1925-04-20

PUBLIC SERVICE REARRANGEMENTS

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved1 for leave to introduce Bill No. 43, to amend the act to authorize rearrangements and transfers of duties in the public service.
He said: This bill, Mr. Speaker, will not involve any change in the existing law. It is suggested by the commissioners for the revision of the statutes in order to make the present law clearer. The purpose of the measure is to give power to the Governor in Council to transfer a branch of a department to another department and at the same time to transfer the duties of the officers of that 'branch to the other minister.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

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

Questions

Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	What additions were made to the funded and unfunded debt of the Canadian National Railways and affiliated companies, exclusive of the obligations of lines in the United States and of separately operated properties during each of the years 1921, 1922 and 1923?
2.	What was the total amount required for interest on funded and unfunded debt of the Canadian National Railways and affiliated companies, exclusive of the obligations of lines in the United States and of separately operated companies during each of the years 1921, 1922 and 1923?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	1921-
Debt to public	$ 10,549,767 98
Debt to government, including interest 122,642,486 83

Debt to public (decrease)	$ 26,032,305 07
Debt to government, including interest 85,654,123 70

Debt to public	$ 18,855,412 04
Debt to government, including interest 97,437,273 96

2.	Year 1921-
Interest	due	public.$33,530,140	26Interest	due	government..	20,966,781	99
$54,496,922	25
The interest	on	unfunded	debt	was..	..	878,224	30
Year 1922-
Interest due public	$33,723,850 40
Interest	due	government..	24,912,875	88

	58,636,726	28
The interest	on	unfunded	debt	was..	..	111,063	61
Year 1923-
Interest	due	public.$34,126,065	80Interest	due	government..	30,157,943	67
64,284,009	47
The interest	on	unfunded	debt	was..	..	126,725	98


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	What additions were made to the funded and unfunded debt of the Canadian National Railways and affiliated companies during each of the years 1921, 1922 and 1923?
2.	What was the total amount required for interest on funded and unfunded debt of the Canadian National Railways and affiliated companies during each of the years 1921, 1922 and 1923?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	1921-
Debt to public	$ 10,278,767 98
Debt to government (including interest) 122,642,486 83

Debt to public (decrease)	$ 26.326,305 07
Debt to government (including interest) 85,654,123 70

Debt to public	$ 18,595,912 04
Debt to government (including interest) 97,437,273 96

2.	Year 1921-
Interest due public	$34,476,014	02
Interest due government.. 20,966,781 99

$56,442,796	01
The	interest	on	unfunded	debt	was..	..	1,106,176	56
Year 1922-
Interest due public	$34,652,324	38
Interest due government.. 24,912,875 88

	59,565 200	26
The	interest	on	unfunded	debt	was..	..	235,917	33
Year 1923-
Interest due public	$35,041,380	28
Interest due government.. 30,157,943 67

	65,199,323	95
The	interest	on	unfunded	debt	was..	..	239,536	07


SADDLE LAKE INDIAN RESERVE
Mr. KELLNER:: 1.	Was a portion of the Saddle Lake Indian reserve reclaimed by the Crown?
2.	If so, how long did it remain in the possession of the Crown ?
3.	Is the title for said lands vested in the Soldier Settlement Board ?
4.	If so, by what authority was this land reclaimed from the Indians?
5.	By what authority was it transferred to the Soldier Settlement Board ?
6.	What was the consideration paid to the Indians?
7.	What was the selling price to the Soldier Settlement Board?


Hon. Mr. STEWART:: 1.	Yes, about 18,000 acres recently surrendered by the band.
2.	Surrender not yet approved by order in council.
3.	Transfer not yet completed.
4.	By statutory powers provided in Indian Act.
5.	Surrender was granted by the Indians in order that the area so released might be sold to the Soldier Settlement Board of Canada.
6.	Indians 'have received a per capita cash payment of $100. Balance will be placed to credit of band funds.
7.	$10 per acre cash.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-EQUIPMENT
Mr. MacLAREN:: How many steel passenger cars have been added to the equipment of the Canadian National Railways during the years ending March 31st, 1923, 1924 and 1925?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1923, nil; 1924, 154; 1925, 65. Total, 219.


PARLIAMENT BUILDING TOWER-CARILLON
Mr. WILSON:: 1. How many tenders were received by the Department of Public Works for the installing of a carillon in the tower of this building?
Questions

2.	What were the names of the firms who tendered and the amount of their respective tenders?
3.	Has the contract been awarded?
4.	If so, to what firm and at what price?
5.	Will the government table a copy of all tenders in connection with the said contract entered into for the installation of the above-mentioned carillon?


Hon. Mr. KING:: 1.	Four.
2.
Gillett & Johnston
Scheme	Scheme	SchemeNo. 1	No. 2	No. 353 bells	52 bells	53 bellsCarillon	$40,500 00 $39,500 00	$44,650 00Clock No. 1 (as per plan and specification).. ..	19,281 20	19,281 20	19,281 20Automatic player	6,300 00	6,300 00	6,300 00$66,081 20	$65,081 20	$70,231 20Carillon	. $40,500 00 $39,500 00 $44,650 00	Clock (alternative).. .	. 21,192 80	21,192 80	21,192 80Automatic player	. 6,300 00	6,300 00	6,300 00$67,992 80	$66,992 80 $72,142 80	John Taylor & Co.	Carillon	. $42,300 00 $40,000 00 $45,000 00	Clock	. 19.200 00	19,200 00	19,200 00Automatic player	. 6,000 00	6,000 00	6,000 00$67,500 00 $65,200 00 $70,200 00	Wm. Ashall	Carillon (Taylor bells).	. $44,400 00	$42,000 00 $47,200 00	Clock (Taylor bells)..	. 21,922 00	21,922 00	21,922 00Automatic player	. 6,300 00	6,300 00	6,300 00$72,622 00 $70,222 00	$75,422 00Carillon (Mears &]	I	$62,900 00	Clock (Mears & Stain- 1	$58,200 00 $64,400 00	bank bells) Automatic player	. 6,300 00	6,300 00	6,300 00

Mears & Stainbank
Carillon	$60,550 39	$56,756 71	$62,164 62No	No	NoClock	quotation	quotation	quotationNo	No	NoAutomatic player	quotation	quotation	quotation3.	Yes.4.	(a) Gillett & Johnston; (b) $63,930 (Scheme No. 3, without automatic player).5.	Yes.


HUDSON BAY RAILWAY
Mr. SPENCER:: 1.	Referring to answer question No. 21, replied to
the 8th of April, 1925:	On what railways was the
$8,084 spent?
2.	What were the reasons for continuing construction on the Hudson Bay Railway during the war?


George Perry Graham: Mr. Speaker, I think this question had better be dropped. It is a new question placed on the order paper, and it

is evident that the hon. gentleman is endeavouring to ascertain some information about mileage, but he has expressed the figures in dollars. I think he understands the situation. I would suggest that either the question stand until he can amend it, or that it be dropped and a new question placed on the order paper.


Mr. SPENCER:: Mr. Speaker, I am in touch with the department in regard to this matter, and I will drop the question for the time being.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Dropped:


LIVE STOCK MARKET REPORT
Mr. MERCIER:: 1.	Does the Live Stock Market Report, issued weekly by the Live Stock Branch of the Department of Agriculture, appear in English only?
2.	Is not this report expected to reach both English and Trench readers and publications?
3.	Should it not be sent out in both languages?
4.	Will the Minister of Agriculture undertake to have this report issued in both English and French?


Hon. Mr. MOTHERWELL:: Mr. Speaker, replying to the four inquiries embraced in this question, I desire to answer Yes to them all.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: 1.	How' many coal leases have been granted in the Drumheller, Rosedale and Wayne Fields?
2.	What was the total area of each original lease?
3.	To whom were these leases granted?
4.	How many leases have been subsequently subleased ?
5.	What was the area of each section subleased?
6.	Who is the present lessee?
7.	What was the amount of arrears of rentals or royalties at the time of abandonment of the original leases, or of subleasing?
8.	How many of the abandoned leases have been again leased?


UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: For a copy of all correspondence and communications between the government, any member or official of the Government, and any persons, during the past three years, concerning the disposal of the government property situate on the southwest corner of Granville and Pender Streets, Vancouver, known as the old post office property.


NIPISSING CENTRAL-ROUYN EXTENSION
Mr. ARTHURS (for Mr. McQuarrie):: For a copy of all correspondence and other documents passing between the executive officers of the Canadian National Railways and the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway Commission or any of its officers, and between the Canadian National

Unopposed Motions for Papers
Railways and the Government of Canada or any of the ministers thereof, and between any of the above-mentioned and the Government of the Province of Quebec or any of the ministers or officials thereof, regarding the proposed extension of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway subsidiary (the Nipissing Central) into Rouyn.


George Perry Graham: Mr. Speaker, I do
not know whether the hon. gentleman is in his seat or not. This motion refers to what, according to press reports, is the subject of correspondence between the government of Ontario and the government of Quebec at the present time. Of course, it would be futile for us to pass a resolution asking this government to produce correspondence which may have taken place between those two provincial governments. There may be some correspondence between the Canadian National Railways and either or both of those governments, of that I am not sure; but even if that were the case, it would be very indelicate at the present moment to make public the correspondence, owing to the difference of opinion that exists between the two provincial governments. If my hon. friend will allow the motion to stand I will make some study of it and see what it entails.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister has wrongly interpreted the resolution. I have just run over it while he was speaking, and I do not think it includes any correspondence between the two provincial governments. If it does, it is obvious that such a request could not be complied with.


George Perry Graham: Let me read the fifth line to my right hon. friend:
-or any of the ministers thereof, and between any of the above-mentioned and the government of the province of Quebec.-
"Above mentioned" I imagine would include all the parties enumerated.


Arthur Meighen: That does not include
the government of the province of Ontario.


George Perry Graham: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, no.


George Newcombe Gordon: In the absence of the mover of the resolution the order will stand.
Motion stands.
ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:
For a copy of all correspondence, of whatever nature it may be, exchanged between the Government of Canada and that of the United States or between any official of said governments either through the Departments or Commissioners from June 1, 1924, up
to this present date, in connection with the St. Lawrence Waterway Scheme, the diversion of the waters of Lake Michigan for the Chicago Drainage Canal and the diversion of the waters of Niagara Falls.


George Perry Graham: Mr. Speaker, it
would be better, I imagine, if this motion were withdrawn. If not, I would ask that it stand, for the reason that nearly all the correspondence between the government of the United States and the government of Canada was placed on the table some time ago. That correspondence included the St. Lawrence waterway and the Chicago drainage canal. The balance of the communications cannot be published until such time as has been agreed upon between the two governments. We hope in a very few days to place this correspondence on the table by consent of the United States government.


Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: Let the motion
stand for a while.
Motion stands.


ACCREDITED HERD SYSTEM
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. L. STANSELL (East Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) concerning a complaint I have received from a breeder of pure-bred live stock whose herd is under the accredited herd system of the government. His complaint briefly is as follows: An officer of the department has stated to this breeder that in future no herds will be accepted for accreditation unless the herd sire is two years of age or over; also, that herds already fully accredited will be dealt with in the same manner. If the statement by the officer is correct, I should like to know why such a ruling has been made.
Hon. W. R. MOTHERWEiLL (Minister of Agriculture):	Mr. Speaker, the complaint
referred to had not 'been brought to my attention. I shall be pleased to look into the matter and give my hon. friend an answer later.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, April 17, consideration of the motion of Hon. J A. Robb, (Acting Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Sir Henry Drayton.
2198	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Archambault
Joseph Archambault: Mr. Speaker, may I be permitted, before discussing the budget proper, to make one observation regarding the Special War Revenue Act? I wish to call the attention of hon. members to section 20 which gives a prior lien to the government over other securities. The last paragraph of section 20 of the Special War Revenue Act, 1915, as amended, provides that the liability to the crown shall constitute a first charge on the assets of such person, firm or corporation, and shall rank for payment in priority to all other claims of whatsoever kind heretofore or hereafter arising save and except only the judicial costs, fees and lawful expenses of an assignee or other public officer charged with the administration or distribution of such assets.
In my opinion, Sir, this legislation is absolutely unjust to lenders in good faith on security. The practical difficulty of the existing law is that the creditor has no means of ascertaining whether the person to whom he lends his money is a debtor to the government. It is possible for the hypothecated immovable to become the asset of someone who is heavily indebted to the government, and if the property is brought to sheriff's sale the government will have a prior claim for Whatever might be due to them. To illustrate, let me mention a case in point. If a man lends $3,000 on a property on first mortgage, the value of the property being $4,000, and it is ascertained beforehand that the borrower is not indebted to the government, nobody can prevent this borrower from selling the property to another who is indebted to the government. The property is sold later on; the government has a prior claim and get, say, $3,000 due to them before the lender in good faith can get his money. I submit, Sir, that this section should be repealed, or provision made by which a government lien shall not prejudice the rights of creditors who have registered their claim previous to the property becoming the asset of the debtor. This would afford a means by which the creditor could protect himself.
I may add that this prior claim of the government does not exist in England. The creditor there who lends his money on property on which he takes a first mortgage ranks, if the property is sold, before the government in the matter of taxes, and so on. I hope that the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) will take note of this observation and remove this legislation, which in my opinion is most unjust and unfair to a creditor in good faith.
Now, Sir, I wish to congratulate the Acting Minister of Finance on the excellent budget

that he has presented to the House this year.
I believe that in view of the difficult circumstances created by the late administration, the budget is a very good one. The Acting Minister of Finance has succeeded in balancing the budget and by keen business ability he has refunded maturing obligations and saved the country over $2,000,000 of interest a year. Our congratulations are due also to the High Commissioner for Canada in London, Mr. Larkin, in respect to the arrangements he has made regarding the loans to Greece and Roumania. He has some new securities on the revenues of these countries, especially on the wheat export, which will entitle us to hope that the taxpayers of Canada will be reimbursed some of the moneys that the late administration saw fit to scatter amongst its friends.
The best reason why, in my opinion, this budget is a sound and reasonable one is that it has failed to please the extreme wings of this House. It does not please the high protectionist and it also does not please the free trader. There is an old Latin saying, "in medio stat virtus." This budget reminds, me, Sir, of the attitude of Sir Wilfrid Laurier on racial and religious questions. The Tories of Ontario used to say that Sir Wilfrid wanted French and' Catholic domination, and at the same time the Tories of Quebec were stating that Sir Wilfrid was betraying his race and religion. Well, Sir, the principle that Sir Wilfrid Laurier did follow should apply to the fiscal policy, and I can see in this budget the embodiment of that principle. Our geographical situation is such that it is impossible to please everybody, and unless we make a firm determination to adopt a policy of give and take, a policy of conciliation, it will mean the disruption of confederation.
I wish to congratulate the government on the proposal they have made with respect to a tariff board. I believe that a tariff board will go a long way towards curing the ailments which beset us. I am not in favour of any iron-clad policy on tariff; I do not believe it will get us anywhere to say that we are high protectionists or to say that we are free traders. Every industry must be studied from the point of view of the interests of the consumer as well as those of the producer, and the duties should be increased or decreased accordingly. In my opinion certain duties should be increased and others should be decreased. I was in favour of the reciprocity-pact in 1911 with regard to agricultural products; I am still in favour of that policy, but I believe that until we get reciprocity in agricultural products with the United States we

should raise our tariff on those agricultural products to a point where it will be on a level with the high tariff of the United States on similar products.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton):: Will the
hon. member permit a question? Would he also be in favour of reducing the duties on products coming into Canada where the United States duty is lower than ours, as in the case of boots and shoes, for instance?


Joseph Archambault: Not on boots and shoes, but on agricultural products, absolutely. In my opinion free trade and high protection are not real policies. Free trade is a pious dream; high protection is a fit of hunger. I may add that everyone who has been studying the present evolution of fiscal matters must have noticed that the apostles of either extreme policy are becoming more scarce in this country. I call attention to our friends the Progressives. They came to this House, most of them, free traders, but I am sure that after having taken part in the affairs of this country, after having come in contact with all the diverse interests of this wide Dominion, they are not so strong on the policy of free trade to-day.


Mr. OOULD:: I rise to my feet just to
challenge the statement the hon. gentleman has made that the majority of the Progressives came here as free traders.


Joseph Archambault: That is a very
fair challenge, but it does not prevent me from holding the opinion that if the hon. members of the Progressive party were ever returned to power, they would not dare to apply a free trade policy to this country. I may say the same thing about high protection. A few days ago we heard a very excellent speech by the hon. member for Colchester (Mr. Putnam), in which he gave the House the opinion of a man who was a minister in the late administration, and who at that time endorsed the policy of protection, but who only a few months ago said that protection was not the proper policy for this country. I refer to Hon. Mr. McCurdy. And Mr. McCurdy's statement is such an interesting one that the House will permit me, although the hon. member for Colchester has already read it, to read it again. In a message to the press on the 5th of September last Mr. McCurdy said:
And first let me speak of the so-called "national'' policy, or system for protection, under and by virtue of -which it is certainly true that the manufacturers of Ontario and Quebec have fattened and grown rich, even although they are now passing through a lean period. But in what measure has this system of protection to industries alone helped us? It compels
The Budget-Mr. Archambault
Canadians, east and west, to buy the manufactured goods of Ontario and Quebec, but it still permits them to use American ports of entry and export for their goods, if so be they can wring a further profit thereby.
There, Sir, you have the opinion of a gentleman who formed a part of the late administration, who was supposed to endorse the policy of protection, but who is now coming out against that policy. This goes to show, Mr. Speaker, that the extremists on both sides are becoming more scarce in this country, and it is all for the benefit of the people.
If you look at the criticism of hon. members of the official opposition regarding this budget, you find that for the first time probably in the history of the Conservative party, their adherence to the policy of protection is not embodied in their amendment to the budget. What do you find in this amendment? You find that they contend that we should have more economy in this country. You find that they contend also that, we should have less taxation. I will refer later on to the increase in taxation and to economy, but I may say in passing that it is exhilarating to listen to their regrets and to notice the crocodile tears of the opposition regarding economy. There was only one instance pointed out by any member on the other side regarding economy. I challenge you, Mr. Speaker, to scan the speeches of the hon. members and find any real direct criticism, except in one instance, and this was given by the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) when he criticized the expenditure of the delegation to Wembley, and it was a pity to see the hon. gentleman the other night sitting in silence like a chastised child when the hon. member for Cape Breton South and Richmond (Mr. Kyte) burst his bubble.
Sir, it is true that the duty of the opposition is to criticize. I admit that right away. But t'he opposition, if it has any desire to be useful to the country, if it has any desire to regain power, must also give to the House and the country valuable and constructive suggestions. There are no constructive suggestions in the amendment; there were no valuable suggestions in the speeches made by the hon. members of the opposition. In my opinion the amendment is simply a crazv-quilt of platitudes to cover the soreness and disappointment of the hon. members of the opposition. Reduction of taxation-who in this country does not wish to see taxation reduced? Economy-where is the hon. member who does not wish economy in the administration of affairs in this country? No, I repeat, Sir,

The Budget-Mr. Archambault
this amendment was made in a moment of disappointment and soreness by hon. gentlemen opposite, because the backbone of their political campaign has been broken by this budget. You will remember the criticisms which were offered last year. They were of two kinds: first, that the industries affected by the tariff would have to close their doors, and that there would be an adverse balance of trade against this country. The second criticism was, not that they were so much alarmed about the actual reductions then made, but they believed-indeed they were sure-that these small reductions on a few industries would surely lead to a general reduction this year. I heard these criticisms during the election of St. Antoine; I have heard them even on my radio since the election; I heard them when the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) was tendered a banquet jointly with Armand Lavergne of Montreal. When we told these hon. gentlemen that the agricultural implement industries affected, like the Massey-Harris Company, and the International Harvester Company, were satisfied with the reduction of duties then made, they said: "Wait until next year. If you vote for the Liberal candidate in St. Antoine, you are giving the present government a mandate to go on, and to bring down more general reductions."
I may admit at the present moment, Mr Speaker, that they were partly justified by some-may I say, inconsiderate?-remarks of some of the members of the government. At the same time, that was the backbone of their policy, that was the backbone of their campaign: They were not afraid so much oi the actual reductions, but they were telling the people .that the government was going to make a general reduction in the tariff and that the industries of Canada would be crippled. What happened to those prophecies? The industries affected have made a better showing this year than they did before. The balance of trade, too, is in our favour. In 1924 we had a balance of exports over imports of $165,000,000; and in the first ten months of the year just closed we had a balance of export trade of $283,000,000. Therefore, those two prophecies have gone to the wastepaper basket. The third one has gone the same way. There are no wholesale reductions in the tariff this year.
So I was right, Mr. Speaker, when I stated that this budget has broken the backbone of the Conservative campaign. But they are not so easily daunted. Their backbone being broken they are sore, very sore indeed, naturally they have sought new devices and new alliances to try and fool the people once

more. I do not know very much about the campaign they are making in other provinces, but I know what is happening in the province of Quebec. Sir, we are offered in our province the most extraordinary spectacle and the most diverting entertainment for chasing the blues that we ever had. It is called "The great Conservative push" it reminds one of that little German putsch from Bavaria last year headed by the ponderous General Ludendorff followed by the Crown Prince to restore monarchy, which putsch with its combination of burlesque and slapstick comedy made the whole world rock with laughter. This great Conservative "putsch" came as far as Hull yesterday. The General Ludendorff of the "putsch" is the rotund Mr. Monty, who was a minister in the late cabinet but who could not find one Conservative constituency in Quebec that would elect him. The Krontzprintz of the party is none other than the celebrated Armand Lavergne, who has been hypnotized by the newly-discovered alluring charms and irresistible vamping powers of the right hon. leader of the opposition. They brought with them for protection the secretary of the Montreal Police Probe, Mr. J. H. Michaud; and occasionally the oratory of the party is elevated to the high planes or Gladstonian eloquence by Hon. C. C. Billantyne who has been nick-named in Montreal "Can't Come Back". Most of the publicity of that campaign is conducted in French in the official paper of the Tory organization called La Minerve. If the House will listen to me a few moments I think it would be greatly instructive to read just a few of the gems of this campaign; and after I have read them I am sure that hon. members will feel that I have not exaggerated in describing this new Conservative "putsch". Now, in the paper referred to on April 11, an account appeared of a lecture given in Montreal by a gentleman named Bousquet. Hon. Mr. Monty made a speech at that lecture which is headed in La Minerve "Sensational declaration of Hon. Mr. Monty". Listen to this-Mr. Monty is speaking:
In a great burst of eloquent words which made a great impression on his audience Mr. Monty violently denounced the secret pledge taken by the Liberal government with the English government to provide work for all the English immigrants, which means that if work is as scarce as it is now the Canadian worker will lose his job and be replaced by a " bloke
Listen to this one from La Minerve of 28th March, 1925, which is headed "Crime of High Treason." I translate:
When a Prime Minister of a country delivers, willingly or unwillingly, this country to the foreigner, and does that solely to remain in power it is called

The Budget-Mr. Archambault
by all the nations of the world a crime of high treason. Now the Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King is endeavouring to commit this crime; and if we do not take care, before five years all the provinces of the west from the west frontier of Ontario to the Rocky mountains will be annexed to the United States. Since three years the American citizens are invading the western provinces every year. It is by forty-five thousand and fifty thousand that they arrive annually to take hold of our land.
Listen to this gem:
If our* information is exact, and everything leads us to believe it is, Sir Loiner Gouin, backed by high personages like Mr. Holt, Mr. Beatty and others, is going to Europe simply to warn the King himself of what is going on here and prevent England from seeing one of the brightest gems of the British Crown being separated from the Crown.
Now, here is another published on February 28, 1925.
The Postmaster General is one of our compatriots, the Hon. Jacques Bureau. He constitutes, with the Hon. Mr. Lapointe, a galaxy of our national glories. He is always fighting for the defence of our rights. Since two or three years there has been a campaign in favour of bi-lingual stamps. Mr. Bureau is Postmaster General and there are no bi-lingual stamps. I leave the electors to draw the conclusion.


Mr. MACDONALD (Pictou):: Who say?
this?


Joseph Archambault: It appears in La Minerve, the official organ of the Conservative party in Montreal; it is signed "Jacques Durand," and formed part of this campaign. There is something more serious about it, Mr. Speaker. I thought we were through with racial appeals in this country. Mr. Ar-mand Lavergne is following Mr. Monty in this campaign, and he came to Ottawa or to Hull yesterday. I am surprised that the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) did not bring him with him to the meeting which he attended on Saturday in Ontario. Mr. Armand Lavergne made a speech which is reported in the Montreal Star of 26th March. This is the statement attributed to Mr. Armand Lavergne:
Brands Gouin coward.
The speaker labelled Sir Lomer as a coward and as "the Knight of the British Empire who represents you," and who had "run from the fight and was now in Europe.	...
Laurier was to blame for the imperialism which induced conscription in allowing Canadians to fight Empire wars in the Boer insurrection of 1897.
"The present government has not only failed in its duty to the French language, but has proved a traitor to it," he concluded, citing the example of the immigration laws which oblige a frenchman, when entering Canada, to read and sign, in English only, the declaration and proof of his educational requirements, " in a country where both French and English are official
Mr. Desrochers was accompanying Mr. Monty making the same kind of speeches, and one of his speeches can be found in the Gazette 141
of April 16. Mr. Lavergne yesterday made the same kind of an appeal, and this class of appeal I think should disappear from the political hustings of this country forever. I have no comment to make upon this kind of campaign. This new alliance will no doubt rejoice the heart of an ex-minister of the late cabinet who stated that Armand Lavergne had a callous heart and blackened blood in his veins.
Sir, may I oome now to one of the features of the criticisms of the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion). All those who listened to his speech must admit that the hon. member did not offer any valuable or special or direct criticism, except that regarding the Wembley exposition. He has not brought forward any constructive policy. At page 1783 of Hansard1 he is reported as saying:
Dealing with the budget from the standpoint of the ordinary observer I submit that this budget, in which there is a complete absence of any remedies for our present discontents, is like a train of fifteen cars carrying one passenger.
I will paraphrase what the hon. gentleman said and put it in this way: Dealing with the criticism of the budget from the standpoint of the ordinary observer. I submit that this criticism and especially the speech cf the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River, in which there is a complete absence of remedies for our present discontents, is like a train of fifteen cars carrying one passenger, disappointment, but raising a great amount of dust and wind.
Sir, it is real entertainment of the best kind to listen to the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River criticizing the policy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and of the late administration regarding the railways and regarding the fiscal policy. If my memory serves me right, it was in 1912 and 1913 that the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River, through the influence of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, was chosen, not as the Union candidate, but as the Liberal candidate in his constituency, and it was only later on that he accepted the candidature of the Union government. Why, Sir, in 1912 and 1913 and previously, when he was advocating the policies of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, he must have advocated even the policy of Sir Wilfrid on railway questions and on fiscal policy; and it is most amusing to see him now coming to this House and villifying what he praised before.
The official opposition offered no constructive criticism. They said that conditions in the country were bad. I have no doubt that the conditions are not as good as we hoped they



The Budget-Mr. Archambault
would be, but I should think when we look at the countries that have taken part in the war, we will find that, outside of the United States, we are faring just as well as any other country.


