1925-06-02

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, it is now
many months since the committee known as the inter-departmental committee on the St. Lawrence waterway problem was appointed. May I ask the government whether that committee has made any report? And if it has, whether the government is prepared to lay the report, interim or otherwise, on the table?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways):	Mr. Speaker, the inter-departmental committee has made several reports, but their contents are of such a nature that I think it would be unwise to lay the reports on the table at the present time.


Arthur Meighen: Will the minister explain what features of those reports he deems to be confidential?


Mr. GRAHAM:: Of course, I could not
name those features; I might as well place the reports on the table. The committee has dealt with many questions of international importance, and a great deal of the matter of the reports is intended1 merely for the use of the National Advisory committee when the proper time comes, or as advice to the government with respect to what action it should take on certain matters. There is also argument in these reports which, I think my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) will agree with

St. Lawrence Waterway
me, should not be made public at the present time.


Arthur Meighen: Could the minister give
an estimate of how long it will be before he will be in a position to state to parliament the substance of the reports and the policy of the government?


George Perry Graham: There is a mistaken idea about these reports being of a public nature at all. As a matter of fact, this committee is acting in an advisory capacity to the government, and its reports are pretty much of the nature of a report that might be made by my right hon. friend's private secretary to himself. I have never made these reports public. I have received one of them myself. Most of them have been printed, but they have not been distributed. Some day I shall have no hesitation in giving copies of the reports to my right hon. friend, and then I think he will agree with me that they should not be made public so long as there is contention between our country and any other regarding certain matters.


Arthur Meighen: Will the minister say
whether the government contemplate an announcement of policy on the subject within the calendar year?


George Perry Graham: The government's policy
at the present time, so far as the St. Lawrence is concerned, consists of following the advice of the International Waterways Commission to carry on a further investigation as to the good or ill that might come to Canada through the adoption of a plan for the enlargement of the St. Lawrence waterways. I think that until such time as the enlarged engineering board makes its report the government will not be in a position to announce any policy.


Arthur Meighen: I am aware of that; but is the minister in a position to state whether he believes that that enlarged report will be before the government within the present year to enable it to decide its course on this question?


George Perry Graham: The enlarged engineering board have named a date, but my memory does not serve me just now as to when they hope to complete their work.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: Is it the intention of the' government to hold up these reports in order to delay the hydroelectric development of the province of Ontario?


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


George Perry Graham: These reports have no
connection whatever with the hydro-electric development of Ontario.



SUPREME COURT ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved the third reading of Bill No. 16 to amend the Supreme Court Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved that the House go into committee of Supply.
['Some of my\nhon. friends opposite say "oh, oh" and laugh. I am glad to say that they are the only ones in the House who delight in division. I may tell them there is one division they will not delight in and that is the one which will be taken when the House expresses its opinion cvn the amendment of my right hon. friend.\nAt six o\'clock the House took recess.\nAfter Recess\nThe House resumed at eight o\'clock.']
Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, I rise to
move an amendment:
That the Speaker do not now leave the chair, but that it be resolved:
That, in the opinion of this House, to meet the situation which has resulted from a strengthening in late years of the protective system the world over particularly in the United States; to give new life to industry and productive enterprise; to preserve and enlarge the Canadian market for Canadian farm products; to stimulate the development of Canadian resources by the Canadian people and thus create employment for our workers; to increase the traffic of our railways by which alone an all-round reduction of freight rates can be secured; and, as well, to provide added revenue and thus bring about a reduction of internal taxation, this Dominion requires an immediate revision of the Canadian tariff on a definitely and consistently protective basis.
That such revision should apply to natural products such as farm products, fish, and coal with no less thoroughness than to manufactured goods.
That to the same ends steps should be taken to conserve for Canadian development our essential and irreplaceable resources in material and power.
That while every effort should be directed toward the establishment of a system of preference for preference within the empire no preference should be given at the expense of the Canadian worker and all preference should be conditional on the use of Canadian ports.
That a tariff commission should be appointed representative of the three great classes of Canadian industry, agriculture, manufacturing and labour and be entrusted with the duty of studying Canadian tariff problems in their every bearing and of making from time to time such recommendations to the government as it deems in the general public interest with the reasons therefor, and with power also, where it finds unfair advantage is being taken of protective duties, of making recommendations to be given effect by the government for removing or reducing tariff schedules or imposing special excise taxes upon products in respect of which such advantage is taken, and that its reports, findings, recommendations and reasons therefor be given to the public.
That to enable the products of the western and Maritime provinces to reach more readily the markets so developed the special transportation burdens borne by those provinces should be shared by the whole Dominion either by contribution to long haul freight costs or by assistance in some other form.
It is a matter of regret to me, Mr. Speaker, that I am compelled to move this resolution, which has stood upon the order paper since the opening of the session, in the form of an amendment instead of as a substantive mo-
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tion. On private members' days, which, under the rules, were alone open to me for this purpose, the order never was reached excep' at so late an hour of night as to render it impracticable to have it moved and discussed, and the government saw fit to decline to give any special preference to the motion or to fix a day for its discussion. That it now becomes an amendment to supply and on that account is open to the government to be accepted as a motion of want of confidence, is no choice of mine; it is the only alternative left. I avail myself of that alternative and shall present the reasons why I think the motion should be adopted, why at all events, if it cannot appeal to this House, it should appeal to the people of Canada.
In the Dominion the principle underlying this resolution, that of a protective tariff, has been recognized as basic and essential from almost our earliest times. It was first recognized as such in 1878 and was put in effect by the parliament chosen in the election of that year.
I have never been able to understand how any fair-minded Canadian can spurn the protective principle as applicable to this Dominion and can adlopt a contrary one, namely, that which calls for the free admission or free export of any product in which Canada is interested as a producer. Two or three sentences include, to my mind, pretty nearly the law and the prophets on this question. The other plan might do if in the first place the world were prepared to abandon all its efforts to spread occupations throughout the universe; if all the nations were to gather together and agree that natural laws should operate and that the consequent concentration of industries in special countries should ensue. There are those who feel this would be a great boon to humanity. Whether it would or not interests us not a whit; the consummation of it is impossible. For myself, however, I do not think it would; I think it much better- that each nation should see to it that there is diversification, variety of industry within its borders, and that the world is far better for this diversity, for this scattering of human occupations over the face of the globe. But as I intimated, the subject is not here for discussion; the nations of the world have followed a different course, and especially have those whose conduct, whether we like it or not, determine in great degree our own. If we had a system of free labour the world over; if labour were in this day to be regarded as a commodity purchasable in the open market under the unimpeded laws of demand and supply; if every em-
[Mr Meighen.]
ployer in Canada were free to put his hand on any portion of the globe and take labour of any colour or any quality or any race, and if we could keep them here at low wages then there -would be little to prevent the free competition of the industries of one land with those of another. That this is impossible is obvious to all, and to none more obvious than to those who have the interests of labour in the advanced countries of the world at heart. How anyone can imagine that with the price of labour determined by other considerations, not to any appreciable extent by the law of supply and demand but 'by laws brought about by the organization of labour itself- by laws restricting immigration; in a word, by protective laws applicable to humanity -how it can be imagined that under these conditions a country which is not free to buy its labour -must be open to the competition of the countries where labour is plentiful and wages low, passes my comprehension.
But Canada in particular is situate beside a country which has determined on the other course, a country which for one hundred and twenty years has decided that the labour of that country, the- great republic, shall be paid on a high level of remuneration, that consequently living standards there shall be better than the average of the world; and when that country lies along side us, with an unprotected border between, how anyone then can conceive that we can choose a policy looking to low wages, even if we would like to, is hard indeed to comprehend. We have learned by experience, and we should have been able to learn by the power of reason, that labour in Canada must be paid a wage comparable, and closely comparable, with that paid in the great republic to the south, and that, we cannot consistently with our existence adopt any course which keeps our wage level substantially lower than theirs. When wages in Canada in any class or compartment fall below the general level of the same class or compartment in the country to the south, the tendency and the ultimate end is that that class of labour drifts where the higher wages are paid. The Canadian producer without a protective tariff is under this necessity, that he cannot procure the labour of countries where it is cheap, that he must compete with the product of that labour. He must pay the level of his competitor to the south; and still there are those who say that he must sell his product at a price at which countries of cheap labour can sell that product here.
We have additionally to remember this-we do not need to, for already the considerations

Supply-Tariff Revision
which I have advanced are not only air-tight in argument, but have proven irrefragible in practice-so long as the United States of one hundred and ten millions of people is a closed market, if we are to adopt a policy which makes ours relative to theirs an open market, there is no inducement for industry to locate in this country at all with the alternative of location to the south open to that industry. For who, having regard to the prospects of his enterprise, would commence his business in a country where his one single open market would be invaded by his competitor when he could with equal ease launch it in a country where he would have the whole market closed against competitors and have his share of this market as well? How we can conceive that any considerable number would take such a course seems to me beyond the reach of reason or even of immagination.
All reasons which apply to every country apply to Canada, and apply with particular force to Canada. But Canada labours under conditions which make the adoption of this course with us imperative, conditions comparable to which no other country of the world confronts. Our course is mapped out for us, and we must follow it so long at least as the United States pursues a protective policy.
There are those who have been disappointed with the progress of Canada through the early decades of her development, but having in mind the conditions under which Canadian progress must be made, that disappointment in my judgment has not been well founded. I wish to place upon Hansard certain details illustrative of the development of our country under the protective system; because I ask hon. gentlemen to assume with me that the system prevailed for the most part undisturbed until three years ago. I am not arguing. when I make this statement, that it prevailed always at the level that would have been best for our country, but that the principle was recognized, implemented in practice, there is no dispute.
Until 1894 a substantially protective tariff was in effect. Reductions were made that year and with succeeding years slight reductions followed, but there was no material invasion of the protective principle until of very late years. Under the system which we fo'lowed and which has always appealed to me as obviously applicable to Canada, we developed from a very small country to one of proud proportions, and in every branch of our industry we multiplied our production and multiplied our wealth.
There are those who say it has weighed down hard on agriculture. The statistics of
Canada do not contribute to establish that asumption. We have not our agricultural production data as far back as 1878, but I give the figures as far back as record goes.
Our field crops increased in value from $194,953,420 in 1901 to $891,755,200 in 1923; our live stock totals went from $268,651,026 in 1901 to $613,260,000 in 1923; our dairy products from $29,731,922 in 1901 to $104,972,046 in 1922; our mineral production from $10,221,255 in 1881 to $214,102,000 in 1923. Our manufactures went from $221,617,773 in 1871 to $2,747,926,675 in 1921.


Mr. FORKE:: Have you got what they
were in 1901?


Arthur Meighen: They are not in this
table, but the figures would be somewhere between those given.


Robert Forke: I would like to know the
increase in the ten years following 1901.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman can
get it. The lesson would be just the same precisely as the lesson from these figures.
Our trade went from $141,844,412 in 1871 to $1,733,916,486 in 1923; our capital invested in steam railways went from $257,036,188 in 1871 to $2,159,277,131 in 1922.
There are those from the west in particular, -because from that quarter of Canada the fiercest propaganda fcr the opposite trade policy has been under way for many years- who contend that a protective tariff has weighed particularly on them. I went to western Canada myself in the year 1898. At that time there was an area there under crop of about 3,000,000 acres; that acreage rose to
38.000,000 in 1923, not indicating a very great retardation through, false economic policy. Wheat and grain .production, of course, has increased in like degree. At that time western Canada was producing about 12.000,000 pounds of dairy butter; in 1923 western Canada produced 78,000,000 pounds. At that time there was in the whole west, in the prairie provinces, about 400,000 people. According to the census of 1921, there were at that date 1,956.082 people.
These figures are by no means novel to residents of that country, but it is rather difficult to contend in the face of them that this development so rapid, unpreceden: ly rapid I think the world over, cculd have taken place if those provinces were struggling against an adverse economic policy, against false and fallacious rules of trade.


Mr. HOEY:: Would the leader of the opposition give us the figures of hew many acres of free land were given away during that period?
Supply-Tariff Revision


Arthur Meighen: Our free land would have been of no value if false policy had made cultivation unprofitable. If we had not had the policy _we had, the Dominion of Canada would never have had the economic strength to get under western -Canada, spread lines of transport there and enable it to develop at the speed at which it has developed. What is more, if we pursue the tendency which late years have led us to pursue, if we keep on the way we are going now, there will not be the industrial life-blood in the whole of this Dominion to do for the west what its representatives demand of this parliament at this time.
I trace very hurriedly the general trend of our recent tariff policy. This has been invaded, not iby any means as seriously as hon. gentlemen threatened, only fractionally so, but it has been invaded in actual fact. It has been threatened by two great parties in Canada. So loud, so constant, so persistent have been the threats that the confidence of investors and business generally in conditions in this country has been impaired and shaken. It is argued-I have heard it advanced-that the tariff to-day does not differ very substantially from the tariff which was found by the present government when they came into office. The Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) when before him are placed t'he actual results of to-day as compared with corresponding results three and four years ago, always flings across the House the question "Well, how far after all have we interfered with the protective tariff . which you maintained?" That question does not come very well from the Finance Minister of a party which threatened to subvert the whole principle of that tariff, who got into office on a pledge to subvert it and which, if it has only moved fractionally in that direction, has to that degree been guilty of infidelity to its pledges to this Dominion. But if hon. gentlemen are chargeable with infidelity to party principle and pledge, the country at least is fortunate that they went no further in the way of performance. It is true the difference as a jmere matter of (percentage is not very great but infinitely more harm has been done by the tendency, by the promises, and the threats, than has been done by the actual invasion of the tariff structure.
But there are other considerations which must be kept in mind. Tariffs, like everything else in this world, are relative; a tariff is high or is low arising out of facts in which the policy of other countries bears a very considerable proportion. Four years

ago the United States of America had in force a protective tariff, substantially protective; but four years ago the Underwood tariff of the United States was relatively very small compared with the Fordney-Mc-*Comber tariff of to-day. Four and five years ago the tariffs of -the world were on a lower scale generally than those which surround us now. Since the armistice some sixty-five countries have raised itheir barriers. None has done so more pronouncedly than has France, which commenced the lowest,, which had suffered from war the most, which set herself the most determinedly to recover her loss. And on our own continent none has acted so determinedly as that one great competitor whose course not only influences us but necessarily and inevitably influences us more than the course of all other countries-that is the United States. What might have been a sufficient tariff five years ago is, even though uninterfered with, an insufficient tariff today. I am not going to contend that the late administration-I refer to [the Union ladministration-did not, in some of the steps it -took-in one or two of the steps it took

make mistakes -in tariff changes. I am going freely to admit that in one act of ours, namely, the wiping out of the duty on farm tractors, we made what has -turned out to be a definite and clear error. We extinguished the farm tractor industry in this country, and the farmer of Canada has not been the beneficiary as a consequence of a policy .which to industrial Canada involved us in such a loss. If error was made I want to stand and say with every frankness that error was in -the direction of driving too low, in the face of consistent propaganda, the tariff level of our time. This government came into power. It has attacked one schedule after the other- nervously it is true, with vacillation it is true; only :in one single case going the length to which the keeping of their pledges would have carried them-but in every instance with disastrous effect to this Dominion, and with profit in no instance to any class of our people.
I am going to discuss just a few of the steps taken and the consequences thereof. It has been said that the steel industry is fundamental; that the progress of iron and steel manufacture is the barometer by which a general industrial advance is shown. I have before me a table which I shall ask to be included in this speech in Hansard.

Supply-Tariff Revision
The table referred to is as follows:
Pig iron Steel Ingot production production relative to relative to 1913	1913
Period	United States	Canada	United States	Canada1913	monthly 1914	"	average.. .	100 75	100 69	100 75	100 711915 "	" .	97	81	103	871916 "	127	104	137	1221917 "	124	104	144	1491918 "	" .	126	106	142	1611919 "	" .	100	81	111	891920 "	" .. ..	120	96	135	1061921 "	54	60	64	641922 "	" .	87	38	114	471923 "	" ...	130	87	144	851924-	118	76	144	47February.. March.. ..	120 135	71 93	151 166	82 108April.. .. May.. .. June.. .. Jiily.. ..	126 102 79 70 74	100 101 68 55 27	132 104 81 74 101	120 124 79 60 26September. October..	80 97	27 35	112 123	21 2398	27	123	26December..	116	27	141	301,215	707	1,482	746Average 1924	101.2	58.9	123.5	62.11925- January.. February.. March.. ..	101.2 132 126 140	58.9 33 34 76	123.5 166 148 166	62.1 31 42 124398	143	480	197Average 1925,	3 mos.. .	132.6	47.6	160	65.6
In this table showing the production of pig iron and steel ingots the production of the year 1913 is taken as par-10O in Canada, 100 in the United States. Let me ipoint out briefly what these figures demonstrate. When we reach the year 1921-the year of very general depression, the year of collapse from the war infla'ion, collapse which was universal- the United States dropped in pig iron from 120 the year before to 54; Canada from 96 to 60. Even in 1921 Canada, relative to 1913, was somewhat better than the United States. In 1922 the figure for the United States is 87; for Canada, 38; in 1923 the United States, 130; Canada, 87. I ask hon. gentlemen to note that the United States enjoyed a period of great prosperity, a boom, in the year 1923, and to note correspondingly that Canada enjoyed nothing of the kind. As showed by this barometer Canada was still 13 per cent below her pre-war production; the United States was 30 per cent above.
For 1924, the pig iron production is giveD month by month. I ask special attention to
those figures. The average for the year, it will be discovered is, for the United States, 101.2; for Canada, 58.9. It will not be difficult to observe that 101.2 is a considerable percentage below the boom figures of the United States for 1923, but they enjoyed that wave and we did not; we were still below the normal still far below the pre-war average. But we dropped from 87 in 1923 to 58.9 in 1924, and you, Mr. Speaker, will recall that in the spring of that year, 1924, this government, under the guise of lowering taxation as they called it on "instruments of production," fixed a certain level of duty for those instruments of production and they virtually wiped the whole duty off the steel and other materials which went into those implements.
The figures for steel ingot production show for the United States, in the whole year 1923, an average of 144, being 44 per cent above pre-war; and Canada 85. This is a further evidence that the wave of prosperity which followed the introduction of the Fordney-McComber tariff of 1921 did not reach this country at all; we managed to escape it by this policy of lowering the tariff on the "implements of production," but from those averages of 1923 the United States gained for the first three or four months, then went somewhat lower, and gained again during the entire balance of the year. The average for 1924 in the United States was 123.5, almost a quarter more than pre-war. The average for Canada was 62.1, or just about half the average in the United States, and 32 per cent less than pre-war production.
Now, perhaps someone is thinking that it may be better in 1925. I have succeeded in getting the figures for the first three months, and the figures for March are much higher in Canada. I made inquiries to find out why, and the answer was this; that it was due wholly to orders placed by this government for cars, rail's and the like. I do not say that that is an improper action, but I do say that the inflation of production which results is necessarily temporary and to an extent, artificial. But take it all into account: I give the figures by months for 1925. The average for the United States was 132.6, and the average for Canada 47.6. This does not seem very "substantial progress," to use the words of the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In ingot production the figures correspond;- average for the United States, 160, and for Canada, 65.6.
There is another circumstance associated with this industry to which I call attention. It illustrates the considered, consistent, deliberate and determined American policy. The
Supply-Tariff Revision

