My right hon. friend declared there had been no reduction in the fiscal year 1923. As a matter of fact there was a reduction in the fiscal year 1923 of $15,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. gentleman say that my figures were wrong in any respect?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: I have the return with
me that I got the figures from.


Herbert Meredith Marler: The point I want to
make, and my right hon. friend may differ with me, as this-


Arthur Meighen: Answer yes or no.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I have heard my right
hon. friend ask the "yes or no" question too often. That is getting to be an old story.


Arthur Meighen: It is quite easy for any
hon. friend to answer yes or no.


Herbert Meredith Marler: The right hon. gentleman thinks a "yes or no" answer is quite sufficient for all these purposes. He could have obtained any statement he wanted from the Finance department. Let me state that during the fiscal year to which I have reference the reduction was not $44,000,000 but was $13,-
500,000.	I repeat that the reduction for the following fiscal year was over $15,000,000. It was not the case, as my right hon. friend said, that there had been an increase of approximately half a million dollars.
The right hon. gentleman then went on to discuss capital expenditures. He said that for the first nine months of the fiscal year 1921 the reduction in capital expenditure had
The Address-Mr. Marler

been $20,000,000; and in the same period of 1922 the reduction had been less than $3,000,000; and the reduction from 1st. April to 31st., December, 1922, had been $1,000,000. Now if we go back to the year 1919 and take the fiscal years in succession, we find that the increase of 1920 over 1919 was $44,000,000. If we take the year 1921 we find there was an increase of $34,000,000 on capital and railways; and in 1922 there was a reduction of $23,000,000.
In another part of the same speech my right hon. friend said that must be done. Taxation must be reduced, the cost of departmental activities in the government must be cut, as it could be cut-the Conservatives had shown that. He says the Liberals had a chance to continue the work but had not the courage to brave the resistance and antagonism the policy had engendered. The right hon. gentleman attempts in that part of his speech to show that departmental expenditure had not been increased under his government. If he compares the departmental expenditure in 1914 with the departmental expenditure in 1922 and excludes war charges of every kind, he will find that his departmental expenditure increased to the extent of some $48,000,000 in that particular time. I can give my right hon. friend the figures.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think you
can.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Well, let us have the
figures.


Arthur Meighen: What does my hon.
friend count under war expenditure?


Herbert Meredith Marler: I count under war expenditure everything relating to war.


Arthur Meighen: Tell us what the expenditures are.


Herbert Meredith Marler: The accounts for 1922
show an expenditure of $347,000,000 as compared with $127,000,000 in 1914, making an increase of $220,000,000, allowing for a deduction on account of sinking fund which is not shown in 1922. We will deduct from that: War interest amounting to $108,000,000; direct services due to the war of $60,000,000; the increased subsidies to the provinces of $931,000; and special items such as unemployment relief and Dominion elections of $2,339,000; amounting in all to $171,000,000, leaving a net addition not due to the war or to special events of over $50,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know what my hon. friend included in that item of sixty 
million dollars. He may have included only half.


Herbert Meredith Marler: No, I included all the items. Would the right hon. member like the details?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Pensions; Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment; Soldier Settlement Board; increased cost of collection of customs, income tax and business profits tax; external affairs, various special grants, such as Patriotic Fund, League of Nations, Battlefield Memorials and grants of that kind, $60,270,396.


Arthur Meighen: There are lots besides that.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not relating to war.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, directly relating to war.


Herbert Meredith Marler: What does my right hon. friend refer to?


Arthur Meighen: I would instance offhand the "Greater production" activities in the West under the Interior department.


Herbert Meredith Marler: All that departmental increase, as a matter of fact, took place. There *were increases in every department of the government at the time. Many departments increased by many millions of dollars. I do not see what claim my right hon. friend can make in saying the departmental activities had decreased.


Arthur Meighen: Many of them had increased, but what I say is that the increase was necessitated directly by the war.


Herbert Meredith Marler: How was the increase in the departments such as these necessitated by reason of the war-Agricultural Instruction Act which increased from $700,000 to $1,104,000. Was that war?


Arthur Meighen: No, I did not claim it was, but I observe that that was recommended to be continued by Mr. Duncan Marshall.


Herbert Meredith Marler: What has that to do with it? Then we have Experimental farms, $626,000, increased to $1,272,000; Health of Animals, $442,000 increased to $1,685,000.


Arthur Meighen: I admit we were very generous to agriculture, but hon. gentlemen opposite said we were not generous enough.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: That is not
war.
The Address-Mr. Marler


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend was generous to the penitentiaries,	too-the
amount rose from $910,000 up to $1,527,000.


Arthur Meighen: The inmates increased.


Mr GRAHAM:: Bad government.


Herbert Meredith Marler: He was also generous in the cost of Civil government which increased from $5,607,000 to $9,658,000.


Arthur Meighen: Did not all salaries the world over increase during the war?


Herbert Meredith Marler: All salaries the world over certainly increased during the war. The point I make is this; that my hon. friend clearly and distinctly stated in Montreal that he had decreased governmental activities, that the Conservative party had shown how the decrease could be made. Where is that decrease?


Arthur Meighen: After the war, between 1920 and 1921, we decreased the Civil Service by over 9,000. That decrease was effected in eighteen months.


Mr MARLER:: There is not a reduction in ordinary expenditure between 1920 and 1921; there was an increase between these years.


Arthur Meighen: The civil servants who were let out received their salaries, not only to the time when they went out,
4 p.m. but up to the end of 1921 and a little later. Nevertheless, the numbers diminished by over 9,000.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Why is this remarkable diminution not reflected in the expenditure now?


Arthur Meighen: It is, but hon. gentlemen opposite are overcoming it by other expenditures.


Herbert Meredith Marler: And then after that, in the same speech, my right hon. friend went on to say that,-"War liabilities had ceased, yet the government,"-meaning the present government-"was unable to maintain the rate of reduction in expenditures".


Arthur Meighen: I said "diminish."


Herbert Meredith Marler: He continues
That had reflected on the cost of living which by a chart-
I am glad to see he is using charts-
-issued by the Labour department showed the jump from the imposition of the Sales Tax, the Stamp Taxes and other Liberal financial measures. The cost of living had reached its peak in 1920. It was falling rapidly in 1921 but the Mackenzie King taxes stopped the fall and there had been no reduction since.
My right hon. friend further says-
It was one of the contributory factors to emigration from Canada to the United States which in 1923 had
reached a pace truly alarming. Something must be done and done at once to stop it.
And then, in his very best form, he goes on to say-
Are we to sit by in silent, shivering impotence while these men trek right in front of our eyes into a foreign land? What must be done? Taxation must be reduced.
And later on he says-
The Sales Tax, raised from to 6 per cent, must be cut and so must other taxes.


Arthur Meighen: Three per cent.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My hon. friend was reported to have said-and I shall be glad to send him the clipping-that it was raised from G to 6 per cent. Here it is clear and distinct. He states:
The Sales Tax raised, from 1J to 6 per cent must be cut, and so must other taxes.


Arthur Meighen: I said G and 14, it
being divided. Hon. gentlemen laugh, but I do not think they understand this yet. If hon. members do not want the matter cleared they do not need to have it cleared. I usually in my speeches refer to our Sales Tax as G and 11, totalling 3, because we divide the expense of collection, but I never represented that it was li to any audience in Canada.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Well, that is what the
listeners heard, or what they believed they heard.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member did not get it over the radio.


Herbert Meredith Marler: The expression was perfectly clear and distinct in the city of Montreal that the Sales Tax had been raised from li to 6 per cent.


Arthur Meighen: They all know better than that in Montreal.


Herbert Meredith Marler: However, that statement remains. It has been reported, and reported on more than one occasion, and has never been contradicted by my right hon. friend to my knowledge.


Arthur Meighen: I did not read it. I knew I made the correct statement, and that satisfied me.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Why does my hon. friend
say that war expenditure had ceased in 1920?


Arthur Meighen: I did not say it. I said it diminished.


Mr. McMASTER:: Could these "asides" be rendered in a little louder voice, so that we in this part of the chamber might have the full benefit of it?

The Address-Mr. Marler


Hewitt Bostock: Might I suggest to hon. members on. both sides that, in a debate of this nature, it would be wise for hon. members to stop the interruptions and the crossexamination. I say it without any invidious meaning towards anyone in particular, but I think that for the dignity of the House the debate should proceed without interruption. Unless the hon. member interrupting addresses himself to the Chair on a question of order, or unless the hon. member who has the floor is inviting cross-examination, there should be no interruption.


Arthur Meighen: May I explain, Mr. Speaker? The invitation came very directly, . from the hon. gentleman, as he admits, and I admire him for it. If he would prefer it, I am quite prepared to be silent, and, except in a special case, I will not interrupt him at all.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I am much obliged to you, Mr. Speaker, for the courtesy and kindness in making this suggestion. I have no particular objection to the interruptions of my right hon. friend. The point I am trying to accomplish is to have the truth known throughout the country, as to what the government has done and what they have attempted to do, and as to the burden they have had saddled on their backs since they came into power, and their inability to make any further reductions than have been made. When a prominent statesman like my right hon. friend comes to an important city like Montreal and makes these statements, which are heralded abroad in the public press-as a matter of fact they were spread broadcast in the constituency I represent-it is obvious that they must be corrected somewhere; and when I undertake to correct them I do so, not necessarily with the object of annoying or exciting my right hon. friend at all, that is not my purpose, but simply to get to the actual truth of the facts. We . are only trying to have reported in the newspapers exactly what did1 happen, exactly what was done.
I trust you will overlook the digression, Mr. Speaker. My right hon. friend attempted in that speech to make it distinct beyond any misunderstanding that, notwithstanding the war and demobilization, the expenditure on the part of his government had diminished, and diminished very considerably. I do not think I misread his remarks in that respect. Very well. In the fiscal year 1920 the total expenditure, less war and demobilization, was in round numbers, 1439,000,000; for the fiscal year 1921 the total expenditure, less war and
[Mr. McMaster.l
demobilization, was $511,000,000, an increase of $72,000,000. For the year 1922, again comparing it with the year 1920, the total expenditure, less war and demobilization, was $462,000,000, an increase as compared with 1920, of $22,800,000. In 1923 the total expenditure, less war and demobilization,-and that was the first year that this government had an opportunity of making reductions-was $429,000,000, or a considerable reduction as compared with 1920. What was the result of the reduction which this government made? I admit that in 1923 the demobilization expenditure was small, but I have deducted war and demobilization expenditure from the other years as well so as to put the accounts on an equal basis and make a fair comparison. The reduction which this government made in 1923, as compared with the year 1920, was $9,269,000, while it was $81,000,000 less than in 1921 and $32,000,000 less than in 1922. These are the reductions which this government has made. I might add, for the benefit of my right hon. friend and of hon. members generally, that in the expenditure of 1923 there is an amount of about $6.000,000-to be exact, $5,979,000 -for the merchant marine and another $5,000,000 for the Canada Highways Act, with which this government had absolutely nothing in the world to do. That would have made the net deficit in that year only $15,000,000. Now let me take the deficits that occurred during these years, because I want to lead up to the question of taxation and as to whether we can reduce those taxes or not. The deficits for the years 1920, 1921 and 1922, that is to say, the total deficits, amounted to $609,000,000. And yet, notwithstanding all this, my right hon. friend comes forward and declares that taxation must be reduced. He says that the Liberal government imposed taxes which they should not have imposed. Will my right hon. friend tell me how he expected the interest on the deficits to be paid? Was it to be paid out of the earnings of the merchant marine or out of those of the railways?


Arthur Meighen: Does my hon. friend
want an answer?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: I should prefer to leave
out the Belle river and Matane wharves, and hotels and other things. If that were done there would be no necessity to increase the taxes.


Herbert Meredith Marler: That is not the point in question, nor is it the point I make. I am referring to an allegation, clear and distinct, which my hon. friend made without the

The Address-Mr. Marler
slightest ambiguity in the city of Montreal, to the effect that we imposed unnecessary taxes. He said that we imposed taxes. Of course we did: what else could be done but impose additional taxes? Were those deficits that were occurring year after year to be allowed to continue? Were they to be pyramided? Had we allowed that sort of thing to go on we should have reached the stage where further progress would have been impossible. As a matter of fact we had reached that stage in my right hon. friend's administration although he never thought that we had. He did not want to impose additional taxation; he saw looming up in the future another matter of greater importance, the election, and consequently he said, " No, I will not impose taxes." My right hon. friend is perfectly well aware that the taxes he imposed in the war did not even cover the interest on war expenditures. Does he deny that?


Arthur Meighen: Did not cover war expenditures?-Certainly not. Did any country in the world do that?


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend
knows quite well what I mean: it did not cover the interest on war expenditure and had nothing to do with war capital. The war capital is absolutely intact at the present time, $1,693,000,000, with a deficit in addition to that. And yet here is a statement made by my right hon. friend as appears in the Border City Star:
Regarding the assertion of Premier King in his recent speech at Quebec, that the former federal government had paid nothing in the way of war debts out of taxes, Mr. Meighen flatly charges this to be a falsehood. In 1919 Great Britain had paid 27 per cent of the war cost out of taxation in addition to meeting normal current expenditures, Mr. Meighen said. Canada had actually done better with a record of 28 per cent.


Arthur Meighen: That is right too.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Is the hon. gentlemaD serious?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, sir.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend still persists in saying that part of the war capital expenditure was paid by his government.


Arthur Meighen: I said just what my hon. friend read, that 28 per cent of all war costs was paid by the government.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Capital cost?


Herbert Meredith Marler: What does the statement mean?	*


Arthur Meighen: It means what it says. I am ready to stay with the hon. member to
n
the end, if he will. It means exactly what it says, 28 per cent of all war costs.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Very well. That is an interesting statement and I want to get the matter in Hansard; I want it to go throughout the country; I want the House to know exactly the position which the late government took in imposing war taxes on the country, so that there will be no question about the situation at all. Of course, we all know that the late government won the war; we have been told that in the province of Quebec time and again. In regard to taxation which is put on binders, harrows and ploughs, the right hon. gentleman opposite need not look to Brantford when he talks about costs; let him look to the right. That is where the expenditure came from. However, my right hon. friend not only did not pay-and I make the statement advisedly and with care-one single dollar on war capital out of war taxes, but in addition to that, on the first of April, 1922, that is to say at the end of the fiscal year 1921, there was a deficit in connection with actual interest, pensions and war services of $128,000,000. I shall give my right hon. friend the figures. That is precisely what he saddled this government and the country with. I am not blaming him for these war expenditures, don't let him misunderstand me.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman give details?


Herbert Meredith Marler: With the greatest
pleasure. I worked out these figures this morning with the published statistics, to be quite. sure of their correctness. With permission I will read the table:
War Debt-1 April 1914-31 March 1923-9 years Expenditure on war and demobilization.. $1,693,412,797
Interest paid on national debt during
period	 $718,457,105
Less interest on previous debt i.e., $12,893,505 x 9 years-$116,041,545 Less interest on railway advances to 31 December 1922	79,125,082
Less interest on railway advances 31 December 1922
to 31 March 1923	 8,310,000

 203,476,627
Leaving interest on war debt	 514,980,478
Add:
Pensions during whole period $162,846,609 Less pre-war pensions i.e.,
$311,900 x	9 years	 2,807,100

 160,039,509
Last four years D.S.C.R.	(not	included inwar and	demobilization	expenditureabove)	
[DOT][DOT]	111,166,062
The Address-Mr. Marler

Add:
Soldiers' Settlement Board Administration last five fiscal years	 10,400,000
Total	 790,586,049
Collections in special war taxation during
nine year period	 711,162,650
Deficit	 85,423,399
Add surplus war revenues	1923	
42,767,945Deficit 1 April 1922 of war revenue as compared with interest on war debt and expenditure on war	services).. ..	128,191,344Leaving capital cost in addition unpaid of	$1,693,412,797
I do not think there can be any question whatever that when this government took charge there was this deficit of $128,191,344 as regards ordinary, everyday war expenditure, to say nothing of capital expenditure.
But Mr. Speaker, the sad feature of the situation is that when the opportunity was before this country of imposing taxes upon those who were making millions out of the war such taxes were not then imposed. Of course, hon. gentlemen on this side of the House are well aware why the opportunity was ignored-an election was in the offing. Hence, instead of imposing taxes those who were rich were made richer, for instead of issuing war bonds subject to tax, which my right hon. friend had a perfect right to do- he could do anything under the War Measures Act; he could have even taken all the money out of the banks-he issued tax-free bonds. Of course the cry will go up from him and his associates: "We had to work up great enthusiasm in order to get the people to buy war bonds." But these bonds are the very best investment in the country. However, he issued $915,000,000 of non-taxable war bonds- at least, that is the amount still outstanding.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. gentleman know of any belligerent country that did not take that course?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Such a question is simply the product of a vivid imagination-nothing more, nothing less. It is not a question of what this or that country did. He has been telling us on this side of the House that we have imposed more taxes. He came down to the city of Montreal and said:	Taxes must
be reduced. It is he who came forward to lead us to believe, rightly or wrongly-and perhaps wrongly-that our sales tax was raised from li to 6 per cent by this government. That is what the people were led to believe by his speech in Montreal. I am controverting that statement absolutely. I say this government did the only possible thing-they imposed additional taxation. They did not want to do so; what interest was it to this government to impose additional taxation? But even the war interest was not

met by my right hon. friend by taxing those who were making millions out of the war.


Arthur Meighen: I do not want to interrupt the hon. gentleman, and I will not if he asks me to refrain, but does he know of any business profits tax in any country in the world higher than Canada's was? That tax was imposed on the people he refers to, and if he thinks it was not enough why doesn't he restore and augment it?