An hon. MEMBER:: Much better.


Joseph Archambault: Much better. The hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) gave us a very instructive speech on the industrial conditions of this country compared with the United States. I will not take up the time of the House discussing this question, but I may be allowed just to point out to hon. members a few items that will show that this country is faring just as well as the United States, and that these bad conditions do not exist in this country at the present time, as the hon. member would lead us to believe. A despatch of December 24, by the Associated Press 6tated that:
In the city of New York alone there are 300.000 unemployed.
A despatch from the Associated Press also stated that:
In the New England textiles there was misery and unemployment and these factories were closing.
In Fall River the production of the textile factories was reduced to 25 per cent.
Now, Sir, I have a few headlines here to show that the industries of this country are not in such bad shape. Referring to the Gazette of April 10, you will notice that the deposits in the banks have risen to eleven millions and a quarter. You will notice that the bank clearings are up nine and ten per cent.
I will read some of these headlines:
Canadian Milling Companies have been very liberal with disbursements to shareholders.
Ogilvie Flour to split stock three for one.
I quote this from the Gazette of April 10:
Fair business in iron and steel.
From the Gazette of April 13:
Fewer failures in first quarter. Best showing in Canada for such period since 1921.
The Paton Manufacturing Company is reported in the Gazette of April 15, as follows:
Lately prices were at a peak which has only been exceeded by the prices which prevailed in the two boom years of 1919-1920.
These people manufacture woollens and clothing.
During the past twelve months changes and additions to the plant at Sherbrooke have increased the capacity by 25 per cent. Even with this additional output the plant is working at capacity.
I quote this from the Gazette of April 10:
Quebec building trades situation is better.
I could go on and on quoting:

Better year for Massey-Harris Company. Better year for the International Harvester. Cotton mills
are reported active.
This is an extract from the Gazette of April 18 which is most interesting. It deals with the shoe industry:
Wholesale business has been more or less interrupted by the Easter holidays. Manufacturing in some lines is active. Quite a change has come over certain lines in the manufacture of boots and shoes, especially in ladies' wear, orders have been so good that it has compelled some of our manufacturers to not only work to full capacity during the daytime, but also bring their operators back for night duty.


Mr. HANSON:: If the statement contained in that newspaper paragraph is correct, how does the hon. member account for the fact that Ames, Holden & McCready for the first time in their history have passed their bond interest?


Joseph Archambault: Does the hon.
member know how much watered stock there is in the Ames, Holden Company?


Richard Burpee Hanson: What about their bonds?


Joseph Archambault: Here is another
report in the Gazette of April 17:
Better showing by Fairbanks-Morse Company.
This is also from the Gazette of April 17: Canadian and United States newsprint production higher for March. Mills of Dominion set up new record when they produced 126,267 tons.
I come to a new industry which is established in my constituency, manufacturing paper machinery. It is a new industry called the Charles Walmsley and Company, of Canada:
The plant is now busier than ever before. Work is proceeding nearly twenty-four hours a day, and sufficient orders are now on hand to keep the plant going at the present rate for the next eight or nine months.
I have in my hand a very interesting report in regard to the woollen industry. Hon. members have heard woollen mill manufacturers complain about the tariff, stating that the preference at the present time is forcing them to close. This is the report of the Regent Knitting Company, of Montreal:
The company was incorporated in 1913. It operates large worsted spinning, dyeing and knitting mills at St Jerome, county Terrebonne-
The county of my friend (Mr. Prevost).
-and a silk knitting mill in Montreal. It employs from 500 to 700 hands the year round. Its goods are selling all over Canada and in Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa.
Let us look at the financial statement of that company. In 1913, the sales were $174,000. In 1923, the sales amounted to $1,816,-

The Budget-Mr. Archambault -\

000. In 1913, the net earnings were S18.559. In 1923, they amounted to $138,319, and for the first six months in 1924, to $88,960. The reserve in 1913 was $6,700. It is now $379,103. This is a company which is paying a very reasonable dividend, which is doing a good business, but in which there is no "whisper of death." I know the manager of that company. He has faith in Canadian brain and brawn and he thinks Canadians are able to compete with any foreigner. That is the right spirit.
It is true that our debt is now $2,417,000,000. It is true that our expenditure is now up to $342,000,000, and that our surplus is not very large. But we must remember that in 1921 the interest on our debt was $135,000,000; that it is now $130,000,000, and that the interest on our debt is one of our greatest charges. I intend now to demonstrate, if the House will grant me a few more moments, that a great part of that debt, and therefore the interest that we are paying on it, are due to the blunders and maladministration of
4 p.m. the government from 1911 to 1921. Leaving aside, for the purpose of discussion, the railway muddle into which we have been plunged; leaving aside the enormous amount of money lost through war scandals, such as the famous horse deals the paper boots, the shovel with the hole in it, the bandages dear to an hon. member who is still sitting in this House, the field glasses, the hay, the shell contracts, the McBride submarine-leaving aside also the loans to Greece and Roumania of $31,000,000 not included in the debt, all the proceeds of which were scattered amongst companies in which friends of the government, amongst them members of parliament, had a great interest-


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: Oh, oh.


Joseph Archambault: If my hon. friend
who grins wishes, I will repeat. Leaving aside all those things and many others, I venture to state that, through the blunders and maladministration of the late government from 1911 to 1921. our debt has been increased by $493,566,654. Were dt not for these blunders and this maladmistration, we would be paying $25,912.248 less in interest this year, $2,159,354 less per month, $498,427 less weekly, or $70,965 less daily every day including Sundays. I proceed to prove my contention.
I say, first, that through unnecessary war expenditure the national debt has been increased by the sum of $247,313,394. As my first witness, Mr. Speaker, I rely on a man of great reputation, a man who brought honour to his name and glory to his country during the war, a man who was in the best 141*
possible position to speak with authority-Sir Arthur Currie. On September 11 last, speaking before the Citizens' Research Institute of Canada, he made a speech which startled the country, and which was never challenged. I had put on the order paper a resolution asking for an inquiry regarding these statements, but unfortunately my good friends the Progressives so clogged the order paper before they departed last session that it was impossible for my resolution to be reached.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: You mean the Ginger
group.


Joseph Archambault: It may have been they; I accept your apology. I have here the speech made by Sir Arthur Currie on that occasion, which will be found on page 133 of the official proceedings of the convention of the Citizens' Research Institute of Canada, 1924 and the part to which I particularly refer is this:
If there is one thing more than another that has been responsible for the increase in our national debt and in our taxation, it is the expenditure due to the war. I do not know all about the expenditures of the war, but it is my opinion that it cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than it should have cost, or would have cost, if expert advice had always been available, and if such as was available had been listened to. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that there were at least 100,000 men enlisted for the Canadian Expeditionary Force who never saw service in France, and who made no contribution to Canada's effort in the war. All these men were paid, fed, clothed, equipped, trained, cared for when sick, and transported. Many of them are still being cared for by the government, being in receipt of pensions or hospital treatment. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the average cost of these 100,000 men was $1,500 each, that had they not been enlisted $150,000,000 would have been saved. Furthermore, expert advice before the war and in the early months of the war condemned the Ross rifle. These experts said it was no good, and it was no good, yet strong pressure was exerted on Canadian units to continue its use, and even after it had been discarded by the first division other units were armed with it and forced to use it. Expert advice had condemned the harness supplied to Canadian troops as being unsuitable for use in war theatres, yet succeeding units were given this unsuitable harness as part of their equipment. Expert advice had condemned the Oliver equipment, yet Canadian units were supplied with it. There were other things also with which the Canadian troops were supplied which were scrapped in England before the units proceeded to France. I mention these flacts to illustrate the cost of neglecting to have available and to use expert advice.
Now, Sir Arthur Currie was the commander in chief of the Canadian army. If there is one man in the world who was in a position to judge these things, and who ds now in a position to tell the country that these expenditures were made through the blunders of the late administration, Sir Arthur Currie is that man.

The Budget-Mr. Archambault


Arthur Meighen: Will tTie hon. gentleman permit a question?


Joseph Archambault: Certainly.


Arthur Meighen: Is he aware that Sir Arthur Currie has denied those statements?


Joseph Archambault: I am very glad of my right hon. friend's interruption; I am ready for it. Sir Arthur Currie has never denied what is reported in the proceedings of the convention of the Citizens' Research Institute of Canada as his speech made on that occasion. What I have read is from the stenographic report of those proceedings. What he has denied is that he had tried to give a false impression about the conduct of the men at the front. The first papers to publish reports of that meeting were the Montreal Star and the Montreal Gazette, and the Star stated that Sir Arthur Currie was casting a reflection on the men themselves. That is what Sir Arthur Currie denied. He did not deny anything else, and I defy my right hon. friend to prove that he did.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman permit me? Will he be good enough to move in this House his resolution for an investigation? If he will, I assure him that I will support him.


Joseph Archambault: I will be delighted to do so; but I may say to my right hon. friend that although I have very much respect for him, on a question of this kind I would rather take the word of Sir Arthur Currie.


Arthur Meighen: Even as to an investigation?


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question by way of information? In what year was the Ross rifle first manufactured?


Joseph Archambault: That is a very
amusing question, and I do not see what bearing it has on Sir Arthur Currie's statement. I pity the reasoning of my hon. friend if, because some other people made a mistake in manufacturing the Ross rifle, he nevertheless would put those rifles into the hands of our brave soldiers in the field.


Arthur Meighen: Is my hon. friend aware that the Ross rifle was abandoned the first hour that any other rifle could be secured?


Joseph Archambault: I am aware of one thing-


Arthur Meighen: Is he aware of that?


Joseph Archambault: I will answer my hon. friend if he will possess his soul in pa-

tience for a moment or two. I am aware of this-and I think I have here an answer to my right hon. friend-I am aware of a speech by Sir Wilfrid Laurier regarding the Ross rifle, and for making it at the time he was called disloyal. What he said will be found at page 3487 of Hansard of July 17, 1917.
All these things which we have to take into consideration when we are asked to vote upon the resolution now before us. But, there is still far worse than that. We would count our losses small if they were only losses in money, but there have been losses in blood for which this government cannot escape responsibility-losses in blood which should not have taken place, and for which I charge the government of the day, and I think I shall prove my statement by what has occurred, and what is on the table of the House	already.	When our	troops crossed	overthey were equipped with the Ross rifle. Everybody knows that from the time the Ross rifle was first manufactured it was subject to very serious attacks. It was a	matter	for experts.	Some experts	condemned the rifle, others approved highly of it. Amongst those who approved of it highly was the hon. member for Victoria and Haliburton (Sir Sam Hughes) who was afterwards chosen to be Minister of Militia	in the	government	by my right	hon.friend. To	his credit it must be said he was always
loyal, and spoke with a seriousness which characterized him. He defended his opinion, and stated over and over again that the rifle was serviceable, and one of the best weapons and perhaps the best weapon of the kind. He was a member of the Militia Council which helped it from Mark I to Mark II and from Mark II to Mark III. When war was declared, our soldiers went to the front equipped with the Ross rifle.
It must be said, and everybody knows it, unfortunately, that in most of the engagements in 1915 the Ross rifle did not give satisfaction,-
This speech was made in 1917.
-and that it jammed in the hands of those who held it. The truth was known to the government; in fact, reports were made by experts and others, who said that, at the most critical time of the battle of St. Julien, when the Germans were coming and when they had to be repelled, the rifle jammed and our soldiers were unable to use it. They could not advance because their weapons were useless; they would not retire, but with tears of rage and grief in their eyes they threw down their rifles in the mud and took the Lee-Enfields that their comrades could dispose of.
It seems to me that that is an answer to my right hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: An answer?


Joseph Archambault: An answer-that in 1917 'Sir Wilfrid Laurier accused the government of leaving the Ross rifle in the hands of the troops. He said that the government knew in 1915 that the Ross rifle was not fit for them.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman has
either missed the point or he does not speak his own mind when he says he has an answer. I quite admit that the language was used by Sir Wilfrid Laurier and I would be astonished

The Budget-Mr. Archambault
if any human being would describe it as disloyal. I quite admit that many others used the same language. But what I asked the hon. member was this:	Is he aware that, no
matter what the rifle was like, we had to use it until we could get another to replace it, and that immediately we could get another to replace it we did not use it another hour?


Joseph Archambault: Well, I will refer
again to what Sir Arthur Currie says-and I think this answer should be satisfactory to my right hon. friend.


Arthur Meighen: I heard that. Give him a chance to establish it. I will be there.


Joseph Archambault: Is my right hon.
friend prepared to say that what Sir Arthur Currie has stated is untrue? Let him come out in the open and say it.


Arthur Meighen: So far as it was an attacl on the rifle, I do not pretend to be a judge. But if it was a criticism of supplying the men with the rifle when we had no other to supply them with and could not get any other, then it was unfair and unfounded.


Joseph Archambault: That is a very fine splitting of hairs.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Will my hon. friend permit me a question? Does he not remember-* we were both members of parliament at the time-that the Minister of Militia and Defence in my right hon. friend's cabinet, sitting with him, was defending the rifle at that very time?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly, and many
others defended i*. But the government got rid of it as soon as possible.


Ernest Lapointe: The minister responsible was in favour of the rifle.


Joseph Archambault: I knew very well
that this criticism would get under the skin of my hon, friends, but I am prepared to go along just the same.


Arthur Meighen: Get your committee, and get it quick.


Mr. CLARK:: Is my hon. friend aware that the Ross rifle was retained in many of the Canadian units for their expert riflemen- for their scouts and snipers-in preference to the Lee-Enfield, and that that was done to the end of the war?


Ernest Lapointe: When there was no
danger.


John Arthur Clark: My hon. frend says there
was no danger-in No Man's Land, for the scouts and snipers!


Joseph Archambault: How can my hon. friend harmonize his last statement, that the Ross riflle was retained, with the assertion of the leader of the opposition that it was discarded as soon as it could be got rid of?


Arthur Meighen: The statements are absolutely in harmony, and the hon. gentleman knows it. What the hon. member (Mr. Clark) says is that for scouts, snipers, specially trained men, they proved useful, but for the body of troops not specially trained in handling the rifle they were not. The hon. gentleman appears now to know a great deal about it; I wish he had had something to do with it.


Joseph Archambault: Does the hon.
member suggest that the rifle was retained for the use of cadets?


An hon. MEMBER:: Boy Scouts.


Joseph Archambault: Boy Scouts-well,
that will serve my purpose just the same.


John Arthur Clark: My hon. friend-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Arthur Clark: The hon. member has asked a question, and I propose, with the permission of the Chair, to answer it,


Joseph Archambault: With my permission, please. And I give it to my hon. friend readily.


John Arthur Clark: I said that the rifle was
retained for the scouts. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) apparently thought that "scouts" meant Boy Scouts, but I may explain that the scouts and snipers were the men who did the sniping and were in the most exposed spots, and that rifle was retained for them to the end of the war. That rifle was of particular value for expert riflemen.


Joseph Archambault: With all due respect to my hon. friend-I am not an expert in rifles, and I am very glad I ana not-I take the word of Sir Arthur Currie in preference to his.


John Arthur Clark: Wherein does my word conflict with that of Sir Arthur Currie?


Joseph Archambault: It is easy to show that. This is what Sir Arthur Currie says:
Furthermore, expert advice before the war and in the early months of the war condemned the Ross rifle. These experts said it was no good, and it was no good, yet strong pressure was exerted on Canadian units to continue its use, and even after it had been discarded by the first division other units were aimed with it, and forced to use it.

The Budget-Mr. Archambault


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman tell us what else we could have used, how we could have got another rifle?


Ernest Lapointe: Let Sir Arthur Currie
tell us.


Joseph Archambault: Ask Sir Arthur
Currie about it.


Arthur Meighen: Have your committee
and we will ask him, I will assure you of that. The Minister of Justice is not a bit more anxious for the committee than you are.


Joseph Archambault: If my hon. friend will allow me to proceed, I have been very indulgent-,


John Arthur Clark: Just before my hon. friend
proceeds I would like to point out for his information that it was under Sir Arthur Currie and by his express permission, that the Ross rifle was retained for the scouts and snipers in all infantry regiments that wanted to retain it.


Joseph Archambault: Now, does the hon. member deny the statement that Sir Arthur Currie has made in that respect?


John Arthur Clark: Not at all; we are talking about two different things. Sir Arthur Currie is referring to the rifle for its general purpose as a service arm, but not for the purpose of the training of troops, and not for the purpose of an expert rifleman.


Joseph Archambault: I am also referring to what Sir Arthur Currie refers to. All the discussion has been useless if my hon. friend does not refer to the same thing as I do. As I said before, through the blunders of the last administration, the country lost, according to Sir Arthur Currie's statement, the sum of $247,313,394, and I will tell the House how. Sir Arthur Currie clearly states that the sending of unnecessary men cost $150,000,000. I have now the cost of the Oliver equipment, which is mentioned by Sir Arthur Currie. This equipment cost the country $639,000. I have also the cost of the Ross rifle, which cost $9,577,120. I have the cost of the harness, which is $4,000,000, making a total of $164,216,120. Now if you take the interest from 1919 to 1925 at an average of 525 per cent, which has been the average interest on our debt, you have to add to this sum $83,097,274, making a total of unnecessary expenditure during the war of $247,313,394. The figures regarding the Ross rifle were given in a return brought down to the House in April, 1917. Up to that time 342,000 Ross rifles had been supplied at a cost of $25 for the earlier

lots, and $28 for those produced since December, 1912. The total cost would be between a minimum of $8,551,000 and a maximum of $9,577,000. I have the same basis for calculation with respect to the Oliver equipment, which was given in a return brought down to the House on February 6, 1917. I find that about 97,000 sets of Oliver equipment were purchased in the fall of 1914 at an average price of $7 per set, and if my hon. friend will take the time to figure that out he will find that it amounts to something like $679,000.


Arthur Edward Ross: Before the hon
member passes from the Ross rifle I would like to ask a question. When the investigation was held as to the defects of the Ross rifle, who was Minister of Militia, and what government was in power when that rifle was forced upon them?


Joseph Archambault: I do not suppose I need answer that question. The second item which I contend increased the debt, through the blunders and maladministration of the late government, was the expenditure on the merchant marine.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member know or has he any information as to how many months it would take to re-equip a factory to produce another type of rifle?


Joseph Archambault: Does the hon. member know himself?


Arthur Meighen: I do. It would take
twelve months, according to the best experts we had. The hon. gentleman, I suppose, argues that our men should have gone without rifles for the twelve months. I suggest he ask the hon. member for Rimouski (Sir Eugene Fiset) something about this.


Joseph Archambault: As I said before,
I take the word of the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian army, who is now Chancellor of McGill University, and if my right hon. friend is ready to make the statement that Sir Arthur Currie did not tell the truth, let him say so, and not run round about it.


Arthur Meighen: Just have us before a
committee. Move the resolution, instead of keeping it where it is.


Joseph Archambault: I did not move
my resolution for the same reason my right hon. friend did not bring on his resolution on the tariff.


Arthur Meighen: I will promise to bring
mine up. Will the hon. member promise to bring his?

The Budget-Mr. Archambault


Joseph Archambault: Well, we will bring them 'both together. Before passing to the other item of the merchant marine, I would like to make just one remark regarding this war expenditure.


Arthur Meighen: Is it the fact the hon.
member has dropped his resolution from the order paper?


Joseph Archambault: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, I see. I have not
dropped mine.


Joseph Archambault: My hon. friend
has been long enough in the House to know that if I had not dropped my resolution, I could not have brought this matter up in the budget debate.


Arthur Meighen: Bringing it up in the
budget debate does not get a committee.


Joseph Archambault: It may get a committee.


Arthur Meighen: Go on with it.


Joseph Archambault: It was my desire
to bring this matter before the House, and I first sent in my resolution on the 29th of November last, but as I said before, hon. members of the Progressive party had cluttered up the order paper with motions before leaving-to please my hon. friend who interrupted me a few moments ago, I will say it was the members of the Ginger group. Therefore, as I was desirous of bringing this matter before the House I had no other course than to drop my resolution, and to speak on this matter on the budget. Before leaving this matter I may say that similar statements to those of Sir Arthur Currie were made before-regarding the men, regarding the Oliver equipment, and regarding the Ross rifle. The statements were made in this House in 1917 by other gentlemen who are not here in this House, and we were accused of disloyalty for making these statements. I wish to bring to the attention of hon. gentlemen an editorial in the Montreal Gazette on the statement of Sir Arthur Currie, and I say without the slightest fear of contradiction that if in 1917 we had made speeches containing what is contained in the Montreal Gazette editorial of September 12, 1924, we would have been called disloyal by the members of the late administration. Here is the editorial:
The country is bound to be shocked and aroused by the startling charges of waste of effort and waste of money directed against our war governments by Sir Arthur Currie, our war general, last night.
Sir Arthur charged, first, that, "100,000 men were enlisted and sent to England who were of no use to us in the field."
This, it will be kept in mind, is the considered judgment of the man who commanded our armies in the field, and who thus knew exactly and by direct contact what men were of use and what men were not. His testimony is expert and practical testimony of unequalled weight. Yet he tells us soberly, six years after the war is over, that our authorities sent him 100,000 men who were of no use to the fighting forces in the field.
It is not too much to say that so grave and far-reaching a charge simply stuns. Sir Arthur calculates that each useless man cost the country $1,500. He is in a position to give us exact information on that subject. His estimate ought to be accurate. So we find no comfort in any hope that he may be wrong as we add up the astounding total and discover that this single category of blunders cost this nation $150,000,000.
But 'listen to this, and this is the part to which I referred a moment ago when I said that if we had uttered the statements mentioned in this article in 1917 we would have been called disloyal by the same group that ran the war.
Nor is this the whole story.
This is the Gazette speaking.
The withdrawal of 100,000 men from productive activity in Canada during whatever time they were in uniform, must have been of immense loss to the Dominion. Wartime industry was pressing every possible man into employment. Thousands who were rejected as unfit for the actual fighting, were gladly allowed to "do their bit " in the munition factories. Women were employed.
What a boon it would have been to have had the services at home of these 100,000 men who were fit enough to pass the examination and so must have been better than the unfit who did man the factories? Yet these men were taken away from useful employment, clothed, drilled and fed at the expense of the country, shipped to England at our cost and maintained there unproductively-a charge on the scanty food supplies of wartime Great Britain-and all because, as Sir Arthur says, expert advice was not taken or accepted. It was a terrible price to pay for ignoring the disinterested experts.
Here is the editorial of the Gazette.


Arthur Meighen: May I say to the hon.
gentleman that not a man was sent without the authority of expert advice. If any were sent who were not qualified it was because the experts were wrong.
Mr.	ARCHAMBAUUT:	Does	the	right
hon. leader of the opposition deny the truth of the statements coming from Sir Arthur Currie?
Mr.	MEIGHEN: I deny	that.Mr.	ARCHAMBAULT:	I am	very	glad
to get this opinion.


Arthur Meighen: Get us a committee.
Mr.	ARCHAMBAULT:	Hon.	gentlemen
opposite will find that the same criticism was made by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the House of Commons on July 24, 1917, reported at page 3725 of Hansard of that year but I will not

The Budget-Mr. Archambault
take up the time of the House by reading the remarks of that lamented statesman. The same criticism was made about the Oliver equipment.


John Arthur Clark: Were these men medically
examined before they were sent overseas?


Joseph Archambault: Yes, I think they were.


John Arthur Clark: Who examined them?


Joseph Archambault: The doctors paid by the government.


Arthur Meighen: Who were they?


Joseph Archambault: Now, Mr. Speaker, let me-


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman say they were not recommended by the hon. member for Rimouski, (Sir Eugene Fiset)?


Joseph Archambault: The hon. member for Rimouski is pretty well able to defend himself.


Arthur Meighen: He recommended the
method of appointment.


Joseph Archambault: 
Mr. STEVENS:: Will the hon. gentleman
tell us how he arrives at the sum of the total loss of revenue on account of tax-free bonds? Will be elucidate that?


Ernest Lapointe: We might have a committee.


Arthur Meighen: He does not want any
committee. He wants only to get something on Hansard for campaign literature.


Joseph Archambault: In answer to that
question, I say that the total of these figures was prepared by experts of the Finance department.


Arthur Meighen: By whom?


Joseph Archambault: I have the detail of the figures here and I will be very glad to put them on Hansard.


Arthur Meighen: Give them now.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This is not any captious
criticism on my part. There is a very important point, if the hon. gentleman will permit me to ask the question. I cannot see how the hon. member can arrive at his figures at all. There are thousands of persons holding tax-free bonds. If a tax-free bond were changed into a taxable bond, it does not follow that that bond would pay income tax. We would have to find out by whom these bonds were held, before we could arrive at any figures.


Joseph Archambault: I am not prepared to enter into a discussion as to how the department arrives at these figures. Let me answer my hon. friend's question now.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. member
give me the name of any human being-


Joseph Archambault: I do not have to
take orders from the right hon. leader of the opposition.

The Budget-Mr. Archambault


Arthur Meighen: I am not giving orders.
I am asking questions.