United States are shipping to this country close to 30,000 tons of pig iron per year; we are selling there about 3,000 tons. And because of that 3,000 tons, because of the possibility or the likelihood of Canadian producers selling below a fair level in the American republic, and the industry there suffering unfair competition, the United States government on the 25th March, issued an order which amounts to a virtual embargo against the shipment, even over the American duty, of any more pig iron from this country. What they did then is simply symptomatic of what is done over a long range, indeed the entire range, of manufactured goods-if the tariff is not enough, one obstacle after another is added. They provide as to pig iron that every car shall carry with it a bond of the manufacturer protecting the American government against any infraction of their regulations, that the American officials can go to the books and stay at the books of our manufacturing firm, superintend every shipment, and further shall examine business done in Canada with a view to the ascertainment of the sales prices and other conditions here. It does not require any stretch of the imagination to see that these conditions are intolerable, and I add this: at a time when that regulation went on, our production was 47 per cent of our pre-war production, the Americans!' production 132 per cent of pre-war production; and not only so, but we are producing-for I have the figures here-less than one-fiftieth of the pig iron production of the United States. Their population is about thirteen times our own population, and their pig iron production is fifty times as much. Their exportation to us a small country is ten times what ours is to them a very large country; and not content with a protective tariff against our goods they put upon us virtually an embargo. I ask hon. gentlemen to contemplate the situation where in the face of such a thing two parties in Canada state that such a condition of affairs is all right for this Dominion and that it is giving the Canadian producer a chance for his life in world competition-two parties who still boast that their policy is fixed in the direction of a lower tariff on goods produced in this country.
I pass from this to a discussion of the position as respects woollens-the same argument will apply in a varied' degree to all production. This government in the spring of 1922 made reductions in the woollen schedules in what is known as the British preference tariff. This was followed again by further reductions in 1923, and in the fall of 1923 the French
[Mr. Meighen.3
treaty gave similar concessions to French importations and as well that of all countries enjoying the favoured nation privilege. These three invasions of a schedule already low have had some results in Canada. May I digress just to give from the table which I shall furnish a few illustrations of what other countries were doing while we were taking this course?
I give the countries which very closely affect us:	Australia, United States, France and
Japan. I will give some individual instances and I will place the whole schedule on Hansard. We had a tariff on binders and mowers of 124 per cent. This parliament, in its wisdom, thought this tariff was too high and reduced it to 6 per cent. While we were doing that, Australia raised her tariff on the same goods from 5 per cent to 45 per cent. Japan did not change hers; it was already 20 per cent. France increased hers more than six times over. On cultivators we reduced our tariff from 15 per cent to 74 per cent, while at the same time Australia raised hers from 25 to 30 per cent and France multiplied her tariff twelve times over. No country whatever reduced its tariff on cultivators. While we were reducing our tariff on ploughs from 174 per cent to 10 per cent, Australia raised her 25 per cent tariff to 30 per cent and France multiplied her tariff twelve times. While we were reducing the tariff on various other implements from 20 to 10 per cenb- we thought 20 per cent was too high-Australia decided that a tariff of 25 per cent was too low and she raised it to 30 per cent. The United States made no change; France increased hers from 23 francs to 228 francs per 100 kilogramms. As regards logging and sawmill machinery, this great "implement of production," where we " suffered " under a tariff of 274 per cent which this government reduced to 20 per cent, Australia decided to raise a 30 per cent tariff to 40 per cent, the United States raised a 20 per cent tariff to 30 per cent and France raised a 15 franc tariff to 128 francs. On boots and shoes where we reduced our preferential tariff-which is the effective tariff because from that direction the competition comes-from 20 per cent to 15j per cent, Australia had against Great Britain a 35 per cent tariff which she did not consider too high and left as it was, but she had a 40 per cent tariff against the rest of the world and she raised that to 45 per cent. France increased her tariff on boots and shoes ten times over. On cotton piece goods when this country reduced its tariff

Supply-Tariff Revision
to 20 per cent, Australia put no preferential tariff on those articles. She has not gone into fostering that manufacture, but I venture the suggestion that it will not be long until she will. She raised her tariff against the rest of the world from 5 per cent to 15 per cent. The United States raised her tariff, which formerly-ranged from 7i per cent to 30 per cent, to a range from 10 per cent to 44 per cent. France multiplied hers from 7J to 15 times according to the article. While we were reducing our tariff on woollen piece goods from 30 per cent, the highest it was, to 24.8 per cent, Australia left her British preferential tariff at 30 per cent and she raised her general tariff from 35 per cent to 45 per cent. The United States increased theirs from 30 cents a pound and 40 per cent to 40 cents a pound and 50 per cent. Japan multiplied her tariff twice over and France multiplied hers twelve times over. On knitted goods our tariff of 22^ per cent was reduced to 18 per cent. Australia had a 40 per cent British preferential tariff and she kept it where it was, but she raised her general tariff from 45 per cent to 55 per cent. The United States raised theirs from 36 cents per pound and 30 per cent to 45 cents per pound and 50 per cent. Japan raised her tariff 100 per cent and France multiplied hers from 6i to 12i times.
As regards woollen wearing apparel, we had a tariff of 30 per cent which was reduced to 241 per cent. I refer to the British preferential tariff. Australia had a 40 per cent British preferential tariff which she left where it was, but she raised her general tariff from 45 per cent to 55 per cent. The United States raised her tariff from 24 cents a pound and 40 per cent to 45 cents a pound and 50 per cent, virtually a 100 per cent tariff. Japan raised her tariff 100 per cent and France increased hers twelve times over. As regards cotton wearing apparel, while we reduced our tariff from 25 per cent to 201 per cent, Australia kept her British preferential tariff of 40 per cent where it was and increased her general tariff from 45 to 55 per cent. The United States raised their tariff from 30 to 35 per cent and France multiplied hers thirteen times. As regards silk wearing apparel, while we reduced our tariff from 30 per cent to 27 per cent, Australia left her 40 per cent British preferential tariff where it was and increased her general tariff from 45 to 55 per cent. Japan increased hers 100 per cent; the United States increased theirs from 50 per cent to 60 per cent, and France multiplied hers twelve times over.	[DOT]
The table referred to is as follows:



[Stage Direction]
Article
Mowers, reapers and binders__
Cultivators, harrows, etc	
Ploughs	
Threshing machines	
Various agricultural implements
Other agricultural implements..
Sawmill machinery	1	
Logging machinery	/
Boots and shoes	
Cotton piece goods, various.
Woollen piece goods.
Canada	Australia	Article	United States	Japan	France-	Br. Pref.	General	-	Br. Pref.	General	Reduced-	Increased-	Mowers, reapers, and	Free	20%	Increased-From	124%	124%	From....	Free	5%	binders.	(no change)	(no change)	From 15 fr. per 100To	6%	To	30%	«%	Reduced-	Increased-	From....	10%	15%	From....	20%	25%	Other agricultural im-	Free	20%	Weighing 400 kil. orTo	74%	To...	20%	30%	(no change)	(no change)	Reduced-	Increased-	inery (including cul-	Increased-From. .. .	124%	174%	From....	20%	25%	tivators, harrows,	From 15 fr. per 100To	5%	10%	To..	20%	30%	kilReduced-	Free	10%	etc.)	From....	124%	174%	(no	change)	kil.To	5%	10%	Weighing less than 400Reduced-	Increased-	kilos:-From....	124%	20%	From....	20%	25%	Increased-To	5%	10%	To	20%	30%	Reduced-	Increased-	kil.From....	124%	20%	From....	25%	30%	To 228 fr. per 100 kil.To	Wo	10%	To..	224%	35%	Reduced-	Increased-	Sawmill machinerv...	Increased-	20%	Increased-From....	15%	274%	From....	25%	30%	From 20%	(no change)	From 15 fr. per 100To	10%	20%	To. ..	274%	40%	To 30%	kil.Reduced-	Increased-	To 128 fr. per 100 kil.From....	20%	30%	From. . . .	35%	40%	Boots and shoes	Free	Increased-	Duties have been in-To	174%	30%	To....	35%	45%	(no change)	creased ten-fold.and further	and 135 yen per 100	10% dis-	kin	count	To 100% ad val.	from 17£%	rate 15f,	Reduced-	Increased-	Cotton piece goods....	Varying rates, former-	Varying rates	Duties 7$ to 15 greaterFrom....	15%	25%	From....	Free	5%	ly ranged from	tno change)	than formerly.To	124%	25%	To. ...	15%	Reduced-	from 10% to 44%. "	From....	174%	25%	To	15%	25%	Reduced-	From....	25%	324%	To	224%	324%	and further	10% dis-	count	from 22\%	rate 20%.	Reduced-	Increased-	Woollen piece goods...	Increased-	Increased-	Duties 9 to 12 timesFrom....	30%	35%	From....	30%	35%	From 35% to	From 50 and 70 yen	greater than form-To	274%	35%	To	30%	45%	erly.and further	40%	To 100% ad val. in	10% dis-	To 45c. lb. and 50%.	the case of velvets,	count	plushes and pile	from 27£%	fabrics.	rate 24-8.	
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SAME ARTICLES-Concluded.
Article
Knitted goods.
Wearing apparel, wool
Wearing apparel, cotton
Wearing apparel, silk.
Canada	Australia	Article	United States	Japan	France-	Br. Pref.	Genera]	-	Br. Pref.	Genera!	Reduced-	From	225%	35%	From....	40%	45%	From 35% to	some dutiable al	er than formerly.20%	35%	To...	40%	55%	and further	To 45c. lb. and 50%.	many cases these	10% dift-	rates have been in-	count	creased to 100% ad	from 20%	val. Others un-	rate 18.	changed.	Reduced-	Increased-	Wearing apparel, wool	Increased-	Some specific rates,	Duties 12 times asFrom....	30%	35%	From....	40%	From 35% to	some dutiable at	great as formerly.To	274%	35%	To..	40%	55%	40% and 50% Tn	and further	40%	some cases these	10% dis-	To 45c. lb. and 50%.	rates have been in-	count	creased to 100% ad	from 274%	val. Others un-	rate 24f.	changed.	Reduced-	Increased-	Wearing apparel, cot-	Increased-	Same as above.	Duties 13 times asFrom....	25%	35%	From....	40%	45%	ton.	From 30%	great as formerly.To	224%	35%	To. ..	40%	55%	To 35%	and further	10% dis-	count	from 224%	rate 204.	Basic rates	30%	374%	Increased-	Wearing apparel, silk..	Increased-	Same as above except	Duties 12 times asunchanged	From....	40%	45%	From 50%	that in the case of	great as formerly.but there	To	«*%	55%	To 60%	silk clothing more	is a 10%	articles have been	discount	made dutiable at	from 30%	100% ad val. than	rate 27.	in the case of woollen	1	or cotton clothing.	
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This serves to illustrate the position which we occupy to-day in our tariff structure relative to those great competing countries. What has been the consequence on the woollen industry? The United States to-day import in woollen goods just about one-half of what Canada imports, and Canada has about onje-thirteenth of their population. The United States use about a square foot and a quarter of imported wollens per capita, while Canada Imports 4 p.m. about thirty-two square feet per capita. Woollen and worsted imports have been increased from $29,000,000 in 1921 to $38,000,000 in 1922 and $40,700,000 in 1923. The figures for 1924 are over $39,000,000 and close to $40,000,00.
There is another feature which must not be lost sight of. While these increased woollen importations have been coming, the actual manufacture from woollen raw material in Canada has very seriously diminished. If we add our imports of raw wool noils, tops and the like, to our home raw wool production and deduct our exports of the same goods, we find that, in the last year alone, the use for manufacture of this raw wool in Canada declined from 45,354,034 pounds to 35,167,122 pounds, a reduction of more than 20 per cent- this all going on at a time when woollen importations are increasing and at a time when, as every hon. member knows, woollen operatives have either gone or are walking our streets in thousands, and those who are occupied are, for the most part, on part time and consequently small pay. While this^ is going on, the wages in those countries which sell us those woollens run from $3 to $3.50 per week while we are compellable to pay in Ontario, for example, under the wage laws of that province, to female operatives, who constitute more than fifty per cent of the whole number, a minimum of $10 per week for those who have had one year's experience, ami $S and $9 per week, for the first and second six months, respectively. These are the compellable wages in Canada, and if memory serves me right, they are compellable by virtue of legislation passed by the late Progressive government of Ontario. While our industries are forced to pay this scale of wages, and rightly so, other countries on one-third, sometimes one-quarter the rate, are permitted to send goods in here over a tariff of 15f per cent. It passes my comprehension how there could have been any possible result save precisely that which we have encountered.
We are importing $125,000,000 worth of textile goods, all told. If we made as much
IMr. Meighen.]
of these goods as we have machinery installed in Canada to make, we would employ men and women drawing wages of over $100,000,000. In the manufacture of woollens and worsteds alone, if we employed the machinery we have installed and the capital we have invested, our 21,000 people now employed in that branch would be multiplied by two.
Mr. CRERAR:: How much would their
earnings be?


Arthur Meighen: I did give their earnings. I stated we would be paying out $100,000,000 more in wages over the whole textile area if we utilized the textile machinery and plant that we have in Canada to-day.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Where would1 they sell the product?


Arthur Meighen: To Canada. W'e are
buying it now. We would sell it to the same people that our competitors are selling it to to-day, right within the borders of this country for the importation, as I gave it, is $125,000,000.
I pass to other industries. Last year in the wisdom of this government we took off entirely the duty on fertilizers. This is the only article where their courage enabled them to go the whole length of their pledges. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said he did not think injury had been done to any industry whatever by the tariff alterations of last year. The member for East York (Mr. Harris) placed upon record in his budget speech accounts of one industry after the other which had been compelled to close up. I wrote to the various industries in Canada, and only in one case, did I get a reply save such as definitely established most substantial reduction of operation, and in no case any reduction of price whatever. The member for East York put on record figures taken from the Department of Agriculture-they appear in his speech; I will not put them in mine- to show that since that duty went off the actual price of fertilizers in Canada has increased in all or nearly all the various branches of its production, and the increase has taken place at a time when the general level of fertilizer costs has been reduced in the world's market. At a time when the level at Baltimore, the central market for fertilizer on this continent, went down from $3.50 to $3.25, we in Canada having wiped away one industry after the other found our farmers paying higher than they had paid when the industry in this Dominon was active and employing many men.

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Mr. ROBB:: Perhaps the right hon. gentleman can clear this up: that being so, why did those industries in Canada go out of business? They were getting more for their product then than they were before.


Arthur Meighen: They were getting less
for a Short time until they went out of business or had to contract their output. The Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) knows just as well as I do that once you shut off a market from your competitor and give it to the home producer, the home producer, if he never raises his price at all, has an advantage which he had not before, and can extend that advantage to his customer. That advantage was denied him by the minister's conduct, and the diminution of production increased the unit cost of the home manufacturer. I have dozens of letters, but I do not want to delay the House by reading them. I will select one letter to put on Hansard, and I will put any others on, or extracts from them, just as the House desires. This letter is from the Triangle Chemical Compapv of New Westminster, B.C.:
We have your letter of the 12th, and would say that such legislation as the tariff reductions of last session as applied to the fertilizer was unnecessary, foolish and harmful. You are aware that formerly all raw materials for fertilizers such as muriate and sulphate of potash, raw phosphate rock either crude or ground, nitrate of soda, basic slag, sulphate of ammonia, bone meal, etc., all came in duty free. The only impost was the small matter of 10 per cent on superphosphate and manufactured fertilizers. The exemptions were quite all right, and in the interests of agriculture, but the 10 per cent on the two items was really too low to provide adequate protection, and to remove this little protection was in the writer's opinion absolute folly, and hurtful both to the manufacturer and the farmer. On our very limited market here we know of at least 100 tons superphosphate, and 200 tons of mixed fertilizers which have been imported. This has not made a saving of a single dollar to the grower, but has simply shortened up production to the manufacturers to that extent, and made it more difficult for us to exist.
You will understand that firms on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States can produce superphosphate at a very low cost. They are close to the phosphate mines of Tennessee and Florida, they can buy sulphur from the mines of Texas and Louisiana at a very low laid-down price, and can therefore make cheap sulphuric acid, and they have a very great market close at hand to help keep down production costs. When such firms have a surplus they are always ready to "dump", and with the present low ocean freights it is easy for them to get below a price we can profitably make. This gives a flock of middle-men who have no equipment other than a book and pencil a chance to offer competition to the factory, and as said before it does not save the farmer here one dollar, but simply cuts into our production. Imagine what would happen if this fool legislation should succeed in putting us out of business. The farmer would have no regular source of supply, and brokers and foreign makers would not be slow to seize the chance of making the Canadian farmers pay excessive prices.
The writer will frankly admit that he has always been a Liberal, but this nonsense makes one begin to
have other views, especially where our government seems anxious to make a grand-stand play by passing, such ill-considered, and ill-advised legislation.
Every letter received, save one, was to the same effect, and the exception was a special case.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Has my right hon. friend the letter he sent to which that was the reply?


Arthur Meighen: I have the letter, and
will put it on Hansard.


Mr. CAHILL:: What is the date of it?


Arthur Meighen: The 12th of April. I
wrote similar letters to manufacturers of farm implements. Their replies were along the same line in every case, I think, but one, and I am not sure as ;o that; but I have not the file before me.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What was that one?


Arthur Meighen: I do not recall; it was
not important.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps my
right hon. friend would put the file cn Hansard?


Arthur Meighen: I am sorry to say that in some way the file has got out of my office. I do not know how, and I do net want to cast any aspersions.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I did not take it.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) would be influenced by any file. I am afraid he is in the class described by his leader (Mr. Forke) in his speech on the budget-those who cannot by any process of reasoning be made to agree with the protectionist doctrine.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is too pessimistic.


Arthur Meighen: I do hope, however, that
if reason fails experience may succeed. I read the following, which in substance was included in the letter from (he same writer to myself. It appeared in Industrial Canada of January, 1925, and is written by Arthur F. White of the firm of George White & Sons Company, Limited, London:
Conditions in connection with the farm machinery trade in our locality could not be worse. We are simply marking time until such time as there is a guarantee of some stability in the tariff and the present buying power of the farmer improves.
Production of farm machinery has been reduced fully 50 per cent in 1924, partially owing to the tariff, and partially to general conditions.
Farm products are selling at a good price on the local markets, but the purchasing power of the general public is greatly reduced owing to so much unemplov-
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ment. If there was a reasonable protection on fariy machinery, the unemployment situation would be greatly improved.
And I read this from Mr. Gigax, manager of the Matthew Moody & Sons Company, of Terrebonne, Quebec:
In our case, irrespective of the fact that we had a larger organization than in the previous year-
That is, in 1923.
-our sales were only 25 per cent of what they were bhat year, due to the matter of advanced datings, long terms and cuts in price that were made.
With reference to our Quebec business, due to the fact that special tools used only in this territory are largely sold, the effect has not been so marked, excepting that we are only running with approximately one-half the number of men, due to lack of sales.
In every community where there is an agricultural implement factory, there are hundreds of idle men; in our town 50 per cent of the population is idle.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not quite sure from whom that first letter was that my right hon. friend read.


Arthur Meighen: Arthur F. White. It
was not a letter; it was an article, I said, in Industrial Canada.
IMr. MACKENZIE KING: Is it the mem-Tber for London?


Arthur Meighen: Oh, no relation at all.
The hon. gentleman does not need to look to relatives, but I could quote from many relatives of hon. gentlemen opposite directly against my right hon. friend's policy. If I could speak the minds of many a one opposite I could quote them directly against his policy, too. My eye is on some of them .at this very minute.


James Alexander Robb: Before my right hon. friend
'leaves the agricultural implement business-


Arthur Meighen: I may say I referred
among others to the hon. Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb).


James Alexander Robb: Perhaps his correspondance
would explain why it is that there were $5,000,000 less imports from the United States in 1925 than in 1924 and there were $2,000,000 greater exports.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, there were less
imports and there was less home production as well. They were all coming down, and that is the significance of the policy. It is not wholly the consequence; I know there was less farm production last year and there was less need of increased implement provision. But the home production went down to a greater degree than did the importation.


James Alexander Robb: But the exports; how do you explain that?


Arthur Meighen: Well, the exports had gone down to nearly nothing. Certain industries in Canada did get some orders last year, but I have letters from at least one of those who got them, and the prospect for the future which these letters hold out is anything but bright, and the castigation of this government in those letters would certainly be wholesome reading for the Acting Minister of Finance. And what is more, the larger orders would be taken the year before, and before the reduction of last year took place.
Now, what are the general results of what has been going on? I took up when I spoke last the question of industrial failures in our country-I mean failures of manufacturing industries. I showed that according to R. G. Dull and 'Company, in two years and a fraction, uip to the 20th of August of last year, the date on which I spoke in Stratford, there had been something over 2,000 failures. At the time the Prime Minister answered me by saying-and perhaps the same answer is coming again-


Mr. MARLER:: Did my right hon. friend
say, manufacturing industries?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, manufacturing industries.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Alone?


Arthur Meighen: Alone, and I have the
data here to furnish my hon. friend.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Would he give the figures
again?


Arthur Meighen: Yes I can give them. The number in 1922 was 792, and in 1923 , 857, a total of 1,649. The proportion of the 1924 figure-625-which would take place prior to the 20th of August was 399, a grand total of 2,048.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask my right hon. friend how "manufacturing industry" is defined, and to give us the number of employees?


Arthur Meighen: That was the line the
Prime Minister went on by way of reply. He would assume that R. G. Dun and Company did not know what a factory is and took into account concerns so small that they should not be counted. Well, I would rather fancy that R G. Dun and Company, in making up their statistics, would make them up on such a basis that they would mean something, not mean nothing.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Tell us the
basis.

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Arthur Meighen: I do not know what the basis is, but I do know that the United States are taken on precisely the same basis by the same firm, and the United States in the last three years had an average failure of manufacturing concerns of 44.3 peT million while we had 84 per million, almost twice the number.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will my right hon. friend tell the House something about the variety of the causes of these failures?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I think I can tell
the House. The usual cause is lack of money, owing to lack of business. I know we had lately a lesson in economics from the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe); he read some figures to show that these failures were not due to the tariff at all. He read figures to show that several hundred were due to "want of capital." Well, I wonder why they "wanted" the capital? If the industry were flourishing, would capital be wanting? If the business were there, would the capital not be obtainable? Most industries fail for lack of capital. But why is capital lacking? Capital is lacking because government policy has reduced them to a state where they cannot get the money.