Herbert Meredith Marler: I know of no business
profits tax that was as high as Canada's. I know of no business profits tax in any other country; but what I know, and what every hon. member knows, is that millions and millions of dollars were made during the war in a manner that should not have been possible and those profits should have been returned to the people. I know, further, that $915,000,000 of non-taxable bonds are outstanding. The interest on these alone, $45,000,000 is paying no income tax, which means that these gentlemen across the way are paying so much more income tax themselves. That is the fact, and that is what we are complaining of. And yet my right hon. friend says: "Are we to sit by in silent, shivering impotence?" Well, my right hon. friend did not sit by "in silent, shivering impotence" when immigration went dead; he sat by in frozen inactivity. I observe that my right hon. friend is producing some figures, and I know what they are; he has read them half a dozen times in the House already.


Arthur Meighen: No, he has not read them at all. Would my hon. friend like to hear them?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Well, let us hear what my right hon. friend has to say about them now.


Mr. BUREAU:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: I knew that the Minister of Customs would commence to roar, but I do not rise unless I have the backing. The official figures show. . .


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Jacques Bureau: I rise to a point of order. This is the seventy-eighth speech that my right hon. friend has made. Seventy-five is enough.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member (Mr. Marler) invited me to give the figures.


Hewitt Bostock: Do I understand that the hon. member who has the floor gave his permission to the right hon. leader of the opposition to interrupt?

The Address-Mr. Marler


Herbert Meredith Marler: I again say, Mr. Speaker, that I have no objection to the hon. member's interruptions.


Jacques Bureau: Well, we have.


Arthur Meighen: I really do not like to interrupt him so often, but there is not a sentence he has uttered that I would not like to have contradicted, and of that contradiction to have produced the proof. I have before me the emigration and immigration figures from the official records. At the beginning of the war and for many years prior to that time the balance was strongly in our favour. At the very opening of the war the balance went heavily against us, until about February, 1917 -I will give the exact figures if hon. gentlemen want me to. We could not impose higher taxation. The Americans were not in the war, and higher taxation-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: Higher taxation would
have made a higher balance against us. On the entrance of the American nation into the war our taxation reached a level the highest in the world, and immigration started in our favour and continued in our favour.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: The balance continued
heavily in our favour every year until September, '1922. It has been heavily against us ever since.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: With regard to the point of order raised by the hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Bureau), I do not think the right hon. leader of the opposition has the right to make speeches over and over again. He might put questions, but he should not speak every day on the same subject. He has exhausted his right to speak.


Hewitt Bostock: I have already stated to the House that this cross-examining process is against the rules. Unless the hon. member who has the floor allows the interruption to take place and the explanation to be given, he must proceed with his speech. Here is the rule:
Whilst a member is addressing the House no one has a right to interrupt him by putting a question to him, or by making or demanding an explanation. A member will at times allow such interruptions through a sense of courtesy to another but it is entirely at the option of the member in possession of the floor to give way or not to an immediate explanation.


Jacques Bureau: We do not know at the
present time wTho has the floor, whether it is the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) or the member for St Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler).


Herbert Meredith Marler: Well, these interruptions
are only wearying the House, and perhaps hon. members will be very glad when I sit down.


Jacques Bureau: No, go on.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend, in
the address he made a few minutes ago, stated that he could controvert or repudiate most of the statements I have made.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Herbert Meredith Marler: He can repudiate them
all?


Arthur Meighen: In about five minutes.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I will let my hon. friend
repudiate the statement that there was a deficit in actual war expenditure as compared with everyday expenditure.


Arthur Meighen: I do now.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Of course he can do it
now; that is exactly the attitude he took in Montreal in saying that taxes should be reduced-but it is nothing but noise; there is nothing in it at all. We are looking for reasons in this country now; we do not propose to sit under taxation without knowing the reason. We are more or leas intelligent people in Montreal. I am not saying that the body before which my right hon. friend spoke was as intelligent as some of the others, but still a fairly intelligent body. My right hon. friend, in his best style, ended up his address by saying, "Are we going to sit by in silent, shivering impotence while our people trek across the line to the United States?" I was going on to say a few moments ago, when my right hon. friend interjected his address, that he not only stood by "in silent, shivering impotence" as regards immigration; he stood by in frozen inactivity. The department itself was frozen and an encumbrance on the government. It was known in the United States, through reports of depar-mental officials, that it was the most difficult thing in the wide world to gain entrance into Canada under the rules which were enforced at that time. Here is a paragraph from one of those reports; it is a comment by Mr. W. J. White, Superintendent of Agencies in the United States:
During the war period, drastic restrictions were necessarily put into effect, and no doubt for good reasons these were continued after the close of the war. While they had the desired effect of keeping out many undesirables, the precautions were so sweeping that there were those who, able to qualify as far as farming experience, character, finances, etc., were denied admission, owing to the legal obstructions that it was not deemed advisable to remove.
The Address-Mr. Marler

Then it goes on to state the difficulties, and finally ends up by saying:
It could not be overtaken. In fact, everywhere there was an almost general impression that admission to Canada was so difficult as to be almost impossible.
Now, immigration is not a thing that you can turn on like a water tap from which you get so many buckets of water, and then turn off. The machinery of immigration went dead, frozen, silent, under the administration of my right hen. friend. He deliberately put upon the shores of this country a sign that none need apply; that was the effect, at least, The offices on the continent were closed- and that is what happened as regards immigration.
I want again to call attention to what my right hon. friend said as regards the sales tax. The statement he made will be clearly and distinctly corrected in Hansard and clearly and distinctly corrected in the press, so that the poorer classes in the city of Montreal who had not the privilege of attending that meeting will know that the cost of their food was not raised by six per cent, as they were led to believe, but that the tax in 1923 was actually less instead of greater than that of 1922. As a matter of fact, under the new law-and I am free to admit that I do not like the new law very well, but that is neither here nor there-the tax was lessened when compared with that imposed in 1922. Hon. gentlemen are aware of how the sales tax was imposed. It came into effect in 1920, and in that year it was imposed on two steps of trade only, that is, manufacturer to wholesaler, and wholesaler to retailer. In 1921 it was imposed on the three steps of trade, that is, producer to manufacturer, manufacturer to wholesaler, and wholesaler to retailer. That tax as originally imposed was one per cent on the ordinary channels of trade. The Conservative government raised that tax 50 per cent on the ordinary channels of trade, and this government when it came into office in 1922 raised it another 50 per cent. In other words, on each of the three steps of the ordinary channels of trade the tax was 2i per cent. Under the 1923 law the tax was not raised but was placed on one step and one step only, that is to say,. 6 per cent on all three steps combined. But the ordinary man in the street will want to know exactly what this means. He does not understand these figures. He thinks when he hears on the public hustings that the tax has been raised from one-and-a-half to six per cent that everything he buys at the comer grocery store and everywhere else, every suit of clothes and every pair of boots and shoes that he buys, 
has six per cent added to that particular purchase. That is the impression that has gone abroad, and that impression is totally and absolutely incorrect. We will take for example, $1,000 worth of raw material and see what it costs manufactured into the finished article under each of these laws, and what the tax is to be paid under each law. Under the law of 1920 the total tax was $51.92, and the cost of goods to the consumer was $3,544.05. In 1921 the tax was $88.99, and the cost of the finished article to the consumer $3,648.06. In 1922 the tax was $119.60, and the cost to the consumer $3,714.16. In 1923 the tax is $111.01, and the cost to the consumer $3,676.46. Now let us get clearly and distinctly in our minds what the cost of goods under the law of 1923 was over the cost under the law of 1921. It was $28.40, or slightly over three-quarters of one per cent-not six per cent-and when the law of 1923 was put into effect there was a reduction of $37.77, or over one per cent. That, of course, as hon. members will understand, is simply in the ordinary channels of trade There were under the old act various matters which meant that the tax could be very much increased.
I must apologize for taking up so much of the time of the House, but I fear that I have a great deal more to say. I was starting out to ask a few_ moments ago, before I had the delightful digression with my right hon. friend across the way which we both enjoyed so much, whether we could reduce taxation in this country or not. I do not think there is any use anybody saying we must reduce taxes, or that we must reduce taxation by a certain percentage or in a certain way, until we first examine what our requirements and what our revenues are, for that, after all, is the true test of the situation.
What are our requirements? Our requirements are, of course, firstly to pay the interest on our war debt, to pay for our war services, and, if possible, to create a sinking fund for the purpose of paying off our war liabilities; secondly, to pay our ordinary requirements, that is, our non-war debt, our subsidies to the provinces, and the various, everyday, out-ofpocket requirements; and thirdly, to pay our railway debt to keep our railways alive. Before taking up what revenues we have to meet these requirements, there is one matter which I would most respectfully place before the Minister of Finance, and it is this: Why do we not in this country divide our war taxes into one separate group with our war expenditure, and put our ordinary taxes into another group with our ordinary expenditure?
The Address-Mr. Marler

As it is at the present time, the taxes imposed for war and the taxes imposed for ordinary purposes are all put in precisely the same account, and although war taxes are reasonably borne, nevertheless it seems to me unfair, it seems to create an ambiguity, it seems to create more or less deception to ask people to pay war taxes that are not to be used for war purposes at all. As a matter of fact should not our war taxes be used for war purposes, and if there is a surplus of war taxes should not that surplus be used in the reduction of our debt and for a sinking fund? And if we have too much of a surplus as regards our war taxes, why should not our war taxes as such be reduced?
Then we come to ordinary taxation, which fills the next category. Should we not try and bring our ordinary expenditure within the four comers of our ordinary taxes? That is to say, segregate our ordinary taxes for ordinary, evervday purposes?
Then we come to the third category, the railways. We no doubt have to keep our railways alive but it seems to me if we want money for our railways we should call our railway expenditure a railway tax or a tax of that description. In other words if that system were followed out there would be no ambiguity, no deception. Everybody would know exactly what they were paying for and exactly what they were getting. Now I come to the question whether we could reduce the taxes. Let us take the figures for the year 1923, and they are of very considerable interest. Take, first of all, the war expenditure. The war revenue on Consolidated Fund was $199,732,496, and on special account something over $8,000,000 odd, or a total war revenue of $207,000,000.


Andrew Ross McMaster: What does the hon.
member characterize as war revenue?


Herbert Meredith Marler: I will give the details of
that with pleasure. They are as follows:
Customs and	sales	tax, etc	 $106,482,000
Income	 59,711,000
Business profits		13,031,000
Miscellaneous,	Finance Dept	 2,409,000
Interest on advances to foreign governments	 10,000,000
Post Office	 7,000,000
Then there are various subsidiary amounts from the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment and the Soldiers' Settlement Board amounting to $1,000,000, which gives us a total of $199,732,496, plus an amount from special account of $8,199,000, which is a particular amount for exchange received from the British government last year. That makes a total of $207,931,829.


Andrew Ross McMaster: What part of customs
does the hon. member allocate as being war revenue? I am merely asking for information.
I think we are all immensely interested in this analysis of our financial situation and the hon. member has stated that certain moneys coming through the custom house are to be regarded as war revenue. Just what revenue coming through the custom house is to be regarded as war revenue and why?


Herbert Meredith Marler: My hon. friend will understand, it is taxation collected through the customs department. It also includes a certain amount derived from the sales tax.


Andrew Ross McMaster: And imposed in consequence of the war?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Imposed, in consequence of the war.


Jacques Bureau: It includes excise taxes?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Excise taxes,' sales tax,
taxes of that description. Perhaps I shouid have said that was the mode of collection. It has nothing to do with customs duty at all; it is kept separate entirely.
Then we had our expenditure for war purposes. There was interest on the war debt of $108,000,000. That amount is a rather complicated one to make up, but I have had it verified by the Bureau of Statistics. There is also war services and incidental services, $52,699,000, and there were demobilization charges that year of $4,000,000, making a total expenditure of $165,000,000, leaving a surplus from war taxes of $42,767,945. Hon. members will understand that the point I am trying to make-these figures naturally intervene in any discourse in a matter of this description-is whether it is possible at the present time to reduce the taxation, and my claim is that as regards war taxes, in view of these surpluses, it would be possible to reduce in so far as the war taxes themselves are concerned.
Then coming down to our ordinary revenue, our total revenue for ordinary and special account amounted to $195,000,000, and our expenditure on ordinary and special account amounts to $175,000,000. As against that, should be deducted some $5,000,000 on government railway account, leaving a surplus of $25,000,000. Consequently from these two sources, war account and ordinary account, our finances show a surplus on all accounts of $68,000,000. Now, one would imagine on hearing of a surplus of that description that it would be possible to reduce the taxation. That would be possible if the railway situation
The Address-Mr. Marler

had not to be taken into account. When we consider the railway situation not only is this surplus eaten up, but $22,000,000 in addition. During the year 1923 the cost of our railways-all	the government railwaysamounted to $84,960,037, and the cost of our merchant marine amounted to $5,979,000, or a total expenditure on railways and ships of $90,939,000. Consequently our war surplus to the extent of $43,000,000 was used for the purpose of keeping alive our railways and our ships; also the additional surplus we had from ordinary account, plus $22,000,000 as well. With these figures before us one can ask himself if it is possible to reduce taxation. Of course taxation could be reduced if we were to write up all our expenditure to capital account, but that would mean making deficit after deficit and the day of reckoning would very soon arrive. As a matter of fact the position of affairs is that our surplus from war expenditure and our surplus from ordinary expenditure are being used to keep our railway situation alive at the present time.	[DOT]


Mr. MARTELL:: Why not get clear of the railways?


Herbert Meredith Marler: This year it is stated that the railways will show an operating surplus of some $20,000,000, which is very much better than the operating surplus of some $4,000,000 last year, and the inference might be drawn that our railways are at last commencing to pay. But that is not the case at all. It is not a question merely of operating surplus. There are many other charges, as regards the railways, which must be taken into account- such as construction betterments, repayment, of old loans, extensions, and various other expenditures of that description, to say nothing of interest to the public, and leaving out of consideration entirely interest to the government. The true test, Mr. Speaker, as regards the railways, and as regards taxation relative to the railways, is, not what the operating deficit or what the operating profit may be, but it is what the public treasury must put up every year to keep these railways alive. That is the situation which should I think be understood by every member of the House. We read in the newspapers from time to time that the operating profit of the government railways is so much more this year than last year, but there are many other expenditures which must be taken into account. Take for example: In 1920 the loss on railway operation was $32,503,000 but we paid out of the public treasury on railway account $123,000,000. In 1921 the loss on railway operation

was $11,847,000, while we paid out of the pub-lie treasury $105,000,000. In 1922 there was an operating profit of $4,193,000, and yet we paid out of the public treasury $84,000,000. Even if the operating surplus in 1923 amounts to $20,000,000 I think hon. gentlemen will find that there will have to be in the public accounts this year probably fifty or sixty million dollars still to keep these railways alive.
Now, there are various opinions in this House as regards the question of government owned railways. Some of us say that the railways should not have been taken over; others think that they should have been taken over. Some think that these railways are a great national asset; others think they are a great national liability. I admit quite freely that it will serve no good purpose to discuss these questions at the present time; we are perhaps past that stage. Personally I have always said, and I must state again on the floor of the House, that I do not see any particular advantage in public ownership of railways. Public ownership to me shows many disadvantages. Public ownership does not mean that railway rates are lessened in the very slightest degree.
The owners of a railway do not lessen railway rates. The owners perhaps are contributory factors in having railway rates high or low on account of efficiency or inefficiency. More efficient management may tend to lower the rates because there is a greater profit, but the main fact we have got to consider is that a railway must get a sufficient amount of traffic to keep it alive, and even a reduction or writing down of its capital cost is not going to help in the very least. Of course the protagonists of public ownership will say to me "We should keep these railways under public ownership." I fear that I must answer for myself in substantially the same way that I did when my right hon. friend first put to me a question two years ago-I personally prefer to see these railways in the hands of private individuals and administered by a private body.


Mr. WARD:: Why have we got public ownership at this time?


Herbert Meredith Marler: To answer my hon. friend's question would tax too much the patience of the House-it is a very long story.


Jacques Bureau: Because the government
took them over.


William Findlay Maclean: I would like to ask my hon. friend, when he denounces the public ownership of railways does he not

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know that private ownership of railways in the United States has reached an absolute state of bankruptcy?


Jacques Bureau: We are dealing with Canada.