Joseph Archambault: These are the
figures prepared by the official of the Finance department.


Arthur Meighen: By whom?


Joseph Archambault: I do not need to
name anybody. Will my hon. friend deny that this is an approximate statement of the loss?


Arthur Meighen: I say it is obvious nonsense.


Joseph Archambault: Well, it will be for my hon. friend, who is going to speak tomorrow, I understand, to give us his views on this question.


George Perry Graham: We can understand why
my hon. friend does not like the opinions of the experts.


Arthur Meighen: I would like their names, before I would admit that they are experts.


Joseph Archambault: I come now to another matter which probably will not be sc controversial. Another loss which the country has sustained on account of the blunders o.' the late administration was the $10,000,000 paid to the Canadian Northern Railway shareholders for worthless stock, according to reports of my hon. friend the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton). Is it not a fact that the hon. gentleman in making his report stated that the common stock of this company was actually worthless? And still the late administration paid ten million dollars for this worthless stock. The interest on that sum from 1919, capitalized every year at the average rate of interest of five and a quarter per cent, amounts to $3,808,167, making a total of $13,808,167. Now, Sir, if we add those sums, $247,313,394, $108,758,858, $123,686.235 and $13,808,167, we arrive at a total increase in the debt of the country through the blunders and maladministration of the late government, of $493,566,654, and I say that the total debt of Canada before the war was $335,000,000. The annual interest charged which we are paying this year on that sum, calculated at an average of five and a quarter per cent, amounts to $25,912,248, practically double the interest we were paying in 1914.


Arthur Meighen: Has the hon. member
calculated the cost of the Transcontinental and the Grand Trunk Pacific with interest since construction?


Joseph Archambault: No, if my hon.
friend had been listening to me-


Arthur Meighen: It would be twice or
three times that.


Joseph Archambault: -he would have noticed that before speaking of these expenditures I prefaced my remarks by saying, "Leaving aside the railway muddles into which the late administration has plunged us, I will now give the figures". It ill behooves a party responsible for these errors to talk about economy. You may say those are things of the past. That may be true. The deeds of the past are the soundest criterion for the elector when an election comes. He has to look upon the record of the past administration when in office. We have the same men and the same spirit, and if the electors of this country are willing to bring them back to power it would -mean the same disaster.
Before concluding, may I point out something even more valuable than sound administration, something that this government has attained, the great task which was accomplished, I am pleased to say, with the help. and co-operation of the Progressive party. During the tenure of office of the late administration some of the provinces were not represented in the government, and hon. members have read in the Tory press the bitter attacks which have been made in a religious, racial and sectional spirit.


Arthur Meighen: Never in the world.


Joseph Archambault: I remember them myself, and the hon. member I am sure will not asik me to quote some of these attacks. I did so a few years ago, when my hon. friend for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) questioned me one day, and it is such an obvious fact that it does not require any answer. During the time of the late administration, from 1911 to 1921, especially in 1917, as everyone knows, bitter attacks were made by Tory members of parliament and by the Tory press in regard to sectional, racial and religious questions. Sir, when the Liberals came into power the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, wa6 ripped and torn by those attacks. The first goal toward which the Prime Minister concentrated his efforts-and I say this in commendation of his action-was the restoration of harmony and unity that was necessary to the welfare of the	country.
It was	no	easy task, Mr. Speaker.
Resentment and hatred were rampant in the country. Sores purposely inflicted by the late administration were still open and bleeding. Nobody can deny that. A deep chasm between the different races, religions and sections of this country could not be easily bridged. But the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King)

The Budget-Mr. Archambault
following in the footsteps of one who had devoted his whole life to bringing about unity and harmony in this country, set himself to this task, and I may say that he has succeeded. I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker; I appeal to the members of this House: Is it not a fact that since this government has been in power, you have not heard attacks of this nature in this House? I said a moment ago that this was due not only to the Prime Minister, but to the help of the Progressive party; and the reason why the- Tories are not making that kind of attack any more is that they know very well that the Progressives on that side would not stand for it. How different is this parliament from the old parliament! How different is the press of the country-


Arthur Meighen: Can the hon. gentleman not favour us with just one instance? It would not take him long to quote just one. Perhaps he would also find its counterpart from someone over there.


Joseph Archambault: I know my right hon. friend is using his own devices in trying to stop me in the middle of a sentence. I accept that with many others. I was saying that this parliament was different from the old parliament before 1921. I was stating also that the press of the country was different, and that we did not hear any more of these attacks except perhaps a revival of them by some of the Conservatives of Montreal, which attacks can be found in the speeches to which I referred a moment ago. But I am convinced that the Canadian people, who have suffered so much on account of these controversies of the past, which have hampered and retarded the progress of this country, will not very readily entrust their future in the hands of the sowers of disruption and strife, but will allow one who has given the best of his energy, the best of his patriotism, to heal what seems to be incurable, to cement what seems to be un-cementable, to finish his work and to bury forever the last remnants of disunion and discord.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Speaker, in rising to make a few remarks on the budget, I may, perhaps, be pardoned if I do not follow the hon. member for Chambly and Vercheres (Mr. Archambault) into all the highways and byways of political discussion through which he has led the House this afternoon. While I listened to
5 p.m. the hon. gentleman's discourse, and especially the latter part of it, I could not help thinking there must be some truth in the newspaper rumour to which currency has been given in the past few days, 
that the hon. member for Chambly and Vercheres is a candidate for cabinet honours and that he is to-day endeavouring to win the place to which he aspires. I do not think it is very profitable to hon. gentlemen in this House or to the country at large that, at this late date, so many years after the close of the bloody conflict, we should be rehashing old stories such as that about the Ross rifle and kindred subjects which made up the substance of my hon. friend's effort this afternoon. The speech made by the hon. gentleman was made with a very deep design; he was engaged1 in making campaign thunder in his province, and he made it for that purpose alone. I would like to ask the hon. gentleman and other hon. gentlemen opposite: Who was it that loaded the Ross rifle on the people of this country? Who was it that armed the Canadian militia with the Ross rifle, and who was it that made it impossible that any other rifle should be in the hands of Canadian soldiers when they went to battle?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: The Tories.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The best answer can come from the hon. member for Rimouski (Sir Eugene Fiset) who, at that time and for long years afterwards, continued to be the departmental head of the Militia department. He and everybody else in Canada know that the Ross rifle, whether for good or for ill, was loaded on to this country by the late Sir Frederick Borden and the Liberal government. It is not on record that the hon. member for Rimouski, some time Minister of Militia and Defence in this country, ever raised his voice in protest against the Ross rifle.


Sir EUGENE FISET:: Never minister.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Deputy minister-I beg the hon, gentleman's pardon-perhaps soon to be minister, if I may put it in that way.
There are in the speech of the hon. member for Chambly and Vercheres one or two matters on which comment might be made with some profit. First, I desire to refer for a moment to his references to the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion). One would suppose, to hear the hon. gentleman's criticism of that hon, member, that it was a crime for anyone to change his political allegiance or opinion. Many a first-class citizen who, prior to 1917, was of the Liberal persuasion, in that year and in succeeding years changed his political allegiance from the Liberal party to the Conservative party, for good reasons, never to return to the Liberal party again. Many a

The Budget-Mr. Hanson
man in a high walk of life in this country, for good cause Shown, changed his political allegiance at that time, just as the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River did, and not like other gentlemen, some of whom are members of this House to-day, who changed their political allegiance for the time being just because it suited their purpose to do so, and who, when the time came, skulked back into the ranks of the Liberal party.
Before launching into his eulogy of the government and his attack on the late administration, the hon. member announced to the House and the country his position with reference to the placing of a prior lien ahead of other secured liens under the Special War Revenue Act. I agree entirely as to the injustice of that legislation, and I support what the hon. member has to say about it, but I want to tell the House and the countiy that the hon. gentleman himself voted for that legislation, and it ill becomes him now at this late date to take this position. If he is right to-day, he was wrong when he voted for that legislation and recreant to his duty.


Joseph Archambault: I do not wish to
interrupt my hon. friend, but I am sure he does not want to mislead the House. He is wrong in saying that I voted for that special resolution.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Was not that resolution
crystallized into law as a result of the passing of the budget last session? It came into force on April 1 this year. Did not the hon. gentleman vote for that budget? I have no recollection of this special resolution, but I know he supported the government which put that special provision on the statute book, and he still continues to support it.


Joseph Archambault: Yes, and I am
criticizing the government for it. Can I be more frank than that?


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is a little bit late, I
suggest, on the part of the hon. member. He supported the government that put this special resolution on the statute book, and if rumour be true he is a candidate for a position in that government at the present time.


Joseph Archambault: No, no, the rumour is not true.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not worrying very
much.


Arthur Meighen: The bench would be
safer.


Mr. MANION:: Yes, far safer.


Joseph Archambault: It is just hearsay.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Before criticizing the budget, Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer for a moment or two to some remarks made last week in the course of this debate by the hon. member for Cape Breton South and Richmond (Mr. Kyte). That, too, was an election campaign speech. Stung by the just criticism of the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River, he went back into history thirty years to bring before this House what is commonly called the tu quoque argument. He did so quite effectively from his own point of view. But let me point out to the House and to the country that the trip to Wembley was a joy-ride pure and simple, indulged in by the chief whip of the Liberal party and his coadjutor and the chief whip of the Progressive group; while the trips to England referred to by the hon. member for Cape Breton South and Richmond of the exMinister of Militia and Defence (Mr. Guthrie) and the ex-Postmaster General (Mr. Blondin) were made on official business, and on official business only. What would the country think if members on this side of the House were to go to the last report of the Auditor General and dig up the expenses of the Prime Minister to the last Imperial conference?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I wish the hon. member would do that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have no desire to do it. We do not wish the Prime Minister of this country to go to the Imperial conference unless he goes "right" in the parlance of the street.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would ask
my hon. friend to do that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not suggesting that
we do that sort of thing. But to do so would be quite on a pair with what his own chief whip did with respect to the hon. member for South Wellington, who as Minister of Militia went to the Old Country in 1921-and who by the way is not here to defend himself and explain his trip. But what the country is interested in, and what it remembers at this particular time, is that. $4,200 of the peoples money was spent by this government to give a joy-ride to three members of this House, and the country resents such expenditure. No newspaper either supporting the government or opposed to it has, so far as I am aware, defended that expenditure. It is simply not defensible. Those members went over to the Wembley exhibition on & joyride pure and simple, not on any official business.
The Budget-Mr. Hanson

I should like to extend to the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) my congratulations on the manner of the presentation of his budget. Since coming into this House as a new member in the session of 1922 I have received at his hands nothing but the most courteous treatment, and I think it is only fair that I should so state on this occasion. As a member from the Maritime provinces, I should also like to join in the kindly references which have been made to the right hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding). Those of us who come from the Maritimes, where we are few in number, have a feeling of distinct pride in the fact that the Maritime provinces have since confederation given to this country no less than three prime ministers and no less than three finance ministers, all men of exceptional merit and standing. That is an achievement of which in the short history of this young nation I think any small community may well be proud. Not the least among these distinguished men is the right bon. Minister of Finance whom I have the privilege and pleasure of referring to now. While we do not agree with him politically, while we think that many of the policies which he has enunciated and carried out in the past have been defective, yet we all recognize the fact that he has been a great public servant, and now when he is perhaps in the shadow of his lifetime I desire, as a Maritime province member, to accord him this mead of praise and appreciation.
While I can congratulate the Acting Minister of Finance on the manner of his budget speech, I regret that from the standpoint of the country it is not possible for me to offer him my congratulations on the matter of it. His budget has been criticized in various places and in various ways. Our friends on my immediate left are wont to call it a stand pat budget. It does not please them. I have searched in my mind for an apt term to apply to this budget, and I am of opinion that I can characterize it in no more fitting way than as a juggler's budget. When I was still a youth and before I took any great interest in public affaire, I well recollect how astounded I was at reading the reports of the budget speeches delivered in this House from 1896 to 1911 by the right hon. Minister of Finance. Knowing as I did that the Liberal party was pledged against the principle of high protection and to the policy of low tariff or free trade, I was puzzled to understand how it was possible that through all those years that party could -with any show of consistency, with any show of political decency and honour, pursue the course

which they did through fifteen long years. Having come into this House, however, and having watched the government and its supporters, I can understand the riddle. This party from first to last on the tariff question has adopted' the tactics of the juggler; on the one hand, it has sought to appease one element of public opinion by preaching free trade or low tariff wherever it thought it would be to their advantage to do so, and on the other, cheek by jowl, to extend to the manufacturers secret information that they had no cause to fear the Liberal party, with respect to high protection. Having listened to last year's budget and to this year's budget, last year's having been a gesture towards free trade, and this year's a gesture towards a stand pat policy, I now understand that it is the policy of this government, led by the Prime Minister, to adopt the same attitude that characterized the Liberal party during the many years when they were in office previous to 1911. You cap fool some of the people some of the time; you can fool all the people part of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time, and the people of this country who believe in a tariff policy are beginning to find out just what the Liberal party stand for.
I think I can see the fine Italian hand of the Prime Minister in this budget. Last year we had a budget which in its material effects was a forward step in the direction of low tariff or free trade; so much so was it that it pleased a large majority of gentlemen immediately to my left and caused a considerable number of high protectionists in the Liberal party across the way to vote against it. It was of such a character that it caused the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) who sits for the county of Argenteuil in the protectionist province of Quebec, to characterize it as the "death knell of protection" and to call down upon his humble head the execrations of many of his most ardent supporters in that county-in fact, to bring forth a demand for his resignation. The Minister of the Interior is still proclaiming that this government is a free trade or low tariff government. But he is doing it now at very low breath after having listened to this budget speech, and without any very great degree of sincerity or of conviction that as a result of this budget and what it foreshadows there will be any very material change in the tariff of this country.
Hon. gentlemen who sit to my left have by moving an amendment expressed disapproval of this budget, and if they represent public opinion in the communities from which they come they will stand by the wouldbe resolu-

The Budget-Mr. Hanson
tion of the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) and will vote against the budget to a man. But I venture to say, having observed some of these hon. gentlemen now for nearly four sessions; having observed the gestures that have been made to them from time to time from across this chamber; having observed the alacrity with which some of them come to the rescue of the government whenever there is any probability of its being defeated, or the alacrity with which some of them side-step any vote when there is a chance that they might put the government in danger-I venture to say that when the vote on the budget is called there will be an element ready to save once more the skin of the government. I do not understand why some hon. gentlemen camouflage themselves any longer-we all know who they are in this chamber. I d'o not know why they cannot be as honest as the member from Muskoka (Mr. Hammel) and the member for Prescott (Mr. Binette and cross the floor of the House where they belong. That at all events would be political decency.


Mr. ELLIOTT (Dundas):: Must we ask the hon. gentleman what we should do?


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. gentleman will not have much to say about it, so far as I can see, after the next election down in the county of Dundas.


Preston Elliott: We have heard prophecies from the hon. member before.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, I never posed as
much of a prophet, but everybody knows where hon. gentlemen in this part -of the chamber stand on questions of principle. We do not preach one thing and practise another.
I have been curious to understand, Mr. Speaker, just what were the underlying reasons that induced the Acting Minister of Finance to drop his proposal with respect to the dumping clause. Was it because of the fierce opposition to that proposal which arose in the Canadian west, as offered by their representatives here, or was it because it was one of those ill-conceived and ill-digested proposals that the government has brought down on more than one occasion? Perhaps we will know a little later just what the reason was that that child was stifled before it was actually bora. There is one thing it will do, however:	It will give some hon. gentlemen
to my left an excuse, or an opportunity, we will say, to support the budget. I venture to say that at least a dozen of them will support it; probably more than that, and this will serve as an excuse for doing so.
The most disconcerting phase of this budget, to my mind, is that in none of the proposals is there any relief for the tax-ridden people of this country. If there is one thing that is agitating the public mind at the present time more than another it is the burden of federal taxation-yes, and of provincial and municipal taxtion-which the people are labouring under. Unless there be some relief in this direction, especially with reference to the income tax, there will be an emigration of capital from Canada. This country lies for 3,000 miles along the border of the United States and anybody who has studied the fundamentals of taxation or of political economy knows that a country situated such as ours is should not have appreciably higher taxation than its neighbours to the south. Just so long as there is a marked disparity between the income tax in Canada and the income tax in the United States, just so long will there be an efflux from Canada to the south, where the taxation is lower. If hon. gentlemen have any doubt about it, let them obtain from any trust company the calculations as to the difference between the income taxation in Canada and that in the United States. Let me give a concrete illustration. I have in mind a gentleman living in New Brunswick who for years spent his winters in Florida. Recently he came to the conclusion that 'because of the decrease, or the promise of decrease, in taxation in the United States it would be much better for him to become a permanent resident of the state of Florida than to remain in New Brunswick, and he proposes taking up his domicile in that state. First of all, he would pay less income tax; secondly, there is no inheritance tax in the state of Florida; the President of ithe United States has in his public utterances stated that the federal authority should discontinue the collection of inheritance taxes and should leave that matter to the states alone. Does anybody in Canada believe that that will not have a marked effect upon the efflux of capital from Canada to the United States?
Just let me pause to consider what the effect will be. If the disparity is great enough the result is almost sure to be to the disadvantage of this country. Therefore I say the government should begin, and begin at once, to give some consideration to this question of income tax disparity, and to put our taxation on a level, or nearly so, with that of the neighbouring republic.
Furthermore, there has been no reduction in this country in other vexatious imposts placed upon the backs of the taxpayers by the present government. It is true that after
The Budget-Mr. Hanson

the sales tax was raised to 6 per cent, the government discovered that a great mistake had been made because of the pyramiding of that taxation and the increased cost of living, and the sales tax was reduced in a certain degree last session, but it is still not back to the level where people expect it to be placed. Neither has there been any reduction in the other direct taxation imposts made by this government since it came into power.


Mr. ROBB:: Will my hon. friend allow me to just remind him that last year we removed the sales tax altogether from the implements of production, that we reduced it 2i per cent on boots and shoes, and we added a long list of articles that are free of sales tax altogether.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am quite aware of that. I have already made reference to the fact that the government, having regard to its hasty and ill-digested resolutions of 1923, at the first opportunity took a step to redress the grievance that had been thus created, and no one knows that this grievance was created by the budget of 1923 better than the Acting Minister of Finance. But I want to tell the hon. gentleman that he has not gone far enough yet, that the people of this country are demanding further decreases in taxation.


James Alexander Robb: We will give it to them in
time.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not so sure that
the hon. gentleman will; I do not think he will ibe in power to give it to them after another election. There is no question that a thing that is agitating the business men of this country to-day is the absolutely heavy cost of doing business, and the sales tax is one of the greatest items in that cost. Now I do not object to a reasonable sales tax, but a sales tax that can be pyramided as this tax has been pyramided in the past has become a burden to the people, and whether they have reason to db so or not, they are crying out against it. That is the topic of conversation one hears all over. If one goes to a directors' meeting or a meeting of shareholders; if one discusses business matters before a board of trade in this country, he will be met by the query: When is the government of this country going to start to reduce taxation?


Mr. EUXJER:: May I ask a question,
purely for information? It is possible the reply may come in due course. If the taxation is reduced as my hon. friend suggests,

and I for one would like to see it also, what other means of raising the revenue would he adopt?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I had it in mind to answer the very question which the hon. gentleman (Mr. Euler) has asked. It is true that in order to balance the budget of this country you must have revenue. It is also true, indeed, axiomatic, that there are two ways of balancing a budget; one is by way of taxation to * meet the expenditure, and the other is by cutting down the expenditure. Now we have not had much evidence on the part of this government of any attempt to cut down the expenditure.


James Alexander Robb: Oh yes, we have.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Very little. It is true that business conditions in this country have been so bad during the past twelve months that there was a loss in revenue of $52,000,000, but that was not altogether on account of the reduction in the sales tax. That was due to the loss in business turnover in this country, and if the hon. gentleman does not believe it, let him go to any clearing house, to any of the banks or the wholesale firms, and they will every one of them report to him, at least in my part of the country, that there has been a diminution in the volume of business done during the past twelve months, and that is the reason why the revenue has dropped, especially that part of it affected by the sales tax.
The hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) asked a very fair question, and I was proceeding to answer him. There is only one proper remedy for the balancing of a budget in this country at this stage of its existence, and that is to pare expenditure, and pare it to the bone-not to increase taxes. The people of Canada are taxed now to the limit, beyond the limit, beyond anything they ever dreamed they would have to pay; and the proper remedy in my judgment, and one which I think will appeal to the ordinary taxpayer, is that there shall be a paring of governmental expenditure not only in the federal arena, but in the provincial and municipal areas as well, and a paring to the bone. Such things as a Scribe hotel purchase should never be tolerated for one moment. The money for that purpose was found by the taxpayers, either 'by way of cash advanced to the Canadian National Railways or by way of bond guarantee by the people of this country. The building of a quarter of a million dollar golf course by the Canadian National Railways is a piece of extravagance

The Budget-Mr. Hanson
that the people are not. going to pult up with. The spending of another quarter of a million dollars by Sir Henry Thornton and his coadjutors on the installation of radio along the lines of the National Railways is another piece of extravagance. .


George Perry Graham: I am afraid my hon.
friend is a little high in the figures he is quoting.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I venture the assertion
that when we get the full facts out, and when the stations that are now in course of construction are completed, the capital expenditure on radio by the National Railways will exceed $250,000.


George Perry Graham: That is prophetic.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I want to ask the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) what justification there is for spending $80,000 for a radio station in the city of Monoton, when the people living along a branch line in my constituency cannot get a shelter built to house them from the wintry blasts of January, and that would cost about $150. In some instances they cannot get fuel along the line of the National Railways to heat the shelters already built. Many a time I had complaints about that particular matter, that in certain shelters put up to house the people while they are waiting for their trains, there has not been fuel to heat and warm them from the chills of winter. And yet Sir Henry Thornton, if I am credibly informed, spent $80,000 for a radio station at Moncton alonej and the capital expenditure on radio throughout the system will be at least a quarter of a million dollars. I want to say frankly that in my humble opinion the people resent that kind of expenditure when they do not get adequate service on many of the branch lines, and when they have to put up with a tri-weekly service in many places where always before this government came into power they had at least a daily service, and when some communities have to put up with a jitney service which before had a steam railway service. I want to say further, that if we could gelt the information which I have asked for in more respects than one with regard to the Canadian National Railway, you would see that while employees in the humbler walks of life on that railway have been reduced from passenger conductors to freight conductors, from freight conductors to brakemen, and from brake-men to newsboys, and so on down the line, the permanent officials, heads of departments and managers of regions have been paid the highest wages in the history
of the country. I happen to know, although I cannot get the information in parliament, that the general manager at Moncton today receives more money than ever was paid under the old Intercolonial management. I want to say very frankly and fully to the House, and I should like this criticism to go to the country, that while we were willing, and while the country was willing, to give Sir Henry Thornton a fair trial in the operation of the National railways, the country is getting about fed up with the way in which the system is being operated. Local freight rates on the Intercolonial are so high that you cannot begin to move commodities from one station to the other. Ask the hon. Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald) what the local freight rates are on coal in his county? Why, the freight rate on the movement of coal from one community to the other in certain parts of the Maritime provinces comes to more than the value of the coal, and the people of those provinces are just about fed up with the management of the National railways.
Now, I want to say this; I do not think it is possible, notwithstanding what the hon. Secretary of State (Mr. iCopp) said prior to the last Dominion election, to put the old Canadian government railways back into their former status; indeed I do npt think it is desirable. I am glad the Minister of Railways is in his place and hears what I have to say on the subject:	Having regard
to our geographical position, having regard to the fact that in the eastern part of Canada the population is sparse and production is not, perhaps, as high as it might be, having regard to the fact that because of adverse tariffs and the loss of other markets, having regard to the fact that we are prevented, under present conditions, from doing business with other parts of the country, the Maritime provinces have got to have preferential treatment in reference to freight rates. It will not do to say that there shall be equality of freight rates. You cannot work that out successfully in this country. Geography is against us, water competition is against us; and the only solution of the difficulties of the Maritime provinces in connection with Interprovincial trade is to give those provinces preferential treatment. You can talk about the problem from now until doomsday and this will be the only (solution, of it. Years ago we had preferential; years ago the manufacturing establishments in my city were able to compete with competitors in the province of Quebec, and otherwise, and shipped their products from coast to coast. To-day those establishments are handicapped because
The Budget-Mr. Hanson

those preferential have been, abolished, and in catering to the Canadian trade they are not able to meet the competition that now exists.


William Daum Euler: Would the hon. member suggest that freight rates should be controlled or fixed by the government rather than by the railway commission?


Richard Burpee Hanson: No I would not, but if you will go down to the railway commission-


Arthur Meighen: What about the Crows-nest pass arrangement?


Richard Burpee Hanson: 
Mr. PUTNAM:: When was there any interprovincial trade there?


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. gentleman may have been asleep like Rip Van Winkle, but I should like to invite him over to my city and I will show him a factory in which the best boots and shoes in Canada are made, a factory which has been in operation since 1894, and has been a credit to the city of
TMr. Hanson.]
Fredericton. Let me tell the hon. gentleman in some years 75 per cent of the output of that factory has been shipped to western Canada and the Pacific coast. Let him stay a day longer and I will show him another factory in which the first canvas-covered cedar canoe was built in Canada. This has developed into an industry that at its height employs one hundred of the best skilled mechanics in the province of New Brunswick, and whose entire output is sold west of Montreal with the exception of a few odd orders in our own community.


George Perry Graham: Neither of these factories is shut up is it?