Herbert Meredith Marler: May I ask a question?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Must the hon. member
for South Simcoe (Mr. Boys) begin roaring when I ask a question of the leader of the opposition?


Mr. BOYS:: The hon. member for South
Simcoe is paying no attention to you.


Herbert Meredith Marler: To what policy does my
right hon. friend attribute failures to the extent of 857 in the calendar year 1922?


Arthur Meighen: Because there should
have been higher tariff.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Oh; he should have been
putting a higher tariff into effect?


Arthur Meighen: There should have been one put on in the spring of 1922 after the American tariff was known. It was because of failure to enforce the policy which my hon. friend himself demanded in this House.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Will my right hon. friend-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Alves Boys: Sit down. You make us tired.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Let us be reasonable in
discussing this thing; let us not act like children. If my right hon. friend does not desire me to ask a question-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: Well, get to the question as soon as possible.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I say this to my right
hon. friend: in all fairness, how could a policy engendered in 1922 have affected policies in 1922? It is. only possible for a policy to have effect after it is put in force, not before.


Arthur Meighen: I would think so, yes.


Herbert Meredith Marler: These failures were the
result of policies before 1922.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman's
idea of an interrogation is about the same as his idea of consistency. One would think the fall of 1922 and the summer were after the spring. I think the hon. gentleman also has business acumen enough to know that the effect or tendency is seen at once.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not at all.


Arthur Meighen: It is not? I wonder
if there was no effect in the city of Montreal when the announcements of 1922 were made, no effect when the announcements of 1923 were made? There was an effect on the hon. gentleman himself.
Now, as to the unit capital of these failures: In 1924 the average liability per failure in the United States was $55,083, and in Canada $58,467, showing that the average industry which failed in Canada in that year was larger than the average in the United States. Over the whole three years the average in the United States was $49,838 and in Canada $48,069, showing clearly that the same type of industry is considered in each, and showing indisputably that Canada, relatively to its competitor, under the tariff policy of hon. gentlemen opposite, has suffered and suffered grievously in its industrial life.
Now to proceed to one or two facts. Hon. gentlemen say:	Oh, but look at our exports,
they are greater than before; look at the amount we are selling, and look at our imports. They are now taking credit because those impor' s are reducing. The imports are reducing. Exports in a year of large harvests or large prices increase, and the government and government policy have little or nothing to do with either. But the kernel of the thing is this, as illustrated in some excellent material provided by the same member for Toronto: The character of our exports is in the main
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raw material; the character of our imports is manufactured goods. The analysis made by the hon. : lember shows that for the year 1923, of our exports in wood and wood manufactures 64 per cent was raw material, and only 36 per cent goods partially or wholly manufactured; and in the sphere of non-ferrous metals, our exports were 77^ per cent raw material, and only 22i per cent manufactured. In our imports the very reverse is the case. In wood and wood products only 27 per cent of the i.mpor'ation was raw material to be used for manufacture here and [DOT] 73 per cent manufactured goods; and in non-ferrous metals 13 per cent of our importation was raw material and 87 per cent manufactured goods. I wonder if those facts sink into the mind of the Acting Minister of Finance. They illustrate the whole character of our trade.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend has been quoting the figures for 1923. Is he going on to bring the figures up to date, for 1924 and 1925?


Arthur Meighen: I am coming to 1924. In 1924 our imnorts went down some $93,000,000. When a country is struggling, its imports usually go down, but what accounts for the diminution? Does it show better figures would obtain in 1924? It shows that worse figures would obtain. In non-ferrous metals alone the reduction of our importations of raw or slightly manufactured goods, which are the goods used in Canadian factories where men are employed, was from $145,000,000 to $107,000.000, or almost half the whole reduction in importation, a reduction of twenty-eight and a fraction per cent in that one line of raw material alone, and the largest reduction in any other single sphere, that is, reducrion applicable to manufactured goods, was six and a fraction per cent. This indicates that the story of 1924 is not any more heartening, indeed less so, than the story of 1923.
Now what would one expect to be the visible consequence of a course such as this? Let us look around and see. What are the consequences on railway traffic? The resolution which I move declares that a reversion of policy in this regard is necessary for the sake of traffic in Canada, and in order that in the transport of our goods there may be some prospect of a reduction of rates. Those consequences are revealed in the speech of the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton).	As every
hon. gentleman knows, the traffic carried by Canadian railways in 1924 went down by from nine to ten million tons. Of that reduction
2.300,000	tons is accounted for by a lower
(Mr. Mrighen.]
crop return, a lower gross production of grain; for that the government is in no way responsible. The balance, though, is accounted for by something else altogether, an actual reduction of goods produced in our country, resulting in a reduction of traffic in Canada. I have before me some of the figures used by the hon. member for West York, and it is worth while, I think, placing them again on Hansard.
The hon. member showed that the reduction in iron ere tonnage was some 443,000 tons; in rails and fastenings, 50,000 tons; in pig iron and bloom, 275,000 tons; in iron pipe and structural iron, 639,000 tons; in castings, machinery and boilers, 144,000 tons; in coke, 266,000 tons; miscellaneous manufactures, 844,000 tons; lumber, timber, box shooks, staves and headings, 835,000 tons. In a word, the reduction varies from 18 per cent on rails and fastenings to 43 per cent on iron, pig and bloom, up as high as 72 per cent on iron ores. Thousands of railway employees lost their positions. This is some illustration of the effect of Canadian business in general of the contraction which has followed in years of either large crops in Canada or large prices in Canada from the policy pursued by this administration.
But these effects are visible in other forms in still more distressing degree. I come to that phase of our troubles which illustrates the results more poignantly than anything else. Canada always has had a struggle to maintain her population. Competing with a country of vast industrial development, that struggle has been no light one through the whole term of our history, but the conditions now, no matter how you may twist figures, no matter what letters you may read, no matter what allowances you may make, the conditions now as known to everybody are nothing short of appalling. I would like any hon. member of this House to go into any town in Canada, yes, I almost said into any countryside, and there address any good, upstanding Canadian, any intelligent person, and ask him what he has witnessed in the last two or three years in this Dominion. Ask him whether his neighbours are going south, or whether the southern people are coming here. Present to him all the statistics you like; read him the whole speech of the Minister of Labour-the minister shudders before the prospect-do all these things, and then ask him what he has actually observed, and what is going to be his answer? Go outside the walls of this House and speak to the Canadian citizen; ask him what is happening on his own street, ask him what is going on in

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his nearest industry, ask him what indeed is taking place in his own family. Will he tell you of the boy who could not get work in the United States and came back here to get a fine job? How many cases of that kind would you discover? There is no use talking about 4.C00 a month coming back from the United States. Let us find where the 4,000 are. Does the Minister of Labour meet them and shake them by the hand? I do not see them. The figures given from the records of the United States government by the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs) cannot possibly be controverted, if indeed, figures are necessary at all. There they make every allowance for those who return; they make every allowance for everything that can be recorded in government statistics, and they show that in the fiscal year 1923 there was a net loss to Canada in favour of the United States of 102,520, and in 1924 a net loss of 181,194. These figures, relative to our population, are appalling. But they do not tell the whole story. We all know that under the American law the alien immigrant from Canada cannot get into the United States-he has to be smuggled in. We know, as well, that the Canadian born cannot get in himself save bv paying a head tax and he avoids it; a large number surreptitiously enter that country. Those three classes have to be added together to get the total. I hesitate to give what the investigations which I have looked into show to be that total. You cannot get them from government statistics because there are no records of smuggled aliens, there are no records of the surreptitious entrance of Canadian-born. The New York World-which would not be described as a Tory organ, I hope-conducted an investigation into this question. The investigator went into the various centres of this country, calling on American consuls in particular, and obtained the best data he could, and anyone who reads his articles will see that he was very thorough in the work he did. In the issue of that journal of Wednesday, May 13 I read the following-but first of all this investigator expresses the belief that the earnings from smuggling aliens from Canada into the United States in 1924 would amount to
810,000,000.


Robert Forke: Does not the right hon.
gentleman think if possible that a number of those aliens who were smuggled into the United States came to Canada with that intention?


Arthur Meighen: I think so, and the investigator says so. Of that I do not think there is a doubt, but I am not able to see how it throws very much sunlight-


Robert Forke: They did not leave Canada
because things were not good in Canada. They left this country because they never intended to stay.


Arthur Meighen: Why did they never intend to stay?


Robert Forke: Well, I suppose-


Arthur Meighen: This article goes on to
say that more than 106,000 European immigrants entered Canada last year.


Mr. WARNER:: Do you think they should
be counted among the population of Canada?


Arthur Meighen: Well, they are lost to
us. If they had stayed here they would be here.


Daniel Webster Warner: But supposing they were
smuggled in here and went over there?


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman will see the significance in a minute if he listens to this quotation. They were not smuggled into Canada by any means; they were regularly entered immigrants that we paid high for and lost.


An hon. MEMBER:: And that were
counted in our immigration returns?


Arthur Meighen: And were counted in our immigration returns. This article says:
More than 106,000 European immigrants entered Canada last year.
The exact figures of the Immigration Department are 111,000 showing the investigator was right.
A considerable number were contraband aliens actually in transit to the United States. Thousands were honest immigrants who later decided to move southward across the international line.
Labour conditions in Canada are such that it is difficult for a newly arrived immigrant to make a living, and it is safe to assume that a majority of the 106.000 aliens who entered Canada last year are now in this country.
This is a fine harvest of the immigration policies of this government.
One man, closely in touch with the situation, expressed the opinion that every one of the 10,760 Irish immigrants-
And I ask the Postmaster General (Mr. Murphy) to weep with me over this-
-everyone of the 10,760 Irish immigrants to Canada last year had either entered the United States or fallen into the hands of the border patrol.
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Then the article goes on to say-and this is taken from the evidence of consuls and others-that these aliens smuggled across the New York-Vermont boundary line alone amounted to no less than 25,000 in the last six months of last year. Consider what would be the number over the whole boundary in a year and add to these the Canadians estimated by the same investigator as between 75,000 and 150,000 who go and do not pay the head tax-put these three classes together and hon. gentlemen have some conception of the consequences of policy which this government pursues.
I want to make some reference to the position of labour in this matter, and to make reply to interrogations put to me in his speech on the budget by the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Irvine). I believe the mass of labour understands, and just as clearly as any other portion of Canada, that a protective policy is essential in the interests of labour. I do not plead for a protective policy in the interest of farmer, labourer, employer, or anybody else. In the name of no class in Canada in particular do I plead for this policy; I plead for it in the name of Canada. But if there is one class of our population to whom it is more vital than to any other it is certainly the labour class. The manufacturer can close his doors and can open over there. He loses, perhaps, but he has something left; in a great many cases at least he has something left. When he goes not one but scores, hundreds, maybe thousands, of labouring men are left who although in no position to sacrifice their earnings, earnings that they have invested in homes, have to abandon those homes and betake themselves to another land. They are the ones who have the most at stake, the most to lose, by alienation from Canada. Mr. Tom Moore, who has been honoured by this government and therefore is one I may be allowed to quote, has written a series of very able articles in labour journals and in other periodicals as well, strongly urging upon the labour population of this country that their only hope is in the adoption of a firm and definite protective policy. Mr. Moore says:
Labour accepts the principle of protection as a necessary corollary to the protection of their own means of making a living.
No man ever condensed the whole doctrine and purpose of protection, as applied to labour, in more vivid and faithful words. He is followed by a labour leader of the province of Quebec writing in Industrial Canada, preaching the same doctrine	with the
same emphasis; and certainly the bit-
terness, which labour has endured, the suffering these late years, has brought the workers of Canada to much the viewpoint of workers in Australia and in other lands whose level of living has been heightened by the adoption of sane fiscal principles.
The hon. member for East Calgary first of all asks "Is it the intention of the Conservative party to put in effect a definite, and really, protective policy? Are you going really to protect?" Well, if I ever gave an emphatic answer in my life I do so now when I give that question an unqualified affirmative. The Conservative party through its history has been committed to the principle; the Conservative party sees the need for the implementing of that principle in action and policy more clearly and more emphatically to-day than ever before in the history of Canada. The Conservative party has not witnessed in vain the dire consequences of the last three years of vacillation and of drift, and we are going to rescue Canada from the consequences of that shiftless and aimless course.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Will the right hon. member tell me, is there any guarantee whatever that the protection of an industry means the protection of the interests of the employees of that industry?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: Yes. The Prime Minister says "hear, hear", and by that "hear, hear" he intimates a belief that the protection of industry means nothing to the employee. I wonder, did the protection of the glass industry at Hamilton mean nothing to the employees there?	Employees in Hamilton had to
sacrifice their homes, abandon them and go away. Did protection mean nothing to the various fertilizer-workers mentioned by the hon. member for East York (Mr. Harris), those men who followed the machinery from place to place in a vain hope that their means of living would be restored? Does the Prime Minister say it meant nothing to the employees of the shoe industry of Quebec and Montreal and other towns, men who have gone already in hundreds? Or did it mean nothing to the employees of the woollen industry who had to go away in thousands?


James Alexander Robb: Will the right hon. member tell us to what extent the tariff on glass has been changed since he was in office in 1921?


Arthur Meighen: I told the hon. member all about that when I spoke in this House a year ago. The tariff on glass was changed

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because the Belgian franc fell low. The depreciation of the Belgian franc removed a large portion of the protection.


James Alexander Robb: It was the same Belgian franc that bought the Canadian goods.


Arthur Meighen: Very good. But what has that to do with the case? The depreciation of the Belgian franc virtually removed the protection. We in our time had a clause in our tariff which protected against such depreciation. Hon. gentlemen opposite with a flourish of trumpets removed it; that is what brought down the protection on glass, and that is what destroyed an industry where $2,000,000 were invested, wiped out an industry where 600 hands were directly and indirectly employed, furthermore that is what lost to the railways of Canada 60,000 tons of freight. The hon. gentleman cannot name me one single individual in this Dominion who profited to the extent of one dollar. Because when Canadian competition became extinct the price went up. I see the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond) in his seat. I wonder if he would suggest-no he would never so suggest, I have too high an opinion of his intelligence to believe he would-that a protective tariff means nothing to labour. Does it mean nothing to the labourer of Brantford? I quote from the statement of an alderman of that city who accompanied many representatives of other cities to Toronto to try to get some help from the government there to assist the unemployed. Speaking on behalf of the city of Brantford, in the month of February, Alderman W. H. Freehorn said, as reported in the Toronto Star:
Conditions were very bad in his town; scores of people were leaving every week.
These were not wealthy people, but these were poor people out of work. I appeal to my hon. friend from Brantford and ask if I am not right.
As many as 300 houses could be bought at less than cost. The population had been reduced from 33,000 to 28,000. From 1,000 to 1,200 people were jobless. Hundreds of families were seeking relief. We do not know what to do about it. If we increase our tax rate we drive more people out. We're handing out doles right now. We need direct assistance as was given in 1921. We have no money to spend on public works.
I want to know if the Prime Minister will suggest that- a protective tariff meant nothing to those labourers in Brantford who had to abandon, not only their homes but their country. To the extent of 5.000 according to Mr Freehom they have left the city. I was about to answer the question put by the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Irvine). He said:
"What are you going to do to see that too high prices are not charged in this country?" That is a very pertinent question. I know it is always in the mind of him who fears protection, and it is based on the assumption that a protective tariff necessarily increases the level of prices. No one would argue that there would not be individual cases of increased prices; but even if the cases were universal, it is far better to have a small increase of price with a job which provides the money to pay that price than to have a despairing home where ndbody can find work and nobody able to pay any price at all. But the fact has been proven by experience that the general level is not increased. The assumption that it is is based on the belief that there is no effective competition within the borders of the country itself. If that assumption is correct I suppose the tendency of human nature could be relied on to get the utmost price. But that assumption cannot be correct unless the whole industry is under monopoly. Well, if we are to assume that the whole production in any industry, is under monopoly in our country, it is surely equally likely that it would be under a monopoly in the other country. If we have to live under a monopoly, I would rather it should be under a monopoly over which our parliament has jurisdiction and which it can control, than a monopoly over which we have no jurisdiction and cannot in the least control.	The fact is
-and surely I will be endorsed by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) in this assertion-that the industries which lend themselves to monopoly are relatively very, very few, even if the government stand aside and never interfere, and no government is going to do that. I wonder, sir, if there is any possibility, for example, of monopoly in the shoe industry of Canada. I wonder if there is any possibility of a monopoly in the woollen industry in Canada. Did anybody ever suggest that a monopoly existed there? With 1,300 firms engaged in the shoe industry, does anybody suggest that in the case of these concerns, all making their own styles and fighting for their trade, a monopoly is conceivable? But if competition should fail to keep down price, and if monopoly should raise the price, it is at least a monopoly which the government has power to regulate in the interests of the consuming public. It is fai better to be under those conditions, even if they must come-and I do not for a moment concede that any industry in Canada can
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be under such conditions that a monopoly can dictate prices to Canadian consumers uncontrolled by the Canadian parliament-than to be under conditions which make for unemployment. But I go further: does the experience of this country show that the raising of a tariff and the adoption of protection increases prices? Has it shown that the reduction of protection has diminished prices? Did it in the case of farm implements when there was a reduction? The reduction claimed by the Prime Minister would not equal the reduction caused by the Crowsnest freight rates and the reduction caused by taking off the sales tax. It would not nearly equal those two. We did not witness the slightest reduction in price because of a reduction of tariff. We did not, at any rate, in the case of farm implements.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Will the right hon. gentleman tell me if the increase in prices would not suggest that there is a monopoly, or at least if not a definite monopoly, an understanding among the producers?


Arthur Meighen: Not necessarily. What it suggests is this, that taking away a portion of the Canadian market and giving it to another country reduces the production in this country, therefore raises the cost of the article in this country and the other country has not as keen competition in Canada as it had before. The fact is that the reduction has not taken place.


Mr. McTAGGART:: Is it not true that
there was a reduction in the price of small tractors following the lowering of the duty on those tractors?


Arthur Meighen: There may have been a
temporary reduction, but I have figures in my office to show that as soon as the Canadian industry was extinguished, the American manufacturer got considerably more for his tractors than he did before. I should like to produce the figures to the hon. member, as I am pretty sure I could convince him. Undoubtedly this country to-day would be better off and our business in a better position if we had in Canada a tractor industry similar to what was, growing up before that error was committed.
I want to go back to the imposition of the protective tariff in the first place, and I commend hon. members to read the budget speech of 1882. If ever a Finance Minister presented to a parliament, the actual conditions of his country, financially and industrially, Sir Leonard Tilley did so in 1882. Hon. mem-
[Mr. MeighenJ
bers should read as well the whole debate-1 have read it-read the reply of Sir Richard Cartwright, read all the replies, and then tell me if they are not convinced that the facts stated by Sir Leonard Tilley remained undisturbed. What did he show to be the consequences after three and one-half years of the imposition of the National Policy? I call attention to those consequences chiefly as they affect the question of prices. But I refer first of all to this. He stated that notwithstanding the call for money for investment in Manitoba and the west and for application to the Canadian Pacific, in those three years alone the saving deposits of Canada increased by $36,000,000, a huge sum at that time. He went on to show that, in the case of practically all lines of articles- and he cited dozens one by one, giving his authority and his actual result-instead of an increase in price being witnessed, what was actually witnessed was a reduction. Perhaps I had better give hon. members some of the figures and these figures were undisturbed by the debate. A duty was placed upon wagons. In 1871 they sold for $64, in 1878 for $62 and in 1881, for $60. In 1878, coaches sold for $105 and in 1881, for $100. The price of covered buggies was reduced from $170 to $160. Ploughs sold for 15 per cent less, agricultural implements in general sold for from 5 to 20 per cent less. Organs sold for 15 per cent less; sewing machines sold for $10 apiece less. In fact he went through the range of important articles, boots and shoes, clothing and the like, and he found as a consequence that virtually the only instances of increased prices were for horse shoe nails and soap. This is the result of three years' application of the National Policy. Then he added that, Liberal opposition in 1878 prophesied that the imposition of that tariff would extract $7,000,000 extra from the people of Canada, of which only $2,000,000 would reach the treasury. He showed that instead of $2,000,000 reaching the treasury, the actual receipts from customs were $6,000,000 more than they had been in 1878, and that the people in Canada were paying less for their goods than they were under the tariff in force before. If hon. gentleman will follow this subject right up to this day and read the evidence given before the commission of 1921 of comparative prices in this country and in the United States, they will find that prices charged in Canada compare generally favourably with prices charged in the United States. In many cases they are lower, in some cases they are higher; but undoubtedly the total of each would not be unfavourable to this country.