Mr. HOEY:: The freight rates are higher than ours.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I regret that I cannot
answer the question of my hon. friend in an efficient manner. However, the question whether public ownership or private ownership is good, bad or indifferent is hardly a question to discuss at this time; but I would like to say to those who believe in public ownership that vast sums of money have been spent on these railways. Since 1920 we have paid out of the public treasury $392,000,000 for the purpose of these railroads. That is entirely outside of interest on many millions that had previously been put into these railways, and a great many more millions which does not appear in this amount at all. Therefore, I say to those hon. gentlemen who ask for lines to be extended and for various other matters to be effected, that they should have a little consideration for those who do not believe in public ownership quite as much as they do. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, I think that the financing of the railways is far too easy a matter. The public treasury is far too open, and easy money always encourages extravagance in any matter of that description. We have heard the cry time and time again in this House and out of the House that the railways should be kept out of politics. At the same time we hear the cry shouted lustily "But we will hold you responsible for our funds;" That is what the people say. Those two cries are entirely and totally incompatible. The railways cannot be kept out of politics. They should not be kept out of politics, so long as they are owned by the government, and every dollar spent on railways should come before the House and be voted upon in a most careful and meticulous way. As a matter of fact, we cannot hide behind the cry that we should keep the railways out of politics, and unless we take every possible thing into consideration in voting the amount of money in question, it seems to me we are very failing in our trust. The practical solution of the matter of these lines, whether they are in the hands of the public or in the hands of private individuals, is to have more traffic east and west on the railways, and for that we need more production. We need people and more consumption in our country, and to obtain that consumption and production implies not only
more immigration but it implies also less emigration. Therefore how can we arrive at a solution to have less emigration from the country. My answer to that is that we are not sufficiently self-reliant and selfdependent in this country. We depend upon others to do for us what we should 5 p.m. do for ourselves. We import far too much manufactured goods and far too much foodstuffs. We should grow or manufacture these things ourselves. We should buy the foodstuffs from our own farmers. We should manufacture in this country what we can manufacture, and what we cannot manufacture we should learn to manufacture. In other words, we should be a self-dependent Canadian nation. I do not think we are a self-dependent nation. At the very least, and without the slightest exaggeration, during the calendar year 1923 we imported into this country no less than fifty million dollars worth of foodstuffs which could have been grown in this country and the money kept in this country and given to the farmers, just as well as to anybody else. In the same period of time, without the slightest semblance of exaggeration, we imported into the country one hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of manufactured goods which we could have manufactured here, which would have made work for our population in this country, and kept our money here. We look for our trade to the United States. We say to the United States "We will buy a large amount from you," and we did import from the United States last year in the neighbourhood of fifty million dollars' worth of foodstuffs, and the United States said to us in the year 1921, under the Fordney Tariff, "We do not want to have anything to do with you, get out." And under the Fordney and Mc-Cumber Tariff of 1922 they slammed and locked the door in our faces. That is the position the United States has taken as regards trading with us. But notwithstanding that our exports to the United States have fallen from 52 per cent in 1868 to 39 per cent in 1923, and our imports have risen from 33 per cent in 1868 to 67 per cent in 1923. As a matter of fact last year we bought from the States $200,000,000 more than the United States bought from us, and our exports to the United States, would show much less, if it were not the fact that we export a great deal of unmanufactured wood and a great deal of pulp and paper. In other words, I claim that we are buying from the United States a great many things we could grow on our own farms and make in our own factories. That would give employment to our people and keep in circulation the money of this country in Canada.
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Then again take another situation. In 1897 we made with Great Britain what we called a reciprocal tarig. In 1898 we converted that into a preferential tarig. We increased that preferential tarig in 1900, and again in 1922 and again in 1923, and why did we do all this? We did this no doubt mainly in the hope that we would increase our exports to Great Britain, and although we have never said so, perhaps in the hope that some day Great Britain would give us a like preference as regards our staple products over the same products imported by it from other parts, outside of the Empire. We never said that or hinted it, but we hoped it would come. If we did all this for the purpose of increasing our exports, it has been a most dismal failure, because our exports to Great Britain have diminished from 56 per cent to just about 40 per cent and our imports have also diminished from 27 per cent in 1897 to 17 per cent in 1923, but during the period from 1897 to 1923 we became a much greater manufacturing country. During the war, in part to help the Mother Country, we built factories here, and, therefore that meant that those factories had to be kept busy and workmen had to be employed in those self-same factories. But notwithstanding that, and notwithstanding the fact that labour in Great Britain is paid a great deal less, we say to Great Britain, " Come along and take part of our market." It does not seem to me that that is a rational attitude to take at the present time.
In addition to that, there is the serious question of depreciated currency which must be taken into consideration. There is the question of depreciated currency from countries on the continent. Many goods come in under the British preferential tarig that are not entirely British made goods. As a matter of fact, British made goods under the British preferential tarig only have to be fabricated in England to the extent of 25 per cent, and the other 75 per cent is just as likely to be fabricated on the continent by cheap labour, and yet they are imported into Canada under the British preferential tarig, and those goods come in here and take the place of goods which we ourselves could make in this country. And then we invite other countries on the continent who have depreciated currencies to come in and take a part of our markets, too. I do not consider such a situation rational at all. I know quite well that there may be some gentlemen in this House who will wholly or at least in part disagree with me on this momentous subject. My hon. 
friend from Brome (Mr. McMaster) and many other hon. gentlemen across the goor who may be inclined to think so, need not for a moment assume that I am what is called a high and rabid protectionist; I am not; I do not speak for any manufacturer or any group of manufacturers; I have no personal interest to urge in that respect at all. I do ask, not for a tarig to pay high dividends; not for a tarig to help those who are not capable; not for a tarig to pay any dividends on watered stock. What I do ask for is "a cost-of-living tarig" which will enable our industries to exist and provide labour for our workmen in order that we may build up our cities and increase interior production, and make our railways pay their way. I do not think that such an attitude is at all unreasonable. For that reason I ask that the tarig be inquired into by those competent to make that inquiry, and that upon the advice so obtained the tarig be adjusted in a fair and reasonable manner. Until that is done I ask that no changes in the tarig, the egect of which are not understood or which may be inadvisable, be made.
I would remind the House that there is an urgent need for inquiry in reference to some of our industries the conditions of which merit investigation. It is said by some that a wrong has been done them. If a wrong has been done, is it unreasonable to ask that it be inquired into and, if wrong exists, that that wrong be removed? I appreciate the fact that in reference to the tarig there are many hon. gentlemen who will say that they care nothing about "a cost-of-living tarig," about "a development tarig," or about the Canadian manufacturer. With all deference to these gentlemen I say:	Deny the principle of a
cost-of-living tarig and you will close our industries and create greater depression; more than that, you will prevent many industries which barely exist to-day, from paying the taxes which are necessary for the administration of the agairs of the country and which are required to keep the railways alive and, perhaps in better times, to extend those railways. That is what will happen if the tarig is reduced in any inadvisable manner the egect of which is not sufficiently understood.
I have always been perfectly frank so far as my attitude to the tarig is concerned; I have never been ambiguous in my views on the fioor of the House. I am not one who is not ready to concede changes in matters of policy provided I am shown a good and sufficient reason for those changes. I take the same stand now in relation to the tariff as I took on the floor of this House two years

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ago, and in the country as well, when I was elected on the principles I then advocated. I do not regard the tariff as a dogma which cannot be altered. It requires changes from time to time necessitating readjustments, and in my opinion it should be framed in the interests of revenue and in the interests of the honest, the decent and the efficient manufacturer. I do not for a single moment advocate a tariff in the interests of the man who makes vast sums in the way of dividends, not at all; what I ask for is a tariff that will provide a living wage for our workmen and will keep our people in the country. I have also stated that the tariff should be framed in the light of expert advice. I stated two years ago, as I state now, that I believed in the Laurier-Fielding tariff. That tariff brought prosperity to this country, and in the years from 1896 to 1911 very little was heard about tariff matters at all. Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier himself as well as other Liberal leaders gave utterance to sentiments very largely in accordance with those I am expressing today on this important subject. If hon. gentlemen will bear with me, I will read the following words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier which have been quoted before in this House. This matter is one of importance equally alike to hon. gentlemen opposite and to myself. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said:
It is a humiliating confession to make that after three centuries of existence this country is still unable to supply its own wants and that it is still obliged to have recourse to foreign markets, though nature has lavished upon it all the gifts necessary to render it a manufacturing country. . . It is the duty especially for us Canadians of French origin to create. . . Thus far it seems to me that the government has been moving in the wrong direction. The government has devoted itself to recruiting an exclusively agricultural immigration; its efforts will end in nothing-the agricultural population of this country will never be increased from outside. . . We can, however,-
And this is the point I wish to stress.
-introduce here with good results, I think, an industrial immigration. I do not mean simple workmen, but master mechanics and small capitalists, such as are to be found in all the cities of Europe.
Later on another gentleman expressed the following views, which I think will be recognized :
We do not propose to do anything that will interfere with legitimate business. We do not propose to do anything that will interfere with legitimate profits, nor, much less, do we propose to do anything that would injure our industries in any fair competition with the industries of other countries. We realize that Canada, if she is to be great, must be a country based on diversified industries. This is the day of world competition, not between town and town, or factory and factory, but between continent and continent, and realizing that, we do not propose to take steps that are in any way going to check the nation's just industries in carrying on their business in a just and reasonable way.
I do not think that my attitude to the tariff is at all different from that. No doubt someone will say that this is not a country which should rest upon a basis of diversified industries. Some gentlemen possibly might say: "Let us buy our boots and shoes in Boston instead of from the province of Quebec; let us buy our cottons and woollens from England instead of in Ontario; let us import our window glass from Belgium and our oilcloths from Germany", and so on. There are those who will say, "It does not matter whether these things are made by Canadian workmen or made by foreigners, and if they are cheaper elsewhere, we should buy them in the cheaper market. It matters not that we have attempted to build up a market in Canada during so many years. There are people who will be indifferent as to whether we preserve that market for our own producers or for someone else.
Now, I do not deny for one moment that, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the times, we can to-day bring in from these countries commodities at a lower price than they can be manufactured here. But my point is this: Are we going to build up Canada for the immediate present, or are we going to look some little way into the future? Are we to keep only the present in our vision, or are we to look further ahead to the needs of our population, not only the population here now but the population which we hope will come in the future? If we view the present only, all we have to do is continue as we are doing, converting this country into a warehouse and a dumping ground. If, on the other hand, we have vision and patience and look towards the future building-up of this country, allowing our factories to work at fuli time instead of half time, then the cost of commodities will be decreased, because factories on full time must necessarily produce at a far less expense than when operating at half time, as is the case to-day. In addition to that, although foreign goods are now being brought in at a lower price than similar goods can be produced by our own manufacturers, when conditions become stabilized in Europe and exchange becomes again normal, those very goods will cost substantially as much as we ourselves, in course of time, will be able to manufacture them. But we will never be in this position industrially if inadvisable and illthought-out changes are made in the tariff. I do not suggest that, such changes would be made in a vicious spirit, I accuse no one of any such desire; but if changes are
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made without their probable effects being very fully considered,' -our towns and cities will be bound to disappear. But we must also take into consideration-and I think the hon. member for Swift Current (Mr. Lewis) made a point of this the other day-that if we reduce these centres to stagnation, to a very large extent we reduce our home market. This should be our first market to look to, and our export market should be the next.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Has the home market helped the American agriculturist to any appreciable extent? Is he any better off to-day than the Canadian agriculturist?


Herbert Meredith Marler: With all due deference to my hon. friend, I submit that the home market has without a doubt helped our agriculturists, and without the home market they could not have got rid of the same amount of their products.


Robert Alexander Hoey: What part of his product could the Canadian farmer not have got rid of?


Herbert Meredith Marler: I will explain in a moment to my hon. friend just what the Canadian agriculturist has got rid of in his home market.


Robert Alexander Hoey: That does not necessarily mean that he could not have got rid of it. The consumption of wheat in Europe to-day is only one-third of the normal consumption.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I do not think my hon. friend could have got rid of more wheat than was got rid of by means of the export trade. Our wheat was exported to the. fullest extent possible.


Robert Alexander Hoey: To all the extent that was necessary.


Herbert Meredith Marler: But all of the wheat grown was not exported.


Robert Alexander Hoey: TheTe was no need to export it.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Perhaps I may be quite ignorant, but this is the way it appeals to me. In the crop year 1921-22 we produced around
300.000,000 bushels of wheat. Of this, 194,000,000 bushels was exported as wheat and flour, and 106,000,000 bushels was consumed in Canada. The latter was worth at least $85,000,000. In addition, there were the byproducts which we retained. I apologize, Mr. Speaker, for taking up so much of the time of the House.


An hon. MEMBER:: Go ahead.


Herbert Meredith Marler: We cannot export wheat and flour alone.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Not without purchasing other commodities; I agree with you there.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not without exporting
other commodities.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Not without importing other commodities; trade cannot be one-sided.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My hon. friend will pardon me for contradicting him. I do not think we can establish trade channels in wheat and flour alone; we must export other commodities also.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Explain.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Would my hon. friend expect any country to take nothing but wheat and flour from us? Would he expect a ship to be loaded with wheat and flour only? No ship will go out with such a cargo.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Why not?


Herbert Meredith Marler: To create a general trade we have to carry various products to other countries.


Mr. LEWIS:: What will it bring back in return?


Herbert Meredith Marler: That is precisely the point I make with my hon. friend from Swift Current. It creates trade; but our customers overseas will not say to us that they want only our wheat and flour. It is necessary and essential for trade routes to be made up by exporting other commodities besides wheat and flour in order to create in the foreign port the needed market for our wheat and flour, because the more trade we have with any country the more demand there is for our particular product. Therefore I say we should export manufactured goods also with our wheat and flour.


Mr. COOTE:: What are we going to get back for the wheat and flour and other merchandise that we export?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Does my hon. friend suggest that I am favouring a prohibitive tariff? I never mentioned a prohibitive tariff.


Robert Alexander Hoey: It has got to be, in order to build up industries. You say you want to build up home industries; you cannot build them up if you allow manufactured goods to come in.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Certainly, we cannot manufacture at the present time all the goods we import.


Robert Alexander Hoey: I see.


Herbert Meredith Marler: But there are certain goods we should manufacture. I do not for a moment suggest that you should build a tariff fence so high that foreign goods cannot get over it-not at all. I have stated in clear and unmistakable language that all we ask is a cost-of-living tariff for the efficient manufacturer-for what we can manufacture here. In addition to that certain goods from England and other parts of the world will always enter under any tariff you may have, especially if it be only a reasonable cost-of-living tariff.


Mr COOTE:: Would the hon. member kindly specify some lines of goods that he would allow us to import?


Herbert Meredith Marler: The hon. gentleman is surely factious in putting to me such a question. He does not expect me to turn myself into a catalogue, does he?


George Gibson Coote: No, I do not really expect it.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I am speaking in general terms, that is all. The general argument may be good or it may be bad, but it appeals to me, and I am putting it to my hon,. friends opposite as it appeals to me, simply as a reasonable argument-that no hasty, ill-advised changes be made in the tariff, but that any changes which may be proposed be carefully thought out, not confining ourselves to their probable effect on the immediate present, but looking into the future to see where such changes will land us. There is nothing unreasonable about that. I am not arguing for the East alone. It is ridiculous for the East to say to the West. "We are not interested in your welfare," just as ridiculous as it would be for the West to say to the East, "We will not have anything to do with your industries." We have to try to devise a fair and reasonable policy both for the East and for the West.


Lewis Herbert Martell: What is the East, may I ask my hon. friend? There are plenty of low-tariff men in the East as well as in the West.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I am not drawing any particular line of demarcation. If my hon. friend so desires, I am willing to consider the Maritime provinces in with the West.


Lewis Herbert Martell: That affects your argument.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Let us put the Maritimes in with the West for the present. But it is
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not a question on my part of talking about prohibition; it is a question of reason, of allowing our towns and cities to live, and unless we do this I claim that our agriculturists will be injured on account of their home market being seriously diminished. Surely, my hon. friend from Springfield (Mr. Hoey) will admit that if we had two million more people in the city of Montreal, they would consume at least two million more barrels of flour, which means in the neighborhood of ten million bushels of wheat.


Mr. CALDWELL:: What will become of
the cities if the agricultural community is not allowed to live?


Herbert Meredith Marler: I expected, Mr. Speaker,
a barrage to come from that direction at this stage. I am not trying to put the agriculturist out of existence. I have endeavoured to suggest that there is much that can be done for the agriculturist; there are many taxes that can be taken off for his benefit, and I think that would be readily agreed to by every member of this House. But I submit that the tariff should not be such as to put the cities out of existence. I think we ought to have a reasonable cost of living tariff. Of course, if my hon. friends say, "No tariff," I have no desire and cannot submit an argument on that question. But what I claim is that the cities consume agricultural products and that unless the cities expand and grow, the home market will be lessened and the effects of that condition will be severely felt by the agricultural classes.
I was going to give the particulars with respect to a number of commodities, but I shall not take up the time of the House.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Very well. I spoke about wheat a few moments ago; let me refer to one or two other commodities. In 1921 we produced over $74,000,000 worth of butter and cheese; our export of these products was $28,000,000 and our home consumption $55,000,000. In wool we produced in 1921 $2,975,000; we exported $242,000 and consumed at home $2,732,000. In 1923 we produced in eggs $48,770,000 worth; we exported this product to the value of $1,030,000 and the consumption at home was $47,740,000. In 1921 the value of our maple products was $4,318,000; our export was only $173,000 and we consumed at home $4,-
145,000.	In these few commodities alone, to say nothing of hosts of others, the value of the home consumption was $195,000,000, or $23 per head of the population. The exodus to the United States, of which I spoke a little while
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ago, has meant a loss to agriculturists in this country in these products alone of over $7,500,000. Mr. Speaker,-and I say this with the greatest respect to any member of this House who disagrees with me-if the urban population increases our home market will increase with it and there will be a distinct advantage to the agriculturist, whereas if our population decreases there will be a very distinct disadvantage. The only way we can keep people in this country is to provide work for the rural dwellers as well as for the urban dwellers; to give all the population, no matter where we get it from, something to do.
I spoke a moment ago about the British preference, and perhaps some hon. members may have seen in what I said an indication that I thought the British preferential tariff might well not be kept in effect as it is at present. I do not disguise my feelings on that subject; at the same time I would be the last man in this House to hold the belief that we should not help Great Britain to the fullest extent of our ability. But I do not think we are helping Great Britain in this way. We are not helping Great Britain by making ourselves a weak nation; our great value to the Empire can only consist in our making ourselves a strong nation, in our taking upon ourselves our fair burdens for the Empire as they may come along. The only way to put ourselves in a position to do that is to build up our population. What we could do for Great Britain to-day would be to absorb many of her surplus population and give them work in our cities and towns, in our factories and so on. But we are not prepared to give them that to-day.
I think I have finished with most of the questions which might cause recrimination or questioning in this House. There are only two other matters that I should like to touch upon, and I shall not refer to them at great length. First is the question of stability in taxation. Undoubtedly we must have taxes. A tax is an impost for the benefit of government, and as such it must necessarily be for the benefit of the people on whom it is levied. In other words, if an impost is such as is difficult or impossible to collect, the very object of the tax will in time be defeated. We, in this country in the past-and I am not speaking of any particular government; I am referring to our genera! attitude with regard to taxation- have said that those who were successful should be taxed a little more, those who were more successful, still more, and that the most successful should be taxed the greatest amount. I am a believer in imposing taxes

where they can best be borne. There are certain industries in Canada at the present time, notably the agricultural industry, which cannot bear taxes as well as other industries can. There should be some alleviation, therefore, in that respect, and perhaps some other industry should have a tax imposed upon it in accordance with its means. Likewise the individual should be taxed according to his ability to pay. We have not taken the attitude, I think, that as partners in the state the people should be consulted before taxation is imposed, in order that the effect of the taxation may be understood and that the tax may be easily collected. As it stands now, taxation is getting more and more complicated; as a matter of fact we are rapidly turning ourselves into a nation of taxpayers and fillers in of forms. Why should we not consolidate our taxation so as to have it fall where it should rather than where it should not? Why should a government board of experts not be appointed to look into the whole question of taxation, to co-ordinate it, to have it thoroughly understood? Where it is seen that a certain business, a certain profession or certain individuals should get the benefit of an alleviation in the way of taxation, in order, perhaps, that they might be able to sell to others the products of their business, why should the tax not be taken off? In addition to that, under our present system the taxation laws emanate from one department of government and the collection of the tax is made by another. All these things, particularly at this perplexing period in our history, should be consolidated, simplified, made readily understandable, so arranged that business will be made easy and that every one can go ahead with the activities in which he is engaged without being under the necessity of continually thinking about taxes.
There is a great deal to be said in that connection. We have had experience in the matter of changes in the laws of taxation. Last year we made two very important changes, and I believe those changes were ill considered-not because we were not willing to consider them; not because the promoters were not acting in perfect good faith; not because the minister who introduced the bills was not acting in perfect good faith and did not desire to have the tax properly administered, but because we simpiy had not the time, or the ability, perhaps,- I say that subject to correction-to understand all the complicated matters involved, matters which could only be thoroughly understood after weeks of study.