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, I will tell the hon. gentleman about that, I am glad he reminded me.
I will just say to him that the Hartt Boot and Shoe factory of which we are very proud has been in operation not more than three-fourths of the time, and mostly one-half of the time since this government came into office; and that only by the very best of personal management, only by scouring this country from one end of it to the other for orders, are they able to keep going that much. I want to tell the hon. gentleman further that the cotton mill located within three miles of our city, employing about 800 hands, has not been running full time in any single year or any single month since this government came into power; that to-day it is running two-thirds of the time, or possibly three-fourths, and it has not been in operation full time for any single year since 1921. I want to tell him further that that cotton mill was built up under the National Policy by one of the old pioneers of this country, a gentleman who had vision enough to see that the country would not always be the dwelling place for hewers of wood and drawers of water, and while he might have put his money into Canadian Pacific stock or invested it in government bonds, he preferred1 to build up an industry in his own community which would employ Canadian labour, which would in turn buy the products of Canadian farmers; and the community in which I live-if you will pardon my referring to a matter which is in its nature personal-is a direct exemplification of the benefits of a moderate protective policy. It is about half industrial and about half agricultural. The industrials of my community consume everything that the farmers of the community raise save and except an excess in the case of potatoes and a few other commodities. For instance, take the little town of Marysville which I have in my mind's eye at the present time. No doubt the minister

The Budget-Mr. Hanson
knows it. The Secretary of State is very familiar with it. It is a town of slightly less than three thousand people. Its sole industry is one of the mills of the Canadian Coloured Cottons Limited, wthich took over the mill from the Gibson Company some years ago. That industry employs about eight hundred skilled mechanics and supports the entire community. The community consume all the agricultural products of the beautiful Nashwaak valley and the surrounding country. The industry pays large sums of money in wages in that community, and if the industry is shut down for one day a week the effect on the well-being of the entire community is felt.


Harold Putnam: Does the hon. member
contend that the shipment of Maritime freight up to central Canada is substantially less today than it was when his friends went out of power?


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, but I say that cost of shipment would have been twenty or twenty-five per cent less if it had not been for the action of this government in 1922 in regard to the rates on basic commodities such as coal, iron and so on, when Mr. Beatty, of the Canadian Pacific, before the special committee, made certain proposals in regard to reductions which we hoped to get for the Maritime provinces, but which we did not get because the government sold out to the Progressives in order to obtain their support during that session-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I think that is parliamentary. If it is not I will take it back.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend can make it stronger.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not intend to be unparliamentary.


Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil):: I want my
hon. friend to be fair in his reference to the matter of coal. He is aware that the rates from Nova Scotia, or from the Maritimes westward on coal, are cheaper than the rates in the United States, or cheaper than the rates in western Canada. I am speaking of through rates. The hon. member said that a much higher rate on coal was charged, but as a matter of fact the rate is cheaper from the Maritimes westward into Quebec and to other western points than it is in western Canada for the eastern movement or the United States movement.


Richard Burpee Hanson: My hon. friend is aware that for certain portions of the movement of coal 142
from the Maritime provinces there is water competition, I see the minister shakes his head. Let him go down to the railway commission and consult a little fellow, five foot tall, who weighs about a hundred pounds, and he will tell him more about railway rates and differentials than the whole group of members of the government will ever know.


Charles A. Stewart: Members cf the government may be very dense, but that is not the point. The hon. member made the statement that rates were higher. I am calling his attention to the fact that they are lower than American rates, and they are lower than western rates on western movement eastward.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That may be all true. I do not know whether it is true. I am willing to take the minister's word for it, but the point I am making is that if it had not been for the action of this government in 1922, when under the lash of the party whip, certain supporters of the government sitting opposite voted against the proposals made by the railway companies themselves, there would have been substantial reduction in all freight rates, and special reductions on basic commodities, and the Maritime provinces would have reaped the benefit of that during all these years, but we did not get any reduction.


Charles A. Stewart: That is the statement of my hon. friend.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I can demonstrate it, and I do not think it is very much controverted. I have not the data before me at the present time, but I think I have it on my file.


Charles A. Stewart: I am content with my hon. friend's statement.


Richard Burpee Hanson: We had the statement of the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway -and I know that Mr. Lanigan in his evidence before that committee amplified it very fully and the same statement was made by Mr. Hanna, then president of the Canadian National, that if the government would leave the hands of the railway commission free, if they would further suspend the Crowsnest pass agreement, and especially in relation to wheat and wheat products, all over Canada *we would get a general reduction in freight rates and a special reduction in basic commodities. But the government of the day, I say for political reasons, sold out the eastern provinces, sold out British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec and the Maritimes, and restored the Crowsnest pass rates with respect to wheat and wheat products. The result was that the Maritime provinces especially were

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handed a stone, and they do not forget that in the Maritime provinces. Believe me that when you touch the pocket of the shipper, and he becomes satisfied that preferential treatment has been given to other communities at his expense, he will remember it when the ballots are cast on election day. That is just one reason why neither my hon. friend the Minister of National Defence, nor my hon. friend the Secretary of State, is very anxious that the bell for election day shall be tolled. I wonder how my genial friend the Minister of National Defence will go back to Pictou county for re-election, and point to the increased duty on slack coal and say to them, "This is what I got you in place of what I promised you previous to the last election". The steel works at New Glasgow are still closed, Mr. Speaker. The best of the machinery has been moved to Sydney. The Nova Scotia Steel plant as a steel producing proposition in the country of Pictou is non est.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend's information in regard to the steel industry in Pictou being non est is very inaccurate. The steel works at Trenton are working every day.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I refer my hon. friend to a public letter issued by Mr. Thomas Cantley, late general manager of the Nova Scotia Steel Company, published in a Halifax paper just a few weeks ago in reference to the state of the steel industry in the county of Pictou The Secretary of State will not go back to Moncton and repeat the speech he made there in 1921, the day before my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition arrived in that city. I refer to the speech where he spoke of what he would do with respect to the Intercolonial railway.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Mr. COPP:: I will be there.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The minister says he will be there; I doubt very much if he will be there.


An hon. MEMBER:: How about my hon. friend from York-Sunbury?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Do not worry about me.
I will look after my own business.
The hon. member for Waterloo (Mr. Euler) asked a very fair question. You cannot balance the budget in this country except by two methods; one is by increased taxation, the other by curtailing expenditure. This government has tried increased taxation with disastrous effect.

I should like to see-and I say this in no partisan spirit-what would be the effect if we could establish here a Geddes commission. I desire to say this in fairness to hon. gentlemen in front of me, especially to ministers of spending departments. Perhaps it is very difficult to keep expenditure down. But ft ought not to be difficult in this year of 1925 to cut out. the pork barrel in this country. We have not had it for the last session or two, but we did have it in all its glory in 1923.


An hon. MEMBER:: What is a pork barrel?


Richard Burpee Hanson: 
Mr. POWER:: Not that kind.


Richard Burpee Hanson: -if he wants to know what a pork barrel is; if he really wants that information, let him examine the supplementary estimates of 1923, or for that, matter, the main estimates of 1923, for Nova Scotia, and he will quickly come to a realization of what I mean by a pork barrel in Canada.


Mr. ROBICHAUD:: Did the hon. member have them in York-Sunbury as well?


Richard Burpee Hanson: We never had them in
York-Sunbury os far as I know, but Ship-pigan has never been out of the estimates within the memory of living man. Probably it is right that some attention should be given to Shippigan. I was there once in my life and I know something of the conditions under which the fishermen there live. I am not objecting to that; but I am objecting that in this year of 1925, after we have gone through such a terrible struggle as the late war, after our national finances have got into the condition in which they are, after the difficulties we have all had in retrenching, it should not be possible that any government, I do not care what government or what political stripe they bear, should resort to a policy of constituency bribery, because that, is what this amounts to. We had an illustration from the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling).


George Perry Graham: Is my hon. friend closing
his remarks? If not, he ought to call it six o'clock. It is now after six o'clock.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am willing to call it six
o'clock. I have not half finished yet.
At six o'clock the House took recess.

The Budget-Mr. Hanson
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Richard Burpee Hanson: When we adjourned for
dinner, Mr. Speaker, I was endeavouring to enlighten some of my hon. friends to my left as to what was meant by the expression "pork barrel." I hope I made myself clear to them, and that it will not be necessary for me to advert to it at any greater length, except to reaffirm what I said in closing, that in my humble opinion any government which resorts to such political tactics in the present condition of the national finances deserves the severest disapprobation of the electorate. I do not care what political party may endeavour to take advantage of that practice, it is not the right and proper thing to do at any time, and particularly to-day when the country is in such a critical financial condition.
Now, the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) in the course of his remarks on the budget made a statement, which I do not think ought to go unchallenged, with respect to the income tax collections being an index of prosperity. Even though the hon. gentleman were right in his premises, I do not think he was at all justified in the conclusions which he reached. His words were:
It may be that the wealth of the country is getting into fewer hands, that there is more wealth and also more poverty in Canada-that may be the explanation of the increased revenue from income tax. If that is true the fact is to be deplored; we do not want that condition in Canada. . . . However, I should like at some time to get an explanation from the Acting Minister of Finance as to what he thinks is the reason that more income tax is being paid in Canada under present conditions than was paid in previous years.
The official figures do not bear out in any degree the premises laid down by the hon. member; they show that there has not been an increase in the income tax collections during the last three fiscal years. I have before me a short table showing just what they were. In the fiscal year 1922-23 there was received from income tax collections 859,711,538, and from business profits taxes-the levy for which, as everybody knows, ceased after the accounting period ending December 31, 1920-there was received $13,031,461; for the fiscal year 1923-24 there was received from income tax collections $54,204,027, and on business profits taxes account, $4,752,680; while for the fiscal year 1924-25 there was received from income tax collections $56,550,000 and business profits taxes account, $2,400,000. In other words, three years ago there was collected from these two sources-and it must be borne in mind that it is all derived from income-the sum of $72,743,000, two years ago $58,956,000, 142i
and last year, $58,950,000. This all goes to show not only that the hon. gentleman was wrong in his premises, but that he was also wrong in his conclusions; and I desire to reaffirm what I said before dinner, that if the income tax rate is kept at its present standard there will be a diminution of the revenue received from this source, because those who live on income from money invested in securities will be inclined to go where the income taxation is lighter, especially when it is so easy to cross the line and avoid the heavier burden here, which has been done to my own personal knowledge in a number of cases.
In the last two budgets, Mr. Speaker, we have heard a great deal about Canada having balanced her budget. Canada has not yet balanced her budget, notwithstanding the loud professions made by the Acting Minister of Finance and those who sit around him. Last year loud professions were made that this had been done to the extent of a surplus of $35,000,000. Now, surpluses are made up in various ways. Anyone who has a knowledge of accounting, or who has anything to do with large business organizations, knows that surpluses are very largely matters of bookkeeping; and it is because of the method of bookkeeping adopted by the government that they were able to show what I consider was a fictitious surplus of $35,000,000 last year, and of $1,800,000 this year. It will not do to say to the country that "we simply followed the practice of our predecessors in office," The present government may or may not have done that; I do not know. We are led to believe they have done it, by reason of the certificate which has been given to the government balance sheet by the chartered accountants employed by the government for that purpose; that is to say, that the balance sheet was made up in the same manner as it had been made up in previous years. I presume that is a correct statement of what the gentlemen found. But that does not tell the story that the country desires to know at this time. It is desirable, other things being equal, that the budget should be balanced; I think we ought all to strive after that. But the government ought not, in honesty to themselves and in honesty to the country, to say they have balanced the budget as long as they have to pay out such enormous sums every year to the Canadian National Railways,-in cash, very largely, when they have it; otherwise, by way of guaranteed loans. These advances immediately become a nonactive asset, a liability, as it were, of one of your own subsidiary companies. Those who have had to do with large corporations which
The Budget-Mr. Hanson


Charles Gavan Power: Might I interrupt the hon.
gentleman to ask if he is not a little bit inconsistent? He promoted no less than two members of the House to cabinet positions this afternoon.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I thought I had promoted only one, and I did that more or less in the way of good-natured banter. After the speech we have listened to from the hon. member this afternoon, I must say that my remarks are to be treated strictly as a joke.
We had some very illuminating figures a few nights ago with respect to the cost of operation of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. It was shown that 71 per cent of the entire amount voted by this parliament is used up in the administrative expenses of that department, and the balance ultimately reaches the soldier, the one who is intended to be benefited. That is a state
of affairs that is little less than scandalous. It is a state of affairs which will not appeal to the soldier vote of this country.
I would also abolish the portfolio, or semiportfolio, of Solicitor General. Can anybody tell me any useful purpose that the Solicitor General of this country performs? If so, I would like to hear it. It is not obvious to the ordinary member of parliament or to the general taxpayer of this country.


Joseph Archambault: It is not a new position.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, it is not a new position, and I am not blaming any particular government for it. It has been used as a matter of patronage among all governments, so far a3 I understand, since its establishment.


Joseph Archambault: If my memory
serves me right, the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has occupied that position.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And I have no doubt he
did it well, as he does everything else well. While he was there I have no doubt that he was a very useful official because he is that type of man who could never lie idle and draw his salary without earning it.
Then I would, and perhaps first of all, abolish the portfolio of Secretary of State, not because that portfolio is held by the hon. member for Westmorland (Mr. Copp) at all, for he and I are personally the very best of friends, but I believe that the position is neither useful nor ornamental. I think the government could very well be cut down to the extent of these four portfolios.
But I would not stop there. I think the number of members in this House should be cut down. The time will come when, if this country grows as it ought to grow, and if we preserve the same ratio as laid down in the British North America Act, we shall have 500 members in this House. We have always been over-governed in Canada, and the cost of government federal, provincial and municipal, is per capita away beyond what it is in any other Anglo-Saxon country that I know of and away beyond the means of this country. I know it is easy enough to say that. Members have to run elections, and they have to go to great expense to run elections. It costs a considerable amount of money to live in Ottawa. A paternal government takes in income tax about 10 per cent of the $4,000 indemnity members receive, and after the four or five months' time the members put in in this House they will have a residuum if they live as they ought to live in Ottawa, of about $1,600. Nevertheless, I for one am willing to
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slice off $1,000 of the indemnity if we could have any guarantee that the length of the sessions would be cut down.


Mr. MICHAUD:: And you would never
come back.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not expect the hon.
gentleman to vote for cutting down the indemnity, because he has no other visible means of support, so far as I know.
Then in addition, under the present conditions that obtain in this country, there should be a stop once for all to the practice of the guaranteeing of bonds for purposes Which are not strictly of federal concern. I do not intend to go into details in regard to this, but I would just like to say this, at the risk of being misunderstood, misinterpreted and misquoted:	I do not see what federal
responsibility this country had for the guaranteeing of bonds for a new bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal.


Joseph Archambault: Go the limit.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is an accomplished fact now, and it not much use to talk about it, for the country is committed to the expenditure. I do not for one moment say that that bridge is not necessary: I do not know enough about the local situation to know whether it is or not, but I did try in vain for twenty minutes last year to extract from the Minister of Railways some logical reason why this expenditure should be one of federal concern, and I failed to get it. Now it is not because it is Montreal that lam saying this. I would make the same remark if it was about Tory Toronto; I will make the same remark about the erection of grain elevators at Prince Rupert and Halifax.


Joseph Archambault: Is the hon. member aware that the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal are each guaranteeing one-third of the bonds?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not see any reason
myself why they should not do it all, and that suggestion was made last year by the leader of the opposition.


Joseph Archambault: It was in the bill.


Richard Burpee Hanson: My memory does not serve me as to what was in the bill, but I never could see why that was a matter of federal responsibility. I do not wish to be understood as saying that the work was not an important work or a work that was not required, though I have some doubts about it.
I think it will be a detriment to property of the government already existing, but it may be that with the increase of traffic,

especially tourist traffic, as has been stated on the floor of this House, that a new bridge is necessary; but if so, I do submit that that is in no sense a federal responsibility, and that is the point I am making.


Joseph Archambault: Is the hon. member opposed to the federal government giving any aid towards the construction of that bridge?


Richard Burpee Hanson: For the benefit of the
hon. gentleman I will say this: We are committed to the principle now, and it is not much use to kick against the pricks.


Joseph Archambault: That does not
answer my question.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is the answer I give
to the hon. gentleman. I know the hon. gentleman wants to go down to Montreal next week or at the next election and say that the Tory party was against the bridge across the St. Lawrence. That is exactly what he desires, but he is not going to get me into that trap.
Some twenty-five years ago I went to school in the city of Halifax and they had a grain elevator there then, but I never heard of a tramp steamer or even a liner taking a cargo of grain out of that elevator, although it may be so. At the same time the people of Halifax have an aspiration for that port to be a grain shipping port. It may achieve that aspiration and if it does that elevator will be of some use. But I must say, and I speak for myself alone, that I have very grave doubts about it just as I have in the case of Prince Rupert. But a grain elevator at Vancouver, or at Montreal, or at St. John is a very different proposition. We all know that grain is one of the most liquid of commodities, and a difference of one-sixteenth of a cent a bushel in the carrying charges will lead grain to the nearest ocean port. That is the difficulty we are faced with in the Maritime provinces in our endeavour to build up national winter ports, but this is a difficulty which I feel sure will be overcome if we are able to enlist the sympathy and support not only of the railway, the common carriers of the country, but of the grain shippers as well.
There is another matter I should like to advert to in connection with this question of a balanced budget and a reduction of expenditure, and it is this: I should like to know how many motor vehicles there are in this city belonging to the government, that are used by heads of departments and (other officers of the public service? It seems to

The Budget-Mr. Hanson
me that you cannot cross one of the public streets of this city without stumbling in front of a car that is owned by the Canadian government. This thing may have been justified in war-time-


Mr. FOURNIER:: Are you afraid of them?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I try to get out of their way.


Joseph Archambault: You can side-step pretty good.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I want to say that the people of the country are beginning to learn about this extravagant practice of members of the government, heads of departments, and chief officers of the public service having cars bought and placed at their disposal. No commercial house in Canada would think of going to the extent that the government has gone in this matter. I know how easy it is for a practice like this to grow up. One cabinet minister has as much right to a private motor car as another; one deputy minister has as much right to a private motor car as another. You have only to go into the civic arena to understand how this practice grows overnight. Anybody who has had any municipal experience knows that permanent heads of departments, the moment they get into office, will begin to slip on to the corporation the cost of services that should be borne out of their private income. Why, only last week in the city council in this city the statement was made that Ottawa was paying 16,000 a year to the Bell Telephone Company of Canada for private telephones for civic employees. Some of these no doubt are justified but I venture to say, without having any personal knowledge of the circumstances, that the great majority of them are unjustified. I know that in my own city the same practice has grown up. So much for thalt. You cannot balance your budget in this country by a process of increased taxation. It must be done by a process of saving not at the bunghole but at the tap.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I do not know what the hilarity is about nor do I care.
I desire now to say a word or two briefly with respect to the creation of the tariff board. I d>o not understand that any result of magnitude will come from the creation of this board. At the same time if it is to be used in an advisory capacity, if the board is not to become a bureaucracy and take the place of the elected representative of the people
upon whom the responsibility properly devolves I have not great opposition to it. It is true that in 1912 the government of Sir Robert Borden proposed to establish just such a board as, I understand, is now proposed by the Acting Minister of Finance. It is also true that the Acting Minister of Finance, and those who surround him and now have seats in this chamber, voted against the creation of that board and against the principle involved. That is perfectly characteristic of the Liberal party as all history shows. But from the standpoint of the present government the creation of this tariff board will serve two purposes which are highly desirable from the government's point of view. First, it will delegate responsibility to other than the elected representatives of the people, and it will be an excuse for continued refusal on the part of the government to face squarely the most momentous issue of the day-what is to be the fiscal policy of this country. In other words it will give the government further opportunity to say to the electors "We have created a tariff board which will advise us as to what we should do with respect to the fiscal policy." On the other hand it will be a delegation of authority and a lapse from the principle of responsible government, which procedure the government has invariably followed since it came into power. To go back to the period of 1922 when the freight rates question became acute in Canada. Had we had responsible government, as understood under British institutions, in this country the government of the day would have had a policy on the question. But what did it do.' It delegated to a committee of this House the powers that the government itself should have assumed, and it is doing the same thing with respect to the ocean-lake freight rates question. This brings me to a very brief consideration


Joseph Archambault: What is the ocean-lake freights question?


Richard Burpee Hanson: The ocean freight rates question? You will hear something more about it a little later on.


Joseph Archambault: My hon. friend said "ocean-lake freights question"; that is why I did not catch his remark.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The government took u,p the lake freight rates question and what was the result? It had to take into its own arms again and suppress its own baby. The history of the last two years will tell us that. The same thing has happened to the Petersen contract: It has been put into the discard, and the gov-
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ernment's responsibilities have been delegated to a committee presided over by the genial member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) to devise ways and means for a policy that the government itself should devise.
This brings me-and I shall be very brief- to a consideration of what should' be the future fiscal policy of this country; and I want to lay it down as axiomatic having regard to our geographical position-lying as we do to the north for three thousand miles of the most highly protected country in the world; having regard to the fact that all Anglo-Saxon nations in the world-save and except the Mother Country itself if she can- be .called an exception-have adopted and are maintaining in its integrity the fiscal policy of protection- not that possibly it is the best fiscal policy in the world, not because some of us regard free trade, in the classic language of the hon member for Chambly-Vercheres as a pious dream- we are forced by necessity, we are forced by the very force of circumstances themselves to adopt a protective policy. What are those circumstances in 'brief? Over there across the line you have the most highly industrialized nation on earth; over there across the line you have labour organized in its highest form ; over there as a result you have the highest wages, the highest current wages, paid. I grant that under a system of protection you have high wages.


Mr. McMASTER:: Oh, no.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, I never heard of low wages in a protected country unless the currency of that country had depreciated or the land had been devastated by war. At all events in the United States the results have been as I have described. The United States maintains a system of high protection, a system of standard unionized wages, and Canada by sheer force of necessity, by sheer force of	circumstances, is
obliged to meet her with the same weapon. It will not do, to pull down your tariff walls so long as you are confronted with that condition. What would happen? Let me illustrate. Down in the Maritime provinces and in that portion of the province of Quebec which lies contiguous to the American border we are side by side with the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. For the most part these states are not manufacturing and are not industrial. They are engaged in agriculture, lumbering and the like. New England is highly industrialized. The states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have been the hinterland always, since I can remember and for years before, for the industrial

centres of New England. If you pull down the tariff wall and allow the free entry of American goods into Canada and allow our raw material to go out, the Maritime provinces and that part of Quebec which lies contiguous to the American states will simply become the hinterland of industrial New England. We have had gestures made and the people of this country are uncertain as to the future. The boot and shoe manufacturers are very uncertain. The textile manufacturers, especially those in the cotton industry, are very uncertain of the future. Permit me to say that the boot and shoe industry of this country is no combine. There is the keenest kind of competition in the boot and shoe manufacturing industry, and very largely and from the very beginning it has been a case of the survival of the fittest. But if the duty is taken off boots and shoes, as may reasonably be contemplated if the government give way to the arguments of some hon. gentlemen on my left, and if the duty is taken off cotton and cotton textiles, what will happen to the four cotton mills now running in the province of New Brunswick? I will tell you. Just so long as they can stagger under the swamping of the local market by the American manufacturers, they will stagger. When they are wiped out the American manufacturer will have the market to himself, up will go the-prices, we will pay the piper, and we will have to pay higher prices for textiles than previously.


Joseph Archambault: I should like to
know if the hon. gentleman is aware that during the year 1818 or 1919 some of the textile companies in this country made as high as 330 per cent, on the capital invested? That fact was brought out before the High Cost of Living committee.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. member is referring to war times. I am speaking of normal times. You will never see a condition like that again.


Arthur Meighen: Textiles are lower here than in the United States.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I know that in the New England states they manufacture a million yards of textiles to every yard we manufacture in Canada. Their overhead is so much less, and their raw material so much nearer that we can not successfully compete. My hon. friends to my left and1 all free traders in the House will say " Then you should not be allowed to compete". I am not in favour of that line of reasoning. I believe that we should endeavour to build up an industrial.

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life in this country, even though it may not be, to use a well-worn phrase in this House, indigenous to the country itself. I see no reason why boots and shoes for Canadians should not be made in my city and in the cities of Montreal and Quebec. I see no reason why we should not manufacture the cotton textiles that we use in this country, and give employment to Canadian workmen who will be able to maintain happy homes. But let the reverse take place and what will happen? You will immediately see the emigration of our skilled mechanics across the line. They will not go back to the farms, even if they came from them, and we will be hewers of wood and drawers of water.


Joseph Archambault: Will not my hon. friend admit that at present the cotton industry is bad in the United States, bad in England and bad all over the world?


Richard Burpee Hanson: My hon. friend may be an authority on the cotton industry. I am not. All I know is that in my community the cotton industry is working from hand to mouth, and the men have been employed three and four days a week since this government came into power. I think the tariff on cotton should be raised a little so as to keep out the surplus of cotton goods manufactured outside of the country, and have the goods manufactured at home. You cannot build up a diversified nation if you are all going to be miners, farmers or fishermen. You will never have a home market that is worth a bawbee for the farmers if you do not have some industrial life in the country, and, as far as industries that are native to the country are concerned, I say that unless we take some steps to preserve our own raw material we wall not have it very much longer. If the newsprint mills, the pulp mills and paper mills continue to grow as they have grown in this country, and if the ravages of the forests by insect pests and fire continue as in the past, then that great industry in Canada will indeed be a short-lived one, and we had better look out for the future. This country does not need a high tariff. I im not in favour of a tariff which would absolutely keep out all sorts of imports, but I am in favour of such an adequate tariff as would allow our manufacturers to compete in our home market. That is what we want; if we are able to do a little more and take in some export trade, so much the better, and I think we should attempt to do it However, it is not possible in certain lines.
As far as my constituency is concerned, if has never yet-and it is half agricultural- voted in favour of low tariff, and I do no' think it is going to begin now.


Mr. MARTELL:: Was there not a Mr Gibson elected in that riding in the days ol the Laurier regime?
Mr. HANiSQN: Yes, Mr. Gibson was elected, He was a very estimable gentleman, but it was only a fluke and the people corrected the error at the very first opportunity. I want to tell the hon. gentleman that it was that gentleman's father who started the cotton industry in that constituency, and he did it under a protective tariff. They always were protected, but they had a railway to sell to the government in 1900 and they sold it to the government in 1904, and it is to-day part of the system of the Canadian National Railways. In 1896 the same gentleman was a Conservative. His father brought Sir George Foster to York as a Conservative candidate.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Was the man who defeated Sir George Foster-


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, Sir George Foster never was defeated in York, and you could not defeat him in a thousand years.