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Hon. gentlemen will be pleased to know that I am close to the end of what I intend to say. I have addressed myself to this task, not for the sake of castigating anyone in particular. This is a great business question.
If we decide it wrongly it will be serious indeed for this country.


Mr. RAYMOND:: The hon. member has
referred to the industry of Brantford. If he were successful in the coming general election, would he raise the duty on agricultural implements to the figure it was at when he left office?


Arthur Meighen: Undoubtedly I would,
and I say so unhesitatingly. Will the hon. member support this resolution now? I hope the hon. member will support it.


William Gawtress Raymond: I cannot say that that
will lead me to support it.


Arthur Meighen: I say that also to the
hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler), because I recall that at 'least some newspapers have attributed to him the honour of the parentage of .this resolution.
I earnestly trust that this close relationship with it. will enable him to support it.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: If my right hon. friend
were placed in that happy position which the hon. member for Brantford refers to, would he impose a duty on binder twine?


Arthur Meighen: I am not going to fix a
tariff to-day, but I will say to my hon. friend that I would not like to see all industry in Canada in the position in which the binder twine industry is at present. The hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey), in 5 p.m. a speech about two years ago, stated that we were making in Canada ten per cent of the binder twine we were consuming. I think the percentage has increased somewhat since that time. The binder twine industry depends very largely upon the fortunate purchase of raw material.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: So does everything else.


Arthur Meighen: nine million dollars for the pulp, and about ninety-nine million dollars for the paper? Is that quite satisfactory to self-respecting Canadian people? This was brought to the attention of the government some two or three years ago, and they put through a piece of legislation giving themselves .power to impose restrictions on the export of raw pulpwood. What did they do? Did they impose any restrictions? I have not heard of any. Is not the export going on to-day even faster than ever? But so far from imposing restrictions, will horn, gentlemen believe that the government took exactly the opposite course? -they passed an order in council under which they guaranteed American importers of Canadian raw pulpwood exemption from restrictions for ten years in respect of contracts made in Canada before a certain date. That was an order in council they were never authorized to pass, which this parliament never for one moment contemplated. I wonder what this government has to say for moving, and moving without authority, in a direction exactly contrary to the plain intent of parliament? To-day the export is going on still, not one step has been taken to conserve this almost irreplaceable resource of our Dominion, and the consequences are certainly not very far from us now, consequences which not only affect the industry directly interested but in a marked degree the welfare of Canadian agriculture.
Mr. WOODSW'ORTH: Does the right hon. gentleman consider it really very satisfactory that we can manufacture in Canada only by bringing in American capital, and then the profits go out to the American concern?


Arthur Meighen: No, I think if we had proper conditions in Canada we would have capital of our own. At the present time it is mostly American, capital. But even then I would rather have American capital invested here and in that way pay the excess American adverse balance against us; I would rather have that than have such adverse balance stand as a debt of this country owing to the United States- Far better have American capital come in-I would rather htave Canadian capital, it is true-than the only other *alternative under this policy, the existence of an unpaid and unpayable balance to the great and wealthy republic.


Robert Alexander Hoey: I can follow the right hon. gentleman's argument in connection with pulpwood, but in view of the fact that our natural resources of nickel and asbestos are largely in the hands of American capitalists, and our home market is comparatively small

for the manufactured commodities coming back, how would he prevent the exportation of these raw materials?


Arthur Meighen: 
Robert Alexander Hoey: What means would we take to prevent its exportation to those factories already established in the United States if they own the raw material already?


Arthur Meighen: It is more difficult than it would be if the industry were in its infancy; that is true. But those industries over there have no vested right to the importation of Canadian raw material. And I want to say that the time has come in Canada-it is brought home to us by an experience very, very bitter-when we must assert every advantage we possess, and we must assert it in absolute fearlessness of retaliation or anything else.


Frank S. Cahill: Would my right hon. friend prohibit the export of pulpwood from private lands?


Arthur Meighen: I would reach the objective by prohibition or by an export duty. If I could not reach it by either of those ways I would reach it by another way; but I guarantee I will reach the objective where the raw material of Canada does not go as now to the United States, there to be manufactured.


Frank S. Cahill: Would he advocate prohibition of the export of pulpwood from privately owned lands?


Arthur Meighen: Whatever I applied
to one land I would apply to another; and I believe it can be done with complete protection to the owner of that pulpwood. If it cannot be done otherwise, it can be done by co-operation with the provincial governments, who have absolute power of control.


Frank S. Cahill: Surely my right hon. friend does not make the statement that the provincial governments have control over timber on privately owned lands?


Arthur Meighen: Undoubtedly they have

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Frank S. Cahill: Of course not. It is the purest nonsense to assert that they have.


Arthur Meighen: What does the hon. gentleman mean? Who is the owner of the pulpwood?


Frank S. Cahill: No person but the owner of the land. It is nonsense to say otherwise.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Mr. BELAND:: The proprietor of the land.


Arthur Meighen: Every provincial government has jurisdiction in relation to price, and can cure any injustice as related to price. The hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) knows it, and he will not contradict me for one moment.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Does my right hon. friend contend that a provincial government can fix the price of pulpwood cut on privately owned land?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly?


Henri Sévérin Béland: In what way?


Arthur Meighen: In any way it chooses.
I am speaking of jurisdiction. I do not believe it is necessary, but if necessary if there is no other way it ought to be done. Are we to lie helplessly by while this is going on, throw our hands up and say, " Nobody in Canada has power to do anything "? Hon. gentlemen of the government, instead of even trying to do something, run to the side of the American importer and by order in council protect him against possible legislation in this Dominion. Are we ever going to make progress in that way?
These words apply with still greater force to power. When we export power we export people. If Canada has one resource more precious than another, it is our undeveloped power. To this government I have put the question repeatedly: Are you prepared to guarantee parliament that you will not license, save by yearly license, the export of power; that you will not license any more the export of power to be used for new industrial and municipal purposes over there? This government has not the courage to answer yes.


James Alexander Robb: What about the power now
developed?


Arthur Meighen: I certainly would not
license the export of any more of it. If there is one thing we must conserve and fearlessly conserve it is the power resources of our country. If we have not reached a state of maturity where we can stand up to-day
and say, "These are ours to legislate about as we will," then we had better simply assume a position of permanent tutelage and cease to proclaim ourselves a nation and master in our own house.
The resolution also calls for the encouragement of a policy of preference within the empire, but in every case subjeot to the proviso that no preference shall be given at the expense of the workers of Canada. In a word, the first and immovable consideration in the determining of every tariff, preferential or otherwise, should be that it provides what is essential by way of protection to the Canadian worker. If no preference can be given save at the expense of him, I would give no preference at all; I would follow the policy of the United States and give no preference to anybody. But such is not the case. It is possible to give preference, and not at the expense of the Canadian worker. It is possible to give preference at the expense of those who are to-day our strongest competitors and who today enjoy an average balance of trade in their favour of about $200,000,000 a year. For example, we are importing about $140,000,000 worth of iron and its products. Great Britain produces these in equal abundance with the United States. The price of importation from the one is virtually the same as the price from the other. Because of the nearness of the United States and the ease of doing business there, the great bulk of these products-I think it is $128,000,000 worth-come from that country. We will reach the time when we can produce these in our own country, and I would adopt measures to do so. But it will be a matter of development; you cannot do all at once, and while we are doing what we can why should not our tariff be adjusted so that the great body of that importation will come to the shores of Canada from Great Britain, that the great body of it will constitute return traffic for those vessels which now carry overseas the grains of Canada, and, in far too great degree come back without cargo at all? To ithe extent that we can direct our policy to an improvement of cargo conditions, to that extent shall we make it possible to reduce the charges against' us on our exports. Surely it would be good for Canada, aside altogether from advantage to the Motherland herself, to divert some of the purchases from that republic into purchases from Great Britain. Yes, it is possible to give preference and to do so without invading the just rights of the Canadian workers. It must always be a case of
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Canada-First and until we are ready to stand up and proclaim Canada-First and act Canada-First then we may just as well resign ourselves to this sliding back process which characterizes our drift to-day.


James Shaver Woodsworth: As long as we have anything like an open door immigration policy, how is the Canadian worker being protected?


Arthur Meighen: Well I am not in favour of an open door immigration policy, any more than I am in favour of an open door trade policy. Certainly you cannot allow everybody into this country; nobody ever suggested it. The cheapest labour of the world we ought to bar entirely, and we do bar it. I would be the last to suggest that any other policy be adopted.
Now, I say you can give preference and at the same time be just to the Canadian worker. But I do not see any reason why we should continue to give preference to anybody unless we get preference in return. I do not know what we gain by at. I do not think we advance the day of getting preference in return when we give our own preference without any result at all. We have now for some twenty-five years pursued a policy of igiving preference for nothing, and we have done so at the expense of the Canadian worker in every province of Canada, and never have we done so as emphatically at the expense of the Canadian worker as we are doing right now under this government. This government has reduced British preference schedules; we are getting nothing or very little in return. It has reduced the French schedules, and instead of getting nothing we get worse than nothing in return. All these it has reduced at the expense of the Canadian worker and at the cost of the expatriation of many.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask a
question? Will my right hon. friend say that Canada is giving Great Britain the same opportunity in her markets as Canadians get in the markets of Great Britain?


Arthur Meighen: We are giving far better.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In what particular?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly we are. What
constitutes opportunity is preference. We are giving preference; she is not as a general policy giving preference. The preference she may have established very lately is good, and I should give something for it, but it is small 
compared with the preference we have given. Does the Prime Minister think that if the Briti'h markets are wholly free to all countries, Canada gets any advantage there? None whatever; but if they have a tariff and give a preference then we do get an advantage. My principle is, give advantage for advantage, but do not give it without.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend has been speaking largely of manufacturing industries this afternoon. Will he say that the manufacturers of Great Britain have the same opportunity with respect to the market of Canada that Canadian manufacturers have with respect to the market of Great Britain?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, 'and better.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What nonsense !


Arthur Meighen: For the simple reason
that they have a preference. Does the Prime Minister imagine we would not be better off if Britain had a tariff of 20 per cent and let us in for 10 than if Britain had no tariff against anybody at all? I place my opinion in this regard beside the Prime Minister's and I submit both for the consideration of the business people of Canada. Now, the' Prime Minister says I have been talking from the standpoint of the manufacturer. I have not; I have been talking from the standpoint of Canada.
Mr. MACKENZIE KING,: I did not say from the standpoint of the manufacturer.


Arthur Meighen: How did the Prime Minister put it? I did not mean to make it different from what he said. What did he say?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I said my right hon. friend has been speaking a great deal about the manufacturing industries.


Arthur Meighen: All right-that is, I have been talking about manufacturers. I am glad he did not suggest I was speaking on behalf of any class, for I certainly was not.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Arthur Meighen: Is there an interruption? If there is, I hope it is from the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster).


Mr. McMASTER:: The right hon. gentleman has said that he was really speaking on behalf of ndbody at all.


Arthur Meighen: I will say this to the
member for Brome: I am speaking cn behalf of myself, and my country. I am speaking

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my own considered opinions, and I am trying to support them by argument and by experience. I commend the same course to him. We have listened to the hon. member fcr Brome repeatedly in this House; we have heard him expound the old free trade doctrines of the early writers.


Andrew Ross McMaster: As true to-day as ever
they were.


Arthur Meighen: As true to-day, he says, as ever. But the member fcr Brome is so devoted to his theories that he is blind to facts. He is ready to believe anything so long as it is consistent with what he argues. Surely he is not satisfied with conditions in this country to-day. If he is. he is not the Canadian I thought he was. Surely he dees not think we have bettered our posi;ion industrially since 1921. If he does, I would like him to talk it over with some of his close friends, with some of the men in whom he has consummate confidence right in his own neighbourhood. Let him talk it over with anybody who is actually in produciive business, and find out. I would like him to talk it over even with many of those who in 1921 supported him and who put this government in power-talk it over not with our friends, but with our foes, and see whether they agree with his verdict or with mine.
This resolution also calls for the appointment of a tariff commission along lines embodied in legislation of 1912, legislation which passed the Commons at that time but was defeated by the Liberal majority in the Senate. The government at this session of parliament has adopted the principle, I believe, of a tariff commission, some sort of a hybrid affair with outsiders coming in and joining with officers of the Finance department. Well, I am glad to see any sensible move in that direction, but I for one cannot for the life of me see any reason for a tariff commission unless we openly and frankly acknowledge that we are on the protective principle. Now I would like to put this to hon. gentlemen opposite-you who deny that you believe in the protective principle, you who have fought this principle election after election, you who have berated it in this House and out of it, and described it in all the language of bitterness-how do you justify a tariff commission? What is your tariff commission for? Is it to ascertain how you can fix the tariff to get the most revenue? It is not, and you know it is not. Every one of you knows that you can take schedule after schedule in the tariff to-day and lower it and get more revenue than you do now, and that you can takp others and raise them and get more 243
revenue than you do now. You know these things. The only reason in the world for a tariff commission is' because that commission is to be deputed to ascertain what the level of protection should be to enable each class of industry to function. This hon. gentlemen opposite themselves declared so in 1912. That is why they resisted our bill, because they said it meant the embalming in permanent form of the protective principle. Now they are proposing a commission of some kind themselves, but they have not the courage to say that in doing so they give allegiance to the protective principle. Yes, we should have a tariff commission, a tariff commission for investigatory purposes, a tariff commission whose investigations will be such that the public will know more clearly and in more detail actual facts as to the industries of Canada. It should be advisory, and advisory only, because never from the shoulders of parliament can responsibility be shifted for the determination of tariff and fiscal policy. Such a commission has been advocated by the Conservative party before. It would, I believe, have been established in this country had not the war intervened. It would be valuable to-day. U will be a realized fact in Canada if the Conservative party is returned to power.
But no tariff commission can fix prices, and if the hon. member for Calgary wants me to say whether the Dominion parliament itself can actually fix prices, and in that way protect the consumer, I am compelled to answer in the negative. This is beyond our jurisdiction. But there is something within our jurisdiction, and what is within our jurisdiction is this: We can on the advice of a tariff commission, or we can, if we like, without it, remove a tariff schedule that protects an industry which assumes monopolistic power, remove a schedule that protects an industry which overcharges the consumer because it is bereft of competition. This we can do, and as well we can impose special excise penalties upon such an industry. Those weapons we can exercise; more direct weapons we cannot. We sought once to exercise means more direct. We had a Board of Commerce for the purpose. We felt we were within the law. I am free to admit the Board of Commerce failed; I do not know that even if it had not been in one respect badljr maimed it would have succeeded. The courts held that this exercise of jurisdiction was beyond our power. I know of nothing within our power save what is suggested in this tariff commission resolution. Whatever is within our power we will do, because the evil of exaction certainly demands *

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remedy just as much as the evil of industrial emaciation.
But one thing we rriust achieve. We must see to it that the course we take is such that to the whole community of Canada, composed of nine provinces and our territories, to the grand total the result is the maximum of benefit. If for any reason we fall away from this course then every section suffers, and is bound to suffer. I therefore propose that those sections of this Dominion which derive less immediate result from a protective tariff than do others, those which labour under particular transportation disabilities, shall be assisted by the Dominion as a whole. Speaking a year ago last January in the city of Ottawa I used these words-I have here the full text of what I said just as it was given to the press:
I have always admitted that the advantages to be gathered from a sound tariff policy are not equally felt by all portions of this broad Dominion. Indeed, it must be admitted, too, that the problem of distributing the incidence of any policy we adopt-in a word of bearing the weight of Canada as she marches on-is a very difficiilt one in such a Dominion as ours, but if we get right in matters that are basic we can meet the sectional questions that arise. Given a healthful expanding trade situation in our country, we can set to work to make the access to our central provinces easier both from the Maritimes and from the prairie west. I believe the united strength of Canada should be devoted to helping transport from the more distant parts of the Dominion.
Mr. FORIvE:	How would you propose to
do it?


Arthur Meighen: The Maritime provinces
are separated from the mass of our population by a very considerable stretch of territory along which little or no business is done. The western provinces are likewise separated from the same central provinces of Canada. These are two wide chasms fixed by nature, against the incidence of which Canada has had to struggle through the whole course of her history. These are the chasms which in my judgment come especially hard on the remoter parts of the country. It is true the central provinces have to bear a share of the transport to these outer territories, but I think it is an inevitable conclusion that the burden of transport chiefly comes upon those further removed from the centres of population. It would in my judgment be good national policy for the whole Dominion to bear a share of that transport cost. It could be done in more ways than one. One method is suggested in the resolution. It is to take certain basic productions in the Maritimes, on the one hand, and in the west on the other, and on the transport from those territories to the great central provinces, or say

on the transport from the west to the port of Montreal, for the Dominion to carry a percentage of the necessary rail tariff. I do not mean to interfere with the jurisdiction of the railway commission in the least. I want to leave the railway commission free to fix such tariffs as the commission believes to be just as between the shipper and the transportation company, and to fix them without favouritism to any part of Canada. Let the commission do its work unhampered. For that principle I have fought in office and out of office. But there is no reason why the whole Dominion, not just the shippers along the lines of our roads, but the Dominion as a whole, should not carry whatever percentage seems fair of the cost of bridging these two great chasms between the extremities of our land.
After all, the main problem of Canada is a spiritual problem. It is a problem of getting all our people to see that we have only one country, that we have not a collection of unrelated sections. It is a problem of getting our people to see that the object of all is to help each, and that the success of one does not mean the failure of another. There are far too many in this Dominion who are of opinion that it is a great mistake if anybody is allowed to make money, that if a city is prosperous it is at the expense of the country, that if the industrial sections of Canada are making money it is a burden on the back of the farmer. A more false conception it is impossible for anyone to realize. This country is competing with other countries. It is the whole country that is competing. It is not any section with any section of the same country; it is the whole Dominion that is fighting a great commercial battle and must fight it, whether we like it or not, with all the great industrial countries of the world. Therefore, we ought to adopt a course which gains the maximum advantage for the whole; and then, having gained such advantage we will be in a position to afford special assistance, carried by the entire country, for the benefit of those who have special burdens to bear. This seems to me to be the right line to pursue, and this is the spirit of the resolution which I have moved.
We have heard throughout our history sectional appeals. This was bound to be our experience in the very nature of things. We took vast territories, empires in themselves, stretching across a great continent and we undertook the task of welding them into one under a central government with the same general laws, the same rules of trade, the same fiscal system. These divisions which exist among us have been accentuated by the

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3S09
fact that for political purposes frankness has not always prevailed over the great distances which divide. But we were bound anyway to encounter years of strain and trial testing to the utmost our powers of patience and resolve. Our one essential creed should have been to pursue that course which offered most to the aggregate whole, to gain the maximum national advance at all costs-and after that proceed to adjust advantages among ourselves in a spirit of equity and union.
This sectionalism or whatever you like to call it we can never ameliorate by following a policy which weakens the strength of the entire unit. Such a course we have experimented on now for three years-and the malady is worse than when we began. We have sapped the virility of our industry, we have drained out much of the best of our population, we have diminished our national estate. But the experience of these years will not have been in vain if it teaches us in every part of this Dominion the folly of such a plan.
We still have a great people, a great country, and a latent power for progress unequalled in this world. I believe unreservedly and unwaveringly in the destiny of Canada-the destiny our fathers decreed, the destiny which already many generations of Canadians have striven nobly to attain-that of a great free nation endowed with an abundant heritage, conserving that heritage, never dissipating it, never casting it away, never weakly surrendering it to make great any country but our own, making the most of our possessions, turning them ourselves to the uses of mankind and in the end finding our natural riches reflected in a grander and more varied civilization, in a larger national stature, in increasing millions of Canadian homes. I believe in the destiny of Canada as a British nation, as the strong son, the elder brother, in this commonwealth -to my mind, to my heart no other future is thinkable. And without questioning in the least degree the fidelity to that future of any member of this House, believing as I do that beside such a destiny there is for us only one alternative, I submit the great article of policy which my words to-day seek to expound as tlhe firmest safeguard against drifting that other way. But apart altogether from every question of our relationship to the empire or to the world and thinking only of the people of Canada I present the principles embodied in this resolution as the best for ourselves, best for every interest, best for every province, the principles surest to lead to the union and progress of all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, my right
243i
hon. friend opened his remarks by regretting that he was obliged1 to discuss his all important motion at this late stage of the session. I am sure the House will share his regret that it has been found1-I will not say necessary- but rather that it has come about that this discussion should be brought on at this particular stage of the session. My right hon. friend might very easily have brought before the House the important subject which he has introduced to-day at a time when the House would have found it possible, having regard to the ordinary procedure followed, to discuss it fully on its merits. The resolution which my right hon. friend has proposed follows word for word the language of a manifesto which he gave to the country before the opening of the present session. That manifesto appeared in the press before parliament reassembled, and after the opening of parliament it appeared on the order paper, as a notice of motion in my right hon. friend's name. The right hon. gentleman is an old parliamentarian. He understands, I venture to say, better than almost any other member of the House, the procedure of parliament; speaking on a previous occasion he referred to this motion as being of transcendent importance, embodying as it did the fiscal policy of the party of which he is the leader. I am surprised, under the circumstances, that my right hon. friend, instead of placing this motion on the order paper as in the case of a resolution by a private member, did not bring it in as an amendment at the time the Address was being debated. There would then have been an opportunity for the House to go very fully into all of the matters which were brought before us this afternoon, and if that occasion had not proved sufficient there would have been ample opportunity at other times during the session. Again when his motion was called on one or two or three occasions my right hon. friend might have found opportunity to have debated this question; we would then have had the benefit of the speech we have listened to this afternoon before we began to discuss the budget. I know he will say that at the moment the call came for his particular motion on the order paper it was not opportune for him to proceed.