The Address-Mr. Marler
Last year we made an amendment to the Special War Revenue Act-the sales tax. I say again that I do not for one moment attribute anything to the minister or to the promoters in that respect at all, but I venture to say that there were not six members of this House last year who understood that law, and I was not one of the six. The law as at present in force as regards the sales tax is a most complicated piece of legal machinery, difficult to administer, difficult to collect the tax, unfair in certain directions and open to grave misuses in others. As regards the unlicensed wholesaler it puts him in a most unfair position. As regards the unlicensed manufacturer, that is, the manufacturer not manufacturing up to $10,000, it is open to very, very grave abuse. I would ask the gov-vernment to take into consideration this matter of the sales tax again this year and to make such necessary amendments to it or so to revise our system of taxation that the people of this country having to bear the taxes may bear them as lightly as it is possible for them to do.
Another amendment we made last year was to our income tax law. That law as it stood, even without the amendment, was a law which had been made in times of stress. It was a perfectly proper law, a law that everybody should carry out to the letter, but I doubt very much whether it is carried out entirely to the letter in all respects. I doubt very much if everything that could be collected under that law is collected, but at the same time there are elements in the income tax law which put a great many qualities which we should have in this country, such as charity, ability, and energy, straight into the hands of mortmain. It puts millions and millions of dollars in mortmain every year, either because the tax is too heavy or because it is not properly applied. Much at the present time-I will not say is kept secretly hidden; those are not the words I intend to use at all-but much money is not put into circulation that should be put into circulation to help build up the country and expand it in every way because of our income tax law. Notwithstanding this lack of vision and this lack of heart as exemplified in our income tax law, what did we do last year? We brought down an amendment which created a prior lien on all the assets of the individual. I protested last year against this amendment. I told the government at that time, and I tell the government frankly again now, that if that amendment is persisted in, it will simply mean there will be no money to lend
on mortgage in this country. I feel quite confident also that when the banks fully grasp what that amendment means it will be very difficult to make loans of any kind, and very difficult to make conveyances of property. These matters are of vital importance to the West. Mortgage money must be loaned in the West. In the West there are at the present time serious restrictions on people lending money, but here the tax collector comes along, and, with the departmental mind entirely, not the mind of the people from whom the money is to be collected, but the departmental mind, says:	1
want a law put into effect that will make it as easy as possible for me to take the money away from the people, to stop your industry, to stop your commerce. Consequently that amendment was put on the statute books. I would solemnly warn the government that that amendment should certainly be repealed this year.
Mr. Speaker, I have spoken at very great length. I owe you and hon. members of this House my heartfelt thanks for the patience with which you have listened to me here to-day. I did not desire to speak at such length, but the matters which I have brought before the House to-day are of vital interest to the people I represent, and although I in no way presume to speak for them, I believe of vital interest to the whole city of Montreal.
In addition let me say this. Not only those in the constituency I here represent but every member from the province of Quebec, nay, every person in the province of Quebec, wishes to see preserved our British and French traditions to which we have been devoted from generation to generation. Many of us for many generations have known no other home outside of our province of Quebec. I do not speak for others, but I believe that those traditions can only be preserved by Canada, as Canada, going ahead and being kept for Canadians, and being a nation, as I stated at the beginning of my remarks, under the British Crown. That, sir, is the main object and the main theme that I have to lay before the House to-day and I beg hon. gentlemen to consider that; to consider the situation in which we place ourselves if our population declines, if our work people leave us, for in that case I feel confident that these traditions which we hold in the greatest reverence, which we learnt at our mother's knee and which we cherish so dearly, will also disappear and be lost to this country.

The Adress-Mr. MacKelvie
Mr. JOHN A. MacKELVIE (Yale): Mr. Speaker, before I address myself to a few points in connection with the Speech from the Throne' I would like with the same sincerity and heartiness which has characterized other speakers to compliment those who were responsible for moving and seconding the Address. I am sure they must have found it a rather difficult task this year, more so than in other sessions of the House I think, Mr. Speaker, for it must have been a somewhat agile mind, I might almost say a somewhat penetrating instinct, that could dig into the mass of tortuous verbiage which comprised the Speech of this year, and bring out any fruitful theme for congratulation so far as the government of this country is concerned.
I do not intend to follow the remarks of the previous speaker (Mr. Marler) for the" simple reason that the latter part of his address was one with which I find myself most thoroughly in sympathy. Indeed, it is one which anyone in this group in the House might be proud to see on record with his own name above it. So far as the last part of his address was concerned, it so directly and pointedly featured the speech which the right hon. leader of this party recently made in Montreal that one could not fail to be impressed with the fact that that speech had sunk very deeply into the consciousness of the speaker, and in his estimation it required very serious rebuttal indeed. I will leave it to the House and to the intelligence of the country to give a verdict as to whether that rebuttal was as effective as the speaker no doubt intended it to be.
Mr. Speaker, I said that the Speech from the Throne was one in which it was difficult to find matters upon which the government could be very distinctly congratulated. Before I make reference to certain points contained therein I would like to mention a fact that must be of particular interest to this House, and that is that to-day the members received in their post office boxes a copy of the report of the proceedings of the Imperial Conference. I have not yet had the opportunity to read that report and to give it the. attention I have no doubt it deserves. I expect to find it very interesting reading, but I need not hope to find within its covers any statement that will show to the people of Canada that the Canadian representatives at that conference gave the support to Mr. Baldwin's proposals that the people of this country expected they would at that time. Mr. Baldwin laid before the country his proposals. When the attention of our people was

directed towards his scheme of fiscal reform in the Old Country, his policy of preferential tariffs within the Empire, it was rather humiliating, to say the least, to those who hold the opinions that are held by this group in the House-in fact I think by a good many sections of our population-it was more than humiliating, it was intensely aggravating to know that the policy which we so ardently desired to see pressed forward was supported by the Prime Ministers of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and that our own representative not onljv sat silent at the conference where the policy was propounded but in any expression that he gave to his sentiments-which assuredly were not the sentiments of Canada-intimated that all these matters were of no concern. So evidently was that position made clear by the Canadian representative that Mr. Asquith, during the recent .election campaign in Great Britain, was enabled to deliver a speech in which he said that the matter of preferential tariffs was not one in which the dominions were very greatly interested, or one upon which they based any demand. In making this statement Mr. Asquith could only have had in mind the Dominion of Canada-surely the greatest of all the dominions-and he even went so far as to say practically that it was not the desire of Canada that any such policy should be brought into effect.
Now, Mr. Speaker, coming as I do from a province which was vitally interested in that fiscal policy, coming as I do from a constituency which more than any other is intensely interested in it, I feel that some attention should be directed in this House to the course taken by the Prime Minister of Canada in so representing-I think I am justified in saying, in so misrepresenting,-this Dominion on that occasion. The value of such preferential treatment on the part of Great Britain to our constituency of Yale would be such that I could hardly describe it in words. The prime interest of the constituency, as a great many members here are aware, has to do with the fruit growing industry, and a preference such as was contemplated of five shillings per hundred pounds on imported fruit would have placed our fruit growers in such a position that they would once more have seen a ray of hope ahead, whereas to-day they are almost as much disappointed as the wheat growers of the prairies are if we are to believe the stories told by our Progressive friends.
In regard to this question of tariff preference Mr. Baldwin had the courage of his convictions. He went to the country but unfortunately did not return to parliament

The Address-Mr. MacKelvie
with a majority. Nevertheless Mr. Baldwin sowed seed which will yet bear fruit, he delivered a message which future generations will read and which perhaps will come into effect even in our own time. By those of us who believe in the great and beneficent influence which the British Empire is destined to exercise in the world the happiest results were anticipated from Mr. Baldwin's plan. His vision was such that when he surveyed the whole field he realized what would follow from close inter-relationship between the different parts of the Empire; he saw the Empire drawn together by bonds of mutual interest and strengthened by a preferential tariff which would give it a place in the world such as perhaps none of us have ever dreamed to be possible. But the policy of negation, the policy of discouragement, advanced by our representative at that conference, will perhaps set the wheels of progress back for several years.
I do not know just exactly how His Excellency was made to give the expression in the Speech from the Throne that Canada is now such an extremely prosperous country.
I have found that this statement received little support in any of the speeches so far delivered here. Our Progressive friends, through the mouthpiece of their leader, have assured us that the agricultural part of the community is anything but prosperous. That hon. gentleman went further and related that only one-third of the number of agricultural implements were sold now that were sold fifteen years ago, which is a pretty clear indication, that the manufacturing industry is not revelling in prosperity. The speaker who immediately preceded me also laid facts before the House which force one to reach the same conclusion. Speaking for my own consituency I have no doubt in the world that conditions there will have to be vastly improved from what they are to-day before we can claim anything approaching a measure of prosperity and happiness. For the existing evil there is a remedy, a remedy which I hope to advance during the course of my remarks but I see no indication of that remedy being applied by the present administration. Indeed I am firmly convinced that instead of bringing about a [DOT] better condition of affairs the policy forecasted in the Speech from the Throne will be very certain to make existing conditions much worse. The remedy which I would desire to apply to the financial depression in Canada rests entirely in a properly devised and vigorously constructed tariff of protection. It is no news to the members of this House that I am a thorough going protectionist. It is one of the
political principles to which I am most firmly anchored; and I like to congratulate myself that I belong to a party which through storm and stress, whether in power or out of power, has never deviated from the policy devised by our great leader, Sir John Macdonald, when he lifted this country out of the slough of depression and set it upon the high road to prosperity and when he unfurled the standard of a protective tariff. That standard has always waved and has never been lowered. Our present leader holds it aloft and has done so in his campaign from coast to coast. In all circumstances and in all places he has firmly adhered to the principles of his party, and has never deviated from them. In that fact we rejoice as a party. To that policy we point the people of this country as likely to yield them relief from the present depressing conditions.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. MacKELVIE:: Before the House adjourned at 6 o'clock I had been making some observations regarding the Speech from the Throne, and had said, among other things, that so far from being able to endorse the statements put into the mouth of His Excellency regarding the prosperous condition of Canada as a whole, I felt, greatly against my desire as a Canadian, to doubt if these things were true, and I felt compelled to take exception to that statement. I gave as an example the depressed condition of my own community and the hard struggle which fruitgrowing sections of British Columbia were having to make ends meet, and, this, Sir, despite the fact that no part of Canada possesses land so admirably suited to the production of fruit and vegetables as the section which I have the honour to represent. Nature indeed seems to have intended it as a district in which the cultivation of fruit and vegetables could be most successfully prosecuted, and yet, owing to this very depression of which I am speaking, the fruit-growers of that country this year have found themselves unable to profitably market what was indeed a very large and good crop. I said that among the remedies which might be applied to cure, or at least to ameliorate, this condition was the old remedy of adequate protection which had so successfully brought this country at another period of its existence out of a condition of stagnation and depression into one of prosperity and progress.



The Address-Mr. MacKelvie
Tariff, Mr. Speaker, has been the weapon for generations in this country in the hands of statesmen, which they have utilized not only to build up progress in the industrial, commercial and agricultural communities of the land, but at times it has been in their hands a weapon with which to negotiate for better terms in other countries. It is absurd in my opinion to term the present existing tariff of Canada as anything approaching a real protective tariff. When every country in the world which has a tariff has been building up its barriers against this country for years, when we are shut out practically from the markets of the republic to the south, which has prospered as everybody knows to a wonderful degree under that same system of protection, when, as we look abroad we find no indication of any country in the world seeking to lower its duties, I say that it is nothing short of an absurdity to term the tariff which now obtains in this country one of adequate protection. If I had my way particular attention would be given to the revision of the tariff, to bring it to a condition that would give real protection, not only to the industries of the country, but more particularly to the farming community.
I am firmly convinced that the interests of the farming community would be greatly benefited, that the country would become enriched and that prosperity would follow in its train, if the products of the soil were given a protection at least equal to twice that which now obtains. I would have our butter, eggs and vegetables and all the products of the soil subject to a customs tariff which would in some measure prevent competition from the south. I wonder with what degree of confidence those of my hon. friends in the Progressive group who place, or appear to place, their faith in a policy of reciprocity with the United States, could, under existing conditions, approach that country and attempt to negotiate with them. The United States would simply laugh at them. They would say "We give everything and receive practically nothing in return". Of course I am no believer in reciprocity with the United States. I believe that nothing would tend to bring about in a shorter time, the ruin of Canada, the ruin of our industrial concerns and our agriculturists, and, in part, the ruin of our railways than any arrangement of that kind with our neighbours to the south. But even if we desired to negotiate such an arrangement, it would be ridiculous to approach them with any such bargain as we are able to offer at present.
The fruit-growers of my district, who are believers in protection as I have indicated, see

more than one way of getting protection for their industry. One of these is by a tariff, but not like our present tariff. The other is by a dumping clause, which gives them protection from the stuff dumped from the south of the line, where it has been raised and produced much earlier than in our own country. A resolution has been placed in my hands by the Associated Boards of Trade of British Columbia. Those boards of trade are not more particularly interested in the fruit-growing industry than in any other business interests of the province, but knowing, as they do, that some forty million dollars is invested in the fruit industry, and that it is suffering from very serious handicaps at present; they realize that the old dumping clause which was brought in by the previous government was a clause with teeth in it, which gripped and functioned. I wish the Minister of Customs (Mr. Bureau) were here to listen to what I am saying. I pause here to pay a tribute to the manner in which he has administered the existing act. The principle that protection should be given by order in council and that it should be left entirely to the discretion of the Minister of Customs is nothing more than vicious. I would say to the hon. minister who has charge of that department that he has endeavoured, I think, properly, to put the dumping clause into execution, and has instructed his officials to see that it was operated in the best possible manner. As I said before, it depends entirely upon who occupies that position. We may have a Minister of Customs at any time who would do little or nothing to meet the requirements of our fruit-growing population, as he might not be sympathetic towards them and might be a believer in free trade in all matters; and under his regime nothing but disaster would come to the fruit-growing industry. So, therefore, realizing the position of this industry, the Associated Boards of Trade of British Columbia have placed in my hands the following resolution-
Whereas general prosperity must be built upon profitable agriculture, which can only be realized if farmers are enabled to sell their products at reasonable profits ; and
Whereas it is detrimental to the best interests of all classes of the community that products of the soil bo sold at less than their cost of production to the grower in Canada; and
Whereas products of the soil are frequently offered from foreign countries at prices which are considerably less than cost of production;
Be it therefore resolved;-That the hon. the Minister of Customs, be urged to apply the dumping penalty to all importations of agricultural products sold at less than Canadian cost of production, bearing in mind the following points;-
1. The Department of Customs be asked to publish cost of production figures for all agricultural products produced in Canada, not later than June 1st in each

The Address-Mr. MacKelvie
year, such list to be in effect for one year, and that it be provided that when Canadian products are available and importations are invoiced at less than cost of production, a special dumping duty be collected, equal to the difference between the fair market value as established by the above-mentioned list, and the price at which such fruit was imported.
2. Dumping penalty should only be applied to importations made at such times as similar products are available in Canada.
After considering this very vexed problem very carefully, this is the conclusion which the Associated Boards of Trade in my province have reached in the matter. They are not advocates of the fruit-growing industry in particular; they are interested in the general prosperity of the province; and in view of the fact that such an immense amount of capital is invested in this important industry they have come to the conclusion that the present dumping clause needs to be amended in this direction. I am cordially in sympathy with the resolution. I do not say that, perhaps, it might not be improved upon. I believe, from the experience we have had during the last few years, that even the excellent dumping clause which was put into operation by the previous government could be improved in some important respects. I have tried to put the matter before the House as briefly as possible. A large percentage of the fruit growers are to-day suffering from this depression throughout Canada and it is impossible for them in the present state of affairs to find profitable markets.
Now, I am not going to argue the pros and cons of a protective policy; the matter was admirably treated this afternoon by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler). In my opinion, many vexatious problems which face the people to-day would be much more easy of solution were an adequate policy of protection such as I have indicated put into force. I believe it would have a wonderful effect on immigration; it would also tend to prevent emigration. If we can build up towns and cities in this country by establishing prosperous industrial concerns, thus providing employment for large numbers of workmen, we shall have no difficulty in retaining those of our population who are now seeking employment in the country to the south of us which has been made prosperous by virtue of a protective policy. Far from there being a steady stream of emigration from this country, we should be able to retain our population and attract back to the country many of our people who have left. But in my opinion this can be done only by having a reasonable policy of protection.
8J
I was not able this afternoon to follow the line of argument advanced by my hon. friend from Montreal. I did understand, however, that he was endeavouring to refute some of the figures submitted to this House in his speech by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen). But be the figures as they may, the personal observations of practically every member of this House must have led him to the conclusion that emigration from this country is a very serious matter at the present moment. I know of no section where the people will not tell you that they have lost hundreds, and indeed thousands, of their best citizens within the last few years. To stem this exodus is a matter that calls for the best attention of any government. What remedy is suggested by the present administration? I have heard nothing so far indicated in the speech of any hon. member, nor is there anything in the Speech from the Throne to show that the government has any really effective remedy in view.