Lewis Herbert Martell: He ran away from York.
Mr. HANSON; No, he did not run away.


Lewis Herbert Martell: He went to St. John.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He went to St. John because of ill-advice from his friends to defeat Mr. Blair and could not do it. If he had remained in York, he would have been elected by two thousand majority as any Conservative would be in that riding. Having regard to the budgets we have listened to for the last four years, I ask what is the policy of the government with regard to this fiscal question? I can only say that, so far as the protective system is concerned, it seems to be a policy at times of attrition. They have never yet given to the working people or even the farmers of this country a definite lead as to the goal towards which they are aiming. I leave it to the judgment of hon. members to my left. The attitude of the government towards the fiscal question is exactly the same as the attitude of Sir Wilfrid Laurier during all the years he was in power. When in opposition he preached free trade and low tariff, and when in power, he had the good sense for the most part to leave the tariff alone. He did what was right from the standpoint of the Canadian people, but in my judgment it was not decent politics.
The Budget-Mr. Hanson


Charles Gavan Power: Did I understand my hon.
friend to say that the policy followed by the present government was the policy of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, as he said, to preach free trade when in opposition and when in power to leave the tarifi alone?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I did not say that. I said that the policy of the present government with respect to the tariff seemed to me to be a policy of attrition. The hon. gentleman is a soldier and he knows what I mean by that term.


Charles Gavan Power: I do, but the hon. member
said that the policy of the present government was like that of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, my hon. friend misunderstood me. It is amusing for people to listen to some of the things we heard this afternoon from the hon. member from Chambly and Vercheres (Mr. Archambault) as to the prosperity of Canada. Everybody knows that we have gone through the greatest period of depression the country has ever seen and we are still in the throes of it. In my community, in my province, prior to last year, we thought we had got by without any great degree of distress; but during the year 1924 we had the most disastrous period in our whole history and this has been because of the uncertainty as to the future fiscal policy of this country. Without labouring this question any more, let me say that, notwithstanding what was said to the contrary by the hon. member for Colchester (Mr. Putnam) the other evening, on every great occasion when the fiscal question was laid squarely before the Canadian peopie in 1878, in 1891, and again in 1911, without being clouded by any other side issue, the Canadian people never once failed to register their views on this most important subject, and I do not believe they will fail the next time if this issue goes to them in an unclouded manner and they understand what the issue is. I have, however, no faith that the government will face the issue fairly and squarely. We shall have a repetition of the Prime Minister's tour of September and October, 1921, in which, when he went into an agricultural community, he preached the Liberal doctrine and platform of 1919, and when he went into an industrial community, he and his friends told the manufacturers, as my opponent told the manufacturers in my community just prior to the last election:	You need not have-


Mr. MURDOCK:: The Prime Minister
and two or three other hon. gentlemen on this side of the House have challenged you and some of your Tory friends to present any instance of that preaching.


Hewitt Bostock: If an interruption is
allowed and if any hon. member is putting a question to the hon. member who has the floor, he must address him in the third person through the Chair.


James Murdock: I would like to ask if
the hon. gentleman, now having made that statement, can produce one concrete instance where the Prime (Minister preached one doctrine in a rural constituency and another in any other place.	*


Richard Burpee Hanson: So far as my recollection
goes-and I have not the data here, of course, as the minister knew when he asked the question-in every single speech the Prime Minister made during that campaign he preached a doctrine intended to suit the local conditions and not otherwise.


James Murdock: The hon. gentleman's
recollection has been found very faulty in other matters.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Maybe that is true, but
that is my recollection of that, and I know in St. John and other industrial centres in the Maritime provinces-


James Murdock: Just a part of the bluff
of the Tory party.


Richard Burpee Hanson: -and in other parts of Canada the Prime Minister and his friends let it be known to the manufacturers that they need not have very much to fear from his fiscal policy. Let the issue be put fairly and squarely before the Canadian people, unclouded by other issues, and I have no doubt what the verdict will be.


George Perry Graham: Do not wave the flag,
for example.


James Murdock: Cut out your fourflushing and we will take a chance.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. member is very
brave with the large group behind him.


James Murdock: Now, as always.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am glad to hear this
from the minister's own 'lips. We would not have known it if he had not told us himself.
With respect to the duty on coal, members from the Maritime provinces know that this is but a feeble step in the right direction. It is not by any means what is necessary to put the coal industry of the Maritime provinces on its feet, nor to enable the coal producers of the Maritime provinces to regain the markets lost to them during the war. But

The Budget-Mr. Hanson
such a step as it is, it is welcome. There is something more that the govem-
9 p.m. ment could do with regard to this matter. I do not think the question is wholly one of the tariff and I am not speaking now in any partisan sense. The question of the tariff is important. That, no doubt, has been borne in on the minds of the government by the Nova Scotia delegation, or the government would not have acted. In fact, it took a coal strike and starvation in Nova Scotia to make this government act before any measure of relief was granted to the coal producers there. But the real relief for the mining industries in the Maritime provinces is a substantial increase in the duty on bituminous coal plus a very substantial reduction in railway freight rates.


Joseph Archambault: Is that coal used
for domestic purposes?


Richard Burpee Hanson: That coal is heating the
hon. gentleman just now. At least, it was used until recently, and I presume it is still used for the purpose of heating this very building.


Joseph Archambault: Increase the duty
and increase the price.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I suggest ito the government that they use every influence they possess with the railway companies in this country to have them decrease the freight rates on coal from the Maritime provinces to the central provinces.


Mr. CARROLL:: Does the hon. member
not know that the very fact that this building is being heated by coal from the Minto mines is due to the facit that the Canadian Pacific gave a special rate on that coal from New Brunswick to Ottawa?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I believe the hon. gentleman is correct. A11 of this goes to show that if proper representations are made to the railway companies, the freight rate on coal can be materially reduced.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Who are the proper parties to make the representations? I am not cr'ticizing my hon. friend. I am from the Maritime provinces the same as he is. Why did his own party, during the years they were in power, not bring about the millennium which he is now advocating? Is it not a fact that he is advocating this to-day for the purpose of hitting one of the ablest men in the Maritime provinces, Mr. Armstrong, who has to go to the country during the present year?


Richard Burpee Hanson: It will not be necessary
for me to hit Mr. Armstrong. The people of Nova Scotia are going to do that.


Lewis Herbert Martell: May I say to my hon.
friend-?


Hewitt Bostock: I would ask hon. members to observe the amenities of debate. The hon. member is very courteous and fair, and I do not think it is right that he should be interrupted so often.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I beg your pardon, Mr
Speaker, I should have addressed the hon member through yourself. I do not think he imagines I am in any way directing carpinc criticism at him. We are good personal friends, and all I was going to say to him-


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Speaker, I have no
objection to the hon. member for Hants asking a question, but I should like him to put one question at a time, not half a dozen at once. With respect to the duty on coal, I had not the Nova Scotia situation in my mind when I was speaking of it; I was making a constructive suggestion in the interests of the coal producers of the Maritime provinces.
At first blush it seemed to me that the minister's proposed export tax on power was a new avenue for revenue that the country might very well adopt, and I was rather favourably disposed towards it. If we were sending power out of the country for the first time, if power companies in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario were not tied up by long term contracts; in other words, if it could be assured that the levy would be passed along to the consumer in the United States, by whom it should properly be borne, then I say it would be a very good source of revenue. If it could be considered from that standpoint alone, then I would tell the minister that his tax is not high enough, and that he could very easily make it considerably higher. Perhaps I ought not to speak dogmatically about this, not having full information before me. But let me tell the minister that nearly all of these hydro electric developments which have been initiated by private capital had to tie up to long term cheap contracts with consumers in the United States along the border. I have in mind the New Brunswick Power Company, which develops hydro electric power just within the borde' between New Brunswick and Maine. This company was organized and its bonds were sold to the public both in New Brunswick
The Budget-Mr. Hanson

and in Maine. Before it could get a dollar from the investing public it had to show
that it had made contracts lasting the lifetime of the bonds and producing sufficient revenue not only to pay carrying charges but also operating expenses. Is it quite fair to companies so situated-and I have no interest in this particular company-to have their export power taxed?


James Alexander Robb: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend will allow me before he proceeds with his argument? I suppose he knows that under the export act we have no right to give a license for more than one year?


Richard Burpee Hanson: 
Joseph Archambault: Is that since my
hon friend was elected?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Oh, yes, during the past
year since the fiscal policy of the government has begun to produce its baneful effects.
In the	month of January, 1925	
48	visesIn the	month of February, 1925	
61	visesIn the	month of March, 1925	
138	visesTotal	
247 vis6s
That gives a total of 845 for that comparatively small community for the period from July 1924 to March 1925-nine months. This is sufficient to give pause to any man who has the interest of his country at heart. On Thursday, April 9, the American Vice Consul told me that he had for that day alone applications for 15 vises. I want members of the government to understand that in that part of New Brunswick the trek to the United States is on in full force. We need not discuss the situation. We must admit that we are losing some of our best young blood, for it is the young men who are going across the line. I wish I could see some evidence of their return, but we do not see it in our province. Now, it is up to the government to do something,-whether it be free trade, low tariff, adequate tariff or high protection, it is up to the government as the guardians of this country to put into effect such constructive legislation as will tend to stop this drain on the very vital resources of the Dominion.
I had intended to say something about the national debt, but a great deal has already been said on the subject and I am not going to weary the House with any further references to it.

The Budget-Mr. King (Huron)
I have already referred to the question of surplus. I would like to say in conclusion that the budget contains none of those things for which Canada has ample reason to look -although I must say no one expected very much from the present government. The agricultural population has not received any lead from the government in this budget. The industrial population has not received any lead or any hope for the future. The manufacturers of this country must still face an influx of products from countries which have the advantage of cheap labour, depreciated currency, or greater mass production. No hope from this government-then let us have an end, Mr. Speaker, of vacillation and of trimming to suit every wind that blows. Let us in the parlance of the street, have a showdown. Let the issue be clearcut. Let no cross currents of sectionalism or racialism, such as were prominent this afternoon, be injected into the struggle, but let us nail our colours to the masthead and signal for close action. Then when the smoke and mists have been dispelled it will be found that this young nation will have taken a fresh start on the highway to prosperity, a start already too long delayed.


Mr. J. W. KING (North Huron):: Mr. Speaker, probably it is a fortunate circumstance that the Progressive party have their turn to speak once in a while. I desire, Sir, at the outset to compliment the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) on the very compact, concise and lucid manner in which he presented this budget-not that I agree with him in all respects, but this is simply a friendly word of commendation. It is most regrettable that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) has been unable to be with us during the present session. The people of Canada owe him a deep debt of gratitude for his unswerving loyalty to the country and of appreciation for the ability which has characterized his service.
Before entering upon a discussion of the budget itself I wish to try to show to the House that although it has been said on many occasions that the United States is the most highly protected country in the world, if we examine the facts we will find that it is not such a highly protected country after all. Such assertions, Mr. Speaker, as this-that the United States is the most highly protected country-entirely disregard the facts and anyone who makes them must be unwilling to limit himself to what he .believes to be the truth. If those who put forth these claims ever looked to the facts they would be ashamed to advance such fallacious contentions. The United States collected, in round
figures, $566,136,864 during the year 1923 through customs taxes, as against 118 millions in Canada for the same year. It is obvious that the division of this total amongst the population of 110 millions to the south of us produces an average of $5.04 per capita, whilst the Canadian average on a population of 9 millions is about $14.55 per head, a difference of $9.51 per head against Canada. At the Canadian rate the customs revenue of the United States would amount to $1,457,000,000, while the Canadians customs revenue on the American rate would only be $32,000,000. Our customs tariff imposes a burden four times greater than the American tariff, yet it is claimed that our neighbours are more highly protected.
For my part I would be satisfied for the time being if the government consented to remove that part of the customs burden which is in excess of that of the United States. That would still leave us, as my hon. friends to the right are prone to claim we should be, a highly protected country.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question? Does he regard Great Britain as a free trade country?


John Warwick King: I do, comparatively.


Arthur Meighen: Can he give us the per
capita customs tax in Great Britain?


John Warwick King: No, I do not think
I can at the moment.


Arthur Meighen: I will tell him it would
be about four times ours. Would that not rather destroy his argument?


John Warwick King: I do not think it
would. I have the highest appreciation of my right hon. friend's clear intellect and keen debating power; at the same time, I do not see how he can get away from my argument. What does this additional burden mean to the head of a family of five? In the United States he pays $20.20 to the customs gate; in Canada he pays $77.75, a difference of about $50. Low tariff is the essential requirement for the progress of our nation. No purely protective tariff or preference can result in anything but the imposition of unnecessary burdens on the people. Tariffs are a hindrance to natural trade, a hindrance to natural development. They achieve everything, Sir, except the results they are intended to produce. How are we to estimate the burden carried by a nation if we do not estimate the amount of the burden carried by each individual? If the amount carried by each individual is greater in Canada than it is in

The Budget-Mr. King (Huron)
the United States, where will the young men of Canada be apt to go? To the United States, of course-we understand that perfectly well. I was talking only last evening to a man in this city who is in the bond business. He said:	"I find I can do far better in the
United States than I can in Canada. If I stay in Canada, my sons and my grandsons and my great grandsons will be loaded down with heavy taxation; the burden will never go off their shoulders. But in the United States such is not the case." Can we not remedj' the conditions in Canada? I say to this government and to all future governments: Try to reduce the load of taxation; try to economize in every possible way and before many years we may be put on an even basis with the United States.
I claim that regardless of the fallacious contentions that have been made, a low tariff policy would not throw us politically into the arms of the United States. Notwithstanding the attempted arguments to show that protection was and is the safeguard of our national independence, I say, Sir, that if any policy will tend to loosen the bonds of our national unity it is the policy of protection such as we have at present-a policy that creates discontent, a policy that prevents the Canadian citizen from enjoying the decent living conditions to which he is entitled. Who can deny, however, that on the other hand a policy of low tariff which will result in contentment, which will permit sane and rapid developments, a policy which will enable progress along the channels given to us by our natural conditions, will in itself bring about a more strongly welded union; will form a democracy that no storm can shatter; will build up a country which we will be proud to live in and make us zealous of our institutions and our independence.
What Canada needs to-day is reciprocity with the United States. As I have just said, political unrest results from economic discontent, and if this were removed the talk of secession and annexation would then fall on deaf ears. The sentiments which hold Canada to the British Empire would be proof against every attack if our economic conditions were rectified.
I propose to try to show in my humble way that if this government and future governments will do their best not to enter into a commercial or tariff war with the United States, we are on the eve of better trade relations with that country. We have the word of President Coolidge himself that the United States is just on the eve of being a great importing nation of agricultural products. We

also have the word of a great many financial experts in the United States.
On account of the large credits, loans and investments made abroad by the United States, it becomes certain that the nations to whom these loans were made will have to pay for them by exports to the United States. One plan calls for a progressive "liberalization" of the tariff policy of the United States not necessarily immediately, but very soon as a necessary adjustment to permit that country to make the larger importations of foreign goods required by her new position as a creditor nation.
I am going to quote the views of certain financial gentlemen in the United States. First is a statement by Francis H. Sisson, vicepresident of the Guaranty Trust Company, to the effect that the tariff had been a "foreign element" in the natural working of economic laws, and part of the normal adjustment would be a lowering of it.
George E. Roberts, vice-president of the National City Bank, and formerly United States Comptroller of the Currency, speaking on this point, said:
A difficulty as regards the receipt of interest payments may in the future arise unless our high tariff is changed. I do not think that this will make any great difference in the next two or three years or so, but the tariff is essentially an anomaly in our foreign trade, and our business men will have to adjust themselves to the necessity of competing more with foreign products and get into lines in which they can do so most advantageously. But these changes, I believe, will come about naturally through the pressure of circumstances.
Prof. Eugene E. Agger, of Columbia University, said:
A liberalization of the tariff is certain to come about as a result ot the increase of foreign investments The change might come through the rise of foreign tariffs until they more or less neutralize ours, but I think it is more likely to come through a change of feeling here.
The situation is, of course, that the consumers of goods are not organized and so cannot readily make themselves felt when the tariff provisions are being made; but I think that the producers themselves, who can make themselves felt readily, will more and more seek to lower the rate on manufactured goods so that foreign countries can pay for them by selling their products here.
The farmers and the cotton producers and some other interests are already beginning to seek a reduction in the tariff, because they are discovering that their most logical line of attack, to return to their former relation to the manufacturers, is not to support a measure like the McNary-Haugen bill to raise their prices, but rather to bring down the prices of manufactured goods.
The tariff, of course, has got into general talk to such an extent that it is being credited for more than it is worth. There are so many other factors in manufacturing that, in many cases, there is not much more justification for a high tariff on goods coming into this country than there is for a similar tariff between various parts of the country. And the change in our position from debtor nation to creditor, will help to

The Budget-Mr. King (Huron)
make this fact appreciated, and will bring a demand for more moderate rates.
Dr. Benjamin M. Anderson, Jr., of the Chase National Bank, provided some of the Chase economic bulletins, in which he has expressed his views. In one of these he pointed out the changed economic conditions which make a moderate tariff policy vitally important to-day, and explained that:
Exports must be paid for by imports, and that a country which wishes to sell abroad must also be willing to buy in foreign countries if foreign trade is not to result in credit congestion and reaction.
The change will make for a permanently balanced industrial situation, far more satisfactory and far more dependable than the temporary unstable equilibria on which we have built temporary periods of activity since the Armistice. We need not fear Europe's revival or seek to defer it by placing tariff walls in the way.
The position of the farmer has been injured rather than helped by the general tariff policy. It has not enabled him, for the most part, to get more for what he had to sell. On the contrary, by lessening Europe's purchasing power in the American markets, it has lessened the ability of his foreign customer to buy. and thus made his prices lower than they would have been.
The whole trouble to-day, Mr. Speaker, is the lack of purchasing power in the agricultural districts of this country, and no one knows that better than the Massey-Harris Company of Toronto, and Mr. Bradshaw; no one knows it better than the heads of the manufacturing concerns. I know conditions among the farmers. I know that the fanners are economizing in every way possible. I know they are making binders, ploughs and mowers that should have been in t'he fence comer long ago, do the work to-day. They are using all their implements in that fashion, fixing them up, because they have not the purchasing power; they simply cannot buy. I am not a pessimist, and the farmers of the county of Huron whom I have the honour to represent are not pessimists. They are not decrying Canada, but the}' are looking for better times to come, and they are looking for these better times to come by a reduction of the tariff along certain lines. I wish to point out to the Acting Minister of Finance that they are looking for a reduction of the tariff on automobiles, textiles, woollens, boots and shoes. They are not looking for reductions on very many lines; I myself do not believe in a complete upturn of the tariff almost every year. We should have a revision of the tariff at certain periods, every five or six or seven or ten years, as the case may be. for our manufacturers must have a chance. They must know that the tariff is not going to be interfered with for a certain number of years.
I think probably that state of affairs can be brought about, but at the present time the tariff is not down to where it ought to be.
Just recently an Alberta farmer sent to the Citizen a copy of a statement of a sale of stock, showing that he had received $54.44 for seven head of cattle-which is less than $8 per head. The stock ranged in weight from 580 pounds to 1,240 pounds, and they were high grade cattle, not scrub stuff. On the back of the statement the farmer wrote, "Why settlers leave the farm after being on same for twenty years."
The prosperity of Canadian industry is very largely dependent upon the purchasing power of the farmers. They must either earn sufficient money to buy goods at the present level of Canadian prices, or the level of prices must be reduced to come within the range of the farmer's income under deflation.
The tariff is maintained to prevent the farmer buying at reduced prices, but the tariff is no protection against the reduction of wheat and cattle prices.	It as doubtful
whether tariff reductions would restore the purchasing power of the Canadian farmers without depriving an equal number of workers in the protected industries of purchasing power. I wish to read, with the permission of the House a short article from the Listening Post:
So the farmers of Canada, and the townspeople who are dependent on them for their livelihood, see the prices of the varied goods which modern industrial economy compels them to buy enhanced by tariff duties. They see indications that the profits of those who own the factories are also enhanced. They see the products of these factories sold abroad, when competition compels, at lower prices than they themselves can buy them. And they smart under a sense of injustice. Forced to accept for their own products prices fixed by competition in the open markets of the world, they are compelled to buy for their own needs at prices increased by deliberate legislative action. Naturally and inevitably they are driven to ask why this injustice should continue? To ask how long they can hope to compete in the free world markets if their costs of living and production are artificially raised? To sell in the cheapest market and to buy in the dearest is an inversion of that condition which is clearly the selfinterest of everyone to enjoy. Who can expect that the Western farmers should meekly and uncomplainingly accept such a sacrifice of their obvious interest?
Now, Sir, in connection with what I said with respect to the United States I wish to put on Hansard the following schedule showing the prices of cattle at Toronto, Winnipeg and Chicago:
Toronto	Winnipeg	ChicagoChoice steers	38 25	$6 75	$12 50Prime butchers' steers..	8 00	6 00	10 50Common butchers' steers	.. 7 00	4 00	9 00Choice feeder steers ..	7 00	4 75	8 00Butchers' cows	5 80	4 00	7 50Butchers' heifers .. ..	7 50	5 00	10 50Choice calves	11 00	8 00	14 752232	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. King (Huron)
Is it any wonder that the farmers of Canada are casting longing eyes on the markets in the country to the south? They see perfectly well that the market there is really their natural miarket. If the Canadian government would see to it that no tariff war takes place between the two Countries, and if the relations between Canada and the United States are conducted in a spirit of brotherly kindness, the day is not far distant when we shall have access to that market.
Now, Sir, I want to make a brief reference to Great Britain. What country in the world has made such a rapid recovery from the ravages of -the Great war as Great Britain has done?	Free trade has proven the
economic salvation of that wonderful land. This, Mr. Speaker, is so well recognized that all parties in England to-day unite in supporting a motion before the British parliament providing for the repeal of the Safeguarding of Industries Act.
Honourable members to my right are prone to accuse those who sit in this section of the House of representing a class. But, Mr. Speaker, even should this assertion be true is it not still a greater truth in so far as these hon. gentlemen themselves are concerned? We at least can say that the workers in our cities will benefit as well as the farmers from a low tariff policy. In their case it is the height of folly to attempt to maintain that even the manufacturers, whose friends they claim to be, will derive any benefits of a permanent nature from the high protection they advocate. I ask honourable members whether the child of the poor family raised under "catch-as-catch-can" conditions, or the petted and protected spoiled only child of the rich man, can best sail the troubled seas of our everyday world. We may represent a class, Mr. Speaker, but if we do, it is the far larger class, the class that needs representation most urgently and the class which, up to the present, has had the least of it. These utterances from hon. gentlemen to my right have no foundation in fact. They only misrepresent the conditions which they endeavour to portray. The sooner the manufacturer and his representative come down to the earth of the farmer and of the working man, the sooner will we, in this parliament, be able to bring about conditions satisfactory to all and detrimental to none. Yes, Sir, the manufacturer has a right to representation, but who will deny the same right to the farmer and to the worker? Why must .the farmer grow the bread required for the sustenance of the manufacturer? Why must the labourer sweat and

slave to provide him with dividends? Why again should our natural development be hindered so as to nurture the manufacturers' growth? No, Mr. Speaker, we can never expect better conditions to prevail, so long as we maintain conditions that do not evenly distribute the load of our national obligations.
It has often been stated in this House, and more frequently by honourable members to my right, that the prices of farm produce are regulated by world conditions over which no individual country has control. Let us apply the same principle to our manufacturers, and allow the prices for the articles which they produce to be guided by the world supply and demand of the commodities they offer for sale. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that a condition which is fair for one section of our population is also fair for the other sections. One must be intentionally blind to all conditions of fairness and have swallowed his principles of British fair play to advocate in this democratic Dominion one set of standards for our manufacturers and another for our farmers and working classes.
I admit that the United States are living at present under a protective system, but I have no hesitation in predicting that this condition will not long endure in that country. You may be sure, Mr. Speaker, that the farmers in the country to the south will not much longer endure a policy which has been so detrimental to their welfare. Yes, I repeat, the tariff has done for the American farmer just the reverse of what he expected from it. He asked to be protected against Canadian wheat and he obtained, some time ago a protection of thirty cents a bushel. At that time the price of wheat on the Chicago market was six cents per bushel higher than the price prevailing at Winnipeg. He was not satisfied with that- and obtained, more recently, from the United States government an additional protection of 12 cents, bringing the total to 42 cents a bushel. What has been the result? What did the United States farmer gain by this protection? Well, this is it. With no protection the Chicago price was at an advance of six cents over the Winnipeg one. With a protection of 42 cents a bushel against Canadian wheat, the advantage in price at Chicago has dropped to-day to two cents below Winnipeg. What a wonderful protective achievement.
I have admitted, Mr. Speaker that the United States is at present living under a protective tariff, but I take the most emphatic stand against the claims advanced that it is the most highly protected country in the world. When we take into consideration that