Arthur Meighen: Too late.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: But he might have followed the example of his hon. colleague from South York (Mr. Maclean) who knows very well that to make certain of having a subject debated, time should be taken by the forelock and notice given to the Clerk of the House perhaps a day or two before the House opens. The hon. member for

again, divided and disunited instead cf being a country as is the case to-day united from the Atlantic to the Pacific and sharing a growing sense of closer community cf interest between all its parts.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Some of my
hon. friends opposite say "oh, oh" and laugh. I am glad to say that they are the only ones in the House who delight in division. I may tell them there is one division they will not delight in and that is the one which will be taken when the House expresses its opinion cvn the amendment of my right hon. friend.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


PRIVATE BILLS
[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 152, for the relief of Kathleen Mary Ricketts.-Mr. Stansell.
Bill No. 153, for the relief of Mary Alina Marguerite Peat.-Mr. Duff.
Bill No. 154, for the relief of Sadie Dennis. -Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 155, for the relief of Isabel Davidson.-Mr. Bowen.
Bill No. 156, for the relief of Jacob Ross. -Mr. McMaster.
Bill No. 157, for the relief of John Delbert Boddy.

Mr. Stewart (Leeds).
Bill No. 158, for the relief of Edward Hugh Reid.-Mr. Ladner.
Bill No. 159, for the relief of Sidney Charles Simmons.-Mr. Clifford.
Bill No. 161, for the relief of Harriet Elizabeth Couch.-Mr. Clifford.
Bill No. 162, for the relief of Margaret Helen Strickland.-Mr. Hocken.
Bill No. 163, for the relief of John Henry North.-Mr. Duff.
Bill No. 165, for the relief of Mary Jane Apedaile.-Mr. Sheard.
Bill No. 166, for the relief of Cecil Donnelly.-Mr. Ladner.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the proposed motion of Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King for committee of supply, and the proposed amendment thereto of Right Hon. Mr. Meighen.
['On division.']
Robert Forke: Mr. Speaker, I desire at the beginning to make my position plain in regard to the resolution that is now before the House. The Prime

Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in his speech this afternoon said that he would regard this as a vote of want of confidence, and I want to make my position clear in that respect: I shall look upon the vote I give neither as a vote of confidence nor as a vote of want of confidence. It will be a vote repudiating the policy advocated in the resolution and in the speech of the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) this afternoon. I wish, however, to compliment the right hon. gentleman on his speech. It was pretty long, and in that connection I understand that a revision of the rules is proposed under which we are to have no more lengthy speeches. However, if they are of the character of that we have had this afternoon I think perhaps we could1 stand them, although I did not believe a word of the argument. I must say the right hon. gentleman made his remarks quite entertaining; he was not at all difficult to listen to. Sometimes it is difficult to listen to an argument in which you do not believe, but in this case we have got so used to it now that it has no effect upon us.
I want to compliment the leader of the opposition also upon the definiteness of his statements. He nailed his colours to the mast; there is no question about that. I do not know what will come of it. In looking over the history of Canada during the last twenty years we find that when a party was in opposition it advocated a low tariff, and when it got into power it might go a little way but not very far in that direction. Now we have the opposition advocating a high tariff. But I venture to say that if my hon. friends of the opposition got into power they would not make the tariff very much higher than it is at the present moment. In fact, the only possibility I can see of a definite settlement of the tariff question on a low tariff basis will be for the members in this part of the House to take up the reins of government and to put things right in Canada for some time.


Mr. SHEARD:: It will be a long time.


Robert Forke: , Well, a great many unexpected things happen. It is always a dangerous thing to prophesy. I know if I had been told five or six years ago that I would be standing to-day in a front bench of the parliament of Canada making a speech, I would have replied that they were foolish and did not know what they were talking about. But it has come to pass.


An hon. MEMBER:: So they were.

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Robert Forke: Well, that is quite possible.
I will leave it to the people of Brandon within a short time to indicate what they feel about it. I am glad my hon. friends to my right have not the opportunity of trying me and hanging me; if they did I am afraid I would be in a very poor position.
In commencing this afternoon the right hon. leader of the opposition dwelt on the fact that Canada had made great advancement under the National Policy. I am not going to decry the advancement that Canada has made since the National Policy came into effect. Even with all the disadvantages we have had, when we think of the advancement the prairie provinces have made in one generation I do not think we have any reason to feel at all disappointed, although no doubt under different conditions things might have been a great deal better. But I would like to point out that the greatest advancement that was made in Canada was between the years 1901 and 1911. Those were the years of rapid advancement both in population and in industry in this Dominion. What were the conditions that existed during those ten years? There was a vast amount of railway building. Large sums of money were being paid out in wages and for railway equipment.


Mr. HOCKEN:: We are paying them
now.


Robert Forke: I do not think so-not to
the extent that it was done during those years. At the same time a large number of immigrants were pouring into the west and into other parts of Canada, bringing a certain amount of money with them. Everything was advancing rapidly. Land was being taken up in the west. A vast amount of machinery was in demand, and industry was called upon to meet the needs in that respect of the farmers who were breaking up the prairie. I think the statistics will show that perhaps two thirds of the industries at present operating in Ontario came into existence during those ten years. Anyone who considers the facts in this connection may learn a lesson from them-that industry expanded and prospered just in proportion to the demand there was in the country for the products of the factories.
In the speech to which we listened this afternoon a great deal of attention was given to the production side and the industrial side. Now, if that was all that had to be considered, perhaps the whole question could be solved. What is the present situation in Canada? Our factories are full of goods; our wholesale houses and retail stores are full of goods. There is no lack of goods, no lack of production; what is the matter? Why all this talk about getting more industries to produce more goods when you cannot find a market for the goods you are now producing? I really think if the leader of the opposition would devote his high attainments and great ability to thinking this matter out, he could offer us some better solution than he has up to the present laid before the House.
This afternoon the leader of the opposition spoke about a tariff commission and what it would do for us. Well, if we are going to get a tariff commission that will settle the question of tariffs in this Dominion, it is going to foe some task. I have no faith in any such proposition. I do not believe for one moment that we can get any commission that will bring us to a settlement of this question once and for all.
I would not have much faith in most cf the tariff commissions that would be appointed and travel over this country. What are the facts as they exist right here in this House and in this parliament? Who are the people who have the ear of the government, who are able to put up their story and bring their troubles before the government? Is it the consumers of this country? I am not blaming anyone for coming to the government with their grievances and asking for some amelioration of the conditions in which they find themselves, but I think most members know that it is very much easier for the producers, for the manufacturers and others engaged in industry, to present their side of the case than for the hundreds of thousands, yes millions of consumers to present their side of the case.
Another matter with which the right hon. leader of the opposition dealt in his speech this afternoon was railway freight rates as relating to the prairie provinces an'd the Maritime provinces. I thought it was rather a disingenuous argument that he brought forward, that he was going to help some sections of our Dominion by reducing railway freight rates at the expense of some other parts of the country. That could not. foe done entirely, because if rates were reduced lower than they ought to be, the difference would have to be made up by taxation, and the people who were getting the benefit of these lower rates would at least have to pay their share of that taxation, thus taxing themselves, in a sense to reduce their own railway rates.
It was brought to my attention just this afternoon that two years ago there was a large production of turkeys in western Canada, many more turkeys being produced than could be sold in the local markets. Several carloads
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of them were sent down to Ontario, and what happened? The bottom went out of the turkey market in Ontario. Now would it not be a nice thing for the farmers of Ontario to have to pay to reduce freight rates on a carload of turkeys coming down here to compete with them in their own market? It does seem to me that that scrt of solution will not solve our troubles. Ontario, the province that was most in the mind of the leader of the opposition this afternoon, or at least it is the largest industrial province, can produce everything it wants from an agricultural point of view, and I wonder how the agriculturists of Ontario would feel if they were taxed to reduce freight rates to help other agriculturists ship their products in here to compete with 'them in their own market. I do not think there is anything in that argument whatever, and I think we shall have to find some other solution of this question.
There is no other remedy proposed for our ills at the present time than high protection. It seems so easy to tell the people: If you will increase taxation, if you will only increase the protection to industries, all will go well; it may increase the cost of goods, it may bring more factories into existence than there is really business for, but, nevertheless, with this added protection all will go well. It does seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that there is no way of solving this problem until we have solved the problem of consumption as well as that of production. The high cost of living and the high cost of production are two of the problems we have to meet at the present time, and we have to find some solution for them. It has always seemed to me that if Canada could be made a cheaper country to live in than the United States there would be more chance for Canadian manufacturers, but just so long as you find Canada a dearer country to live in than the United States, and with taxation higher, then I am afraid I can see nothing ahead but rather difficult times for our .manufacturers and our people.
A good deal is said about wages. Our friends to my right are always fond of talking of the high standard of living of our Canadian workmen, but that argument is Of no effect in dealing with United States competition because, as everyone knows, the workmen of the United States live on just as high a plane as do our own people in this Dominion. What is there anyway in this talk of low wages and of competing against the products of a country with a low standard of living? I have never believed in that argument, because I have never believed that cheap labour was efficient labour. I might almost take it up from a

personal point of view and say that in my own small experience I have never found that the underpaid man was in any sense a good investment. Efficient labour generally goes with good wages. I picked up an article recently, written from the United States point of view, dealing with this question, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to quote a paragraph or two. It says:
We used to import rice from the Orient, where it was grown with 10-cent labour, using a hoe and clad in a breech-clout. Now we export freely. Recently we had 180,000 tons more than we knew what to do with. Mr. Hoover asked the foreign representatives of his department to find a' market, and where was it sold?
Where do you think it was sold, Mr. Speaker:
In Riceland-in China and Japan-at the American price plus transportation, because that 10-cent worker with the breech-clout is more expensive than our labour-capitalist, at $3 per day.
Production at S3 per day was able to compete with production at 10 cents per day. I think that bears out my argument that cheap labour is not efficient labour. It goes on:
Our farmers have always competed successfully with the lowest paid labour in the world. That is largely why farmers formerly prospered, with 80 per cent of all their products sold on a free trade or export basis, in world-wide competition, their export price determining their domestic price. The farmer began to go bankrupt when the present high tariff made it impossible for his foreign customers to exchange their goods for his products and compelled him to pay profiteering prices for most of his requirements.
That relates to the United States. It goes on:
Farmers and others should think of this when told that American factory labour cannot compete, and our manufacturers, by cajolery and threats alike, secure tariff rates from two to five times the rate they pay their labour. If such statements were true, the manufacturers would not have exported in 1923 $1,500,000,000 of manufactures ready for consumption, and also $550,000,000 of partly manufactured goods, including $30&-000,000 of machinery.
There is much ignorance and no little dishonesty in the statements made about American high wages. The census of 1920 discloses that out of each dollar of the factory selling prices in the following industries, labour got. in cotton goods, 17 cents; in silks and woollens, 16 cents; in hosiery, 18 cents.
And so all along the line, showing that labour was only a very small part of the cost of production:
To-day wages average only about one-fourth of the consumer's price, thanks to modern machinery and processes. The days when "everything is all labour," the days of hand production, are gone forever. Thus wage-cost, important as it is, is relatively insignificant. The wage-earner must be as fit as a race horse entering a race. He must respond as freeQy, not for the wage, but for the love of accomplishing. High wages are the only wages anyone can afford to pay who would produce economically.

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I think that bears out my argument that cheap labour is not efficient labour, and if Canada is to pay more for its labour than some of the countries who are exporting goods here, Canada can at least have more efficient labour and I believe that of our Canadian workmen.
I would like to repeat here what I have often said before, that I am sure none of us have any antipathy towards our Canadian manufacturers and Canadian industries. We would all like to see prosperous industries and all our workmen employed continuously, but is it not possible that under artificial conditions, with the artificial fostering of industries, we have more industries and more goods produced than can be sold, and consequently we find unemployment? If, as the right hon. leader of the opposition proposes, we have a high protective tariff, and we find the industries we have here to-day beginning to prosper, what would happen in Ontario? We would find a great many other people immediately building factories taking their share of the good times that were accruing if it be possible that we could have good times accruing from this high protection. We would have the same thing repeated over and over again. We would have an overplus of goods, the mills would be shut down, and there would be a lack of employment. It is a vicious circle, and you will never solve the problem by adopting any such policy as high protection, by protecting industries that are unable to pay in a legitimate way. I do not want to take up much time in this debate because I had the opportunity of speaking before. I agree to a certain extent with what the Prime Minister said this afternoon; I do not think it is fair that this debate should have been brought on at this time. The subject matter of the resolution was set forth by the right hon. leader of the opposition in the manifesto which he issued exactly in the form in which it is now before the House. The whole question was adequately discussed on the budget, and I do not believe there will be a single idea brought before the House at the present time that was not repeated on the former occasion.
The right hon. leader of the opposition in his speech this afternoon referred to the British preference. Of course he is willing to give Britain a preference but in a rather shabby sort of way. It is to be done in this manner: The general tariff will be raised to such a high pitch that we can easily afford to give Britain a little concession in the matter of duties so that she may have a preference over foreign countries, while at the same
time the tariff may be so high that the British manufacturer will not be able to compete with the Canadian manufacturer. That, I think, is the kind of preference the right hon. gentleman is willing to give to great Britain. Now, Great Britain buys our wheat," she buys our cattle, and she buys our dairy produce. We sell our goods to Great Britain and how is she going to pay for them? Is she going to transport gold over to Canada, or how is she going to meet the obligations that she will incur in buying our goods? I think it would be only decency on our part that we should be prepared to buy some goods from Great Britain in return for the market we have over there. If that market were closed the European market -would soon be closed to us also. Then what would happen? Our agricultural communities would be ruined, and a similar condition would overtake our manufacturing centres very shortly. I should like to see some encouragement given to the British preference policy, I should' like to see something done from a practical point of view, but not in the way proposed by the right hon. leader of the opposition. It is a terrible thing, Mr. Speaker, to buy anything abroad that can be produced more cheaply there than it can be at home. The idea seems to be, apparently, that if you have not a man working at some industry he cannot do anything else. Would it not be better to have our population engaged in profitable work that we can do, perhaps, more cheaply than any other country, and then buy from other countries the things that they can produce more cheaply than we can? That would be international trade of a kind that would benefit everyone concerned. I am not one of those who believe that Canadian manufacturers cannot compete with the manufacturers of other countries considering the excellent help and the other advantages they have. They have always the advantage of transportation, and they are near the home market. They say quite freely that they cannot compete abroad with other countries because those other countries have lower wages, so that they must depend on the home market. Well, in the home market they have always the advantage of less transportation than in the case of goods coming from outside countries. I do not see why properly conducted manufacturing establishments, with the right equipment, with good management, with sufficient capital, aided by the intelligence and enterprise of Canadian people, cannot make a success of Canadian industry when
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that industry is a legitimate one and has cheap power to boot.
I noticed some time ago, when we were discussing a trade convention with Finland, that a most ridiculous situation was disclosed. Why we only bought about $5,000 worth of kraft paper from Finland, and at the same time we sold them $1,200,000 worth of goods. It seems to me that is a pretty good arrangement for us when we sell to a country $1,200,000 worth and only buy $5,000 worth in return. I am not at all afraid of trade of that kind.
We had some discussion the other evening in regard to smuggling. We want to make smuggling very difficult. Perhaps it is right that we should do so-I am not going to find fault with that-but if I were a high protectionist and believed so thoroughly in protection as some hon. members do I would make it a crime for anyone to be seen wearing any goods that had not been manufactured in this country. I think that would put an end to the whole business, and we would have all the goods that we consume manufactured at home. In a very short time that would be the outcome of the proposition.
In conclusion I should like to say that protection or high protection is nothing more or less than economic warfare. We all know that to be a fact. There is no mistake about it but the condition of the world at the present time has been brought about generally by trade jealousies. What is the condition of Europe to-day? We find tariff walls being erected about every little country, engendering hate, and strife and envy. Everyone is wondering what is going to happen. It is not difficult to predict that the outcome of trade competition of this kind between nations will be nothing but strife. The policy of high protection can largely be blamed for the difficulties that arise between nations. I have no hesitation in making the statement that I think the United States has passed the period where it is going to have any more preaching of high protection. Any future movement in the United States, I think, will be in the other direction. I am hoping that the day will come when this North American continent will be able to teach a lesson to Europe not only in matters of peace but in matters of trade with a resultant great prosperity to all concerned.
As a last word I should like to lend myself to one sentiment expressed by the right hon. leader of the opposition this afternoon. While I am prepared to lead the fight to what I believe to be the rights of any particular sec-

tion . of our Dominion, I also want the east, and the west, and the centre of Canada to get justice. Mr. Speaker, we will never arrive at any true settlement of our problems until that settlement is broad-based upon the principles of equity and justice to all concerned. It will not be by giving favours to one particular locality or another, but by handing out even handed justice to all the people of the Dominion.


Hon. EDMUND BRISTOL (Centre Toronto) :: Mr. Speaker, at a time when the rules of the House are being changed in order to prevent long speeches let me say that such a change has not been rendered necessary particularly on my account.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Louder.