George Perry Graham: Branch lines.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: I shall come to that
presently; that certainly will have a marked effect in certain parts of the country. After all, we might dilate on this question of protection at very great length, but so far as I can recollect no one has summed up the matter in more concise terms than was done on one occasion by one of the greatest statesmen and patriots which this continent has ever produced. Abraham Lincoln said that if a man buys goods abroad he has the goods while the other country has the money, whereas if he buys those goods at home he has the goods and his own country has the money also. The Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) interjected a moment ago a remark the purport of which was that among the means of preventing emigration and of encouraging people to come to the country would be the branch lines policy of the government. I was glad to note that paragraph in the Speech from the Throne which referred to the continued prosperity of the National Railways. The figures which nave been given to the country by the president of those railways during the past few months have been indeed encouraging to the people. While perhaps the president has built upon the splendid foundation laid by his predecessor, apparently he, or someone at least, has been responsible for a very marked improvement in one direction in the service of the National Railways: I refer to the esprit de corps which seems now to obtain among all the officials from the highest to the lowest. It is now a pleasure

The Address-Mr. MacKelvie
to meet them; they seem to be imbued with the idea that the service demands their hearty attention and support, and evidently they are out to give that attention and support. That no doubt is responsible in no small measure for the increased business in connection with the National lines.
Coming now to the question [DOT] raised by the Minister of Railways, I wish to refer to the matter that really urged me in getting to my feet. For several years I have been working as hard as possible in this parliament to bring about the completion of a branch line running through my constituency from Kamloops to Kelowna on the Canadian National line. It has been graded for several years and the country has expended $5,250,000 upon it. The arguments for the completion of this branch line are perhaps as strong, as forcible and as unanswerable as those that can be advanced for any similar branch line in the Dominion. I have submitted them to the House at previous sessions, and I consider it my duty on this occasion again to call the attention of the government and of parliament to the matter. In the first place, we have already, as I say, expended on that branch line over $5,000,000. It is lying idle and so long as it does so we shall lose the interest on that money which, at 6 per cent, would represent over $300,000 a year. Naturally the line is deteriorating every year, and it is only a question of time when the grade will be of no further service and will have to be reconstructed if the line is completed. This branch line will serve a wonderfully productive country and will open up a new district. Passing from Kamloops through Grand Prairie and the Falkland districts, it will open up a country untouched by any transportation system. In Falkland there is, I think, the largest pure deposit of gypsum on the continent, owned by a Winnipeg firm who are only too anxious to exploit it as soon as there are the necessary transportation facilities. A sixteen mile spur from my town of Vernon to Lumby passes through a rich and thickly settled agricultural and horticultural district. It goes through the famous Coldstream ranch, and when it reaches Lumby it enters a district of wonderful fertility, a mixed farming district that produces grain and hay, and from which are exported considerable wood products such as telephone and telegraph poles, railway ties and so forth. This would bring a steady stream of revenue to the main line. From Vernon to Kelowna you have a district containing 60 per cent, of the fruit growing population of

the Okanagan, and it is estimated that these men in this 35 miles are losing $200,000 a year at the present time in transportation charges, trucking their fruit to points upon the Canadian Pacific railway which would be touched by this new line. This would give them cheaper transportation facilities, and as I have already pointed out we are paying $300,000 in interest charges while our farmers are losing much money to-day trucking their products, and it would surely be a matter of economy to complete this branch line. Out of that valley this year went over ten thousand cars of fruit and vegetables and other products, and there was of course considerable incoming freight. It is estimated that the local revenue to the railway is upwards of three million dollars a year, and a very large share of that revenue would go to the National lines were this branch completed. I think I am giving a very conservative figure indeed when I say that the first year after its completion the National lines would receive at least a million dollars of traffic.
Now, as I have said, I have been exerting what abilities I possess in trying for some years to bring this matter before parliament and get the line completed. Hon. members can easily understand with what a feeling of despair I went home last year. True, the bill passed this House, but it was framed in such a way that the Senate immediately took exception to it and killed it the last day of the session. I was surprised to hear the right hon. Prime Minister say to the leader of the opposition the other night:	"Your friends
in the Senate killed that bill." The right hon. gentleman must have been extremely ill informed, or else he was endeavouring to deliberately deceive the House. It was not in particular the friends of the right hon. leader of the opposition in the Senate who killed that bill, for only ten votes could be scratched up in its favour, so it is not very difficult to understand that the feeling against the bill was by no means confined to the Conservative element in the upper house. Indeed, the hon. Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), I apprehend, is perfectly cognizant of the opposition in the Senate; it came from every quarter.
Greatly to my disappointment I have recently been informed-I do not know how good my authority is-that it is the intention of the government to again introduce a bill along somewhat similar lines to the ill-fated measure of last session. This, to me, would indicate that they are absolutely courting defeat, and it gives rise to the impression, which I have heard expressed in more than one

The Address-Mr. MacKelvie
section of the Dominion, that the government are not sincere in their intentions and for some reason or other, which I cannot fathom, would like to have the bill killed again. I know Sir Henry Thornton recognizes the importance of this branch line in that it would be one of the best feeders to the National system, but I do not know, and I have never been able to find anybody who could inform me, why it is that this year there is a chance of the government again introducing the bill in the same shape as they brought it down last session, which means that the Senate will mete out to it the same treatment.
I would implore the Minister of Railways to deal with these branch lines in separate bills this session, and so let each stand on its own merits. For the reasons which I have advanced to-night, and which I could enlarge upon if necessary, I have no doubt that the Senate can be persuaded that the Kam-loops-Kelowna branch line is absolutely justified; and I am equally confident that the Senate will look with favour on similar branch lines on the prairies which have been graded for years and which would serve a country urgently in need of transportation for its grain, which at present has to be hauled long distances to the nearest railway.


George Perry Graham: Does my hon. friend intimate that the Senate has not any power to amend a bill of this kind?


John Armstrong MacKelvie: No, I do not exactly
intimate that, Mr. Speaker; but I doubt the wisdom of cumbering such a bill with all sorts of what the Senate seem to conceive to be impossible conditions, when each line might well be the subject of a separate estimate, thus standing upon its own merits. I can conceive no possible objection to this course. The hon. minister has intimated that it would be difficult to keep the money flowing to cover the construction work on these lines after it is once started, but that has never been an insuperable difficulty in connection with any other public undertaking, and I do not see why it could not be overcome in this connection.


George Perry Graham: The labour situation is
never the same.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: I again say that my
friends surrounding me and those in the Progressive party who are interested in these branch lines present a united front in renewing their request to the minister to bring down this branch line legislation in such shape that- there will be no danger of its meeting the same fate again in the upper house.


George Perry Graham: Does my hon. friend think that is the real reason the Senate threw out the bill last session?


John Armstrong MacKelvie: That is the reason given.
I acknowledge that possibly there were some other influences at work which I cannot control; but there was the situation as it appeared before the public. The Senate gave their reasons for throwing out the bill, and in a general way the public regarded those reasons as pretty good.	.


George Perry Graham: That is not my information.


John Armstrong MacKelvie: I am not upholding the Senate; indeed the hon. minister will understand that it was a very severe blow to me when the measure was defeated in the upper house. At the same time, if he will read the Senate debates of yesterday he will observe that hon. Senator Turriff intimated in very plain language that the bill as presented to the Senate was very obnoxious. I do not suppose I can say anything further to convince the minister if he is not already convinced, but I do hope that those of us who are interested in these branch lines will not have to go home to our constituents at the end of this session with the same sorry tale as we had to tell them last year. If unhappily we have to, nothing will convince those constituents that the government did not deliberately court defeat of the bill in the Senate, knowing exactly what reception it would receive there.
Something was said this afternoon by the hon. member for St. Lawrenee-St. George (Mr. Marler) regarding the taxation problems which confront this country. None of us who have given any study to the situation at all have failed to reach the conclusion that industry to-day is stifled by excess taxation. The problem of how to ameliorate that condition lies in the hands of the government, and so far the only indication they have given of any remedial policy is that they intend to make a reduction in the tariff on the instruments of production-a policy which, as I have tried to point out before, instead of being a remedy would aggravate an already desperate situation.
The hon. member who preceded me (Mr. Marler) also had something to say respecting the sales tax. I do not know whether it is possible to abolish that tax, but I do believe it could be readjusted to lighten its incidence. An extremely inequitable provision is that which exempts firms doing less than ten thousand dollars of business a year. I know

The Address-Mr. MacKelvie
a firm in my own constituency employing ten oy twelve men, with over a ten thousand dollar turnover, and I also know a rival firm in which the two principals do their own work and come under the exemption clause. The night before I left for Ottawa I visited a moving picture theatre and saw flashed on the screen: Buy your products from So-and-So and save the 6 per cent sales tax. There is a most glaring instance of unequal apportionment of taxation, and surely it is something which the government, if it believes in a policy of fair dealing, will take haste to remedy before this session closes.
To-day a gentleman brought to my attention a matter on which I had not intended to speak, but which I know has been very fully pressed upon the attention of the government for some time back, and that is the condition of depositors of the Home Bank who have suffered such severe losses. Fortunately for me and my community there were no branches of this bank in my constituency. This gentleman comes from the mining town of Fernie, in East Kootenay, and the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. King) will no doubt agree that what he said was absolutely correct. He told of a most deplorable condition in that community, miners, many of them old men who had reached the end of their working days and whose entire savings had been deposited in that bank, were left absolutely penniless. I have no remedy to suggest; it is not my duty to do so at this juncture, but I do think that the proposals of the government to sidestep the issue and to start on its jauntings another commission to make an inquiry in a restricted way into what happened in connection with this bank during a certain period is like passing out a stone to those people who are demanding bread. The right hon. leader of the House intimated yesterday when pressure was brought to bear upon him, that he would extend the scope of this commission, but the result is problematical, to say the least, no matter how far its scope is extended. In any case I think it is only right, as suggested by the right hon. leader of the opposition, that the inquiry should go right back to the time of the issuing of the charter and take in those years when Hon. A. K. Maclean was handling the finances of this country as well as the time when Sir Thomas White was Minister of Finance in the Union government. The connection with it of the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) is also one which he would gladly see probed. But this solution suggested to the broken-hearted and impoverished depositors of the Home Bank

throughout Canada will bring them very little relief indeed.
I spoke briefly this afternoon of the effects of the Imperial Conference in London, one of which was to force to the country the then government headed by Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin. I should not have said " force "; he went to the country because he thought it the right thing to do. Mr. Baldwin said that his predecessor in office had made a pledge during the election campaign as a result of which he was elected that during his regime there would be no interference with the fiscal policy of Great Britain. Mr. Baldwin could, if he so desired, force through his preferential tariff policies, he had a sufficient majority to carry them into effect; but he considered himself in honour bound to refer the matter to the electorate.
I can draw something approaching a parallel in this connection:	Last session this House was
informed by the government through the hon. Minister of Finance that the present tariff had at last reached the condition where it could be termed a stabilized tariff. That promise went out from the government through the Minister of Finance to the country, and I have no doubt that business men in all parts of Canada governed themselves accordingly and made their arrangements, firmly believing the pledge that had been given and that there would be no interference during the remainder of the present term of parliament. If they are to be disappointed; if this solemn pledge from the government is to be violated, is the government in a very different position from that of Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin when he conceived it his bounden duty to make an appeal to the electorate of Great Britain? Those of us who were in this House during the session of 1921 heard from the then opposition, the present party in office-from the present Prime Minister and many of his followers-insistent and vociferous demands that the administration of that day should make an immediate appeal to the country. They said, "You have no mandate from the people; the people have lost confidence in you; it is your duty to go to the country.'' And there seemed to be a certain amount of justice in their contention; the government of the day had carried on for a considerable length of time. At any rate, the result was an appeal to the country. I am free to state, if my judgment is worth anything in political matters, that I have discovered in traversing this country from east to west and from west to east a feeling which indicates very clearly that the people of Canada to-day have entirely lost confidence in this government.

The Address-Mr. Stork
The right hon. Prime Minister the other night, replying to the leader of the opposition, sought to pooh-pooh the significance of the by-elections in Halifax and Kent. He said, "Oh, after all, these elections were determined upon purely local issues. They do not affect the position of the government in the slightest. Such things happen; by-elections of this kind have at present no particular political significance." Well, I venture to say that if the government will do as they should do; if they will decide that having broken or being about to break the pledge given so emphatically and so explicitly at the last session of this parliament by the Finance Minister; if they will take the honourable course as did the Hon. Mr. Baldwin and make an immediate appeal to the country, they will find, I am firmly convinced, that there was far more significance in the by-elections in Halifax and Kent than the Prime Minister wishes to convey to this House.


Mr. FRED STORK (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, in the brief remarks which I desire to make to the House to-night, I hope I shall not be regarded as speaking in a parochial or provincial way, but in view of the present necessities of the district of Skeena, and in view also of the enormous size of that constituency, I believe that in taking on any more territory I should be transgressing the rules of good taste. Therefore I desire to-night to address my remarks particularly to the central portion of British Columbia, from which I come.
At the outset let me offer my congratulations to the government on the Speech from the Throne, in that it indicates a reduction of taxation and also a general improvement of the conditions generally throughout the Dominion of Canada. More particularly do I wish to congratulate the government on its attention to the fishing industry of British Columbia. During the session of 1922, in accordance with a resolution passed by the Fisheries Committee of this House, the government appointed a royal commission to investigate the conditions of the fishing industry on the Pacific coast. By reason of my having been honoured with a seat on that commission I am perhaps precluded from being fulsome in my praises, but permit me to say without any flattery that the work of that commission was good and that it was highly appreciated by the people of British Columbia. There have been many commissions of a similar nature touring the province, and I am free to confess that the impression thej' left with the people was not of the best. When our commission came along in 1922 the
people in the West were wont to remark that this was just another of those joy riding affairs from which very little in the way of results could be expected. But the commission known as the Duff Commission carried out a most thorough investigation and it brought down a report upon which, I am glad to say, the government took immediate action.
One of the great issues in the province was the employment in the fisheries of nationalities other than the whites or Indians. That was a very burning question with the people who live on the Pacific coast. The recommendation of the commission was that in their estimation those other than whites or Indians should be reduced by forty per cent. Much opposition was offered to the suggestion that that reduction would not interfere with the proper operation of the fishing industry. Anyway, the suggestion was carried into effect, and I am glad to report to you, Sir, that all the people resident along the Pacific coast are of the opinion that that was a very wise measure and that it has worked no injury to the industry. I have in my possession several letters from those engaged in the canning business, and they claim it is a good measure and imposes no handicap on them. We were fortunate last year in that we had a bumper harvest of salmon in the salmon rivers of the Pacific coast. We look to a further good season this year and we hope from time to time to see the white citizens of this country given ample opportunity to develop the fisheries of that province.
Another improvement we are very glad to observe in connection with the progress of our fisheries, and that is that while on the Fraser river for a number of years back they have been allowed to use the fishing method known as the " gas boat," for some reason or other those who fish for a living on the Skeena and the Naas rivers in the north have been compelled to use the old British Columbia fishing boat equipped with a sail and oar. I never could appreciate why such a distinction should be made, but this commission that was out there last year, known as the Duff Commission, recommended that commencing with the year 1924 the use of gas boats be permitted on the Skeena. That recommendation comes into effect this year, and I know and am sure that the people who are making a living fishing will find it a very great advantage. I think if anything the regulations should have been just the reverse. The waters of the Fraser would be much more suitable for a boat with sail and oar than the placid waters of the Skeena.
The Address-Mr. Stork