The Budget-Mr. King (Huron)
almost 58 per cent of the total imports of the United States are admitted free of duty; and we find that in the year 1924 the average rate of duty on dutiable imports into Canada was 22.85 per cent, and into the United States 35.51 per cent, and' also in the same year in regard to the average rate of duty on total imports, the rate in Canada was 15.13 per cent and in the United States 15.33 per cent, we at once come to the conclusion that the United States has a small amount of goods under higher protective duty than Canada.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, low tariff is the essential requirement for the progress of our nation. No purely protective tariff or preference can result in anything but the imposition of unnecessary burdens upon the people. Tariffs are a hindrance to natural trade. They are a hindrance to natural development and they achieve everything except the results which they are intended to produce. *
Who wants Imperial preference? Surely not the people of the British Isles. Why should they desire any measure which will increase their cost of living? Do we want Imperial preference? Not unless our British sentiments are limited by the benefits that would accrue to us from a partial Closing of the Old Land markets to other nations, to the detriment of Britishers; not unless our attachment to British institutions is so weak as to wish our lot to be made better by the imposition of burdens on our brothers.
Previous to the Imperial conference two years ago, a meeting of members of all parties in England, was held in the House of Commons to formulate a policy of defence against the demands which it appeared certain would be made for Imperial preference. I quote a few of the remarks made by Mr. Asquith on that occasion. He said:
From the beginning of the controversy begun twenty years ago the issue raised by the call for Imperial preference was the taxation of food. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain at the very outset confessed that any preference given to the colonies or the outlying parts of the empire was of no use, economically or sentimentally, unless as an essential part of it you put a tax on the importation of food into this country.
There has been no change in the essential, fundamental and unalterable economic conditions. Imperial preference without taxation of food is a fraud and a sham.
If that issue is raised again-and it will be raised and must be raised by some of the proposals to be laid before the forthcoming Imperial economic conference- and if some of these proposals materialize, the issue ought to be put fairly and squarely before the public, I have not the slightest doubt if that is done the verdict will be just as it was in 1906.
And! the matter was placed before the British public, Mr. Speaker, and their verdict was just as emphatic as in 1906. Can we 143
blame them? Why should they increase their cost of living? Mr. Asquith is right in maintaining that any idea of Imperial preference must necessarily mean the taxation of food and it is just as true of any tariff measure. I, for one, am unalterably opposed to any policy that will force the people of the British Isles to remember our ingratitude at their breakfast tables.
Speaking at Vancouver the late President Warren G. Harding said:
The best citizen is the man who is a good neighbour and the best neighbour is the man whom we are friendly enough with to go and borrow a coupls of eggs from.
This, Sir, may sound to you as an obvious truth. The regrettable part is that though we feel those sentiments of neighbourly friendliness we appear at the same time to be very unwilling to adopt the practice of the true brotherhood which they teach. What can be thought of brothers who hamper their own relations by the detrimental tariff walls which exist between the two great nations of this North American continent. I say to the people of Canada and to those of the United States that friendly relations and the feeling of brotherhood will only grow in proportion to the ease with which they can carry on both their commercial and diplomatic relations. The brotherhood of our two countries will indeed only be one of true Christianity when we can deal amongst ourselves between our respective countries as we or they are dealing to-day between our own cities.
The tariff must be looked at as absolutely vicious and the more you look at all its intricacies the more you realize that it never did and never can accomplish the purpose for which it was adopted. Tariffs the world over, in no matter what form they occur, have always been unfair as between different industries. They have always caused trouble and friction between nations. They always engender commercial rivalry and sooner or later they have ended in strained relations between nations, in many cases culminating in disastrous struggles in diplomacy, eventually ending in open war and the consequent destruction of humanity. What can any one advance in support of a policy that leads to such an end?
I was especially pleased, Mr. Speaker, that this government cut their moorings during the session of 1924 and' made a distinct cleavage between tfhe proponents of low tariff and the advocates of high protection. At



The Budget-Mr. King (Huron)
the same time, Mr. Speaker, I am very much disappointed that they did not in the least degree continue the lead then given. If confirmation is required, I need only read the statement made by the Prime Minister himself whilst addressing some remarks to the hon. member for St. Lawrence and St. George (Mr. Marler). In the course of that debate the Prime Minister said:
The die is now cast. From this time forward, Mr. Speaker, we have the two natural alignments in this House, high and low tariff advocates.
Now, I am disappointed that the government did not at least lower the duties on such articles as automobiles, rubber and a few other things.
The manufacturers of our urban centres had better realize immediately that the population of our rural communities have finally set out with a determination to make a finish fight, a winning one, you may be sure, in order to equalize the conditions which have so long been discriminatory to our farming people. Previous to this parliament, the interests, the requirements and the needs of the rural centres received at best but scant consideration. Perhaps it was their fault. Very few men in previous parliaments had the full knowledge of farm conditions, due to the fact that in a great number of cases the representatives were the products of urban centres. This lack of representation as compared with the over representation of the manufacturing interests, resulted in the conditions which are to be found to-day when the farmer finds himself at such a disadvantage that it is just possible, by real hard1 work, to eke out a meagre living. On the other hand the agriculturists of this country do not wish to create unrest and dissatisfaction in any section of our population. They are the most stable part of our people. They certainly do not desire radicalism in any form. They are out to teach our manufacturers that they can progress better on their own supports and that the high tariff protection they have been accustomed to has not and never will give them strength. The farming population are not looking for favours. They are as willing as ever to bear their just share of our national burden. They are only asking that the hole be bored in the centre of the evener so that each section will have an even draught. They have now rebelled and certainly will not continue the slavery imposed upon them by drilling, always further from the centre, the hole that determines the respective pull required of the members of our national team.
No; Mr. Speaker, a high tariff policy is deterimental to the sound, sane and effective

development of any country. No results of a permanent nature can obtain under such artificial conditions. We had better be without industries, if to possess them we must compel their growth within the protective walls of a hothouse. I am convinced that the diagnosis of our manufacturing industries was erroneous, since the treatment prescribed has proven ineffective. With the experience of the mistake made it is our bounden duty to rectify the error by changing the medicine. What better proof have we of this than the oft repeated plea of industry that it cannot stand on its own feet. The manufacturer is like the spoiled child of an over indulgent parent. I admit that this young man, might suffer by too radical a change in treatment. We must, however, gradually reduce the doses and finally omit altogether the support which he has too long received and imbue him with that spirit of confidence in himself that will enable him to depend soMy on his manhood for success.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the Progressive party is a modest, retiring party, and we have been subjected to political thrusts, some of them not very clean, from all sides of the House-even from our own side; but I desire to affirm right here, that not only will the Progressive party come back after the next election, but will come back more than a mere remnant-more than a sad remnant. The Progressive party is here to do business and will do business in this House after all the present members, I was going to say, had passed into oblivion, but I do not say that because I know there are a great many hon. members of this House whose names will go down in the annals of Canadian history. I say the Progressive party will be doing business in this House long after all the present members have passed from this earthly stage of existence. The Progressive party has its roots in the soil and they will not be very easily eradicated.


An hon. MEMBER:: No weeds.


John Warwick King: No, no weeds. We
hear a. great deal to-day to our right and across the floor about an election, the possibilities of an election and the readiness of the Liberal party for an election; but I believe the Progressive party is as well prepared today for an election as any other party in this House.


Mr. E. W. ROBINSON (Kings, N.S.):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to state at the outset that it is my purpose to support the budget proposals as brought down by the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) and, in as brief a manner as possible, to give a few reasons for doing so. A short time ago we had a speech

The Budget-Mr. Robinson
on the budget from the leader of the Progressive group (Mr. Forke), and I remember that he stated that he deprecated the fact that the financial statement had not been given to us in such a form that the ordinary person could readily unerstand it. I quite agree with him and I too would wish that the financial statement had been made to th:s House in such a manner that the ordinary person who was not a financial expert could easily understand it. We find the government classifying as assets items which the opposition classify as liabilities. As long as our financial experts disagree, how can those of us who have not an expert financial knowledge, draw a conclusion from the financial statement as presented to us? I have gone back in history a little and I find that this is not by any means a new condition of things. If you will read the history of parliaments, you will find that every government endeavours to make the best showing it can. Every government attempts to keep alive a feeling of contentment in the minds of the people, while it seems to be the duty of the opposition, if possible, to break down that financial statement and to preach discontent. Therefore, I am not at all surprised when this debate follows the regular order. I am ready, however, to accept the statement of the Acting Minister of Finance concerning our surplus, for this reason. Last year we were face to face with the same conditions that we are facing to-day. The Acting Minister of Finance at that time claimed that we had a surplus of some $34,000,000. This was strenuously denied by the opposition, and yet during the year we are told that the government made a payment of about $34,000,000 on the national debt. They must have had this sum in order to be able to pay it, and I am therefore ready to accept the statement of the Acting Minister of Finance that we have, at this time, a surplus of $1,800,000.
The equalization, if I may call it such, of the duties on coal also meets with my approval, for this reason. I am not going into the detaHte of the history of the duties on coal. It is sufficient to say that there were two duties on slack coal, one of 14 cents and the other of 53 cents a ton. As usual, it was the manufacturer who had the advantage of the 14 cent rate while the householder paid 53 cents a ton. If there is to be a duty on coal, there should be no special privileges to any class; all classes should pay the same duty, and for that reason, I do not look on the change in the duties on coal as an increase. It is an increase to the manufacturer from 14 cents to 50 cents a ton, 143i
but to the householder it is a decrease from 53 to 50 cents a ton. I come from a county in Nova Scotia that is non-producing as regards coal. We are users of coal and I believe the householders in my county will be pleased when they know that the duty that they have to pay On coal has been reduced from 53 to 50 cents a ton.
Another item proposed by the Acting Minister of Finance that appeals to me is a tariff commission. If by this tariff commission is meant a travelling commission to go around the country and then come back and give its opinions, I for one would not see much in	it. We	have	had this kind10 p.rn.	of	thing in	days	gone by. Butif	by this	tariff	commission is
meant a number of experts who will collect facts and give us the means of forming our own opinion, I am in favour of it. I was surprised the other night when the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey) said that if we had such a tariff commission, it would fasten on the country forever the system of protection. I do not believe it would, and I for one would say that if a knowledge of the facts will fasten on us the system of protection, I do not see how we can get away from it. As I take it, it will be the duty of this commission to collect facts and to submit them to .members of this House so that we can form our judgment on them, and not as the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) said a short time ago, to take the responsibility in their hands nor to assume to themselves the right to fix rates. Is this not needed? I for one would say that it is, and for this reason. Sitting in this House I have heard somebody advocate an increased rate of duty, giving reasons for his opinion, and to me it seemed to be all right, while some other hon. member would take the same industry and show that it was already too highly protected. What are the facts in such cases? Let us have -the facts and then we shall be able tq form our opinion.
I should like to mention, in passing, a budget proposal that appeals to me, and that is the reduction of the duty on engines used by fishermen. This will be a benefit to the fishermen on both the Atlantic and the Pacific.
A great deal of discussion has taken place in this House regarding trade and business depression. Everybody will admit that we have been passing through a period of serious depression. A little knowledge of history will teach us that during any war there is a .period of great business activity and this is always followed by a reaction. It cannot be cured by legislation. Any country that has engaged in
The Budget*-Mr. Robinson

a long drawn out war must ipay the penalty. The longer that country is at war the heavier the penalty it must pay. We were in the war from start to finish, and we have to face the depression that naturally follows in its wake.
I wish to speak for a minute or two on conditions in the Maritime provinces, because I am more familiar with conditions there than with those in other parts of the Dominion. We have had a serious depression, but I would point out that to a great extent this is a postwar condition. Let us take Nova Scotia, for example. During the war Halifax was a world port; all the ships of the seven seas found there a haven; the population of the city 'grew by leaps and bounds; all goods that could be sold were sold there; there was an abundant demand; for labour; and even the explosion, although so disastrous, was not altogether an evil, for it brought into the city a great many labourers to reconstruct the devastated buildings. Now with the close of the war the city goes back to normal. Could anything else be expected? It had inflated its papulation by
15,000	or 20,000. That surplus of necessity must go somewhere else, and a great deal of the exodus from Nova Scotia is accounted for by the abnormal conditions that existed in Halifax during t.h.e war. In Nova Scotia another cause of financial depression is due to the trade policy under which we have suffered more or less for the past forty years, because much as protection may ;be a benefit to other provinces-and I do not deny that it is a benefit to the central provinces-there is no question but that it has been very injurious to the Maritime provinces. We have seen all our industries either closed out or else compelled to move to the central provinces. There has been also a movement of capital. I do not say that legislation could change it, I do not say but that it is the natural result, for capital tends to flow to large industrial centres, and So far as I can see there is no way to prevent it. Four of our largest chartered banks had their origin in the Maritime provinces, but their headlquarters are not there to-day. So I say from our geographical position the trade policy that may be beneficial to the rest of Canada is injurious to us, and it has been one of the causes that has produced depression in the Maritime provinces. When hon members stand up in this House and say that such depression can be cured by some act of this parliament, I for one do not see how it can be done. Again, we used to have low transportation rates, but when the Intercolonial railway became a part of the Canadian National system our rates were substantially increased,

with the result that we are now almost isolated from the rest of Canada. The Fordney tariff struck us very hard, especially in the fishing industry, and for two or three years at least the fishing industry was disorganized. But I do not wish to paint too dark a picture. Let me speak of Nova Scotia, of what we have done there. In the statistics for 1924 I find that our field crops were valued at nearly $17,000,000; we had dairy products worth nearly $10,000,000; fruit and vegetables to the value of something over $7,000,000; poultry and eggs worth nearly $1,700,000; our fisheries yielded a revenue of $8,750,000; our minerals yielded a revenue of $24,900,000, and up to date we have shipped to England
1,900,000	barrels of apples: so the outlook for Nova Scotia is not altogether dark. But we have some needs, and it is of these I wish to speak for a few minutes.
The first and great need of the Maritime provinces, as I see it, is lower freight rates. Something should be done in order that we may be placed on an equality with the rest of the Dominion in this respect. That these freight rates are hard on the Maritime provinces has been shown conclusively by the member for Kings, P.E.I. (Mr. Hughes) and the member for Northumberland (Mr. Snowball). We are suffering from the bad effects of unjust freight rates. Now, this is the cure proposed by some people. They say that the Maritime provinces should be given a freight rate lower than actual cost, and that the rest of the Dominion should be taxed' to make up the difference. I do not believe that that is the general wish of the Maritime provinces, nor do I believe that it would produce the result that is looked for. As I understand it, we in the Maritimes do not ask for charity- not at this stage at least; all we want is justice. But there are two items in the Maritime provinces that might well receive a freight rate lower than actual cost, and this reduction would work a benefit to the entire Dominion; those two items are coal and fish. Certainly the people of Ontario and Quebec need our coal; therefore if it were broi^ht from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at a very low rate it would benefit us, and it would benefit also Ontario and Quebec. The same would be true concerning fish. But would this be true with respect to other things? Take farm products, for example. Suppose we in the Mara time provinces received a rate lower than cost in order to ship our farm products into the central provinces, see what the result would be. I have heard, hon. members of the opposition say that in Ontario at least they do not want competition.

The Budget-Mr. Robinson
in farm products; indeed they tell us that they wish farm products from the United States shut out from Ontario and Quebec, for they want to supply the home market themselves. They do not want competition. We have heard that over and over again in the House. They advocate a tariff against United States farm products. Would they be willing to have competition from the Maritime provinces in farm products? Would they be willing that we should send up our butter, out eggs, our poultry, our bacon? And not only send those commodities here, bult that a portion of the expense be paid by the central provinces to the extent to which the freight rates were lower than cost? It does not seem to me reasonable. And if we had the revival in industry that has been talked1 of down' i'n the Maritime provinces, and we began to ship manufactured goodte into the central provinces, would the manufacturers there, who already say that they do not wish for any competition, would they, I say, welcome competition from the Maritime provinces, especially if they had to bear a portion of the freight rates on the goods? It seems to me, Sir, that iit would be unreasonable to expect any such welcome.
What we need1 in the Maritime provinces is wider markets. We have developed a market in England and in some of the countries on the continent, and we have a market in the West Indies that. I believe could be developed to a very considerable degree. Of course, it goes without saying that, whether it be true for the rest of Canada ot not, reciprocity would have been a panacea for the Maritimes. However, if we had wider markets, if we had better shipping facilities, including cold storage, frost proof warehouses, improved docking, and if we had lower freight rates, it seems to me that all these things would tend to cure the present depression in -the Maritime provinces.
Now for a few minutes I wish to refer, Mr. Speaker, to something that, so far as I know, has not been dealt with except by the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. Hammell) who spoke a few nights ago on the tourist trade. I believe we overlook the importance of this trade. If I understand it rightly, it is the third item of revenue. From agriculture we had a revenue in 1924 of $407,000,000; from wood and1 wood products, $229,000,000; from the tourist trade, $150,000,000; from mine and mine products, $125,000,000; from animals and animal products, $135,000,000. Here is a trade question upon which, it seems to me, all parties in the House might agree. Here is an infant industry that I do not think anybody
would oppose encouraging. The encouragement of the tourist trade is an attempt to capitalize our scenery, our climate, and our points of historic interest. The tourist trade does not. interfere with any existing industries, nor does it in any way deplete our natural resources. It is well known to members of this House what other countries have done in connection with the tourist trade. Switzerland has capitalized the Alps; France has capitalized her art museums and her galleries, Italy her blue sky, and Greece her historic ruins. Therefore, it seems to me that we should try in some way to capitalize our scenery, our points of historic interest-and we have them, Mr. Speaker. I need not point out the beauties of British Columbia, the attractions of the Great Lakes or the river St. Lawrence, the historic interest that attaches to the province of Quebec. I would like, however, to say a few words about the Maritime provinces and their relation to the tourist trade, or the relation of the tourist trade to them.
In the first place, the scenery throughout the Maritime provinces all belongs in the same category. There are not in this respect, three provinces; there is one province. We have no mighty mountains; we have no great rivers. Everything is on a small scale. Geologically speaking, the Maritime provinces are the oldest parts of the continent of America; nature has been at work there the longest time, and she has smoothed out the rough places. There are no irregularities; we have harmony- harmony of river, hill and valley. We have a climate that is not equalled anywhere else in North America. The thermometer rarely goes below zero in winter or above eighty in summer; while cities of central Canada and the United States are sweltering in heat, we in the Maritime provinces are enjoying the cool breezes of the Atlantic.
But I wish to emphasize particularly our points of historic interest. We in the Maritime provinces have a number of important points of historic interest. The provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were anciently the French province of Acadie. The first settlement that was made in Canada was made at Annapolis, or Port Royal, in 1604. The French settled at various places throughout Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and whenever a war took place between England and France those points of settlement by the French were objects of attack. The result was that they were taken by the English and were handed back by treaty. Annapolis was taken four different times by the English and then returned to
The Budget-Mr. Robinson

the French. In 1713 the province of Nova Scotia was ceded to England, but almost immediately war broke out, because the French claimed that they had ceded but the peninsula of Nova Scotia while the English claimed they had been given the entire province of Acadie. The result was that the French built a fort at Beausejour, and at Louisburg, in Cape Breton, and war went on. In 1763, of course, the entire country passed into the hands of England, but between the years 1713 and 1763 there were great historic events in Nova Scotia. Fort Beausejour was taken; Louisburg was taken twice. It was in that period that Halifax was settled by the English and the expulsion of the Acadians took place. I could go on for some time pointing out the historic interest of Nova Scotia, but it is not necessary.	.
I might mention that as far as Canada is concerned we are the land of first things. The first road in Canada was built at Port Royal in 1605. The first Roman Catholic church in Canada was established in 1608. The first Protestant church in Canada was built at Halifax in 1749. The first newspaper published in Canada was published in Halifax in 1751. The first representative assembly chosen in Canada met at Halifax in 1758. The first college or institution of higher learning was founded at Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1788. It is a fact that we shipped or had apples for sale in Nova Scotia in 1663, and coal was exported from Cape Breton in 1743. I could continue, Mr. Speaker, for some time giving a list of points of historic interest in the province of Nova Scotia.
I wish to point out briefly what we have done in connection with the tourist business. In Nova Scotia last year we had 100,000 tourists and the revenue from that source was 87,000,000. We have good roads. We have tourists' associations; we have boards of trade devoting their activities to promoting tourist trade. We distributed last year 500,000 copies of a guide book to the province. Good work was also done in New Brunswick. They had about 100,000 tourists and they estimated their revenue at 85,000,000. In order to show their interest in the tourist business I may say that the membership in the New Brunswick Tourist Association rose in one year from 800 to 1,400. Prince Edward Island also had
36,000	tourists last year and a revenue of $750,000 from that source. In Prince Edward Island the number of automobiles coming in. not owned on the island, was 800 in 1923 and 1,400 in 1924. I mention these facts simply to show that we in the Maritime provinces are alive to the importance of the tourist trade.

But there are things that we in the province cannot do. There is a limit to what we can do in the encouragement of the tourist trade, and it is right here that the federal government have an opportunity to do something for us if they will. There are two branches of the federal government which are connected directly or indirectly with the tourist trade; first, the National Parks branch, and second, the Natural Resources branch. The National Parks branch has charge of the national parks, of which we have ten, I believe, three in British Columbia, three in the prairie provinces, and four in Ontario. We in the Maritime provinces have no objection to those parks being there; we understand that that is probably the natural place for them. But the National Parks branch have also under their control historic sites and the marking of those historic sites by means of suitable monuments. What we would like in the Maritime provinces is this:	That
the National Parks branch take charge of the grounds at Fort Beausejour, for example; that they take charge of the grounds at Louisburg, and preserve them. They have already taken charge of a small area at Annapolis Royal. This is work that can only be done by the federal government, and we do not wish to duplicate in the provinces the departments that already exist at Ottawa. So it seems to me that there is work here for the National Parks branch. That department is doing good work up to the measure of their financial possibilities. We in this country, it seems to me, are lax in some respects, and one of these is the encouragement of such branches as the National Parks branch. We could have in New Brunswick a small national park, and we could have another in Nova Scotia, to add to our points of interest. In New Brunswick they have points of great scenic interest, such as the St. John valley, the valley of the Restigouche and the Mir-amichi. But what we require is simply that the federal government take hold of this thing when wre have carried it as far as we can. In Nova Scotia we have the Wentworth valley, the Annapolis valley and the Bras d'Or lakes-points of scenic cnterest. At some of these points a small national park could be located. The Natural Resources branch also in its work comes in contact directly and indirectly with the tourist trade. They examine into the natural resources of the country, follow out the waterways, outline canoe paths or trails, if you can call them such, and make maps. This is something that the provinces could hardly be expected to do. They should not be expected to duplicate the work that is being done or that

The Budget-Mr. Stansell
can be better done here at Ottawa. What we ask is that the federal government co-ordinate .the work of these branches, that they be given financial assistance so that they will be able to carry on the work, and that we should have here at Ottawa a tourist publicity bureau for the entire Dominion of Canada.
So far as the Maritime provinces are concerned, if we could get fair freight rates, increased marketing facilities, cold storage, and frost-proof warehouses, if we had wider markets and an increasing tourist trade, I believe that we would not suffer a great while in the province of Nova Scotia, at all events, under the present business depression.