Edmund James Bristol: I hope before I get through to say a few words that perhaps may be of interest to my distinguished friends on the left, but I want to Start gently and calmly.
In the first place I want to say to the Prime Minister that it is time for distinguished men like himself to get rid of the idea that a certain political party in this country-or for that matter any other party-wishes to set the people of Canada one against the other or to derive any particular advantage therefrom. No such sentiment as that prevails in this country, nor should it be allowed to obtain a footing here. Personally speaking I shall never say anything that is detrimental to the interest of any particular group or any particular member in this house.
I want to make a few remarks on what I regard as the most important matter that has been before the House-that is to say the motion under consideration. It is perfectly obvious that we are not bringing a sufficient number of people into Canada at the present time to replace the number we have been losing during the last three or four years. It is unfortunate, whether the number be 300,000, or 600,000, or 700,000, that we have lost and are losing, from Ontario and Quebec particularly, numbers of the Canadian population that can ill be spared-native-born Canadians many of them, the most desirable class that we could have, and we have been endeavouring under our immigration policy to bring other people here. For some very obvious reason it is quite apparent that the United States has had to place an obstacle in the way of immigrants coming into that country, but while we have no obstacle of the same kind we have not enjoyed so great a measure of prosperity, as the United States.
The unfortunate part of the situation as far as Canada is concerned is this:	We have a

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very large national debt. It does not do any good to say who is responsible for the railway situation but we have a railway system which apparently is going to the bad at the rate of $100,000,000 a year. It is a further misfortune that our provinces are fairly agreed on rates of taxation which are very high, and that our cities have followed suit, with the result that the country, so far as taxation is concerned, probably ranks at the head of the world to-day. It is perfectly obvious to anybody that unless the boys and girls grow up in the country, make as good a living in Canada and get as good wages as they receive in the United States, they are apt to go to the United States to get a living and get those wages. Therefore, it is just as clear that, so far as this country is concerned, if we want to keep the population of working people here, of the class we want to have, we have to pay as good wages as in the United States next door to us. The argument is a very simple one, but if you want to do that you require to have work for them. You must not let the workman in the United States do the work there and have the goods imported into Canada when the work could have been done by Canadian labour which has gone to the United States. We have sent thousands of people to the States in the last two years, particularly from the province of Quebec, and it certainly is obvious to everybody that in order to pay our debts and taxes we need increased population. I do not think anyone would argue that he would not rather receive back in Canada a large portion of the 700,000 people who have gone over there, than to bring in foreign immigrants who have to be educated to the affairs of the country, who are not so suitable for working purposes in Canada.
A curious sight confronts me, when I look at hon. members to my left. They are able, intelligent prosperous men. Some of them came from a free trade country, about five of them I think came here fifteen years ago. They are well to do and they are members of parliament. Instead of wanting to go back to the free trade country from which they came, they want to educate us to free trade which does not exist in this country, and which I hope will never exist. They want to go back to old customs, but do not want to go to the country where those old customs exist.
I now come to the free trade part of the question, and I think it is of some importance, but it is no use talking to my hon. friends on the opposite side. Some of them are as good protectionists as the mover of the resolution; I think most of them are. For the last four
years the government have been marking time because they did not go very far in the direction they were supposed to move. The first year they did not do anything. The second year they told us that we were going to get cheaper agricultural implements. Hon. gentlemen to my left know what they got, and this year they have done nothing. Sitting there as protectionists, they are holding down the job, but the time will soon come when they will have to get up and express their views, and I think we will find they will be good protectionists in the province of Quebec, and free traders in the western part of the country. Whether that is so or not, the situation we want to discuss at present is, what is best for us all to do from a national point of view. I want to say one thing to my hon. friends to my left. They grow No. 1 hard wheat, which is the best in the world, and I am sure they are proud they are able to do it, and we as Canadians are glad that they are able to grow this wheat, and wish that they may make all the money possible out of it, but I never could understand why they want to turn Canada into a free trade country or what you might term an agricultural country. History is not long in this country, and if you go back to the days of Mackenzie-not Mackenzie King, but the Mackenzie of 1874 to 1878- and Sir Richard Cartwright* and if you want to read speeches on free trade, you will find all the speeches on that subject that could be made by anybody. If you look at the speeches of Sir Richard Cartwright you will find more vituperations in his utterances than you have ever heard since you were in parliament. But that did not last long, because free trade was not a suitable policy in a country situated alongside the United States. It might be possible if we were located next door to England, but I doubt it. So far as the United States are concerned, it is a high protectionist country.
Another question I should like to ask my hon. friends to my left is this: How do they really think that their wisdom is so much greater than the wisdom of sixty other countries in the world, including the United States and including England, where the question of competition is brought in? I do not think we should adjust our tariff on anything England does in the way of tariff legislation, because the conditions in England are different. The policy of England was to bring in raw products to that country, manufacture them, and send them out in their own ships, they owning about 80 or 90 per cent of the ships on the high seas. Therefore, they could do
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business from every angle, and they made money. We have no ships that are earning money for us. Perhaps after this government gets along a little further we will have some ships. But coming back to the proposition that England is the only country which has a policy of free trade, they owning such a large percentage of the ships of the world, if it can be shown to them that they cannot compete with foreign labour they will grant a certain amount of protection, and when they introduce protection it is almost prohibitive, because they do not allow the other country to get in there at all.


Mr. EVANS:: I think my hon. friend is
wrong in that statement. The British manufacturer-


Edmund James Bristol: I am not here to listen
to a speech, but I will answer a question.


John Evans: Is it not a fact that the
British manufacturer has to prove unfair competition before he can get any protection?


Edmund James Bristol: If my hon. friend is interested in that question he can look it up, but the fact is that under certain conditions he can get protection.


John Evans: The hon. gentleman made
the statement.


Edmund James Bristol: * There are sixty-two other countries including the United States, whose wisdom is apparently less than the wisdom of my hon. friends to my left.


Arthur Meighen: I have in my possession
here Mr. Baldwin's speech. Protection is procurable on its being shown that there is unfair competition arising from lower wages, or arising from subsidies, or other special assistance, or arising from differences in the degree of taxation.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Arthur Meighen: It is wonderful how
impatient hon. gentlemen opposite become.


Edmund James Bristol: I do not think that what
they do in England is an example for us in Canada at the present time, with the United States alongside. I think our hands are tied here, and if we do not pay as good wages in Canada and get our taxes reduced, our people will begin to realize that they cannot do as well here as in the United States, and we will have a continuance of the exodus which has been going on for the last three years, or since the United States raised their tariff in 1922 to the prohibitive point. They are not satisfied with raising the tariff against

Canadian manufactured goods, but they have raised the taxes against the farmer. They used to import our cattle free of duty but now they have a high tariff, and we are subject to a duty of 42 cents a bushel on wheat and that sort of thing. I do not think it has done the American farmer any good. We have
5,000,000 American farmers who are protectionists. We have had a few farmers from across the line coming over here to teach us free trade, and they are all in the Canadian west. I do not know any country so well suited to their needs as the Canadian west.
Suppose you turn this into a free trade country; you are getting goods from the United States, and labour from England which is cheaper labour than that of Canada; and supposing you are shut out of the United States, practically your position is this, that overnight you introduced into this country the manufactured goods of the United States, they will have no opposition here, and you will have to pay higher prices for these goods.
Furthermore if you cannot wipe out the national debt as a result of the railway situation, the result will be that there will be a horrible bill of taxes to be paid. It is suggested that the government is extravagant in its conduct of public business, and especially in making a lot of advances for harbours, and so on, preparatory to the next election. From year to year there is an enormous expenditure amounting to millions of dollars throughout the country, and we certainly have to pay interest on the indebtedness we have incurred. The debt has got to be paid, and if you can find any cheaper method of doing it than the present one, I am sure everyone will be glad to hear what it is. Trouble is bound to occur if you drive out from Ontario and Quebec the people who are paying four-fifths of the taxes.
I have the heartiest personal regard for the people of the great province of Quebec. I think, with all respect to Mr. Ferguson, Quebec is the best governed province that I know of in this country or anywhere else. The only thing I regret is that so many of my hon. friends, who sit on the other side of the House and who are really good Canadians and good protectionists, do not find it convenient to meet us in regard to this resolution, bring back our French-Canadian people from the United States, keep our French-Canadian people here from going to the United States and give them work to do in Canada. There would be a great development and increase in population if in this way work was given to the factories now established in this country, be-

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cause American factories were established here from 1901 to 1921, but at present they are not working anything even like half time. If we produced in this country the stuff which we are now bringing in from the United States and from other countries, Germany included, there is no question that we would get back many of our population who have gone to the United States and we would keep our present population here. It is obvious that something must be wrong in our affairs when we are losing so much of our population.
I am sure our Progressive friends do not want everybody to go west and farm. They are a long way ahead of what Russia may do for some time to come, and they certainly want to keep 9ome people in Ontario and Quebec who will consume their No. 1 hard wheat and flour. With all due respect for the western policy of free trade, so-called, it seems to me it is the most injurious policy that icould be conceived as regards Ontario, Quebec and every other province in Canada. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has suggested that as regards differences in tariffs, if we find any manufacturer by virtue of a protective policy getting the best of it in Ontario and Quebec, there are two things than can be done. I think the taxes of this country are sufficiently flexible to take care of any manufacturer who is making too much profit, and as long as we have the National railways, we shall have plenty of opportunity to require those taxes. The west are bound to have a certain amount of prosperity, but the farmers of Ontario and Quebec are in a bad way because we have ' lost six or seven hundred thousand who have gone away in the last few years. Our Progressive friends should consider the matter further and find out whether they are wiser than sixty-two of the greatest nations of the world including the United States and whether they have not made a mistake. I believe if they got all they wanted, they would not be very happy in the final result.
The policy as regards the United States is a very dangerous one for this country at the present time, for a very obvious reason. They put up their fist and say: You cannot sell anything in this country, and they include the farmers, and on the other hand, they say: AM Canadians are welcome to this country and nobody else can get in without trouble. If that is not an underground method of skilful annexation of the people of Canada to the United States, I cannot conceive of anything better. There never was a time in the history of our country when it was so important that we should consider our interests
from a national point of view; that we should give such protection to the business of this country as to require the products of Canada to be manufactured here, and I believe the motion which has been moved by imy leader is one which will bring prosperity and success to the people of this Dominion.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Mr. Speaker, the amendment which the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has moved this afternoon is one of much more than ordinary importance, for several reasons. The first and chief reason is that it is a declaration of political faith on the part of the 9 p.m. right hon. gentleman who leads the Conservative party, and, I take it, also of his party, on a great public question that has agitated the people of this country for many years. The declaration contained in the resolution is in itself very specific, and if emphasis were needed to add to the clarity of that declaration, it is certainly found in the speech of the leader of the opposition this afternoon. It contains more than a declaration of faith in protection, more than a declaration that if the right hon. gentleman is again entrusted with the responsibility of administering this country's affairs, he shall proceed to raise the customs tariff still higher than it is at the present time. It contains more than that, because it contains an express statement added to by the right hon. gentleman himself, that if his party is returned to power, he will sweep away the present existing British preference, a preference that has existed for well on to thirty years. In every respect this resolution and the speech of my right hon. friend constitute a declaration for the Simon-pure principle of protection as applied to fiscal policy in Canada. Upon that ground I should like to examine it for a few moments and, if possible, to pay some attention to the arguments advanced by the right hon. gentleman this afternoon in support of his resolution. The argument for protection always carries with it a certain plausibility. It is something like the experience that desert travellers have when their water supplies have become exhausted. They are out on the desert and they are lured forward always by the mirage ahead that holds out the prospect of water to their bewildered minds. In like manner this principle of protection as applied to fiscal policy in a country has the same plausibility. My right hon. friend argued this afternoon with a great deal of vigour and at considerable length. I think his arguments were as fallacious as the statements in his reso-
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lution, and I doubt if they will stand the stern, keen examination of fact in respect of this whole matter. This resolution, of course, when you read it, has the merit of containing something for almost every part of Canada. Not only is it a declaration of faith in protection, but the speech of my right hon. friend this afternoon was a summary, a compendium of arguments that, I presume, will be sipread in the next few weeks to the remote corners of Canada by his loyal followers. In the first place this resolution states:
That this Dominion requires an immediate revision of the Canadian tariff on a definitely and consistently
protective basis.
And for the following purposes: The first reason that is adduced is that other countries .have raised their tariffs and that, consequently, we must follow suit. What weight is there in that argument? If any other country chooses to follow a mistaken policy, is that any reason why this country should follow a mistaken policy? If another country raises its tariff against Canada, is that any reason why we should penalize our own people by increasing the cost of a large portion of the goods that they require in order that we may "get even," if I may use a common expression, with that country?
The next reason given in the resolution is:
To give new life to industry and productive enterprise.
Everyone wants to see industry and productive enterprise prosperous in this country; but the assertion that the adoption of this policy will bring about that desirable state of affairs has, I submit in all sincerity, nothing to support it in the arguments advanced by my right hon. friend this afternoon. After all, what is the greatest industry in Canada? I have stated before in this House, and I repeat it now, that our greatest industries are those associated with the development of the natural wealth of this country. The business of farming is just as much an industry as is the making of ploughs or of textiles, and as far as the number of people engaged in it and the capital invested in it are concerned, agriculture ranks far beyond all the other industries of Canada put together.
At the time of the census in 1921 there was invested the vast total of $6,586,000,000 in this the greatest industry in the whole Dominion; the total number of occupied farms at that time was 711,000; and on any fair computation probably more than half of our population was then engaged in agriculture. On the other hand, all our manufacturing industries

put together had a total capital investment in 1921 of only $3,210,000,000. In other words, the total amount of capital invested in manufacturing industries of all classes at the time of our last census was considerably less than half of what was invested in our agricultural industry. In like manner, the total number of people engaged in those industries, that is, making their living 'by employment therein, was vastly less than the number engaged in the agricultural industry.
Now, the whole argument of my right hon. friend this afternoon was predicated upon this -that it was necessary in order to bring about a golden era of prosperity in this country to develop, support and maintain manufacturing industries in Canada. One part of his resolution states:
That such revision-of the tariff-should apply to natural products, such as farm products, fish and coal, with no less thoroughness than to manufactured goods.
Then how are my protectionist friends going to evolve a fiscal policy for this country through protection that will be of benefit to the agricultural industry? That is a fair question and calls for a fair answer. What are the exports from our agricultural industry to-day? First and foremost is grain, produced mainly in the vast prairie regions of western Canada. I have not the figures at hand, but I venture to assert that the value received1 last year alone in western Canada for grain and grain products exported amounted to at least $350,000,000. We have, I am glad to say, up to the present time excellent crop prospects for the present year, and if that crop matures on the same basis as it did in 1923 we should have 350,000,000 bushels of wheat and a large amount of other grains for export. I venture the prediction. Sir, that if my hopes in this respect are realized, Canada will have for export next year in grain and grain products alone an amount exceeding in value $450,000,000. Then we have our live stock exports and those of all the industries associated with the live stock industry. My statements are borne out by the trade figures for the fiscal year ending March, 1925, from an examination of which I find that of our total exports of $1,069,000,000, over $608,000,000 represented products that had their origin in the farms of Canada.
Now let me deal with that first. In all sincerity I ask: Of what value is the application of a protective policy to this the greatest industry in the Dominion? We export our wheat, we export our live stock, we export our dairy products; these form the chief items of export from our farms. Will any person in his senses, will my right hon. friend himself,

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argue for a moment that a protective tariff is going to bring one dollar more to the farmers who have wheat, live stock and dairy products for sale? On the face of it the thing is impossible. It is true the protectionist endeavours to meet that argument by saying, "You may have to put up with these hardships for a while, but through the assistance of protection we shall develop the home market for you, and then instead of sending your grain abroad to Europe, your cattle to the United States or Japan, and your dairy products to the ends of the earth, they will all be consumed here at home, and you will be happy in the possession of this splendid home market."


Mr. LADNER:: Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that the $606,000,000 represents wholly agricultural products in the sense in which we understand that term? Does not this total include rubber, whisky, beer, pulpwood, and a number of things of that kind?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not think that at the present time a very large amount of it would represent whisky. Of course with the advent of 4.4 in Ontario our exports in that line may grow.


Mr. FOURNIER:: He did not see the point.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: He did not. In the main I am taking the figures as they are classified in the trade returns of Canada. Now, I submit that protection is of no value to the agricultural industry. I go further, I assert that it is a positive injury to the industry.


Leon Johnson Ladner: If the hon. gentleman will permit? Are there not large sections of this country engaged in agriculture that would like to have protection? I know in British Columbia and in parts of Ontario there is such a feeling.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not think those sections are very large or very considerable. I repeat, protection is a positive injury to the industry. If our farmers in the production of wheat, of dairy products and of live stock are to compete in the markets of the world and succeed, how are they to do it? First, by increased efficiency and lower cost of production. When you raise your protective tariff,-which my right hon. friend is going to impose upon this country if he ever occupies the seat of power again,- inevitably the result will be to increase the cost of production of our agricultural products, and with this increased cost there will be a lessened ability on the part of the Canadian farmer to compete in the markets of the world, where he has to sell his products against the products of agriculture from every corner
of the globe. May I not then say with reason that the argument that protection will benefit the greatest industry in Canada is not a sound or valid argument.
Taking up again the question of our exports, what is the next chief item in our exports? We find it in wood, wood products and paper, which last year amounted to $253,000,000. Of what value is protection, let me ask again, to the manufacturer of wood or wood products or paper? My right hon. friend this afternoon gave some illustrations of the importation of woodte from the United States and other countries. Woods will be brought in from the United States or other countries no matter how high you make your tariff; they will be brought in by some of the manufacturers whom my right hon. friend seeks to protect, because they cannot make their machinery uiiless they bring in woods which are not produced in this country. But protection is of no use to our forest industries, and it operates precisely the same in respect of these industries as it does to agriculture. When you send the woodsman out in the woods to cut down the trees, the cost of his clothing, his boots and shoes, his axes, his equipment-of everything, indeed, that he requires for the carrying on of his work- is increased by the application of this principle of protection which my right hon. friend argues is going to solve all our difficulties if he can only once more impose it upon Canada.
Now, from what direction must Canada expect to develop wealth? And before I come to that I might mention this significant fact, which I have called attention to on previous occasions and to which so far as I know there has been no answer-that although the Canadian fiscal policy for the last forty years has been aimed mainly at the development of manufacturing industries in Canada, at the building up of a great industrial mechanism in this country; notwithstanding all that, the total exports, for instance in the last fiscal year of our textiles and textile products, which have been among the most highly protected, amount to the rather insignificant sum of $9,711,000 out of a total of over a billion dollars of exports. My right hon. friend stated this afternoon, if I understood him aright, that if we kept all the textile machinery of Canada humming the year through we would add $100,000,000 annually to the wages earned by Canadian workmen. Well, granted that that is true, one of the difficulties of our textile industry in Canada to-day is that it is over-developed. But if it were possible to bring about that ideal condition,
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and you had all our textile industries humming say three hundred days in the year, giving them a few days holidays outside of Sunday what would be the result? The production from these factories would be vastly in excess of what Canada could possibly consume.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. gentleman has mistaken the point. It would be exactly what Canada is consuming, because I gave the figures of the importations used in Canada, and I stated that if we made those here the pay-roll would be added to by $100,000,000, being 80 per cent of $125,000,000, the importations.	[DOT]


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Then I did not quite understand my right hon. friend, although I do not think he is quite' correct in his figures. But that does not interfere with my argument. If our textile machines of all kinds in Canada were kept busy three hundred days in the year-and certainly they should be if they are to give employment to labour- I still maintain that their output would be far more than could be consumed in Canada.


Arthur Meighen: Not without imports.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Without imports.


Arthur Meighen: No.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Or take boots and shoes. We have 186 boot and shoe factories in Canada, and this industry also is overdeveloped. Notwithstanding the fact that these industries have enjoyed this protection for so many years they are unable to compete in other markets outside of Canada. Consequently the imposition of this policy means but one thing, that in order to get these industries, in order to build up a home market, which is a wholly illusory thing so far as agriculture is concerned or any of the other primary industries of Canada, we are going to place a tax on all the consumers of Canada and thus give employment to a few thousand people in these various factories.


Mr. MANION:: May I ask my hon. friend
a question, as a matter of information? Does he not agree that a home market for the 2,000.000 people dependent on the farms in Ontario and Quebec is of importance to them?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Of course it is of importance to them.


Robert James Manion: The hon. member said a
moment ago that it was wholly illusory.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I say that the argument
of the protectionist that protection will provide a home market is wholly illusory so far as the Canadian farmer is concerned.


Robert James Manion: Wheat farmer.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes, and cattle raiser and
producer of daily products. We are producing enough dairy products now to feed almost double our population. What are we going to do with them? Does my hon. friend propose that we shall extend our stomachs and eat twice as much food in order to provide a home market and thus build up industry? The difficulty with many of these industries to-day, as I say, is that they have been over-developed. Take the boot and shoe industry. The boot and shoe manufacturers of Canada have been after this government, as I suppose they have been after previous governments, to secure an increase in the protection afforded them through customs tariff, which they imagine they require. I venture to say that if you shut off the imports of boots and. shoes altogether the boot and shoe factories of Canada could not remain in constant operation, because the industry is over-developed as a result of the unnatural manner in which it has grown up under this principle of protection. That is the chief weakness of their position to-day.
I submit that the sources from which Canada draws her wealth are mainly four. After all it cannot be disputed-it has never been challenged by any economist of importance-that wealth originates in old mother earth, We have our fertile fields, our agricultural production; I would put that first. We have, second, our forest wealth, which is vast and capable of continuous exploitation if we adopt, as we should, sound methods of afforestation and reforestation. We have, third, our fisheries on the Atlantic and the Pacific and in the innumerable inland lakes that are found throughout our country. And we have another great source of wealth in the mineral deposits of the country. We do not yet know what that is. Only a short time ago up in the northern part of the province of Quebec was discovered a mineral area that will probably rival the rich mineral areas of northern Ontario. We know we have minerals in northern Manitoba. We have them in Alberta. We know British Columbia is filled with them. These are the sources, then, from which today we are drawing our wealth, and I submit that it is the part of wisdom to evolve a policy in fiscal matters that will encourage the development of all this wealth. But that is just what the amendment moved by my right hon. friend this afternoon does not do; on the contrary, it places handicaps upon and barriers against the development of all these things, and consequently is bound to retard the development of Canada. It has

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other objections, but it will suffice to point out at the moment that that is one of its effects. It is a wholly mistaken idea to imagine that it is necessary to have factories with tall chimneys in order to give employment to Canadian people. If you produce five hundred million bushels of wheat in Canada, you give employment not only to the men who grow that grain on the farms, but to thousands of men on the railways, to thousands of men in the elevators, and to thousands more in the banks and in every other department of human activity in this country. The same is true of the development of forest wealth and mineral wealth.