But we are to have the gas boat this year and it will be a great advantage to the people who make their living from the waters of the north.
Another improvement inaugurated last year was a hydroplane patrol of waters of the north. It is a great task and very expensive, and last year the department inaugurated the plan of having a hydroplane for doing that work, and it is proving most efficient. We look forward this year to an increase in that service, because I am sure the department will find that as well as being efficient it is also very economical.
There is another aspect of the fisheries in regard to British Columbia that I wish to mention, and that is the progress of the halibut trade. The construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific to the northern port has completely revolutionized the halibut fishing industry. The railroad is now built to the fishing banks. Heretofore that trade was centered in the cities of Seattle and Vancouver, but it has followed the railways up north and to-day is centered in Prince Rupert. In 1923 twenty-nine and a half million pounds of halibut were marketed over the docks of the port of Prince Rupert. To convey that product to market required some fifteen hundred refrigerator cars, each car bringing a revenue to the Canadian National Railways of between $800 and $1,000. This development of the halibut fisheries has been one of the outstanding features of northern development, but the centralization of the trade also brings with it fresh problems and difficulties. Our Canadian fishermen who operate in that port are handicapped by the imposition of two cents a pound American duty. That is a burning question with the Canadian fishermen of the north, and they have protested repeatedly to the government here asking them to take whatever steps can be taken to have the duty removed. The Boat Owners' Association of that town have requested the government, in order to force this duty off, to close the port to American fisheries, but other interests in that port do not wish to see that drastic step taken. No one, I am sure, desires that the port be closed. What they do desire is that the duty be removed, and I as their representative would urge upon the government the necessity of continuing negotiations at Washington with a view to having this duty removed, because it is a grievous handicap and a great source of irritation and friction to the Canadian fishermen.
The waters of the Canadian Pacific fishing grounds are divided into three sections for

the purposes of departmental administration. They are known as sections or districts Nos. 1, 2 and 3. No. 1 has its headquarters in the city of New Westminster; No. 2 has its headquarters in the city of Prince Rupert, and No. 3 has its headquarters in the city of Nanaimo. For a long time the fisheries were administered through these separate and distinct headquarters. Then a system of centralization grew up, and of late years a central office has been opened in the city of Vancouver. This does not in my estimation make for economy or efficiency. We have in the central office in Vancouver a considerable overhead expense. We have there a considerable staff, and all the positions are under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. All these officials commence at a minimum salary and work up to a maximum. The staff consists of the following:
Maximum salary
Chief Inspector	 $3,600
Chief Clerk	 2,800
Accounts Clerk	 2,280
Purchasing Agent	 2,280
Senior Clerk-Stenographer	 1,680
Clerk-Stenographer	 1,260
File Clerk	 1,260
Lady Clerk-Stenographer	 1,260
Junior Stenographer	 900
Junior Stenographer	 900
Boy Messenger-Clerk	 900
Revenue Collector	 1,920
Gas Engine Foreman	 1,920
Resident Engineer	 3,000
Assistant Resident Engineer	 2,040
Inspector of Hatcheries	 2,160
Total	 $30,160
Eight of these officials do considerable travelling from time to time, and I am thoroughly satisfied that with the salaries indicated here, plus the travelling expenses, plus also the office rental and upkeep, the total cost to the country will be in the neighbourhood of $50,000. When I first came to Ottawa two years ago I took this matter up with the department. I took it up last session, and I am taking it up again this session. I took this matter up before there was any mention of " A whisper of death " or " A carnival of extravagance." So in pressing it upon the government I trust I am not stealing anyone's copyright in this connection. I would suggest that the office be abolished immediately. I am satisfied that to revert to the old style method of having each district report directly as an independent unit to headquarters at Ottawa will make in greater degree for efficiency and for economy. Take for instance a patrolman, or a fish guardian as we call them, on the Naas river who is in doubt in regard to the operation of the

regulations. He has to communicate with the inspector at Prince Rupert. The inspector at Prince Rupert writes to the chief inspector at Vancouver, who in turn gets in touch with headquarters at Ottawa. Ottawa addresses its reply to the chief inspector at Vancouver, the latter sends the message on to the inspector at Prince Rupert, who in turn com- ' municates with the official on the Naas river. By that time the fish has escaped from the net, or some fellow over in Alaska has got away with it. I am fully satisfied that no reasons based on good economy justify the maintenance of this office. New Westminister has a district office twelve miles removed from the central office. In Nanaimo there is another district office forty miles away from the head office. My advice to the minister would be to close these offices at once and save the country some $50,000 a year, and then to give $1,000 each to the three districts in order to improve conditions there. The chief inspector in the city of Prince Rupert starts work in that position at a salary of $140 a month. In view of his responsibilities, in view of the tremendous amount of work he has to do, $140 a month is a very inadequate remuneration. Before an official can qualify for a position of that kind he has to serve in the department, and in view of this system of promotion he is an old man long before he can attain the position of inspector of the district where he will receive the princely salary of $140 a month. He can start in at a- minimum salary of $1,680 per annum and the maximum to which he can attain is $2,280 per annum. I think the schedule should be reversed, and that when the official reaches this office after long years of patient work he should receive the maximum of $2,280 and that thereafter the salary should be graded down to $1,680. Because by the time the official has served for five years in this capacity, after many years of faithful service in the department, he is a subject for the old men's home. Where you have a man, such as -we have at the present time, in charge of the district office in district No. 2, and where he commences at $140 a month, I consider such a salary is not in the interest of true economy. I would suggest, as I have already stated, that $1,000 of the money saved in the manner indicated be appropriated to the three fishery districts, and distributed in such a way as to improve the working conditions of the men who work in the fishery offices.
Now, Mr. Speaker, one of the outstanding features of western development has been the wonderful growth of the grain trade going
The Address-Mr. Stork
to the Pacific ocean. The Rocky mountains form a great barrier between the prairies of the West and the Pacific ocean, but this mountain range is cut by two passes, the Kicking Horse pass and the Yellowhead pass.
A few years ago only a small trickle of grain found its way through the mountain passes down to the waters of the Pacific. This small rivulet has grown to a torrent in the last couple of years, and last year it assumed the proportions of a mighty and swelling river. This growth will continue as the years go on. The grain movement to the Pacific coast has come to stay, and to-night I beseech this government to construct in the port of Prince Rupert a grain elevator so that some of this trade may be diverted to that port, and so that the Canadian National Railways may derive some benefit from the traffic which will flow over the tracks of the Grand Trunk Pacific. The city of Edmonton is the natural grain centre for central and northern Alberta, and for a large portion of the province of Saskatchewan. The government is building an elevator today in that city. That elevator in Edmonton will not fulfil its proper functions unless there is also an elevator in the port of Prince Rupert to which its wheat cargoes can be transmitted.
I desire to associate myself, with all the power and energy I possess, with deputations and delegations from that country to Ottawa, with resolutions of the Prince Rupert Board of. Trade backed by the resolutions from the Board of Trade of Edmonton, with newspaper editorials from the press of both sides of politics, and with letters and telegrams innumerable urging the construction of a grain elevator in the port of Prince Rupert. The Grand Trunk Pacific railway was the product of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his government. That great statesman intended the completed Grand Trunk Pacific to be a monument to his memory in the same way that the construction of the Canadian Pacific stands to the credit of the late Sir John A. Macdonald. About 1905 or 1906 the government of Sir Wilfrid projected the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific. They said they were going to open and develop a new and wonderful country. The idea caught on throughout the whole of the Dominion; and people became convinced that the railway was a sound project and that it would open up a country that was well worth developing. The settlers who have gone into that northern country have proved to the satisfaction of the country, and to the satisfaction of those who initiated this railway in the first place, that the project was a sound one. There is tributary to
The Address-Mr. Stork

tile Grand Trunk Pacific 3,200,000 acres of agricultural land. The Mackenzie and Peace river country, which is an empire in itself, will pour its products out to the Pacific over the lines of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. That country to-day is peopled with settlers who have suffered intensely for lack of adequate railway facilities. The Grand Trunk Pacific runs through the Skeena country for a distance of 350 miles. It serves the Nechaco valley, the Bulkley valley, the -Skeena valley, the Kispiox valley, the Kitsumkalum valley, and Lakelse valley, each an empire in itself. These valleys are filled with settlers who are carrying on agricultural development as beat they can. They are not meeting
9	p. m. with very much success because local freight rates to the market are so high they can only with great difficulty make a living.
Local freight rates are based entirely upon transportation costs, and there is no immediate outlook for relief in the matter of local freight rate reduction, when w,e consider that we only have two or three freight trains a week travelling over the line when there should be four or five; and therefore these settlers to a man are demanding that traffic over the road be increased by the handling of wheat, so that the volume of trade over that road will make that particular branch pay. In that way they have some hope of relief and redress in the matter of local rates. Our terminal rates are the same from Edmonton to Prince Rupert as they are from Edmonton to Vancouver. This 350 miles of railroad running through the district of Skeena is manned by a great number of railway employees. We have firemen, engineers, conductors and breakmen, and all of the staff required to operate a railway. These men are only working a short time, because railway men are paid by the mile, and not by the day or the week. These men have been hanging on for years, expecting the fulfilment of the Laurier programme and the development of the Grand Trunk Pacific. They have been waiting and hoping for the development to take place; so have the settlers along that line.
But I can say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the people have no intention of remaining in their present condition indefinitely. They desire and they demand to be told what the policy of this government is towards the Grand Trunk Pacific. If these people are given to understand that there is to be no further development in the port of Prince Rupert they will govern their conduct accordingly. They will be able to map out their course for the

future, but they do insist upon finding out at the earliest possible moment what the intention of the government may be towards the completion of the Laurier idea. The greatest argument I have in connection with pressing the claim for the construction of this elevator is that it will bring traffic to the Canadian National Railways. It will furnish for the farmers the cheapest market and the cheapest outlet available on the Pacific coast. They will find that at the port of Prince Rupert they can deliver their grain to the elevator which is constructed at tide water on property owned by the people of Canada. In marketing their grain in that port, they will find that there are no port charges, no tolls and no taxes or levies to be collected, and the port of Prince Rupert is as free as the air you breathe. In regard to the harbour, I say without boasting, Mr. Speaker, that it is the best harbour on the Pacific coast. The whole British fleet could anchor with safety within the shelter of that harbour, and there is no danger of ever having to spend a dollar in dredging or in the upkeep of the harbour. We have an utter absence of fog and an utter absence of ice. You can see from the dock the flash of Triple Island light located fifteen miles out from the port-if a skipper believes he requires the services of a .pilot he can procure one, although many of them do not do so. The pilot can escort him to Triple Island light fifteen miles out from the port, and from that point he sets his course to Japan or for whatever port he may be destined to. Have we done anything with this port? We most assuredly have. At present there is loading in the port of Prince Rupert the tw-elfth steamship to be loaded with lumber for the Orient- They make the journey from Prince Rupert to Yokohama in sixteen days, which is a three-day improvement over any other record made from the Pacific coast. The terminal rates are the same from Prince Rupert to Liverpool as they are from Vancouver to Liverpool. We are 462 miles closer to the Orient than any other port.
I wish to draw the attention .of those interested to the fact that, in the opening up and developing of the port of Prince Rupert, the people are buying goods in their own country, and putting money in their own pockets. I am not making this appeal tonight on behalf of the settlers, who think they are entitled to some reward for their pioneering, although, permit me to say that 35 years of pioneering in the West is deserving of consideration. I am not pleading that special treatment should be given on that account; but from the standpoint of

The Adaress-Mr. Fansher
good sound business logic, and from the standpoint of national economy, I join with all the people who are living in the western land, in the city of Edmonton and in the city of Prince Rupert, in the request that an elevator be constructed forthwith.


Mr. B. W. FANSHER (East Lambton):: In rising to continue this debate, I feel that I must join with those who have preceded me in offering my congratulations to the mover and seconder of the Address. I have listened with great interest to the many speeches that have been delivered by hon. members of this House since this debate commenced. I listened with deep interest this afternoon to the speech delivered by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler).
I was greatly amused at the controversy over statistics, and the discussion as to who should be held responsible for the emigration from this country. I was reminded of a story I once heard of a darky preacher who, in finishing his sermon, announced that on the next Sabbath he would take as his theme Daniel in the fiery furnace, and one of his congregation immediately arose begged his pardon and asked that he might correct him. He said that Daniel was not in the fiery furnace, but in the lion's den; whereupon the darky preacher said, "My brother has not got the point. The point I intend to make next Sabbath is that it matters not whether Daniel was in the fiery furnace or in the lion's den, he was in a terrible fix anyway." I think the taxpayer of this country is, not so much concerned with who is responsible for the burden of debt that we are labouring under at the present time as he is with the question of how we are going to discharge that debt.
This debate had not gone very far until it became apparent that many things which are mentioned in the Speech from the Throne are not going to receive the attention that one certain item will receive, namely the tariff. As in other debates in former sessions of parliament, a good deal of discussion has centered around taxation and the tariff, and of course the tariff is attacked. I was very much interested in the remarks that were made this' afternoon by the hon. member for St. Law-rence-St. George (Mr. Marler) in his attempt to defend the protective principle; and I was rather amused that the time of the House should be taken up with a controversy over a policy in which the hon. member and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) both agree. It is strange that whenever this country gets a national headache the leaders of the old political parties seem to know what is
wrong. As we have been aware this last year, they have consulted national political doctors throughout the country, and in their speeches in this House they have indicated what they believe to be a remedy. They have looked at our national tongue, felt our national pulse, tapped our national chest in a number of places and put their ear to our national ribs, and the result of this diagnosis is that there is something wrong with our infant industries. They are agreed thus far; but when it comes to a question of the remedy some say that the tariff dose should be administered in increasing strength while others think that the dose should be diminished. The leader of the opposition declares that what is wrong with Canada to-day is that the tariff has not been administered lately in the same strength as it was administered when he was Prime Minister; and the disturbance in trade he attributes to a change in the quantity and strength of the tariff dose. On the other hand, the Prime Minister declares in the Speech from the Throne that he is persuaded that a reduction in taxation and in production and transportation costs is all that is necessary to effect an economic development hitherto unparalleled. To my mind the significance of the first part of that statement is considerable: the Prime Minister "is persuaded". I want to ask, by whom? I wonder whether it is by the resolutions of Progressive members which have been submitted in this House in the last two years, calling for tariff reduction. And when tariff reduction was not mentioned in the Speech from the Throne I wondered whether the amendment that was moved on one occasion had something to do with that persuasion. Or perhaps it was the electors of Kent and of Halifax who persuaded the Prime Minister. Possibly all these were factors in the persuasion alluded to. It occurred to me this afternoon, when the hon. gentleman from Montreal was speaking, that perhaps some persuasion was necessary indeed if there are many gentlemen on the other side of the House who also believe in the policy he advocated in his speech. But why should there be any persuasion? I have in my hand the tariff proposals as set forth in the Liberal platform of 1919. I shall read them:
That the best interests of Canada demand that substantial reductions of the burdens of Customs taxation be made with a view to the accomplishing of two purposes of the highest importance: First: diminishing the very high cost of living which presses so severely on the masses of the people; Second: reducing the cost of the instruments of production in the industries based on the natural resources of the Dominion, the vigorous development of which is essential to the progress and prosperity of our country.
That, to these ends, wheat, wheat flour and all products of wheat; the principal articles of food;
The Address-Mr. Fansher

farm implements and machinery; farm tractors, mining, flour and saw-mill machinery and repair parts thereof; rough and partly dressed lumber; gasoline, illuminating, lubricating and fuel oils; nets, net-twines and fishermen's equipments; cement and fertilizers, should be free from Customs duties, as well as the raw material entering into the same.
That a revision downwards of the tariff should be made whereby substantial reductions should be effected in the duties on wearing apparel and footwear, and on other articles of general consumption (other than luxuries), as well as on the raw material entering into the manufacture of the same.
That the British preference be increased to 50 per cent of the general tariff.
And the Liberal party hereby pledges itself to implement by legislation the provision of this resolution when returned to power.
In the face of all that, I ask, why was persuasion necessary? The Speech from the Throne indicates that we are to expect, when the budget comes down, something in the way of tariff reduction. Now, we do not judge a book by its preface; we judge it by what it contains. Nor do we judge an apple by its appearance; when it is peeled and quartered we know what it is like. I trust that the budget will fulfil the promise given in the Speech from the Throne.
There has been a good deal said1 about emigration from this country and the causes thereof, and perhaps further persuasion may be necessary if we are to be given in the budget the tariff reductions which we are looking for. With that end in view I am going to take the liberty to submit a few more figures which have to deal with the population of the banner province of the Dominion, the province of Ontario. Although the House has listened to a mass of statistics to-day, I trust hon. members will bear with me while I submit a few figures on the shift of population from the rural to the urban districts in old Ontario. I am taking a twenty-year period from 1901 to 1921. The population in Ontario in 1901 was 2,182,947; in 1921, 2,933,662-an increase of 750,715. Let us divide that population into urban and rural. The urban population in 1901 was 935,978; by 1921, twenty years later, it had reached 1,707,370-an increase of 771,392. Now, contrast this with the'rural population during the same period. In 1901 the rural population * stood at 1,246,969, but by 1921 it had dropped to 1,226,292-a decrease of 20,677. The percentages are equally significant. In 1901 we find the urban percentage to be 42.88; the rural, 57.12. By 1921 the figures are practically reversed, the urban standing at 58.19 as against 41-81 for the rural. In other words, during the last twenty years the population in the urban centres has increased nearly
800,000,	while the rural population has de-

creased by over 20,000. These figures are taken from the last census.
But this is not the whole story. We have opened up in the north a new area for settlement, and there has been heavy immigration into it, so that this addition to the rural population there helps to balance the decrease in old Ontario. Taking the older portion of the province by itself, there has been a decrease in the rural population far in excess of the figures I have presented.
I have before me a list of the constituencies in old Ontario, taking the area south of a line from Muskoka to the Ottawa river,, and the decreases Since 1901 are startling. Again my figures cover the twenty-year period from 1901 to 1921. North Bruce shows a decrease of 6,552; South Bruce, 6,183; Dufferin, 5,621; Dundas, 3,962; Durliam, 2,941; East Elgin, 595; Frontenac, 4,356; Grenville, 4,377; North Grey, 2,336; Southeast Grey, 8,203; East Hastings, 4,871; North Huron, 7,426; South Huron, 7,306; East Lambton, 8,639; Lanark, 4,239; Leeds, 3,066; Lennox and Addington, 4,352; West Middlesex, 6,354; Muskoka, 1,552; Norfolk, 2,781; Northumberland, 3,038; North Ontario, 2,970; North Oxford, 1,117; South Oxford, 516; South Perth, 2,233; East Peterborough, 2,575; Prescott, 557; Prince Edward, 1,508; North Simcoe, 3,971; South Simcoe, 1,589; Victoria, 4,516; North Wellington, 6,287 -thirty-two constituencies with decreases running into the thousands during the last twenty years.
What do we find in the urban centres? Toronto has doubled its population every fifteen years since its incorporation, and yet in this old part of Ontario there has been a decrease in rural population. I do not mean to charge this all to our fiscal policy, or the policy which fixes upon the consumers in the rural districts a tariff tax for the benefit of the urban centres, but in large part I do think that this tax is responsible for the unequal development. It is a system whereby money is extracted from the consumers in the rural districts and small towns by the manufacturers for their own benefit, to be expended in our large centres. I submit that these statistics amply bear out my contention. Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Where there is money to be made, there will you find people go.