John Lawrence Stansell: Mr. Speaker, I feel somewhat at a disadvantage at this late hour in endeavouring to offer a few remarks on the subject before the House. I do, however, wish to put before the House and the country my own personal views on this subject.
As far as the budget itself is concerned, there has been no criticism thus far so strong as that which has come from hon. members on the government side of the House. About thirty members supporting the government have already spoken, and almost without exception they have devoted themselves to every subject under the sun except the budget itself. The careful way in which they have avoided that subject is, I repeat, Mr. Speaker, the strongest condemnation that can be offered.
With the remarks of the speaker who has just preceded me (Mr. Robinson), I am very much in sympathy. I believe he has touched on a vital subject. I believe we possess in the natural resources of this Dominion, in our wonderful scenery and climate, a potential asset that can be developed and capitalized to a wonderful extent. However, while I sympathize very much with what the hon. member has just said, he like most of the other members on the government side has avoided nearly everything in the way of a reference to the budget itself.
We were treated this afternoon to a very long and eloquent address, which was also very much apart from the essentials of the budget. I had hoped, Mr. Speaker, that the wounds and sufferings of the war would not of necessity be drawn into this debate. The hon. member closed his address with a very eloquent appeal for national unity, for the elimination of all sectional strife and racial ill-feeling. His very eloquent appeal for unity followed an address which was nothing
if not an attempt to incite that very division he deplored. We were told something about the Ross rifle. The speaker himself claimed to know very little about this rifle. He also,
I believe, kept as far away from the actual use of it as possible, and he criticized strongly the men who shouldered that weapon and fought their country's battles in the bloodiest war of all history, carrying the weapons supplied to them, imposed on them, if you please, by the party of which he is a distinguished member. I have wondered, Mr. Speaker, how long in the constituency of the hon. member it will be necessary to manufacture campaign material of this type. Are there no great issues of the day that can be discussed? Is there nothing before us to-day on which an election can be won or lost that we have to revive the sores incidental to that fearful conflict? While it is very nice to discuss national unity and the elimination of all ill feeling, it seems to me it would be well to begin now to put in practice those high principles.
Since the beginning of this debate, compliments of various kinds have been handed to members of the cabinet and supporters of the government. I believe the Prime Minister himself can be complimented on the fact that he holds the record for a marathon performance in this fourteenth parliament, in delivering a speech over four hours in length. His record' has been nearly approached by other hon. members. I think this habit of making lengthy speeches is growing to too great an extent. The speeches might very well be condensed. The work of the House would be expedited, and the country itself would be very much better served by shorter and more practical speeches, by a little imore hard work and a little less talk.
The Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) has been complimented on his sunny countenance and his transparent honesty.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) must be complimented on the amount of figures he has been able to put upon Hansard, but I wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether the workmen of this country are not sufficiently intelligent to know whether they have a job or not. I wonder if industry in this country is not sufficiently intelligent to know whether it is working full time or not. I wonder whether all of us are not sufficiently intelligent to know whether we have money in our pockets and are prosperous or not. I do not intend to go into this in any further detail, because most of us know what the conditions of the country are. I think it is hardly
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necessary for the Minister of Labour to supply page after page of statistics and figures to convince people of what they know already as to the conditions ctf to-day.
But to the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) I think I can pay the most sincere compliment upon the brief way in which he delivered his budget statement. I can compliment him also on his ability in the art of juggling and sleight of hand. Perhaps this was necessary. An election cannot be so very far away, not more than about a year at the outside, and no doubt the government felt it was absolutely necessary to make a good showing and provide a surplus and, if possible, a reduction of debt. Therefore the minister accomplished, or set about to accomplish an impossibility, and the way in which that was attempted was certainly a credit to his ability. We have in this budget speech a statement of the country's finances, where figures are distributed through column after column with a sort of editorial comment. Looking at them one cannot but wonder at the deftness with which that distribution has been accomplished. Is it not time, Mr. Speaker, that a financial statement dealing with the affairs of the country should be presented in such a simple and practical way that the average man can understand just what the situation is? I ask you, would any company, any bank, or any organization dealing with the public that submits an annual statement, present the statement in the form in which this is given to us? There can only be one reason for a statement of this kind, it is intended to cover up the actual facts, to hide from the general public what the true situation is. I will not say this is the first time this has ever been attempted;
I do not propose to outline what anyone has done in former times. It is sufficient for me to deal with the facts as they are to-day; and I believe that the public of Canada, the electors who take an interest in the welfare of the country, are entitled to a simpler and plainer statement of the existing financial condition than they are getting. I believe, Sir, in the fair-mindedness of the public. I believe that the people of this country are willing to accept a plain statement of the facts, that they are willing to do their fair share in any way in which they may be called upon to remedy the condition that exists; and a first essential towards enlisting their sympathy and support is to give them a frank and open statement of the actual financial conditions of the country.
When changes were made in last year's budget an estimate was given that this would 
bring a reduction in revenue of about $24,000,000. We are told in this year's statement that that reduction was more than double; that . the actual reduction or falling off an revenue was $52,800,000. In the face of a decrease in revenue of $52,800,000, coupled with a greatly increased expenditure, the Acting Minister of Finance, if we accept his statement, is actually able to show that he has a very substantial surplus. This, I repeat, is a feat that very few would attempt and very few would succeed in accomplishing. I call attention to a statement made when this estimate was presented, in which it was predicted that there would be a reduction of $24,000,000. I quote the significant words which follow:
It is confidently expected that this reduction will give such impetus to trade that it will result in greater development of prosperity to all the provinces of Canada.
Now if prosperity is to come to any part of Canada, much less to all the provinces, I submit ilt must come in another form than this. The actual result is more than twice the amount the minister estimated. Therefore prosperity must be twice as great las he expected it to be. What a blessing, Mr. Speaker, it would be to this country, and) to all the provinces if based on that assumption the revenue had disappeared entirely. Certainly if the loss of $24,000,000 would bring prosperity, and by doubling that toss we would1 have even greater prosperity, then on the same assumption had we lost all our revenue we certainly would have reached! the millennium. I mention this to show the fallacy of the deductions dlrawn by the Acting Minister of Finance in his Statement.
Now, here is the statement by the hon. minister condensed. I use his own figures entirely, because we moist remember that the budget having been brought down early this session it was necessary to estimate some of the receipts and expenditures. I presume that no one is in a better position to estimate those amounts than the minister himself. I also presume that his canny Scotch caution would not allow him to exceed the expenditures very much or to reduce very much the revenues in his estimates. I therefore accept his figures in which he estimates the actual receipts at a total of $344,000,000. Against these the expenditures are estimated at $342,177,000, leaving a surplus of $1,823,000. As I said this is a somewhat complicated statement and in order to get at the facts it is necessary, if we take the minister's own figures, to do considerable figuring to arrive ait what we believe the true condition of affairs to be. I have spent some time working

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on these figures, and I intend to submit what I think is the true and proper statement of the financial affairs of this country based on the figures supplied: by the minister himself. We have an actual revenue of $308,994,207.71. It is estimated by the minister that there is yet to be received $35,005,792.29, which makes $344,000,000 of total receipts. The expenditures, actual and estimated-and again I take the minister's own figures-are ais follows: Expenditures Actual and Estimated-
Ordinary	 $319,700,000
Capital	 18,077,000
Special	 4,400,000
Canadian National Railways	 18,027,000
Total	 $360,204,000
You will notice, Mr. Speaker, that I am not separating these amounts. It is true they are separated by the minister for purposes of his own; but I submit that the National Railways are owned by the people of Canada and any money advanced on their account is owed by the people and must be paid. Therefore in order to make this statement perfectly clear I am adding the amount of cash advanced to the railways, making a total expenditure of $360,204,000. Instead of there being a surplus there is an actual deficit of $16,204,000 and I submit, Mr. Speaker, this is the correct statement.
Now let us see what the railway financing is. It will be remembered that parliament authorized $56,527,000 for railway expenditure. This not being enough, a further supplementary estimate of $7,500,000 was approved, making a total of $64,027,000 divided as follows: Cash, $18,027,000; guaranteed bonds, $46,000,000. In addition to that there fell due Canadian Northern securities amounting to $17,000,000 which were Te-fmanced and for that reason are not counted. I merely mention this to show the amount of money required to finance our National Railway system. There was a further flotation issued by the railway itself of $9,375,000. This was for equipment and I presume the equipment was worth the money paid for it. I understand this loan was made by the railway system itself and was not specially guaranteed. We will therefore leave that out of consideration, because we take it for granted that the equipment was worth the money.
Then there was another special loan for the Toronto terminals, and branch lines, amounting to $18,000,000. This was guaranteed by the government. So that our total railway requirements for the year just past amounted to $10S,402,000. I mention this because there is a certain degree of pride on the part of the Canadian people in a railway that they own
and operate; but we must remember what that railway is costing the people, and when we hear people glibly talk about the reduction of freight rates and all such things as that, without taking into consideration that this will of necessity make that railway a greater white elephant on our hands than it is at present, it is well for us to pause and consider that we have spent during the year $108,402,000 on railway account. I will deduct from that securities that were re-financed on account of the Canadian Northern Railway, and also deduct the amount the railways issued for their own equipment. That leaves a balance of actual debt from the operation of the railways of $82,027,000. I will now give the figures supplied by the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) on the increase of national debt. He figures the addition to
the public debt as follows:
Cash to Canadian National Railways.. .. $18,027,000 Canadian Government Merchant Marine.. ..	900,000
Quebec Harbour Commission	 600,000
That is an increase of $19,527,000, but he deducts from this a surplus which he showed in the first statement of $1,823,000. That will leave $17,704)300. But now he deducts something else; that is, an amount of $4,000,162, which is obtained in the following way. The governments of Greece and Roumania owe the Dominion and have owed the Dominion for some time a large sum of money which they have not repaid, nor have they paid interest on the money. The government have arranged for a funding of this amount of interest: that is, they have taken the amount of interest, of which not one dollar has been paid, and added it to the original amount, and then claimed this $4,000,162 was a surplus. It is just the same as though I held a mortgage on a man's farm so large that he was unable to pay a dollar of principal and had not paid any interest for some years, and I go to him and take a new mortgage, covering both principal and interest, and add the interest to the principal, and then say, "I have profited to the extent of the amount of interest added to the mortgage." If there is such a thing, Mr. Speaker, as unsound financing, this is an outstanding illustration. There may be something received in future years. We hope so, but no method of bookkeeping should show cash received before any cash has been received.
Reference is made in the budget to the fact that we now have added securities. I want to call attention to the fact that we had the security of the debtor, nations themselves before this, and we have not anything more than that now. You will notice
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by this statement of figuring a fictitious surplus of $1,823,000 is added to another surplus of which we have never received a dollar, amounting to $4,000,162. Therefore, according to the statement of the minister the net increase in the national debt will only amount to $13,703,838. I propose now, to show what the actual increase of the national debt is. placing the statement on Hansard and then explaining how it is arrived at:
Statement of National debt
Net debt March 31, 1924	*2,417,783,174 88
Addition on railway account	 82,027,000 00
Deficit	 16,204,000 00
Total addition for year	 * 98,231,000 00
Again taking the minister's figures we are told that on March 31, 1924 the net public debt was $2,417,783,274.88; add on railway account, 1924-25, the sum of $82,027,000. It was pointed out by the minister that there was some difference between the cash advanced by the railways and the guaranteed bonds, but I must confess I am unable to understand where the difference is. In the one case we borrow the money on our own security and hand it over to the railways to the amount of $18,027,000. That is counted as a debt. In the other case we ask the railways to issue bonds for $46,000,000 and we guarantee them and they get the money. There is absolutely no difference. We, the people, are the railway. We own the railway. In the one case we have our own note, and in the other case we endorse the note of the railway and raise the money absolutely on the credit of the country. So that I say on railway account the debt is increased by $82,027,000. It cannot be disputed The people of Canada are just as much liable for that amount as they are for any other amount they have advanced. The railways have not repaid any money loaned them and are not likely to. There is no difference whether you advance money to a harbour commission, to other public works or to the railway,'because they are all owned iby Canada, and the debt incurred is money spent or money advanced by the people of Canada. There is no escape from it. Here is the situation: they add to the debt $S2,027,000. In addition there is a deficit, as I have shown, of $16,204,000, making a total addition to the debt for the past year of $98,231,000. That, Mr. Speaker, is a true financial statement of the affairs of this country and one which cannot be disputed.
It has been pointed out also by the minister that at the beginning of the year there were cash assets of over $43,000,000, and in order

to be accurate, I will read his statement to the House.
May I, before leaving this question of debt reduction, direct the attention of the House to the balance sheet of the Public Accounts at the close of the financial year 1923-24, page 2, where will be found among our assets an amount of $43,612,756.16, cash left in our hands after the closing of our accounts for that year; and I submit the question: Is not the actual possession of so much cash conclusive evidence that we ended that year with excellent results?
That is accounted for however by the fact that they borrowed the money and had not yet spent it. If that as a sound argument there should be a similar amount of cash on hand at the present time, but there is no reference in the minister's statement of any such amount of cash now.
Another matter to which I call attention is the statement made last year of the prosperity that would follow the reduction of taxation. You may look from one end of the statement to the other in this year's budget and will not find any such promise of the year that is to come. This is ample proof that the financial statement might even be worse than I have outlined, but the figures I have given are those taken from the minister's own report and I submit they are correct.
A great deal has been said about the policy of the government. I do not want to be unduly harsh and I am going to state frankly that I do not think all the unemployment and all the difficulties with which we are faced are due to the government, but I do think that they did their very best to bring about this condition. They have not done a great deal in the past four years, but in my humble judgment everything that has been done has been wrong, and I will attempt to prove that that is so. I do not claim for one moment that the immediate adoption of a Conservative policy or the proper application of adequate protection will at once restore prosperity, but I believe it will materially assist in that direction, and the sooner those policies are applied1 the sooner the remedy will come.
A discussion of policies present and prospective brings us to that old somewhat threadbare subject, the tariff, protection versus free trade. Undoubtedly many beautiful arguments can be submitted by those who sincerely believe in free trade. Many of those arguments are founded on a study of the theories of Cobden, Bright, Henry George and others. I should like to point out that this whole thing is based on a theory intended to apply to conditions that never existed in this world and in my judgment will not exist within a generation at least, if ever. The benefits of such a policy as free trade could be real only to the extent to which all

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nations adopted the same policy. This theory of free trade, however beautiful it may be, is absolutely worthless and impracticable as applied to -conditions as they exist to-day. I am quite sure there are only a very few members in this House who really and honestly believe in their hearts that free trade is the proper thing for Canada. Fortunately, they are very few, and to such I can only offer sympathy because I am convinced that there is no practical method by which free trade can be applied with beneficial results to the Dominion of Canada at the present time. We are faced with conditions and facts, not with theories.
Briefly, what are conditions in Canada today? We have taken our share in a war that, in magnitude, in expenditure of men and money, in its fearful results, has never before been equalled in the world. It is folly to think that Canada or any of the allies, or, indeed, any nation even most remotely connected with the war, can go through such a period without tremendous commercial disturbances. During the period of the war, business was stimulated to a wonderful degree, advanced and enlarged, spending habits were contracted, the people were spending and reducing their own buying power, so that at the close of the conflict a reaction was inevitable. The only thing that could or should have occurred was a realization of the results that must come from such a conflict and the proper application of remedies which, although they might not be entirely curative, would at least have been preventive. Many nations of the world, amongst others the United States, realizing that, used the only weapon which they had to work with-a protective tariff. Sixty-five nations have increased their tariff since the war with the direct object of trying to conserve and protect their own resources to supply within themselves the limited buying power of their people. Canada, through a mistaken policy, is perhaps the one outstanding nation which took the opposite course, with the result that most of us know. I said a short time ago that the only thing that this government has done has been a mistaken act. The little that it has done has been in the wrong direction. While I never was a believer in high protection, I am convinced that from the standpoint of the farmer, labouring man. manufacturer or anyone else in this Dominion, we should at once, faced with that condition, have revised our tariff and made it so as to fit conditions as they were. <
This is the condition that faces us. Our buying power is reduced. The buying power of all
the nations of the world is reduced. They are buying only the things they must, of necessity, buy. There can be only one result.
We must curtail our expenditure,
11 ip.m. reduce many of our activities and live, as far as possible, within ourselves. Surely, when buying power is low. when men are out of jobs, it is not a practical policy to go to a foreign nation and buy goods that we could produce ourselves. I do not propose to deal with the tariff as it affects a particular individual or class. I contend that whatever policy we put into force should be one for the general benefit of Canada.
In addition to conditions which I have described, we have a system of national railways besides the great railway system of the Canadian Pacific. These, with their branch lines, form three great lines, running east and west across this country. That is, the money of the people of Canada is invested in railway lines running east and west. With the enormous debt that that entails, there are created fixed charges which must be met by the people of the Dominion and the only way in which those fixed charges can be reduced and the railway deficits removed is to keep those railways busy. We have a tremendous national debt which, as I have shown, amounts to about $2,500,000,000, which also involves an enormous fixed charge in the way of interest. The only method by which that can be carried by the people of this Dominion without an undue burden is to enlarge and invigorate our commercial interests in Canada, to increase the volume of business that is done. Any other system is bound to be ruinous. With conditions such as these, with our money invested in railways and with our tremendous national debt, both of which entail enormous fixed charges against us, the only way in which we can get out of such a situation is to reduce overhead so that we can carry the burden without its resting too heavily upon us. To do this we must have increased population and employment for our people, and our farmers and employees in our factories must be producing sufficient to carry the load.
Another reason why a protective tariff is absolutely essential to the Dominion is this. For 3,000 miles we are alongside a neighbour upon which, whether we like it or not, we are dependent for certain conditions. A certain scale of wages is in effect over there, for example, the McAdoo award in regard to wages of railway employees, and whether we
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like it or not we are forced to accept the same scale of wages in Canada. If not, if wages are lower on any particular line in Canada than they are on the corresponding line in the United States, it is very easy for our workers to walk across the border, and with the conditions that we have had during the last few years that is just what has happened, to the great detriment of this country, We deliberately adopted the policy which encouraged greater importations from the United States, with the result that our workmen have had to go over there to get a job. This is axiomatic,. I think, and incontrovertible: whereever the nation sends its money, there its sons and daughters are bound to go. This is inevitable. If our money goes to the United States or to any other country to build up industries there, your sons and daughters must go there to get work. There is no escape from it. It may not be pleasant, but it is true nevertheless. As an illustration, I might mention something that was made a great deal of some years ago when the Farmers' party first had its rise, although I do not hear 60 much about it to-day, and I rather think the idea has been exploded-a great deal was said about the depopulation of the farms and the rural people drifting into the large urban centres. Years ago when there was a far greater proportion of our population in the country, a great many of our farmers were obliged to meet their requirements by their own handiwork, and what they failed in so supplying they obtained from the comer store, their money being spent at home as far as possible. To-day how many farm houses will you go into throughout Ontario and Quebec where you will not find Eaton's or Simpson's catalogue in a prominent place? The people are sending their money to Toronto and the other big centres to furnish their requirements. I am not finding fault with this but again my axiom applies:	If your money goes to any
of these large centres, your sons and daughters must go there to get their living and in an even greater degree, the same holds true when we send our money to a foreign country.
Now, as I said, we are dependent on the United States, in that whatever fiscal system they adopt we are forced1 in self defence to adopt something similar, otherwise ruin stares us in the face. Now, does anyone think that, forced as we are to pay wages on the same scale that obtains in the United States, we can manufacture goods to compete with the cheap labour of Europe? We cannot do so. With our high overhead, therefore, we need protection from cheap foreign labour to hold our own. Now, as I said, the government in

my judgment adopted an entirely wrong policy at a most critical time in the history of Canada. When the national sickness was acute they neglected their patient, at the very time when a stimulant should have been administered they resorted to bleeding. Why, Mr. Speaker, my hon. friends from the west and also some of their party from Ontario-I believe they are entirely sincere-conceived the idea that because something was wrong with the body politic it must be the tariff, and that therefore it should be done away with. They demanded free trade, and because their platform coincided almost word' for word with the one adopted by the Liberal party before they came into power, in order to secure sufficient votes to continue in office the government went a little way -and I think against their better judgment- in the reduction of the tariff. This has resulted in the closing down of factories, unemployment, emigration to the United States, and a loss of revenue to the tune of $52,800,000. I should like to know whether one man or one class has received any benefit from that policy. I know the whip of the Progressive party (Mr. Johnston) said that the agricultural people had. That is a business which I know a great deal about for I was raised on the farm and have farmed all my life, consequently I am familiar with the purchase of agricultural implements and of all other things necessary to equip a farm. I remember that about twenty-five years ago when the duty on agricultural implements was 20 per cent we had the cheapest implements in the history of the country. I do not say that the tariff was the only reason for their cheapness. My point is that the application of a customs tariff does not always increase the price to the consumer of the article protected, and I think it is very easy for hon. members to prove that to their own satisfaction. When a high duty was imposed on our cattle by the United States tariff, where did the complaint come fiom? It came from our western farmers who desired to ship their cattle across the line, and they complained that they were shut out from the American market. It was true; we were the ones that suffered, not the consumers in the United States. Now we had a most substantial reduction in the tariff on agricultural implements. What was the result? In order to enable the implement makers to break even they were given their raw material practically free of duty, with the result that the factories that supplied that raw material are to-day out of business or working half time. The result to them has been disastrous. Now, who benefited? Figures have been given, and no one disputed them, that the price of

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agricultural implements, save for the reduction of the sales tax-and even then the full amount was not given-has not been decreased.


Mr. McKAY:: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the hon. member if he has read the report of an agricultural commission appointed by the Ontario government in 1924 on the prices of agricultural implements?


John Lawrence Stansell: I have not the report before me.


Matthew McKay: My hon. friend will find-


John Lawrence Stansell: What is your question?


Matthew McKay: The Massey-Harris Company made a report to this commission that on twelve farm implements there has been a reduction of $57.55, and the Cockshutt Plow Company report that on fourteen agricultural implements there has been a reduction of $295.75. My hon. friend can have the report. It was published a few days ago.


John Lawrence Stansell: I have not read the report as the hon. member gives it, and without knowing anything about it I am unable to answer his question. But, the very best statement I have heard on the point was that made by the whip of the Progressive party, that one implement, a binder, had been reduced by $15.


Matthew McKay: There is information on all agricultural implements.


John Lawrence Stansell: That reduction represents just exactly the sales tax and no more, and in the case, just cited, of twelve implements with reduction of $57 the same is true. I am not speaking of the removal of the sales tax. I say that the reduced price of farm implements due to the reduction of the tariff has not materialized, and therefore the farmer has not benefited. But even if it had materialized, there is another article of manufacture which in my family represents a substantial expenditure, that is boots and shoes. Some hon. members desired a reduced tariff on boots and shoes; they did not get it; there was a reduction of the sales tax I believe. There is a very high duty on boots and shoes compared to implements, but what I am concerned about is the actual price paid by the purchaser of these goods when he goes to the retail store. I have found by actual experience that I am buying boots and shoes at a greater proportionate reduction now than I am buying agricultural implements at, and yet the customs tariff has not been reduced. I find by a study of Eaton's spring catalogues for 1924 and 1925- and I think
most hon. members will agree that this is pretty good authority-I find that on about half a dozen lines, such as Shoes for men, boots for lumbermen and labouring men, and ladies' shoes, there is a reduction in the prices I am paying of from 11 to 16 per cent, and the same holds true in the retail stores. So that substantially the consumer has enjoyed a greater advantage in the reduction of the price of boots and shoes, on which there was no reduction of tariff, than he has received in respect of agricultural implements, on which the tariff is nearly all taken away. In addition to that, as I have said, manufacturers of raw material have suffered very seriously.
Another thing we have heard a great deal about is fertilizer, concerning which figures were given the other night. It had been shown that there was a widespread demand that fertilizer be placed on the free list, and when action was taken in response to that demand the result was that most of the factories ceased operation, and if I wished to buy fertilizer this year I would pay more for it than I did a year ago. Again I say, who got any benefit? The country lost $52,000,000 in revenue; the labourer lost his job; the capital invested in industry was either greatly depreciated or lost and no one got any substantial benefit.
Some statements were made to-night by the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. King), to which I wish at this stage to make reference. I give the hon. gentleman credit for presenting figures that were correct; I have no reason to dispute them. I also give him credit for being absolutely sincere in the deductions he drew from those figures. But in my judgment, and I am sure in the judgment of this House, he was entirely wrong in his conclusions. The figures had reference to the comparative protection in Canada and the United States, and he showed that Canada was very much more highly protected than the United States because Canada collected more per capita in customs taxation than the United States did. Well, the facts are so clear that I am surprised that the hon. member did not understand the situation. I will try to point out what the real condition is. In many lines of goods the United States tariff is twice or three times as high as ours, so high that it is almost prohibitive and outside1 goods are largely shut out; therefore the people of the United States buy home manufactured goods. If that is a desirable condition, then I say let us try the same thing in Canada.


Mr. HODGINS:: How do they collect such a large amount of duty if the goods are shut out?
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John Lawrence Stansell: Goods are not entirely shut out (because they certainly collect quite a lot, but if their tariff was higher they would collect less. The fact remains that they collect less than we do per capita because they have their tariff so high that it shuts out very many lines. I do not say it shuts out everything, but it keeps out so much that they are not paying as much as we are per capita in customs duties. Our tariff is so low that we are being encouraged to 'buy from foreign countries. The result is that in the last ten years we have had an unfavourable trade balance with the United States amounting to about $2,000,000,000. I know it is a favourite argument of hon. gentlemen to my left

and they are perfectly sincere-that if you sell you must buy; that there must be international1 trade. That is true, but it does not mean that you must buy things that you can produce at home. If a farmer operated on such a system as that there would only be one place for him and that is the poor house. Let me point out that you can buy a bank balance; you can buy life insurance; you can buy a competence for old age, just as you can buy potatoes, eggs, butter and other things of that kind. It is the part of wisdom for every farmer to sell those things that he can produce and sell at a profit and to buy only those things that he cannot advantageously produce himself, and, as far as possible, to secure for himself some of the comforts in the way of insurance, a competency for old age or a bank balance.
What have we been doing in respect to our trade with the United States? We have had an adverse balance of $2,000,000,000 in ten years; what have we done to offset that? We have gone over there and borrowed money. Had we not followed that system of borrowing money our dollar would be very much below par to-day. The borrowing carried out by the Minister of Finance on the New York market did much to stabilize the value of the dollar, but it does not justify our purchasing in the United States goods that we could produce at home, nor does it justify an adverse trade balance with the United States from year to year. So long as we do that we are encouraging the United States to take a mortgage on Canada's future to the extent to which we allow that adverse trade balance to accrue.
I know that to some the word " protection " has a disagreeable sound. But protection is a very good thing when it is applied to insurance against fire; it is a very good thing as applied to the home. It costs something, but we think we should have it. National

protection is just as vital to the nation as home protection is to the home, and the quicker we Canadians realize this and institute a proper national policy, the better it will be for us. We do not believe that adequate protection can do everything; there are many other factors that must be taken into consideration. But we must view all these questions in a national way. We must practise some real national unity instead of just talking about it; and one of the first essentials is so to protect ourselves that so far as possible we can supply our own labourers with a job and not force them to go to the United States to get the employment they should get" here.
Somebody will ask me right away, how can protection be of any benefit to the farmer? Well, I am advocating it, and I am a farmer; I think it is of some benefit. I will admit for the sake of argument that it may not appeal quite so much to the western farmers as it does to the farmers of Ontario. But should Canada's immigration increase, her population be augmented and her factories start to operate at full time as the result of the application of sound policies, I will trust the farmers of Ontario and of Canada as a whole to get their share of that prosperity. Anyone who thinks that the general enhanced prosperity will be of no 'benefit to the farmer is sadly mistaken. When the men have employment, when the factories are running full time; when development has taken place in our mines and our other resources, a buying power is created; a market is opened up for milk, cheese, butter, eggs, wheat and everything the farmer produces, and there will be no doubt, about whether such a condition will benefit the farmer.
I am sorry the horn, member for North Huron (Mr. King) was not in his seat when I was answering his argument about customs duties in Canada and the United States. At the risk of repetition I should just like to make the point again. He said that protection was higher in Canada than in the United States because less was collected in the United States by way of customs duties than in Canada.


John Warwick King: I stated that it cost
more per capita in Canada for protection than it did in the United States.


John Lawrence Stansell: Yes, there is no misunderstanding. The reason for that is this:	We
have not nearly so high a rate of protection or of customs duties as they have, and the result is we are continually buying from foreign countries. But with the Americans

The Budget-Mr. Stansell
the rate in many eases ds so high that with the exception of goods which they simply must have, they produce their requirements within their own country, and do not import. Therefore the rate of customs duties is not so high per capita because in many cases the tariff is almost prohibitive. If ours was equally as high, the result would be the same. If that is a happy result, we can obtain it in the same way that they do.


Mr. HALBERT:: The hon. member said
a few minutes ago that if the farmers bought away from home what they could produce at home for themselves, they would soon land in the poorhouse. Now is it not a fact that over ninety per cent of the farmers to-day are buying their butter instead of making it at home, because they can get it cheaper? It works the same way with implements or anything else.


John Lawrence Stansell: That does not at all
conflict with the' statement I made. I said that the farmer who deliberately adopts the policy of buying to the amount of what he sells, could buy other things such as life insurance and provide for his old age. I said that it was better to produce a little more at home than to follow the mistaken policy that you must purchase an equal amount with what you sell. As to the question of butter, I am not quite prepared to accept my hon. friend's statement as correct. In fact, a great many of us manufacture our own butter because we like it made at home; we think it just a little better than we can get anywhere else. I do not think it would do any harm if a great many more of the farmers followed that policy.
There is one other remark made by the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. King) to which I wish to call attention, and that is with regard to Some cattle, some five or seven I forget the exact number, which had been marketed, -he said, and brought only $57. The farmer claimed that that showed something was wrong. Something certainly is, and I will tell you what it is. I am going to take an illustration from the Farmers Advocate, which I am sure all my Progressive friends will consider a reliable journal. It refers to conditions in Alberta, which will be much more fair for the purposes of argument than if I cited an Ontario case. It says that a farmer marketed twenty-five steers on t'he St. Boniface or Winnipeg market and received $3,522 for them. Now with conditions as bad as we have been told about, these steers brought about $133 each. They brought $7.35 per hundred pounds on the Winnipeg market. If they had been sold on the Toronto market 
they would have brought $475 more, or nearly $4,000, and that in spite of the conditions which we are told are so bad.