Robert James Manion: And manufacturing wealth.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: And manufacturing wealth, I agree with my bon. friend. But it is not a sound policy, in order to build up your imanu-factuning industries, to raise your tariff and increase the cost of all the goods and things that are necessary for the production of what I may rightly call our natural wealth. I submit that that is an absolutely unsound policy for the development of Canada.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The argument of the hon. member is interesting. May I ask if that has been the result in the United States where the protective system has been worked out? Have not internal conditions and internal competition kept the prices down to the minimum and lower than they are in Canada?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not agree, and further I submit that conditions in the United States and Canada are not analogous at allil. The United States to-day 'comprises -more than half a continent. I cannot recall at the moment its exact area as compared with Europe, but I believe that in square miles of territory the United States exceeds the whole continent of Europe.


Arthur Meighen: So do we.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is true, and I wish we had as rich a country and as varied a climate as the United States have. If we had as rich a country as theirs, and with their variety of climate, this country would have prospered in spite of this foolish policy of protection which has been foisted upon us for the last forty years. But the United States to-day, and for the last hundred years, has been the largest free trading area there is in the world. My hon. friend from Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner) will not dispute that fact. Moreover, the United States produces within its own confines practically everything that is required for human needs. Now Canada does not do that. My hon. friends to my right, even with 244
their high protective tariff, are up against that fact like a stone wall. They are going to protect cotton goods, for instance. Now where are they going to get their raw material for the development of that industry in Canada?


Robert James Manion: From the same place that England did.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: You have to bring it from a foreign country. Then you are going to protect rubber. We need tires for automobiles, and rubber products in a hundred different forms. But you must bring that raw material for the rubber industry from a foreign country to Canada.


Arthur Meighen: Where does the United States gat her rubber?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Where it can buy the cheapest, lake we do in Canada.


Arthur Meighen: Why would not we?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Is it not sounder to so
shape your fiscal policy that you will develop the wealth that is at your doors, rather than bring in raw material from other countries to give employment to a feiw thousand workmen in Canada?
I go on, beoause this resolution, the more you examine into it, sounds more and more like a fairy godmother holding out something good for everyone who approaches. I do not wish to take up the time of the House unduly, but I do wish to say a word or two about the strong appeal which my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition made to the ranks of labour in Canada, and I noticed he had his eye on the labour representatives in this House at the time he was making that appeal.


Arthur Meighen: And out of the House too.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: And out of the House too. There is no denying the fact that a great many of 'the labour people of Canada to-day have been deluded by this principle of protection, and they still think it will be a cure-all for their troubles if it ns adopted. But again it may be argued, and argued successfully, that protection is of no particular advantage to labour. If you could reduce the living coats of the labouring mian, you could enable him to work for lower wages and still be as well or better off, and if you do that, you put your factories in a better condition to compete with the world. My right hon. friend the leader of the opposition did not argue this afternoon that this resolution would be of benefit to agriculture in Canada.

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Arthur Meighen: Oh yes.	.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: He declared thait in the
resolution, but for some reason or other he did not argue that it would be of benefit to agriculture in Canada.
Mr. MlEIGHEN: Oh yes I did, most distinctly.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: He said it was an all-Canadian policy, and he cited the development of Canada under the protectionist policy from the years 1901 to 1921. But the development of Canada during that period took place practically all in *western Canada. What was the loadstone that attracted people to western Canada? The fertility of the soil and the fact that a man could get 160 acres of as fine land as existed anywhere on the earth for the insignificant sum of $10. That is what took them to western Canada. Even the figures my right hon. friend quoted this afternoon were not in any sense conclusive, because you have to take into account the difference in the purchasing power of the dollar in 1901 as compared with 1921, and that is a very considerable item indeed.
My right hon. friend, as well as my hon. friend from Centre Toronto (Mr. Bristol), also dwelt upon the loss that Canada was suffering through the numbers of people who were leaving our borders to go to the United States. That is nothing new in Canada, and my hon. friends are not on very good ground when they take that position. In 1878 the National Policy, so called, was introduced into Canada, and it was put into effect at the next session of parliament, I believe, in 1879. Well, it surely had an opportunity to get into full blossom and show what it could do within the next ten years; and bear in mind that our tariff at that time was higher than it has ever been since, because the tendency from 1890 onwards has been downward in the main. Well in the period from 1881 to 1891 just about 400,000 Canadians left this country to go to the United States, when our population was about half what it is today, and this happened when the protective policy which my right hon. friend lauds as the cure-all for our ills was in full flower. We had it then in all its glory. If it had efficacy, surely it could have shown it then.


Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil):: It settled up both the Dakotas.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes, and many other of the states as well. Then we come down to 1911, when my hon. friends to my right came into office, and they continued in office until
(Mr. Crerar.]
1921. I admit that I shared for a portion of that time responsibility with them. My right hon. friend this afternoon dwelt on the fact that the duty had been taken off tractors under a certain value. Well, that was done at a time when he and I were colleagues in the same government, and he will bear in mind, I think, that at all times and in all places I was a consistent advocate of getting the duty off these tractors. Now, the reason why the duty was taken off tractors of that class at that time was to encourage increased production in Canada, and everyone then was agreed that it was a necessary step. If it was good policy then it is good policy to-day. But from 1911 until 1921-during the ten years that my hon. friends were in office, with the assistance of a few of the rest of us for a short period-the emigration from Canada to the United States was just about three-quarters of a million souls, seven hundred and fifty odd thousand. Now here again, bear in mind, we have the protective tariff. In 1915 the then Minister of Finance, Sir Thomas White, brought in a flat 7i per -cen* increase in the customs tariff on the ground that it was for war purposes, and it is a rather significant fact that in 1916 the emigration from Canada to the United States jumped from 82,000 to 101,000, and in 1917 reached 105,000; and I say that a very good argument can be put up for the contention that the protective policy has been responsible more than anything else for the emigration of Canadians to the United States.
But my right hon. friend and his party, when they come into office, are going to cure all this by creating a tariff commission. I would direct the attention of my hon. friends around me to the fact that this tariff commission is to be representative of agriculture, of the manufacturing Industries, and of labour. Presumably the commission would consist of a representative of industry, a representative of labour, and a representative of agriculture. I think my right hon. friend in outlining this afternoon the functions of this tariff commission made the statement that it would not be a commission to determine tariff policy. In that he is quite right. There is a great deal of talk about tariff commissions in Canada and the work that sudh commissions could do; but no government or no parliament in Canada can turn over to any tariff commission the shaping of public policy in matters of the tariff. The tariff cannot be taken out of politics in that sense. Therefore my right hon. friend is on sound ground in that respect. He says, therefore, that the only object of

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the tariff commission, is to see where the level of protection should be maintained. In other words, he will endeavour to protect the public, through this tariff commission, from exploitation. The tariff commission will therefore be framed with wide inquisitorial powers. From the very facts of the case it must have those powers if it is to discharge its functions. Now how will it operate in practice? You have an industry in Toronto, for instance, where there is skill and ability in management, and it is a prosperous industry. It is making a very considerable profit, a wider margin of profit, perhaps, than my right hon. friend or his tariff commission would think justifiable under the prot ection that the industry might enjoy. You go across to Hamilton and you find another concern engaged in the same industry, manufacturing the same class of goods, and finding it difficult to make both ends meet. That is a case that exists in industry in this country, in fact exists in industry in every country in the world. Now, I ask my right hon. friend on what basis is his tariff commission going to decide whether there is too much protection cr too little protection? Will it decide on the basis of the industry that is struggling along and cannot live, or will it decide on the basis of the industry that is earning handsome dividends and could get along with less protection? There is no tariff commission appointed in this country or in any other country in the world that can determine those questions; and it will be settled in the final analysis in this country, if we ever have a tariff commission of that character, in this way: it will be found that the tariff commission exists for the maintenance of the protective tariff and it will be used as an engine for that purpose. What is the experience of the tariff commission at Washington? It is the most futile, hcpeless body that you could find anywhere on the face of the earth; and when there is a member of that commission-as has happened in the last year-'whose views on tariff questions run counter to the views of the party in power, every instrumentality is used by that party to displace him and put in someone else who is in sympathy with their ideas. The whole thing is fallacious, impossible, and useless. Judged therefore by any standard that you wish to apply this principle cf protection in fiscal policies whether with or without a tariff commission is unsuited to the development of Canada to-day.
I agree with the sentiment uttered by my right hon. friend in the concluding portion of his speech this afternoon. I am a Canadian. I want to see Canada prosperous, I 244i
want to see Canada prosperous from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I abhor anything in the nature of special privilege, anything in the nature of legislative enactments that will assist one section of the people to exploit another section in any manner whatsoever. We have got a great country. It is true, Sir, that to-day we are facing many difficulties. Some of these difficulties are of our own making; some of them are difficulties that naturally result from the tremendous effort that Canada made during the war. But I am not despondent for the future of my country. We have a country of vast and rich resources; we have a country with a vigorous, virile, selfreliant people who will always continue so. But while we have all that, we have admittedly difficult problems to face. There is no more pathetic or tragic picture in my mind to-day than the position of the Maritime provinces down by the Atlantic ocean. We talk of our difficulties in western Canada, but I have come to appreciate-from the wider knowledge I have secured in this parliament- that the problems of the Maritime provinces or their difficulties are vastly greater than ours in the west. Their population is dwindling. My right hon. friend did not argue this afternoon that protection had been of any value to the Maritime provinces. It would be a mighty difficult argument to make in the face of a resolution passed unanimously in the legislature of Nova Scotia, supported by the Conservatives in that legislature, practically stating in effect that the policy of protection had worked injury on the Maritime provinces as it undoubtedly has. I say in all seriousness, Sir, that if my right hon. friend wishes to unite Canada I am with him on that. I do not wish to see any section of Canada set against another section, I wish to see this country grow up as a whole with a fine Canadian spirit; and the bond that unites the New Brunswicker and the British Columbian, the Albertan and the Nova Scotian, is the fact that they are both inheritors of a common heritage, which is one of the finest in the world. I want to see the country united, but I submit that it cannot be united on the policy of higher protection that my right hon. friend advocates. Some may believe that this policy will benefit Ontario or Quebec; but I venture to assert, Sir, in all earnestness in all seriousness-not only for the consideration of my right hon. friend but for the consideration of all within the sound of my voice-that Canada cannot be united on such a policy, and for this reason if for no other, I shall vote against the amendment.

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Hon. J. B. M. BAXTER (St. John City and Counties of St. John and Albert); In rising to add what I trust shall be but a few words to the discussion of this resolution, I am moved to express some regret that the budget debate had not taken the turn that this shorter debate has assumed, because I think that we shall within a very few hours have compressed, after all, the outstanding features of the policy of the two and one-half Canadian parties. I was impressed by the reply that was made to my right hon. leader (Mr. Meighen) by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and also by my hon. friend (Mr. Crerar) who has just spoken. It encourages me to rise after hearing those two replies, and to feel that the old1 Conservative party, by this long delayed resolution, is standing four square before Canada to-night, with the old policy restated and adapted to modern conditions, with the resultant sincerity which has always marked the party of Macdonald and Cartier. I hear from my hon. friends opposite a declaration of expediency as an answer to my right hon. leader, and I heard from my right hon. friends to my left a declaration of innate and intensive selfishness.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Mr. BAXTER:: I am not using the phrase in an offensive sense, and if I may be permitted to speak in this House without too much interruption, I think before I get through, and without taking very much time, I will have demonstrated my point of view. It is not at all important to place a point of view before this House. No one expects as a result of this proceeding anything except an enormous majority, which will be headed in the papers as another victory for the government and its allies. Now my hon. friends could not restrain themselves. They had to applaud the moment I mentioned the word "government," but I was careful to add "and its allies"-its quondam allies.


An hon. MEMBER:: Allies in the war.


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: Surely no hon. gentleman
on the other side of the House wishes to lead this discussion into a further consideration of matters connected with the war. That is about the last thing I would expect to-night. I would not think it was necessary or expedient. The declaration that my leader has made is, as I have said, a reaffirmation of the policy which brought Canada out of despondency and gave her a place among the nations.


Mr. MARTELL:: Will my hon. friend permit a question?
[Mr. Crerar 1


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: No, your hon. friend will
not. My hon. friend's hon. friend has too much good feeling towards him to permit him to indulge in some exuberance which would probably not be at all to his credit.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I was going to mention
that Hon. Mr. McCurdy stated that protection was no good to the Maritime provinces.


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: If my hon. friend can refrain, I will deal with the Maritime provinces before I am through. I much prefer to deal with this subject in my own way and the only effect interruptions of this character will have will be to increase the time I will occupy in discussing this matter, and I would rather abridge my remarks. The declaration of my right hon. leader is addressed to the people outside of this House, and the people who, within a comparatively short space of time, must have an opportunity of deciding the policy by which Canada shall be regulated during the next five or perhaps ten years. The last time we had a federal election we were met in the Maritime provinces, and I believe elsewhere, with the statement that the tariff was not an issue. I heard that statement repeatedly and the people of Canada heard it repeatedly, and were fooled by it. Many industrialists voted for the present government believing that they would have the tariff stability which marked the administration of the Right Hon. Mr. Fielding. They have not got that, and just in proportion as the government, looking across the floor of the House, has, yielded step by step-and step by step in the right direction as some people call it-to the importunities of a centralized selfishness, which we have heard dictated to-night, just in that proportion the government is using the support of the men who are worth while in the two great central provinces of this Dominion. They do not believe it yet. They will wake up with a shock to a realization after the votes are being counted; and a little laughter in this House and a little jeering will not avoid the result so disastrous to Canada.


Mr. CANNON:: Why does the hon. member leave us?


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: I did not catch the interruption.


Lucien Cannon: Why does the hon. member leave us to go back to provincial politics, if the prospects are so rosy?


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: If my hon. friend wants
an answer he had better go down to New Brunswick and interview the leading men of

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that province who have been good enough to think that they require my services outside of political party lines. I prefer to-night, while I am still in the realm of federal politics, to discuss matters from the federal point of view. The answer my right hon. friend the Prime Minister gave was that during the long debate on the budget we had discussed this matter fully enough, and he said that he would treat the motion of my right hon. leader as one of want of confidence. He further said that it enunciated a policy opposed to the fiscal policy of this administration. I was very glad to get that declaration, because after making it it will be very difficult at the next election to deny that the present government is opposed to the policy upon which the Conservative party will stand. There is no need for customs, there is no need for revenue.
There is between the minds of men an absolute line of cleavage on this question. The government and their Progressive friends, varying in degree, take the one side and the Conservative party takes the other side. The country will be asked to settle which course it wishes to pursue, or, in other words, which course is most to its advantage, My view is that the policy of the government is very largely dictated by the opportunity of support, and that if many hon. members to the right of Mr. Speaker were free to express their deliberate convictions, untrammelled by the associations of party, we would have a very strong pronouncement from the right of Mr. Speaker in favour of the resolution of my right hon. leader. Political conditions, however, do not make it possible for hon. gentlemen opposite to express themselves, and we shall have to-night a good many stifled consciences and regretful votes?
I have been asked by interruption-but I meant to deal with it in any case-as to the attitude of the Maritime provinces, and I thank the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) for his kindly reference to the Maritime provinces. He and many others in this House are just beginning to get their eyes opened to the condition of the Maritime provinces; but I trust they will not rush in rashly with self-constituted remedies and imagine that they can re-create the Maritime provinces by means of a sort of remedy that they would apply to conditions in the west. It is true, I think, that in the legislature of Nova Scotia certain resolutions were passed such as have been referred to to-night. It is true also that to a large extent the Maritime provinces have nothing to gain by a tariff policy. They have, however, in certain lines, especially in Nova Scotia, a great deal to gain by that policy, though I would not say that it would be regarded by all the people of the Maritime provinces as a panacea for their ills, and I do not contend that it is.
Let me put before the House this position of the Maritime provinces, and I do not want to make this matter sectional at all. What is our experience of tariffs outside of Canada? The hon. member for Marquette has spoken, I think even for him unusually well with regard to the great resources of Canada and the desirability of fostering Canadian sentiment which will utilize those resources. I am satisfied he wants to help, but I should like to give him an illustration from the Maritime provinces. The United States, of its own volition, pursuing its own policy, many years ago imposed a tariff upon lime. Lime is a natural product of the Maritime provinces. I remember, when I was not much more than a mere boy, seeing along the St. John river dozens of little fires at night. They were the beacon fires of the lime kilns. Wherever you saw that light burning, there were not far away many homes that were being supported by that industry. We were sending the lime into the United States; but the United States government discovered that lime was a natural product of the state of Maine and up went her tariff wall.	The fires on the
St. John river were extinguished and the lime burners either found other occupations or were part of the exodus from this country.	Tell me, after an example like that, which our people know and have experienced, that a tariff is not an effective weapon for the maintenance and development of home industry. Is it possible that we can develop a home industry in the state of Maine to the point of extinguishing a home industry in another country and that the reverse will not be true? I want to light those fires on the St. John river again, and I want a policy that will do that. When I look for that policy I am not looking from the standpoint of the Maritime provinces, with the exception of the steel and coal industry, for a tariff policy as the great agency which will revitalize those provinces.


Daniel Webster Warner: May I ask a question?


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: Most certainly not in the
middle of something which I am trying to explain. I have to look, as every man in the Maritime provinces has to look, for help from some other part of this country. Where can we get that help? Can we go to the prairie provinces of Canada and expect people
382S
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who contribute not much, if 10 p.m. anything more in proportion to the income tax of this country than we do ourselves to help us? Have we not heard here through every session of this parliament of the pitiful condition of the west from its exponents in this House? Are those the people whom we can ask to bear more burdens in order to help us out? They have told the country repeatedly that they cannot carry the burdens that are upon them at present. Therefore, we cannot expect from them any help. Where then must we go? We in the Maritime provinces have to turn to the two old organized provinces of Ontario and Quebec and to ask them to carry our burdens, and they do so, those provinces that in the main made the west posible by carrying the burden of transportation, those provinces that have developed their own industry and that, I think, have a right to ask for some consideration from the rest of Canada if they are called upon to give consideration to the other parts of this Dominion.
Let us put this in a fair manner. Blot out your tariff; realize the extreme imagination, if I may call it that, of the Canadian Council [DOT]of Agriculture. You will destroy practically every industry in those two major provinces. You will lessen their power to bear the general burden of the public debt and the necessities of the rest of Canada. You will declare that agriculture and agriculture alone is the aim of Canadian citizenship. Can the several provinces of Canada, if they are put upon that basis carry the load or is it not better to do for the two great provinces those things which will enable them to carry the load, and for the rest of us in the west and in the extreme *east to put up with a set of conditions which, perhaps, we might not choose if we were entirely detachable from Canada and formed an island somewhere in the Atlantic ocean.
That is the question as I see it. Our problems to-day are not merely tariff, they are transportation. The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) has spoken with just pride of the millions of dollars that will come into Canada as the result of the next grain harvest, but we will not get an enormous amount of income taxation on that money from the western provinces, and the possibility of getting the money into the country at all depends upon the factor of distance which has to be overcome. Not a man from the west but must admit that this country in some way or other must shorten the distance from the wheatfields to the sea. That is the work which the rest of Canada has to do for the
fMr. Baxter.]
west, ini order that the west may compete with other countries on a fair basis in the markets of the world. That is the help the west requires. What the east requires is to shorten the distance for its products to central Canada. To do either one of those things- both of them are necessary-requires the expenditure of money in some form, either by, in a sense, subsidizing the railways, or by bearing a greater railway deficit than otherwise would exist. But to get that money where are we to look? You cannot take it from the Maritime provinces, you cannot take it from the west. Ontario and Quebec, after all, have in the main to bear that burden. And it is nothing but a narrow policy, a selfish policy and a shortsighted policy which would deny to them the support of the tariff barrier which will enable them to develop their resources of a different kind from agriculture to the full extent that they can develop them. In this there is not one word of antagonism towards agriculture, nor towards any section of the country. Agriculture, as we have come to understand it in this House, is of at least two kinds: there is the agriculture represented by the wheat grower in the west; there is the agriculture-also important- represented by what might be called the ordinary farmer in the central provinces and in the Maritime provinces. Those men have their home market; they too have competition [DOT]-competition from the United States. If our people do not want to pay higher prices for early products, let them do without them; they should not pay higher prices for these products grown on the other side of the line. If we have any money to pay on early luxuries, let us pay that money to our own farmers, or let us contribute to the country if we treat those things as luxuries.
All of this is embraced in my leader's platform. That platform is as broad as from the east of Canada to the west, as from the north of Canada to the south. It is a mutually supporting proposition; it looks for aid from each part of Canada towards the other parts of Canada. It does not say to the man who is interested in minerals, "You stop and wait until the mines in some other part of the world are exhausted, then your mines will be in requisition." That is the effect of what I heard once, not in a public discussion but from my hon. friend from Marquette, who said, "Oh, we would still have those lime deposits in New Brunswick, and it would be only a matter of time until their development would come about in the natural course of things." I cannot reconcile myself to a policy-or a want of it-which deliberately throws to ages away, the development that I

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want. I want that development to come about now for my own part of this Dominion.
I want a policy that will enable us to go into the mines, to go into the quarries, to go into every aspect of industrial life that can be developed in this country, to start now and get to work, for we need the population which work will bring, and we need the material returns which we can obtain from such development.