George Perry Graham: Vultures.


Burt Wendell Fansher: I am very much indebted! to the hon. Minister of Railways for the correction. Perhaps the term is a little

The Address-Mr. Fansher
more significant, too, than eagle. Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the vultures be gathered together. Wheresoever there is money to be made, there will the people gather. That is a natural law; it is the lure of the dollar. We have it borne out in Ontario by these statistics.
I could cite in corroboration figures for the province of Quebec. The rural population in that province, according to the last census, has decreased in the last twenty years, slightly it is true; but on the other hand the urban population has increased to a very considerable extent. To illustrate my point further,
I may say that out of 416 townships in old Ontario-cutting old Ontario off from the Georgian bay to the Ottawa river-375 have lost in population during the last twenty years; they have fewer people to-day than they had in 1901. Only 41 townships show an increase, and most of them are situated close to cities which are overflowing into the surrounding townships. For instance, London has grown out into Westminster township. Windsor and the border cities have grown into the adjoining townships, and Toronto is extending out into the three ridings in York. To my mind these facts are very significant, not only from the agricultural standpoint but from the fact that there are fewer people in those rural districts to support the churches, schools and public institutions, and the costs are increasing. From the standpoint of the nation's welfare these figures are important; a development as unequal as this has been in the last twenty years cannot continue, and I would recommend that our census returns be studied more thoroughly so that they may be used as a guide in the shaping of our fiscal policy.
To add to my argument along this line I have prepared a few figures in connection with four lines of manufacture in this country, to show the amount of assistance which is afforded certain industries in the way of protection. The lines I refer to are automobiles, agricultural implements, boots and shoes, and rubber footwear and rubber goods. These are statistics obtained from information furnished by the Chief Statistician of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics.
There were produced in Canada in 1921, $81,833,226 worth of automobiles. Imports of automobiles into Canada were valued at $11,039,127, and exports at $8,552,883. The duty collected on the amount imported was $3,611,800. These figures show that about $80,000,000 of cars were purchased in Canada. Taking the value of the imports and the duty collected thereon, and applying that ratio to the
cars purchased in Canada, we find that there was a protection afforded the automobile industry, of $23,837,880. That is not taking the tariff percentages at all; it is taking the actual returns.' Now, $11,039,127 worth of imports paid duty to the extent of $3,611,800, so that every time we find that amount of $11,039,127 in the figure indicating the amount produced in Canada we get a further amount equivalent to the protection afforded by the duty.
Following that same line of reasoning in connection with agricultural implements, we find that in 1921 we collected a duty of $889,167 under this head and that there was a protection afforded of $3,824,418. When we come to boots and shoes the figures are a good deal more startling. Boots and shoes produced in Canada totalled $44,665,381. The amount imported was $1,582,697. Very few were exported, namely, $298,470 worth. The duty collected on the amount imported was $436,934, and carrying out the same ratio as with the others we find that a protection was afforded the boot and shoe industry in this country of $11,797,218.
Coming to the last of the lines of manufacture that I have considered, rubber footwear and rubber goods, there were produced in Canada in 1921, $39,469,786 worth; imports were $3,415,044; exports $4,088,205; duty collected, $971,506. The protection afforded was, therefore, $10,006,511. Combining these, we find that the duty collected on the four lines was $5,909,416 and that the protection afforded was $49,466,027. I do not say that that protection was all taken, but that amount of protection is afforded, and if industry argue that they need more tariff, surely they are taking all the protection that is afforded otherwise they would not ask for more.
I think if we would follow all the lines of manufacture through we would find that we are taxed to support the industries of this country to an extent of which we have no idea, and yet we are told by hon. members here to-day that we should protect industry in order that we may have a home market. I sometimes wonder how serious hon. members are when they plead for a home market for the farmers' produce. I have in my hand here an advertisement issued in 1918, in time of stress, by the Finance department and the Victory Loan committee urging the farmers to subscribe to the victory loan. You will remember the argument that was used at that time. It was that we had to sell to Britain and give her credit, and that we must threrefore raise the money at home
The Address-Mr. Fansher

in order to pay the farmer cash so that his produce might go over to Britain, and the farmers themselves were urged to buy victory bonds. This advertisement appeared in one of the leading farm papers of this province, the Farmers' Advocate. The first sentence reads:
The prices of Canadian farm products are fixed in large measure by the demand in Great Britain.
Now with that statement put out by the Finance Minister in the Union government in 1918, we all agree. Note the second sentence :
The price of all is governed by the part exported.
Yet we have hon. members arguing on the floor of this House for the home market in order that the farmer may get more for his crop, when officials who are identified with that very same party say that the price of all is governed by the part exported. "Be ready," it says at the bottom "to buy victory bonds". Down below that in small print appears this:
Issued by the Canadian Victory Loan Committee in co-operation with the Minister of Finance of the Dominion of Canada.


Andrew Ross McMaster: What was his name
then?


Burt Wendell Fansher: Perhaps the hon. member for Brome will know better than I do as he is an older member of the House. I think it was Sir Thomas White. I think the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) became Minister of Finance in August, 1918. These victory bonds were sold in the fall. Perhaps the hon. member for West York was Minister of Finance at that time. But the point I wish to make is this: I believe that many hon. members who argue for the protective principle and a high tariff, and who use the argument of the home market, know and believe that the home market is not nearly so advantageous to the farmers of this country as they would have them believe.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that I have already spoken at too great a length. In conclusion, I am convinced that such unequal distribution between the rural and urban population of this country is not in the best interests of the state. I am convinced that before we shall have the degree of prosperity that we are all looking for in these troublous times some readjustment has got to be made. There is a tendency to place goods beyond the purchasing power of the consumer. The cost of distribution growing out of this centralization is high. These are problems which we will

have to tackle with a will. I trust and believe that in the days to come there will be a natural readjustment brought about. I believe that in the natural course of events deflation will correspond more in all lines of industry, but at the same time I see no reason why industries that have to work two days to buy the products that another industry produces in one should be asked at this time to pay toll to the large centralized industries throughout this Dominion. The Speech from the Throne gives us promise of some redress in this regard, and I hope that that promise, to use the words of the Prime Minister himself, will be abundantly fulfilled.
Mr. J. R. OUIMET (Vaudreuil and Sou-langes), (Translation): Mr. Speaker, on the 3rd of March, 1924, an honourable member who is well known to me gave utterance to the following words, which I find on page 15 of Hansard:
Mr. Speaker, it is my duty and my privilege to be first to congratulate the mover (Mr. Kelly) and the seconder (Mr. Lapierre) of the Address this afternoon on the acceptable way in which they have performed a none-too-easy task. All of us recall how trying is the ordeal when a new member first addresses this House. Sometimes the ordeal does not become very much mitigated with custom, but nevertheless the first is the most trying, and the success of the hon. members I acknowledge freely and compliment them thereupon. Possibly in respect particularly of the hon. member for North Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. Kelly), if X caught aright a portion of his address, I should congratulate the government too.
This language is truly comforting to me, Sir, for it is the first time that I have had the honour to speak in this House.
The right hon. leader of the opposition showed so much sympathy towards new members that I shall take the liberty of adding a few remarks and of expressing my views relatively to what has been said, this session, in reply to the Speech from the Throne.
I do not think the House will deny me that privilege and that the courteous members who honour me by listening, at present will not reproach me for having abused of their precious hours of deliberation during the last two sessions, as I have been very patient and I hope to be likewise treated.
I listened with much attention to the different phases of the debate. I pondered over them. I found some of them quite to the point; others I found wanting. However, before taking up the subject I must-and I believe it my duty to do so-extend my congratulations to the mover and seconder of the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne.

The Address-Mr. Onimet
I should further add, Mr. Speaker, that for the first time in my parliamentary career the occasion lends itself to publicly convey to you my respects and congratulations for the mark of confidence that parliament has bestowed upon you by raising you to that eminent post of Speaker of the House of Commons. I would fear to wound your proverbial modesty for congratulations have poured in upon you from all sides, as much from the loyal as from the disloyal opposition of His Majesty as those that come from the party to which I have the honour to belong, they are so sincere that I shall not further dwell upon them; but I have private reasons to recall them to my memory, and especially the congratulations of those who were witness of your start in life, the troubled period of your political career and the period so calm and full of consolation of your university life.
I had the signal honour-it is now nearly twenty-four years ago-to be one of your most diligent students, and although not one of your most brilliant, yet one of the most deserving, owing to nature having deprived me of many gifts.
You will remember, Sir, your lectures on the history of Law, at Laval University, now Montreal University. I must admit that, never perhaps during our university life, my contemporaries and myself benefited so much by the excellent maxims of probity, honour and patriotism that you forcibly impressed upon us at the time.
We are all growing old, and it now gives me much pleasure to recall these reminiscences this evening. As it was so well said by a great French writer

I think it was Charles Nodier, in his Souvenirs de Jeunesse-it is one of the most delightful prerogatives of old age to recall with great accuracy reminiscences of one's youth.
You will pardon me, Mr. Speaker,-both you, and the late Mr. Monk, were so kind to your students of Laval in those days,-if I recall publicly these recollections which linger forever in the memory of those who are of fair lineage. As it was so nicely expressed by the hon. member for Nipissing (Mr. Lapierre): Tutored at the school of the great deceased, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who, although a Liberal, had a considerable number of political admirers holding opposite views to his, but who rendered him justice; you have sown the seeds of probity and honour in our midst, and we have endeavoured to follow your advice and teachings.
It is therefore in this frame of mind which you have so well fashioned that we feel happy
to acknowledge publicly this homage, we, all your old students of Laval, who, since you occupy a seat in this House, number, I believe, over fifty, either as member, minister or Speaker. I beg for the leniency of the House as a new member and a novice in my political career. Representing one of the finest, if not the finest county of the province of Quebec, situated at a distance of 70 miles from Ottawa and 50 miles from Montreal, the county of Vaudreuil and Soulanges which did me the honour of returning me by acclamation March 22, 1922.
Why did this election take place at such an early date? How does it happen that our good friends, our opponents, did not think it worth while, neither in my case nor that of my good and excellent neighbour, the member for Jacques-Cartier (Mr. Rheaume) to contest our respective counties? There must have existed a cause to all this, and I discover it in the fact that the Conservative party was still sleeping, and that it has since awakened after an alarming slumber, which might have been taken for a serious enough coma so far as the province of Quebec is concerned. It was so fast asleep that, on the 1st of September, 1923, this same party, semi-conscious, thought it was time to awake, and, Sir, I will establish the fact that it awoke in the county of my good friend from Jacques-Cartier (Mr. Rheaume), at Car-tierville. I have before me certain invitations which had been sent to me by our good friends the Conservatives who thought that something might be gained in the county of Vaudreuil and Soulanges and that we, the Liberals should endeavour to allow ourselves to be swayed by the honourable leader of the opposition.
Therefore, on Saturday, Sept, 1, 1923, reappeared again, at Cartierville, the Conservative political picnics of the province of Quebec, and this notice, which I shall read in a minute, had been scattered everywhere in the county of Vaudreuil and Soulanges, from Point Fortune as far as Point Cascades where we have a great number of Conservatives and Liberals. Here follows the programme which had been sent to our good friends:
At Cartierville Revival of* the Conservative Political Picnics In the Province of Quebec You are cordially invited
On Saturday, September 1, 1923, will take place, at Belmont Park, Cartierville, a large Conservative political picnic.
Belmont Park is an ideal spot for a day of rest and recreation; situated close to the tramway terminus at Cartierville, on the banks of the river des Prairies, east of Lachapelle bridge, it offers numerous amusements: merry-go-round, ferris-wheel, orchestra, band, beautiful lawns, century old trees, shaded groves. All,
The Address-Mr. Ouimet

girls, boys, men, women and children are cordially invited to this country festival which will be a grand prelude to Labour-day.
The political picnic will begin at 9 a.m. (Standard time) and end at 9 p.m. (Standard time).
The only expense you will have to incur will be in the making up of your basket for lunch and supper.
Be one of this great popular manifestation.
Both in the morning and afternoon, games will be held, amusements of all kinds, races opened to all ages, and various tournaments which will be rewarded by the distribution of costly prizes to the winner at the end of each event.
The programme of the games will be published in the sport page of our daily newspapers, on Friday, August 31, and will also be distributed at the door of Belmont Park, on the day of the picnic.
About 2.30 p.m. will take place the open air events when political speeches will be delivered by the right honourable Arthur Meighen, the hon. Rodolphe Monty, the hon. C. C. Ballantyne, the hon. Andre Fauteux, the President of the Cartier-Macdonald club and the President of the Conservative Association, English section.
A sufficient space to park, if necessary, 600 motor cars, in the Belmont Park, has been reserved for the occasion. The entrance and parking of cars will be free.
The transportation facilities from Montreal to Car-tierville will be announced more in detail in La Presse and La Patrie of Thursday, the 30th of August.
A special detachment of policemen will be responsible for the comfort of all and also assure that peace is well kept.
There will be no entrance fee and Belmont Park will be open that day to all who wish to divert and rest themselves.
N.B.-Keep this circular, it may be useful to you on the day of the picnic.
The hon. member tor Jacques Cartier (Mr. Rheaume) was not, perhaps, present at this grand picnic-which took place in his county, but he was wrong. Two days after this picnic, a certain newspaper of Montreal, which I shall take the liberty to quote in this House, a very interesting newspaper, which was and still is in the public eye published a report which is worth reading, but which will be rather displeasing to the hon. members who sit on the opposite side, because it concerns them too much. This article under date of November 27, 1923, has for heading:	"Mr. Meighen and his showmen." This newspaper Le Devoir among other things says:-I do not wish to overtax the House too much in quoting the whole article, for fear any one should think that I have abused my privilege during the two first sessions that I have occupied a seat in this Parliament!
The people of Quebec have the right and the duty to remember that Mr. Meighen was not the sole author
of the Conscription Act, but its most narrow-minded interpreter and its most odious perpetrator. I
I think, Sir, that I have the privilege of citing this extract; it is not I that speak.
It is an open secret that without the eventual and wise influence of Mr. Doherty and Mr. Borden, the
FMr. Ouimet.]
laws on conscription, censure and prescription would have borne more heavily on the people. If we wish to speak of prejudice and injustice, why not begin by branding as it should be the stupid ingratitude of which the Federal Conservatives gave proof against the most respectable and the least guilty among their leaders, to cling to the sharp flanks of this knife blade politician, whom they persist in forcing upon us ?
This is very wicked, I would never have uttered these words in the House.
The people of Quebec have also the right and the duty to reject Mr. Meighen's economic policy, halfprotectionist, half-socialist, his clumsy electoral empiricism which aims at winning over both the views of the West and the gold of the eastern manufacturers. The province of Quebec wishes to keep away from either one or the other policy, both are equally contrary to its instincts of social and economic equilibrium, instincts of which the Gazette is the first to acknowledge, on all occasions, the effective and truly conservative importance in the true sense of the word. By remaining faithful to this tradition, and thereby repelling the man and the policy which embraces the opposite views, the people of Quebec do not only protect their own interests: it renders a great service to the whole Confederation.
The Quebec people, the Canadian people-I mean those who are Canadians in preference to being English or French-have equally the right and the duty to sift and expose the imperialist policy of Mr. Meighen, to disclose their dangerous leanings and disastrous cdimax into which it would plunge the whole country.
[DOT] [DOT] *
In his recent touring of the country, Mr. Meighen applied himself, with more cunning audacity than true courage-regardless of what the Gazette may say-to justify his imperialism. He deemed it convenient to take his bearings from me: I do not wish for war any more than Bourassa! This is childish. No one, except a few rabid fools desire war for the sake of war. Very few people in France, in Germany, in England, in Italy wanted war, in 1914, still less do they want it to-day. Nevertheless, they were all embroiled in it; they are again rushing towards it. What must be shown, is that Mr. Meighen's policy does not incline to war no more than min or any body else. On this score Mr. Meighen hangs himself by wishing to justify himself, while shamefully contradicting himself.