Mr. BRETHEN:: What would their value be on the Chicago market at the price quoted by the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. King) ?	*


John Lawrence Stansell: I do not know. I am only answering the exact statement that was made. I am not prepared at the moment to look up the Chicago quotations.


George Arthur Brethen: A few moments ago the hon. member made the statement that the American consumer did not suffer any by the high tariff against Canada. Now the hon. member for North Huron quoted figures showing that on the Toronto market cattle had been sold for $8; on the Winnipeg market for $6, and on the Chicago market for $12 per hundred. Does the hon. member say that the United States consumer did not suffer by the difference?


John Lawrence Stansell: I would have to know whether they were exactly the same class of cattle sold in each case. I was simply taking the statement made by the hon. member for North Huron as to the unsatisfactory returns cattle raisers were receiving. He said that five or seven cattle, I forget the exact number, had been sold for $57. I am pointing out that at the very same time another farmer sold 25 cattle for $3,500, and that he could have obtained nearly $4,000 for those 25 cattle on t'he Toronto market. The reason is that one man shipped first-class cattle, and the other did not. The man who shipped first-class cattle, in spite of the fact that conditions are not as good as we would like to see them, received a good return. The other man shipped half a dozen cattle and got about $10 apiece for them. I never saw the cattle in question, but they could not have been fit for market or they would 'have brought more money. There ds one lesson to be drawn from this. Just as our manufacturers, if they want to get a good price, must produce good goods, so the farmers, if they want to get a good price for their cattle or their butter or any other of their products, must produce a good article. While prices are not as high as I would like to see them, I believe that the farmer has passed the worst turn, and that things are bound to improve a little bit from the farmer's standpoint. Conditions are not so bad after all when we find prices like this being paid. This is not a specially prepared case, but is just an ordinary statement referring to Alberta cattle shipped and sold on the St. Boniface market.
The. Budget-Mr. Gendron

Therefore the one thing necessary is for us to adopt a policy of Canada first. Surely it is our duty to look after our own nation, rather than look after the American nation or any other nation in the world, and until we do, Canada will not have the prosperity that she is entitled to and that she needs. I do not admit for one moment that an increase of customs tariff must mean an increase in the price. What we do want is a job for our workmen and lower costs, but we shall never get that happy result if we always send to some other country for the things we might very well produce at home. Let us as members of this House and as citizens of this great country, with the resources^ we hear so much about, forget some of the little things and get busy on a national policy, practise national economy, and work for national unity.
I sympathize very much with the aims of hon. members to my left, and I was glad to hear the prophecy of the hon. member to whom I have just referred as to the length of time the Progressive party will live. I hope it will live a great length of time, and that its present leader will lead it providing he adopts a sound fiscal policy, for I believe he is sincere. Undoubtedly the hon. member for Brandon honestly desires the welfare of all Canada but he is on the wrong track, the policies he would like to put in force are mistaken ones; and I would urge him and his followers to consider seriously this question in the light of national necessities, and see if there is not something else that the Dominion of Canada wants at the present time rather than a reduction of the tariff. I have a high opinion of the party to my left and of their leader, but they are mistaken in their policies, I firmly believe. They are riding on a political New York Central and are travelling in a circle. Let them all get on the Canadian National line and get somewhere.


Mr. R. M. GENDRON (Wright) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to briefly comment upon the budget which is, at present, being discussed in the House. I wish at the outset to congratulate the hon. Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb). Let me assure him that the budget which he brought down has the hearty approval of the people of my county, and it is very favourably looked upon by the farmers and consumers, sis well as by the lumbermen. for it shows hardly no change from the budget of last year.
I do not intend, Sir, to thresh out the whole subject in hand. I shall limit myself

to questions which particularly affect the county I represent; I shall speak of the Gatineau valley, that beautiful part of my district which is almost all comprised in the county of Wright.,
The Gatineau river district is rich in natural resources as yet undeveloped. I think it is proper to point out to the House the number and value of its water powers, which could, if they were developed, produce electric power in abundance and feed a number of mills as well as supply power within quite a large radius, including the city of Ottawa. Its shores are covered with forests, rich in pulpwood and lumber of which it is difficult to give an estimate. Unfortunately capita! is needed to take advantage of this natural wealth and properly open up this beautiful valley. If our water powers were exploited, to establish pulp mills, for instance, we could manufacture on the spot our pulpwood, convert it into pulp or paper, instead of exporting the raw material to the United States as it is done to-day, we could thus create a number of industrial centres, where the farmer could market with profit his farm products, as well as his pulpwood.
Allow me, Sir, to dwell a few moments on our immigration problem. It is a question of the utmost importance to Canada. I wish to draw the attention of the hon. Minister of Immigration (Mr.Robb) to the fact that there exists on the Gatineau river a locality which would lend itself admirably to the establishment of settlers; I mean Maniwaki. There is in that part of the country an Indian reserve of considerable extent, containing excellent lands upon which live about sixty Indian families. This reserve should be thrown open to settlers, not only to Indians, but also to Canadians, both French and English, who would take advantage of such a measure to settle in that locality. I point this out so as to convince the hon. Minister of Immigration that a great number of Canadians returning from the United States could settle in my county and thereby increase the population as well as the revenues-this would be of great import to my region. As my hon. friend, the member for Muskoka (Mr. Hammell) stated last session, also this session, we have in the Gatineau valley, a very attractive resort for tourists who are fond of hunting and fishing, also for those who love the forest, these parts are very healthy; the greatest impediment to the travelling tourist comes from the country roads, or what is known as the Ottawa road, which is entirely unfit for automobiles. I trust that with the Dominion

The Budget-Mr. Thurston
government's help, acting in concert with the local government and the municipalities, we shall soon have good roads-a very urgent need for that part of the country.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pressing matter that the government should build a post office in the village of Maniwaki, where I reside; it is an important question which should be given immediate consideration. This village is now divided into two parts, and to accommodate the public, we must have a post office in the centre of the village. I have already placed this request before the Minister of Public Works (Mr. King), and the matter was laid aside for the present, as a measure of economy. I quite realize that we should practise economy to a certain extent, but we must not neglect legitimate and necessary needs My request is reasonable and justified and I trust that it will be granted as soon as possible.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a few remarks upon a question which I hope will be given some consideration. The northern part of the Gatineau valley comprises a few townships, and an unsurveyed track of land; in the proximity of said townships, there exists an ideal spot for a national park. Game is plentiful; we find the moose, the deer and all fur animals in great numbers. The beautiful lakes which adorn this territory are filled with fish, and as the city of Ottawa will one day become a large centre, I trust that my hopes will materialize and the erection of a national park in this region will bring forth to the Gatineau valley, the cities of Ottawa and Hull and their surroundings, a considerable revenue accruing from the United States tourists.
I wish to express my views on a most important matter which concerns my county, the question of the pulpwood embargo. I see no need, at present, to adopt this measure. The settlers who happen to have a few cords of pulpwood should have the right of selling it wherever they think fit, and at the best price possible. The notion we have about the country being denuded of pulpwood within a few years, is a false one. What constitutes the real problem, are the forest fires which destroy, each year, far more wood than what is sold. I would suggest to the government that they help the provinces to prevent and fight the forest fires, and that they lay aside the question of embargo, or the levy of duties on the exportation of pulpwood. I have a full knowledge of this question as I have been in the business all my life. Let us protect our forests against fire, let us use precautions when chopping 144
down the trees, and we shall have wood for a long time to come; future generations will benefit from it just like the present generation.


Mr. J. J. THURSTON (Victoria, Ont.):: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that I am unable to make any comment on the speech of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Gendron) who has just preceded me. I would be in a better position to do so in two or three days' time when I had the translation before me.
As the House is enjoying what might be termed its semi-annual talk-fest, and feeling that I have in the last three years established the record of one who would rather see a little action and a few results than the placing of a jumble of words on our records, I may be permitted to occupy a few minutes of the time of the House in offering one or two suggestions that, possibly, may be of some worth, although I have my doubts as to whether they will be adopted very readily by the House. I am convinced after spending three sessions in this chamber that if a messenger were sent down from the realms above with a message of advice to this House, if it were found out that he was a Liberal we could be assured the Conservatives would oppose anything he would suggest; if he were a Conservative the Liberals would readily oppose anything he might bring forward; and if he were a Progressive which would be almost sure to be the case, he would be certain to be opposed by both the old parties. In spite of that I am going to take up a few minutes in submitting my views.
Theoretically, we are debating at this time the amendment to the budget proposed by the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), although I think it will 'be generally agreed that practically all the discussion so far has been on the budget itself. I propose to vote against the adoption of the present budget, not so much on account of the budget itself as of the proposal to establish a tariff board which has been advanced by the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb). I do not think it is necessary for me to repeat the reasons that have been given by other hon. members as to why the establishment of such a board should be opposed excepting to say this: Until we first agree in the House and in the country as to what the fiscal policy of Canada should be we are making a move in the dark in establishing that board. The board should first be instructed! as to what action we want it to take, or what goal we wish it to head for.
I also propose to oppose the amendment of the ex-Mimister of Finance. I can hardly give reasons why I should oppose it any

The Budget-Mr. Thurston

more than I coal'd give reasons why I should support it, beyond stating that there as absolutely nothing to it-it is a mere jumble of words. This year's budget to my mind, after learning what I have been able to learn of the history of the Liberal party, is in no sense a credit to a Liberal government. To my mind it is a protectionist budget, and there are very few changes in it. The reason for some of those changes I do not know, unless they were included in order to take up space. One item in the budget imposes a tax of six cents on gas, but on looking up the trade returns I have not been able to find that we import any. I do not know, therefore, what this item was inserted for unless it was to make the budget look a little larger.
Last, year when I made a few remarks on the budget I predicted that Liberals throughout the Dominion-those who had for yeare back been Liberals and knew why they were or thought they	knew,-would
be delighted with it; that their hopes which had been deadened-and you could not blame them for feeling that way-would be revived, and that they were justified in thinking, at least, that a true Liberal party had come into being. I submit that I was correct in making that prophecy; and the visits of the Prime Minister to points throughout, the Dominion during the recess must have shown to him that the people appreciated a budget which was Liberal in character However, I predict now that the present budget is going to have a very strong tendency towards killing the revived hopes of the old Liberals, and that there will be a falling off of Liberal stock throughout the Dominion, particularly in the province of Ontario. The falling off in Liberal stock will be something similar to the falling off in Conservative stock owing to the action of the present Prime Minister (Mr. Ferguson), in promising at one time to enact certain legislation and then turning rigid-about-face and enacting legislation altogether contrary to the express wish of the people after spending upwards of a million dollars to find out what that wish was. I think I would be quite justified in predicting to-day that if the Ferguson-Niekle aggregation made an appeal to the province of Ontario for re-election	it would be defeated.
This action of the present government in killing by this budget the revived hopes of the Liberal party throughout Canada is going to have a very harmful effect on the country. It is going to increase the lack of confidence which the electors are beginning to feel in general in our governments. This is most regrettable. That lack of confidence, particul-
arly in the two old parties, is very great, and we cannot well afford to do anything that will increase it, because we come to a very dangerous position if we ever reach the stage where the people themselves have no confidence in any government, and that is where we are rapidly travelling by playing fast and [DOT]loose with our promises to the electors.
I propose to make a few remarks in connection with the amendment offered by the ex-Minister of Finance. As I said it is nothing more or less than a jumble of words. It is a joke really, and I do not knoiw why the Conservative parity, which has claimed for years to have bee;n protectionist, and to have believed in protection and higher protection all the time, should neglect to state their belief at the present time, and I take the amendment introduced by the ex-,Minister of Finance as expressing the thought of the Conservative party. They formulate their objections by saying that they do not agree with the financial statement. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) when he was speaking gave the House the inference that it was quite customary for governments previous to elections to bring in what might be termed paddled statements to the House, or to give padded financial statements to the country. Then again the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart, Argenteuil) presented a statement as coming from the officials of the department who have prepared every financial statement for years, and said that the statement this year contained conclusions arrived at by the same method as all previous statements. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that until such time as the official opposition give proof that the Minister of the Interior was wrong in his statement, they have absolutely no justification at all in opposing the present budget.
In spite of the fact that the official opposition neglected stating in the amendment their belief in protection, I think we are justified in coming to the conclusion, from the remarks of the different hon. members of that group who have spoken, that they still believe in protection. I am not going to debate the rights and wrongs of protection and free trade, and so on, but I think the time has arrived when the House and the 'people of the Dominion as a whole might rightly ask themselves the question, what is meant by protection? I am satisfied if the House and the country as a whole once paused to consider just what was meant by protection, and came to the conclusion that they would be forced to come to, they would forever refuse' to have anything to do

The Budget-Mr. Thurston
with it. I should like to ask first why do certain individuals or individual companies appeal to the government from time to time for protection? From what do they wish to be protected? Is it on account of our rather severe winters, or because we have cold winds, that they want us to erect a windbreak to shelter them? Is that the protection they desire, or just what is it? I submit that after studying the tariff policy or the tariff schedule which we have at the present time one is convinced that what is really meant by protection, or an appeal for protection, is nothing else than a request for financial assistance that an individual or a firm makes. If that is the case, if it is financial assistance that some individual or corporation is asking from the government, where does the government get this financial assistance or bonus the companies want? The reply can only be, " from the pockets of the taxpayers of the country." If the people throughout the Dominion would for a few moments consider what is meant by protection and what the result of it is they would forever turn down the protective policy as a fiscal policy for our Dominion. I would also suggest that it would be only fair and honest for those who believe in protection and use it as their platform,, to state clearly to the public that they propose to levy taxes on all the people for the sake of giving assistance to some individuals. If they will do that at the next election-and I hardly think they will -I will be glad to meet them in any constituency-I do not care whether it is in the heart of Montreal or Toronto-and debate the question. I would be particularly pleased to meet them in my own constituency, and I would face the electors at any time to discuss the question as to whether we should increase the taxation on all of them for the benefit of a few, who possibly did not live in the constituency at all.
I dislike prolonging this discussion, which I might say is not a debate, but simply a talk-fest. However, if I were permitted to enter again into the realms of prophecy, I would predict that the adoption of a protectionist policy at this time by the Liberal government, and the failure of the old Conservative party to mention their protectionist principles in the amendment, simply mean that within twenty to twenty-five years from now there will be no such thing as a Conservative party in existence. The Liberals, through the actions of the present government, are rapidly winning the goodwill of the protectionist interests throughout the country. The Progressives, through their determined and continued action are rapidly winning the support of the low 144i
tariff or tariff for revenue people throughout the country, so that twenty years from now the Liberals will be the only protectionist party in the Dominion, and the Progressives the only party in this House or in the country advocating a tariff for revenue only or free trade. My reason for coming to this conclusion is that the protectionist organizations throughout Canada, which are beyond question composed of very shrewd people, are already seeing the folly of having their forces divided, and they are naturally going to abandon the weaker party. That, I think, is conceded by everyone throughout the Dominion to-day to be the Conservative party.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Jabez Thurston: It is conceded that the weaker party of the two protectionist parties is the Conservative party on account of the extremely distasteful record of the last administration. That was established by the Canadian people at the last general election. Therefore, the protectionist organizations are going to give their assistance to the Liberal party, and that will cause the dissappearance of the Conservative party altogether.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Jabez Thurston: I am glad that my prediction seems to be received in such a favourable frame of mind by so many hon. members. There is in the amendment moved by the exMinister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) nothing in connection with protection and very little else. There was given to the House one thought which I claim is worthy of some consideration. This thought was not stressed very strongly by the ex-Minister of Finance in his remarks, but when I was talking to him afterwards he told me that it was really his main reason for speaking. It was: With our present system and scale of managing our country's finances, where is Canada going? That is a question that every Canadian citizen from the Atlantic to the Pacific to-day is justified in asking himself. I have thought of it at different times in the last few years, and I want to give to the House just a few figures, to let the House consider for a few moments what they mean and then to ask themselves: Where is Canada going? The figures are as follows:
Population
Year	of Canada National debt
1870	
3,454,000	$115,993,7061880	
4,215,000	194,634.4411S90	
4,793,000	286,112.2951900	
5,322,000	346,206,9801910	
6,917,000	470,633,0461915	
7,862,078	700,473,8141922	
8,966,834	2,902,347,137
The Budget-Mr. Thurston

These figures are taken from the Canada Year Book of 1922-23. They show that from the year 1870 to the year 1915 our population increased by 4,480,078, but our national debt increased by $584,480,108. That is before the debt of the war was added on to our national debt. I would ask hon. members and the country at large: Taking this record from 1870 to 1915, where is Canada going? We must admit that at our present scale of managing our country's finances, we are rapidly, yes too rapidly, heading for national bankruptcy. It has been stated to me by different Canadians, by some members of parliament, particularly of the two old parties, that what we need in this House is a good strong government of either of the two old parties; that we have not a strong enough government at the present time, and so on. I would submit that the record which I have just read is nothing other than the record of the two old parties and admittedly strong parties in the past. Therefore, when either of them, in this House or on public platforms throughout the country, criticize the other on account of our low population and our great national debt, we can fittingly ask them why they did not do something when they were in office to remedy conditions. Both of them, to my mind, have failed.
If we, in considering the statistics that I have just given, are in any way, shape or form Canadians, we must ask ourselves: Why is the present situation in Canada such as it is? In doing so, the first thing we must ask ourselves is: Who are the Canadian people? If we look back as to who our forefathers were, is it right that we should make such a failure in managing our country's business, our public affairs as we have done? If we stop to ask ourselves who we 12 m. Canadian people are, we must admit that in making the failure that we have made, we have proven ourselves false to the trust that our ancestors placed in us in giving us the heritage that they did to manage, also false to our children and children's children that are to follow after us. When we ask ourselves who the Canadian people are, we must admit that if we were true to those old ancestors, we would have made a success of it instead of a failure. Our forefathers came from the British Isles and France, the leading countries of the world at the time. It was well known that none but the strongest need attempt the trip, for it took from ten to twenty weeks to cross the Atlantic in those days. We also know that the physically strong class of citizens are generally the strongest mentally, whatever nationality

they belong bo. Along with this hardy type we have -a climate that has a tendency to develop the very best traits of any race. When we consider these facts we are puzzled to know just why it is that in the past we have made a failure in the handling of our public affairs. I would offer this suggestion for the consideration of our people, that the reason for this failure is that we have never tried to manage our public affairs; on the contrary; we have devoted practically all our energies to advance the interests of either one party or the other to the neglect of the national interests. I am going to give a few illustrations in support of this suggestion which I think will prove to the House and to the country wherein we have made these blunders. It has been customary in our financing to float a loan either in the foreign or domestic money market for, we will say, a hundred million dollars, repayable in ten, twenty or thirty years, as the case may be, but wiith absolutely no provision to meet that repayment when it becomes due; on the contrary, later on we simiply borrow another hundred million dollars to refund the former loan. So long as we continue that practice we are bound to get more and more in debt. I do not know why we follow that improvident practice, for it is absolutely contrary to the practice followed by private individuals in managing their own affairs. For instance, a farmer will borrow $5,000, and there is incorporated in the mortgage the option of paying off a certain amount of the principal periodically so that at the end of the mortgage term he has not only paid his interest but the principal as well. If he did not do this he would in a very short time be at the point of bankruptcy. Therefore I would suggest that if Canada continues floating loans without making provision for their repayment at maturity, we are bound to become more and more involved financially.
Another thought I would express is this. In the past it has been frequently the practice to build public works that were not absolutely necessary but were undertaken in the interests of whichever party happened to be in office. Let me give a few illustrations. About two years ago the present government brought down an estimate for the erection of an elevator at Halifax. I think it was pretty generally felt at the time that the elevator was pot needed, for we were not utilizing all the local elevator space that was then available. But there was to be a by-election down there, and I think everyone was firmly convinced that this vote was for the purpose of helping to elect a supporter of the government. 'I do not think we need concern ourselves very much whether the vote accom-

The Budget-Mr. Thurston
plished the purpose which the government had in view but the very fact that the vote was passed increased our debt by that amount.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Will my hon. friend permit a question? Does he believe that our national ports should not be equipped with decent facilities?


John Jabez Thurston: I have no objection at all to their being equipped with, I think the minister said, decent facilities; but I do object to their being cluttered up with too many "decent facilities."


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Does my hon. friend not know that Sir Henry Thornton recommended that this elevator should be constructed? And Sir Henry ought to know.


John Jabez Thurston: I am not aware that Sir Henry Thornton recommended it, but I think the charges made in the House at the time by the official opposition that the vote was put forward for election purposes was not very successfully refuted by the government.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend cannot escape in that way What does he say to the proposition:	If Sir Henry
Thornton did recommend this elevator, is it not self-evident that it was necessary?


John Jabez Thurston: I am not worrying whether Sir Henry Thornton recommended it or not. Has that elevator space been used?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The elevator is in course of construction.


John Jabez Thurston: Is the present elevator space all utilized now?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: The present elevator space does not reach the terminals which were constructed there some years ago, and it was absolutely necessary to build this elevator.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is that a speech?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I am answering a question.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is incorrectly answered.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Do not
worry. I have not made very many speeches.


John Jabez Thurston: In spite of what the minister states, I think ilt was generally felt in the House and!' in the country that that volte was not altogether necessary. Rut I am going to leave that vote. It does not matter for the moment whether the elevator was necessary or not, but it cannot be dtenied that the national debt was increased by the
amount of that vote. I think it was aldo clearly established during this parliament that a few years ago the late administration sponsored ia vote for the building of a dry dock at Victoria, British Columbia. I think the public generally alt that time knew that a dTy dock should not be built at Victoria, that if any were needed on the coast it should be built on the mainland.


Mr. DICKIE:: No dry dock has been built at Victoria.


John Jabez Thurston: Would1 the hon. member tell me whether any money wias spent on the building of a dry dock or the purchase of a site for one? I think the records will show that a vote was passed for the building of a dry dOck on Vancouver island. In spite of what the hon. member says, it was believed by the whole country and by this House that the main purpose of that vote was to [DOT]assist the government in electing its supporter in the by-election which was then about to take place. We know this has been the practice for years past. What was the Grand Trunk Pacific but a political football? The Trent valley canal was another, the Hudfeon Bay railway was another, the Lindlsay -arsenal was another. We have had scores of such cases throughout the country.


George Perry Graham: Would you like us to shut up the Trent canal?


John Jabez Thurston: It cannot be shut up.
The point I am making is this: that ever since confederation there have been Schemes such as I have mentioned

votes passed in this House involving the expenditure of huge sums, nothing -more or less than for political purposes, but with resulting increases in our national debt. I do not blame parliament for doi-n^ it; I do not blame the government of the day, but I do blame the Canadian people for falling for these -bribes. The Canadian people are or should be recognized as shrewd, cautious and careful, yet they have accepted these bribes every time. Why do they do it? Why are they bribed in this way? The only conclusion we can come to is that the Canadian people have been schooled: to think that the money that -is -in -the public treasury does not cost anything; -that it belongs to someone other than themselves. I d-o not know whether they think it came out of the air, but the feeling seems to be that if they can get the government to spend money they need have no concern about how it is -going to be paid back. It is the duty of every elected representative of -the people, I -care not whether in the federal parliament, in provincial legislatures or in municipal councils, to emphasize
The Budget-Mr. Thurston

this point to his constituents; to impress upon them the fact that every dollar that is taken out of the public treasury mudt be replaced by the people themselves. If the citizens at large knew that and felt it, there would be a great deal less expenditure by all our governments from the municipal councils up. I am satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that it will be years before we accomplish tlhis, but the idea will, I am sure, be encouraged by members of parliament and will be dwelt upon at the next general election.
We had the remarks of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) the other night in connection with the Hudson Bay railway. He was very careful to leave himself several tracks to get out on when he gets on the different platforms throughout the western constituencies.


William Richard Motherwell: What was the matter with the statement I made?


John Jabez Thurston: Nothing at all-that is the trouble. In the constituency of Victoria, Ont., it is being stated by my opponents just now that I was the means of closing up the Lindsay arsenal when as a matter of fact it was closed a year before I was elected. I did not know I was so influential. They are stating also that if the Conservative government is elected the Lindsay arsenal will 'be run as an arsenal again, full blast. I would like to ask the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) whether he would not be willing to make the statement officially and give these people some authority for it. Will he not say that the Quebec arsenal will be closed1 and the Lindsay arsenal opened? I never favoured the operation of the Lindsay arsenal as such and I never will. In the first place, we do not need it at all. In the next place, if it is to be run as an arsenal to comply with the British North America Act it will require another half million dollars to rebuild it. It is not built to comply with the British North America Act; and the clauses in that act are the only reason for our having an arsenal at all in Canada. The Quebec arsenal was built to comply with those requirements; the Lindsay arsenal is not. I am not so much concerned by the fact that some of the politicians of the county of Victoria are circulating these reports; what bothers me is the fact that the people are listening to them. There is something wrong when that is the case. If we are to be the people we should be, it is our duty to see that anything of that nature is straightened out and the people educated to the fact that

these things cannot be done without a considerable expenditure of money.
In conclusion, let me say that if we are to be true Canadians we must change our system of financing and adopt what is commonly referred to as the sinking fund system of floating our loans. When we float a loan, let us provide at the time, for its payment when it becomes due so that we shall not be continually piling up debt, a procedure which is unfair to those who are to come after us. Further, let us impress the people with the fact that public moneys cannot be spent without the imposition of taxation to make them up again.
On motion of Mr. White the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Graham the House adjourned at 12.30 a.m. (.Tuesday).
Tuesday, April 21, 1925