*
I take the liberty, Sir, to quote this rather long article, as a number of members have already, to my knowledge, given much more extensive extracts:
"I have put on the bdots of Cartier and Macdonald" he said, at Victoriaville. What modesty! That he robbed those large boots, thanks to the degradation of his party, it is possible; but so that his skeleton feet might fit, he had them ripped, shortened, narrowed and shaped in such a way that they remind us of the original ones, like certain cobbler's show-case, those of "General" Tom Thumb compared with the boots of the giant Beaupr6.
Macdonald and Cartier applied themselves during all their lives to bring to a triumph this double principle: Canada must provide, to the full extent of its power, to its internal defence; England must alone carry the burden of the naval defence of the Empire and of all imperial wars. It is by adhering to this just principle that Cartier refused to the British Gov-vernment any form of co-operation in the organization of a nucleus of the imperial forces; that Macdonald

The Address-Mr. Ouimet
repelled the overtures made to drag him in the wars of the Soudan.
Sir Alexander Campbell, in 1887, established clearly that Canada has no other Imperial obligation than to provide, within the scope of her power, to the defence of her own territory. In 1890 and later, Sir Charles Tupper-
A gentleman who held, I believe, the post which the hon. member for Grenville filled at one time,-
-opposed vehemently the first overture of military and naval contribution.
I think that I am interpreting the views of my hon. friend from Laprairie and Napier-ville (Mr. Lanctot) in quoting the following extract:
Mr. Meighen, like the quack doctor of Moliere has "reversed everything". From the outset of the Great War, he proclaimed that the Canadian Government is held in honour to put the country "into Bankruptcy" for the glory and safety of the Empire. Again to-day, he holds that Canada is bound in duty to make common cause with Great Britain each time that the latter is at war, and therefore we must arm by land and sea. What Cartier, Macdonald, Tupper and the whole Conservative party as well as the whole Liberal party, from 1860 to 1899, held as unjust, condemnable, disastrous for Canada, even contrary to the true interests of the Empire, he considers desirable, expedient, necessary; it is even, he says, the only "honourable position" that Canada can occupy in the Empire. With such views, he wishes us to believe that "he walks in the footsteps of Cartier and Macdonald." Nonsense 1 At the very most be hardly finds means to screen his banners behind a torn flap of their trousers!
Obstinately resolved to continue his journey, full of jolts, in his top boots where his head is lost, as well as his feet, the Tom-Thumb of the neo-conservatism attempted, at St. Hyacinthe and Drummondville, to justify his wild prank of last year, when he insisted at all costs, that Canada should hurry to the rescue, arms in hand, at the sound of the first trumpet blast of Lloyd George, after the failure of Smyrna.
"The treaty of Sevres obliged us to this," he said, "we had to honour our signature." To want to hold us tied down for ever to a senseless, impracticable pact, disowned by all its authors, and never internationally ratified, that alone is enough to show the dangerous blindness of the personage. Can one imagine where could drag us this puny advocate, anxious for his pound of flesh, if the public aberration placed in his hands power and authority?
And the newspaper further adds:
It would be unfair not to point out the pious ardour of the two Quebec acolytes of the epileptic pontiff of unionism. Inspired by a zeal worthy of a better cause, Mr. Monty and Mr. Fauteux are bent on waging war against the "prejudices" of their compatriots. Their struggle both touching and ludicrous reminds us of the doings and gesture of certain personages matched together, in the comic reviews: Plic and Ploc, Mutt and Jeff, the Big and the Little one.
Of the two, it is still the little one who is the weaker. At Victoriaville, Mr. Fauteux reminded us of the preliminary work undertaken and the responsibility resting upon Laurier and the Liberals in the imperialist revolution which dragged us into the whirlpool of war and conscription. The remark fitted in well, and the tactic was fair. But what seems to be less in evidence, is that Mr. Fauteux and Mr. Monty, who, in the past, denounced Laurier's camouflaged
imperialism, have the right to demand that their compatriots swallow Mr. Meighen's gut-twisting imperialism.
Mr. Monty thinks that the French Canadians should place their confidence in Mr. Meighen, because he speaks from day to day better French, and that tomorrow like yesterday, he is willing to place in office many "Canayens". That is what becomes, in the hands of narrow-minded politicians nationalism in matters of language and patronage. That Meighen speaks the French language like Bossuet or Mederic, like Berryer or like the most dense ear-drum breakers of our courts and hustings, this in no way alters the worth of his views, his policy and of his person. Bismark spoke French perfectly; this in no way proved that he was France's best friend. Besides, one cannot too much insist upon the fact: it is not because he is an enemy of the French Canadians that Mr. Meighen does not deserve the public confidence: it is as an enemy of Canada, as destroyer of Canadian nationality and also of the best Conservative traditions: it is because, everything tends to show it, he is ready to shatter the economic equilibrium of the country, its social peace, its international position; it is because we know that he is quite willing, to satisfy his incoherent passions of half educated theorist, to drag Canada in the worst internal as well as external ventures.
Deluded politicians may find him an able dialectician; people without any foregone conclusion but endowed with some power of observation look upon him as a dangerous demagogue. The small Plies and the big Plocs of the reborn and soulless Conservative party- will strive in vain: the people as a whole, left to their good common sense, will not have him.
Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to quote any further from this article for I notice the hour is quite late. However, it does seem that the Conservative party awoke, but somewhat late for our by-elections in the counties of Jacques Cartier, Vaudreuil and Soulanges and others. They are to awake, one hears, in the province of Quebec. According to what I have just mentioned a few minutes ago and the extracts quoted, it would seem that the province of Quebec will tremble in the presence of my right hon. friend, the leader of the disloyal opposition of His Majesty!
What will be this awakening of the Conservative party? What will the awakening of the whole population be, not only of the province of Quebec, but from one end of the country to the other, from Victoria to Halifax? On what grounds will the electorate stand to judge of the awakening of the disloyal opposition of His Majesty? Will it be on the good faith of the leader of the Conservative party? Will it be on the good faith of the leader of the Progressive party or will it rather be on the good faith of the leader of the Liberal party, the right hon. Prime Minister of Canada? I notice on the faces of those who are listening that the answer is a foregone conclusion. It will be on the good faith of the leader of the Liberal party who, at present, presides over the destinies of Canada. The people will acknowledge the good faith of the upright and honourable man who

The Address-Mr. Ouimet

is in charge of our affairs, and the country will judge him upon this good faith. In their hearts the masses are just. Rouse their passions and they may get beyond control.
During the last session it could have been an easy matter to defeat the government. We had but, if I am not mistaken, eight of majority on the budget vote. That budget, as it was brought down in the House, made for economy, economy on all sides, economy showing thrift, etc., however, there were many others to practice; I will but mention one: that of speech. Indeed, what everyone thinks but does not express, I think it is my duty to mention, for I am free to express my thoughts. We had, in the course of the last session, on the budget as well as on other subjects many a sermon and advice. About eighty speeches were delivered on horse racing-" Malum per accidens and non malum per se " as would put it the hon. member for Dorchester (Mr. Cannon)-as a guide to our views on tjie question of labour, on the "loafing on the job," on immigration, on Imperial matters, on the French Treaty, on halibut fishing, which the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Cardin) will now have to take up, with the help of the good advices of the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). Incidentally I congratulate them and also the government for these appointments. They are of all, the two best appointments that could be made by a government conscious of its responsibilities and of the worth of the men it placed in these high offices.
We also had during last session, interesting discussions on decreasing the parliamentary indemnity, and if the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Stevens) was in his seat, this evening, I should sincerely congratulate him for the gallant way in which he opposed this measure. It is particularly on this last debate that we were treated to an amusing lecture of an altogether maiden-like and innocent simplicity on the part of these sanctimonious people, always fretting for others, while quite at ease for themselves, and who imagine that through shamming all sins will be forgiven.
If we had, in this House, only promoters- or lady promoters-of the parliamentary indemnity reduction, we would have to submit to a bankruptcy act for cradles. Fortunately, as the hon. member for Jacques Cartier so well expressed it, the cradle bankruptcy is not to be feared in the province of Quebec "for husband and wife religiously live up to their matrimonial obligations." May I ask the members of this House if things would so

happen in certain counties of Ontario, should the electors deem it proper to choose as their representatives persons of canonic age? But the "demon du midi" is there watching and I would not be astonished to see the county of Southeast Grey become vacant one of these days, and, there, we shall witness a great fight between the parties.
I paused, listened and kept my eyes open during the last sessions which I attended. And as I have the advantage-I think I may say so without appearing to boast-to speak both languages in use in this country, of which one is understood by all and the other -the most important and the one most used in diplomatic circles-is spoken and understood only by a selected minority, I was deeply and sadly deceived after listening attentively to the leader of the disloyal opposition of His Majesty. As to the leader of the loyal opposition of His Majesty-an opposition, forsooth, but more sedate and conforming more with the sound teachings of the instinct of self-preservation, and the satisfaction of duty accomplished for the welfare of the country and not of his party-I cannot but congratulate him on the position taken.
I have always had for the official leader of the disloyal opposition of His Majesty a profound admiration, and in this I think I share the opinion of the hon. member for Drummond and Arthabaska (Mr. Lafiamme) who made no secret of his admiration for the leader of the opposition, but who, in a speech he made, and which expresses - well our opinion, could not approve his way of reasoning, neither his insight nor his judgment. I will quote his words, which are to be found at page 2896 of Hansard, Vol. Ill, Session of 1922.
The hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) who has, in this House, no greater admirer than myself and who commands a prestige far in advance of what his age would entitle him to-I say it openly; I stated it in private, I may do so in public-and who is a powerful debater almost without any rival in this House-merely told us in picturesque language which I shall condense into a simile after the Latin mind, by saying: that the hon. Minister of Finance's head was as white as wdnter. He forgot to add this: that time had not impaired his vigour, which recalls a spring day.
And further on, at page 2896, during the debate on the budget, when it was a question of whether the Liberal party would remain in power and what would be the stand taken by the hon. western members on the budget, he said:
In other words the gentleman sitting opposite to us stated: Your policy is a poor one, but you are wrong in not having followed it. On the contrary, they add,

The Address-Mr. Ouimet
the principles we have been preaching for the last half century are the only true ones; by applying them, you are wrong. This is, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I have not yet understood, during my short experience in this House. I hope that public life will impart sufficient suppleness of mind to enable me to understand that this distinguished political leader and statesman was right when one day he endeavoured to reassure me in these words: My friend, logic and politics in Canada are two grand ladies who have never met in the same drawing room	
I think the time has come for one who, to-day, enters public life to shoulder his responsibilities, but I must, casually, remind the very able and estimable leader of the Agrarian party (Mr. Crerar) that tonight or in the wee hours of morn he will meet at the cross roads that lady of which I spoke a few seconds ago, and by name-cold logic.
And the hon. member for Drummond and Arthabaska ended his speech by these words which have always remained in my memory, because I esteem him highly; he is, indeed, an eminent lawyer, highly endowed, and who has much sway over the Liberal party and wields much influence in his profession, because his judgment is always sound:
I submit, Sir, that these three reasons are not worth much. I am sorry to say so-because the right hon. leader of the opposition, who does me the courtesy of listening just now, will not find in this House a greater admirer than me-I find with regret that the exigencies of politics have induced him, in his anxiety to defeat the main motion which is before Parliament, to take a stand giving the impression that there comes a time when the image of his country is dimmed by the clash of party interests, to the point of preventing him from taking a broader and more lofty view of the question.
We admit that the leader of the opposition has good qualities which he might have devoted to a better cause.	I would not go so
far as to say that I admire him more than the hon. member for Drummond and Arthabaska; it would be wronging our leader that I respect and honour, and who was able to surround himself with efficient ministers. I, therefore, admire the leader of the opposition, but, like the hon. member for Drummond and Arthabaska, I cannot admire his reasoning powers, his insight or agree with his conclusions; and in this I think I am expressing the opinion of one of my good friends, who at times, but at times only, evinces a kindly disposition toward the opposition leader. I refer to the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff). The right hon. leader of the disloyal opposition of His Majesty is, as the Minister of Defence so well expressed it one day, like the Bourbons of the old regime: He has neither learned nor forgotten anything. He has not even forgotten his own defeat, or his enthusiasm for the glory of the Empire. And if you will allow me, I shall remind you by the way of his momentous words uttered during the war: 9J
"To the last man, to the last dollar for the glory of the Empire." All the votes of these poor soldiers that are fighting in the trenches for the glory of the Empire, we must have, to carry a county by the name of Nipissing, or Chambly and Vercheres. We must, with that end in view, send code telegrams; we must hold on to power, notwithstanding the solemn promises we gave that we were only a war government. But, nonsense, we hold the power, and we shall keep it. "What we have we hold" always for the glory of the Empire.
We know the result produced by this statement, in the province of Quebec. Destiny, chance, unfortunate words and many other contingencies that I shall not undertake to discuss have made the right hon. leader of the opposition, an extraordinary personage under cover of meekness and modesty. He has a particular way of his own to pulverise his opponents and hurl the thunderbolt of eloquence. He gave us to understand, on many occasions in this House, that the party to which we belonged had broken its pledges, that the people had made a mistake on December 0, 1921. I delight in recalling his indignation, either dissimulated or real,-because I am told he is a great comedian,-when an hon. member hailing from the county of Springfield (Mr. Hoey) reminded him of his broken pledges. This did not prevent this hon. member to vote with the leader of the opposition on the budget however the hon. member voted according to the dictate of his conscience. The right hon. leader of the opposition has also proclaimed his great, immense, unfathomable love for the province of Quebec. Well, I have a word to add in regard to this great love expressed in words so odd that it could not be thought sincere by people in earnest as those of the province to which I belong. When, Sir, he made those statements in the province of Quebec, he must have twisted his features in ludicrous fashion; it would have been worth as much as to see a dog swallow wasps. What has been this tardy admiration, and this sudden manifestation for the good old province of Quebec? You will allow me, Sir, to express it in two words. This love was declared, as I said a few minutes ago, at the time of the Cartierville picnics and the awakening of the Conservative party, but it had previously shown itself. It had seen daylight on a memorable date, a few days I think, before the general elections of December 6, 1921. About that time, there must have been a caucus of my right hon. friend's party; at
The Address-Mr. Ouimet

that caucus they must have discussed the very uncertain chances of the Conservative party in Quebec; note, Sir, that I was not present at the caucus, but although I was not there, the following scene must have taken place, which I will enact for the amusement of the House,-it may perhaps divert the member for Grenville (Mr. Meighen): The Chairman of the liberal-tory-conservative-national-national-ist caucus must have told his partisans, by putting the question: "General elections are to take place, the date has been fixed for December 6, 1921. We have been in power against the people's wish long enough, we are going to consult popular opinion. What is, my good friends, your opinion?" Our advice is, answers the choir of leaders of the unionist group, that we must have general elections on December 6, 1921". Second question put by the Chairman of the caucus: "How shall we organize?" Unanimous answer: "The best way possible so as to remain in power which is so dear to us." There were delegates from all provinces at the caucus, even perhaps from Quebec. Third question by the chairman of the caucus: "How shall we act to meet the views of all the provinces-the Maritime provinces, the eastern and western provinces?" "For heaven's sake, give them cabinet appointments, " answers the chorus of wise Areopagities. "Ministers, ministers, inquire some delegates of the province of Quebec, but we have not had any in your cabinet since you have been in power." " We shall make some," answers solemnly the present right hon. leader of the opposition. "How will this take place?" questions the chorus of caucus members. " The thing is quite simple" answers the chairman, " we will make honourable three persons that have never taken part in politics; one in Three Rivers; another in Terrebonne; and still another in Montmorency and Charlevoix; and finally one in Beauharnois." The trick was played, and if the province of Quebec was not satisfied, well, it was very unreasonable. What happened, Sir? The result is known. The province remembered that this sudden effusion must have been brought on by interest which is the measure of the Conservative party's acts, We had the great satisfaction of seeing the Hon. Mr. Belley crushingly defeated by the hon. member for Charlevoix and Montmorency (Mr. Casgrain), we saw the hon. President of the Privy Council beaten hollow by the present hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau); we saw the hon. member for Beauharnois (Mr. Papineau) elected against the Hon. Mr. Monty; we had the full satisfaction to see the hon. Solicitor General, rMr. Ouimet.]
who had been so strongly urged upon to accept the nomination utterly defeated by the present hon. member for Terrebonne (Mr. Prevost). That is the result of the policy followed by my right hon. friend; and today it is asserted that the Liberal party- fears election. I shall quote the words of the right hon. member (Mr. Meighen) who spoke before me and immediately after my hon. friend from Nipissing (Mr. Lapierre) and proclaimed in his peroration, that the Liberal party dreads elections:
I venture to assert that the opinion of the people of Canada, already so often expressed, now so evident that he who runs may read, now so apparent that conceivably the government is urging its supporters to keep in the best of health and the pink of condition, for they want no more by-elections-I venture to assert that the judgment of the people of Canada is already written and waits only to be handed down and that the electors only abide the day when the conduct which I have described will be once and for all put an end to-the conduct legislative, the conduct administrative and the conduct electoral.
I wish to apologize, Mr. Speaker, for having spoken so much at length. We have followed Sir Wilfrid Laurier's policy since 1921, we, the Liberals represent, in this House, all the counties of the province of Quebec, and, I believe, we could again appeal with confidence to the impartial vote of the people. We have tried by all possible means to re-establish peace and harmony between the different groups and the various views which exist in this country. We are pushing forward and we will co-operate with all men of good will to bring back prosperity as it existed in our country previous to the troubled days of war. We do not wish to cast any slur upon the right hon. leader of the opposition who violently attacked us during the course of the last two sessions and who, to-day, again exhibited his fighting spirit reminding us of Captain Fracasse. He thinks that fear is in our hearts. We invite him to come to the province of Quebec as much as he pleases; he will always be a welcome guest; but as our late leader, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, at times said:	"When I visit Toronto, I am always
a welcome guest, but Toronto always votes against me."
As for our good friends the Progressives, we invite them to join us, for we have always been without fear or reproach, as becomes worthy knights.
On motion of Mr. Sutherland the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Graham the House adjourned at 10.38 p.m.

The Address-Mr. Sutherland
Friday, March 7, 1924