Lucien Cannon: What is that policy?


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: Well, I am sorry that my hon. friend has been so remiss in his attendance.


Lucien Cannon: I have listened most carefully and I am waiting for him to announce his policy.


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: The policy enunciated by my right hon. friend.


Lucien Cannon: Protection?


John Babington Macaulay Baxter: It is protection. It is Canada for the Canadians; not Canada for the United States.
Labour has been touched upon. Labour will settle these questions itself. But it always surprises ime when we realize that great free trade exponents like John Bright and John Morley actually considered that there was good to the country in reducing the wages of the industrial population. All that those men were able to see was England manufacturing more cheaply than any other nation. They cared nothing, great men though they were, for the submerged tenth of the Slums of the cities. Cheap labour! I do not want cheap labour. I do not think that cheap labour is good for the country. Let us have protection for the labourer, so that he may earn decent, reasonable wages. This is the only way to keep a good type of people in this country, and to give them as constant occupation as is possible. The present policy of drift and of chipping at the tariff year by year will not do it, has not done it, cannot logically be expected to do it. We have the example in boots and shoes, some reference to which was made to-night. I heard a suggestion from the other side of the House, where I least of all expected to hear it, that inordinate profits had been made in that business. We know as a matter of fact that with the lowering of the tariff against Great Britain the direct result has been the importation of hundreds of thousands of pairs of shoes-made possibly by British workmen, but also possibly made partly by German workmen and sent in to England to be finished. Those shoes have come into this country, and for every pair of
shoes you bring in, one pair less must be made by the hands of Canadian artisans. That is a proposition so evident that not even the most extreme free trader can deny it. Now, someone will say that this is not loyal, we ought to be loyal to the Motherland. I think Canada's loyalty to the Motherland does not stand under any shadow of doubt. As between countries, Canada ought to give the preference in everything to the Motherland; but as between the Motherland and Canada, we ought to see that our own home fires are kept burning first. In other words, there is no escape from the doctrine of, Canada for the Canadians first, last and all the time.
I wonder if when my hon. friend from Marquette spoke of agriculture representing more than half of the development of Canada, or furnishing more than half of Canada's total trade, and that* the other industries occupied a secondary place-I wonder if he gave a moment of reflection to the idea that his declaration contained a suggestion that industries other than agriculture might be comfortably allowed to go out of existence, and that the agricultural industry was, after all, the only one -worth preserving. That was the direction in which his feet were turning, but I have too much respect for the strong mentality of the hon. member for Marquette to think that he would walk very far along that road if he were charged with the government of Canada. I trust, at all events, that he would not. But for the voter of Canada the issue is clear. Shall! we have a policy which will maintain both industries and agriculture, or shall we throw one of them into the discard and have only half a nation, where we have an opportunity to have a nation fully developed in all its interests and all its possibilities?
We in this party, despite the vote that will be taken to-night, are confident that the principles enunciated by my right hon. leader will appeal to the people of Canada with most favour at the time of the next contest. At all events, the people of Canada will know that this party has repeatedly sacrificed opportunity for the sake of remaining true to its traditions and to its political faith. It has never sacrificed its platform for the sake of a vote. It has never discarded its platform. It has never been reduced to the weak expedients of regarding its platform as a sort of indefinite charge and of proceeding in any direction which would ensure for the moment the greatest political support. Our fidelity to our ideals is, after all, what gives us the assurance that when the time of trust-
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ing comes, the people of Canada will trust the men who stand true to their principles rather than take a chance with a party guided by mere expediency, or, on the other hand, with one which takes a purely selfish view of the problems of this Dominion.


John Evans: Mr. Speaker, I make no apology for discussing this question at this time. Since the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has seen fit to bring it forward again, I think I may add something to the discussion of the question, viewing it simply from the point of view of its merits.
In 1878 the National Policy of protection was inaugurated in this country by the Conservative government of that day, and that policy has ever since been rigidly maintained for the Canadian manufacturers. That it was a mistaken policy for the nation is amply proved now by the fact that it has failed to do what was expected of it. Its advocates in this House find it necessary to-day to suggest a further and greater increase that will give the Canadian manufacturer a price fixing power. This they think is necessary because they have always relied on that power of price fixing, so that they may charge the home consumer a price that will ensure a profit on both home and export trade. That is the situation as I see it.
The member for Centre Toronto (Mr. Bristol), failing to discuss this question on its merits, hurled ridicule at those who do not see as he does. His charge that we want to destroy other industries is wrong; in fact, Sir, it is viciously untrue. All we ask for ourselves is to be left alone to develop our own industry and to work out our own destiny in our own way, and we also accord that right to the manufacturers of this Dominion.
The leader of the opposition this afternoon declared that years ago under this policy Canada was prosperous; that it developed as no other country did; that everybody was busy. The fact is, Sir, that during the period he speaks of, one of the greatest agricultural areas in the world was opened up for settlement-western Canada. But that was only partly the cause of the great wealth and prosperity that prevailed in Canada during those years. In that period we borrowed money as no other nation ever did, and our immigration was carried on to a large extent, at great expense, and much of it through a misrepresentation of what we possessed in this country.

Now, the resolution is adroitly worded to catch the eye and support of the unthinking of our people. It is meant to provide a trap in which the unwary will be caught who are dissatisfied with conditions in manufacturing, in labour and in agriculture. According to the resolution, these three are now to have a share in the privilege and responsibility of setting this country again on the way to prosperity by bringing the old National Policy up to a definitely, consistently protective basis. In the first place, Sir, the National Policy of 1878 is still in force, as it has been ever since that date; the only difference is that as regards protection it is much more forcible at present than it has ever been. The manufacturing ih-dustry has always had that protection at the expense of both agriculture and labour, and no amount of oratory can now persuade this House that this is not the case. If the Canadian manufacturer to-day is finding it hard to make the profits he did in former days, it is due to two reasons. First of all, labour is organized, and, secondly agriculture is bankrupt. Labour has been compelled by the manufacturer, in selfdefence, to organize, and the purchasing power of the agriculturist has disappeared through the high cost of everything he needs to use in his productive work and in the marketing of his produce; because it is not only in what we have to buy that the tariff rests so hard on agriculture; it has an adverse effect as well on the profits in connection with the marketing. These words, "to preserve and enlarge the Canadian market for Canadian farm products" are the very bait that is supposed to lure the unwary agriculturist into the trap. Indeed, my hon. friends to my right have repeatedly advocated in the House this session a protection for the Ontario and Quebec market gardeners. It was largely an inducement of that kind that caused the United States agriculturists to accept the Fordney-McCumber tariff proposals, but I do not think that at this time the Canadian farmer can be deceived by any such chaff.
Canada will be an exporting country of agricultural products for many years to come. Farming is the basic industry of Canada, and all other industries should be made instrumentally useful to this basic industry, instead of sacrificing the basic industry, the one on which this country depends for its yearly income, to other industries which in most cases are only artificial, some of them exotic and superfluous. The manufacturers themselves admit that they cannot now, and never have been able to stand on their own feet. This is either because they are incompetent, or their industries are exotic. They admit that

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the finished products emanating from their factories are really worth less than the raw material and the workmanship that enters into their makeup. Nay, more, they admit that the protection they have received during the last forty-seven years is not now adequate to meet that loss. They have during all this time preyed upon agriculture, the one industry that can stand on its own feet, and they have brought that basic industry to bankruptcy, and, of course, as a consequence destroyed the purchasing power of those who should be their best customers. During all this time they have lost no opportunity to consolidate their position of professed penury. They have practically under control now nearly every newspaper in the land, and these wells of information have been poisoned by the dope of class privilege until our people to-day to a large degree are made insensible to their state of captivity. Organized labour they have found hard to control as to wages, but even that class has been in many industrial centres made subject to the dictates of class privilege, until at election time the workers by intimidation and other means have been prevented or practically debarred from using the franchise as free men and free women should.
There is another feature beside the economic that accompanies class privilege. Many national features to-day contribute to doping and stultifying the minds of our citizens so that they may not realize the state of captivity they are in. Those who have this country's welfare at heart cannot fail to take note of the moral as well as the economic side of class privilege. Capitalism has been enthroned by class legislation until its baneful influence is felt in every walk of life. Our colleges, universities, schools, even our churches and places of sport and amusement come under its icy control. Perhaps there is no betteT evidence of the depraved condition our past policy of privilege has landed us in than that the advocates of manufacturing industry to-day are advocating legalized robbery as their right. Industry leans, and has leaned for nearly fifty years, on the politician. The.one has been made necessary to the other. Both seem to be depending on the loot, perhaps one for profit, and the other for strength at election time. Anyway it has proved for this country a bad combination.
Whatever the tariff may be, whatever meaning you may attach to protection, it is after all, simply a license to rob the people to that extent. It is predatory, that is, characterized by plundering. It is ravenous; it is never
satisfied. The word definite cannot be applied in a logical sense to class privilege. The amazing thing, Sir, is why the people have so long tolerated it as a national policy. Well, the people may be fooled, but the amazing thing is the depths of political depravity to which a succession of Canadian governments could descend in their prostitution to money and influence. When I use the word robbery in connection with the national policy I mean it in its fullest sense. To lay with one hand the power cf the government on the property of the private citizen, and with the other bestow on favoured individuals, to aid private enterprise and build up private fortunes, is none the less robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation.
The resolution states that our present industrial stagnation is due to a strengthening in late years of the protective system the world over, particularly in the United States. This is not so. The situation we are up against at present is of our own making. Because of a strengthening of class privilege in this country the cost of living, and consequently the cost of production, has been raised to a point where it is no longer profitable to compete in the world's markets, either in natural or manufactured products.. The right hon. leader of the opposition now seeks a price-fixing power for the manufacturer that will enable him to export his goods at a loss and charge the home consumer a price that will give him a profit on both his home and export trade. There is no industry in this Dominion to-day that can stand that. Agriculture cannot longer make up that loss. After nearly fifty years of class privilege, the manufacturing industry of this country has created a condition where it must new stand on its own feet. This policy has gone on for forty-seven years, and industry seems as badly off to-day as they said it was when this legal privilege was first given to it. The right hon. gentleman who moved the resolution would now make this legal privilege definite; that is, I suppose, exact, precise. Well, it cannot be done. We have a tariff already too high, and the higher it is the more it puts the cost of producing in all lines of activity out cf line with world's prices on a competitive basis. If the United States is mentioned as being our chief competitor, the only thing for Canada to do is to keep the cost of living and the cost of production below that of that country. There is no other salvation for Canada but to make the cost of production here cheaper than it is in the United States. All the price fixing power that we give to
Supply-Tariff Revision


['Mr. Speaker, I make no apology for discussing this question at this time. Since the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has seen fit to bring it forward again, I think I may add something to the discussion of the question, viewing it simply from the point of view of its merits.\nIn 1878 the National Policy of protection was inaugurated in this country by the Conservative government of that day, and that policy has ever since been rigidly maintained for the Canadian manufacturers. That it was a mistaken policy for the nation is amply proved now by the fact that it has failed to do what was expected of it. Its advocates in this House find it necessary to-day to suggest a further and greater increase that will give the Canadian manufacturer a price fixing power. This they think is necessary because they have always relied on that power of price fixing, so that they may charge the home consumer a price that will ensure a profit on both home and export trade. That is the situation as I see it.\nThe member for Centre Toronto (Mr. Bristol), failing to discuss this question on its merits, hurled ridicule at those who do not see as he does. His charge that we want to destroy other industries is wrong; in fact, Sir, it is viciously untrue. All we ask for ourselves is to be left alone to develop our own industry and to work out our own destiny in our own way, and we also accord that right to the manufacturers of this Dominion.\nThe leader of the opposition this afternoon declared that years ago under this policy Canada was prosperous; that it developed as no other country did; that everybody was busy. The fact is, Sir, that during the period he speaks of, one of the greatest agricultural areas in the world was opened up for settlement-western Canada. But that was only partly the cause of the great wealth and prosperity that prevailed in Canada during those years. In that period we borrowed money as no other nation ever did, and our immigration was carried on to a large extent, at great expense, and much of it through a misrepresentation of what we possessed in this country.\n\nNow, the resolution is adroitly worded to catch the eye and support of the unthinking of our people. It is meant to provide a trap in which the unwary will be caught who are dissatisfied with conditions in manufacturing, in labour and in agriculture. According to the resolution, these three are now to have a share in the privilege and responsibility of setting this country again on the way to prosperity by bringing the old National Policy up to a definitely, consistently protective basis. In the first place, Sir, the National Policy of 1878 is still in force, as it has been ever since that date; the only difference is that as regards protection it is much more forcible at present than it has ever been. The manufacturing ih-dustry has always had that protection at the expense of both agriculture and labour, and no amount of oratory can now persuade this House that this is not the case. If the Canadian manufacturer to-day is finding it hard to make the profits he did in former days, it is due to two reasons. First of all, labour is organized, and, secondly agriculture is bankrupt. Labour has been compelled by the manufacturer, in selfdefence, to organize, and the purchasing power of the agriculturist has disappeared through the high cost of everything he needs to use in his productive work and in the marketing of his produce; because it is not only in what we have to buy that the tariff rests so hard on agriculture; it has an adverse effect as well on the profits in connection with the marketing. These words, "to preserve and enlarge the Canadian market for Canadian farm products" are the very bait that is supposed to lure the unwary agriculturist into the trap. Indeed, my hon. friends to my right have repeatedly advocated in the House this session a protection for the Ontario and Quebec market gardeners. It was largely an inducement of that kind that caused the United States agriculturists to accept the Fordney-McCumber tariff proposals, but I do not think that at this time the Canadian farmer can be deceived by any such chaff.\nCanada will be an exporting country of agricultural products for many years to come. Farming is the basic industry of Canada, and all other industries should be made instrumentally useful to this basic industry, instead of sacrificing the basic industry, the one on which this country depends for its yearly income, to other industries which in most cases are only artificial, some of them exotic and superfluous. The manufacturers themselves admit that they cannot now, and never have been able to stand on their own feet. This is either because they are incompetent, or their industries are exotic. They admit that\n\nSupply-Tariff Revision\nthe finished products emanating from their factories are really worth less than the raw material and the workmanship that enters into their makeup. Nay, more, they admit that the protection they have received during the last forty-seven years is not now adequate to meet that loss. They have during all this time preyed upon agriculture, the one industry that can stand on its own feet, and they have brought that basic industry to bankruptcy, and, of course, as a consequence destroyed the purchasing power of those who should be their best customers. During all this time they have lost no opportunity to consolidate their position of professed penury. They have practically under control now nearly every newspaper in the land, and these wells of information have been poisoned by the dope of class privilege until our people to-day to a large degree are made insensible to their state of captivity. Organized labour they have found hard to control as to wages, but even that class has been in many industrial centres made subject to the dictates of class privilege, until at election time the workers by intimidation and other means have been prevented or practically debarred from using the franchise as free men and free women should.\nThere is another feature beside the economic that accompanies class privilege. Many national features to-day contribute to doping and stultifying the minds of our citizens so that they may not realize the state of captivity they are in. Those who have this country\'s welfare at heart cannot fail to take note of the moral as well as the economic side of class privilege. Capitalism has been enthroned by class legislation until its baneful influence is felt in every walk of life. Our colleges, universities, schools, even our churches and places of sport and amusement come under its icy control. Perhaps there is no betteT evidence of the depraved condition our past policy of privilege has landed us in than that the advocates of manufacturing industry to-day are advocating legalized robbery as their right. Industry leans, and has leaned for nearly fifty years, on the politician. The.one has been made necessary to the other. Both seem to be depending on the loot, perhaps one for profit, and the other for strength at election time. Anyway it has proved for this country a bad combination.\nWhatever the tariff may be, whatever meaning you may attach to protection, it is after all, simply a license to rob the people to that extent. It is predatory, that is, characterized by plundering. It is ravenous; it is never\nsatisfied. The word definite cannot be applied in a logical sense to class privilege. The amazing thing, Sir, is why the people have so long tolerated it as a national policy. Well, the people may be fooled, but the amazing thing is the depths of political depravity to which a succession of Canadian governments could descend in their prostitution to money and influence. When I use the word robbery in connection with the national policy I mean it in its fullest sense. To lay with one hand the power cf the government on the property of the private citizen, and with the other bestow on favoured individuals, to aid private enterprise and build up private fortunes, is none the less robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation.\nThe resolution states that our present industrial stagnation is due to a strengthening in late years of the protective system the world over, particularly in the United States. This is not so. The situation we are up against at present is of our own making. Because of a strengthening of class privilege in this country the cost of living, and consequently the cost of production, has been raised to a point where it is no longer profitable to compete in the world\'s markets, either in natural or manufactured products.. The right hon. leader of the opposition now seeks a price-fixing power for the manufacturer that will enable him to export his goods at a loss and charge the home consumer a price that will give him a profit on both his home and export trade. There is no industry in this Dominion to-day that can stand that. Agriculture cannot longer make up that loss. After nearly fifty years of class privilege, the manufacturing industry of this country has created a condition where it must new stand on its own feet. This policy has gone on for forty-seven years, and industry seems as badly off to-day as they said it was when this legal privilege was first given to it. The right hon. gentleman who moved the resolution would now make this legal privilege definite; that is, I suppose, exact, precise. Well, it cannot be done. We have a tariff already too high, and the higher it is the more it puts the cost of producing in all lines of activity out cf line with world\'s prices on a competitive basis. If the United States is mentioned as being our chief competitor, the only thing for Canada to do is to keep the cost of living and the cost of production below that of that country. There is no other salvation for Canada but to make the cost of production here cheaper than it is in the United States. All the price fixing power that we give to\nSupply-Tariff Revision', u'our industries will be useless. To lower the cost of living is imperative. "To give new life to industry " says the resolution. It is beyond my comprehension why intelligent men in this House will advocate a larger dose of the debauching dope which has already rendered industry impotent. But to advocate a higher tariff to create productive enterprise is, to me, exceeding the bounds of reason. Enterprise and protection are two extremes as far apart as the east is from the west. Class privilege or tariff protection- perhaps- a better name would \'be trade prevention-has killed enterprise in this Dominion. Our manufacturers themselves have been debauched by it. They have relied on privilege for profits, and they have not developed enterprise to keep abreast of competitors in the matter of the quality of goods or by the adoption- of up to date methods of production\nAgain, the resolution speaks of a desire- -to stimulate the development of Canadian resources by the Canadian people and thus create employment for our workers.\nWell, let us look at things as they are. Class privilege has created a condition of affairs in this country as a result of which our capitalists prefer now to invest in foreign . enterprises rather than develop our own natural resources. It has brought this country to this state of uncertainty-,that those for whom privilege was first established find it safer to invest Canadian earnings in South American cities: The light, heat and power plants of the cities of Mexico, and Rio de Janeiro, the Cuban sugar cane industry, the Savannah railroad, the Brazilian Traction Company, have all been boosted with Canadian capital; and they prefer to put their money into such investments rather than give our own men employment in our own mines and mills. There is no lack of capital, there is no lack of raw material, yet our manufacturers will import sometimes half a billion dollars worth of raw material, which under natural conditions we could supply ourselves. At the same time our working men are existing below the normal living line, or emigrating; and today, notwithstanding all -the privileges we have given to that great company in Nova Scotia, the British Empire Steel Company, they are importing iron ore and also,-and this seems to be worse-,their Montreal house to-day is importing coal from the United States on which they can make money rather than by frying to do so on the product of their owrn mines. I say that class privilege has been a direct failure in this country. Rather than develop the resources of Canada \nwith our own capital the owners of capital have deemed it more profitable to invest in foreign countries. The idea behind the whole resolution is a further concentration in the hands of the already privileged classes. The leader of the opposition has exhorted us to follow the United States in their tariff policy. Yet the grain and cotton producers of the United States are quite as dependent on the foreign market to-day to make a price for their products as they were a hundred years ago and more so. But just as the dog in the manger who could not eat the hay himself, so our enterprising Canadian industrialists want -to place an embargo against the exportation of some classes of raw material and power. The protectionist always believes that it is to his advantage to hamper the movement of others rather than develop his own resources and bring his own enterprise into play.\nThe paragraph of the resolution dealing with the preference is a direct attack on the British preference. It calls for preference for preference within the empire, -and the Canadian manufacturer somehow believes that because we tax British goods slightly less than we do goods from Germany or other countries, Britain should tax her people so as to give us more for our goods than we can get elsewhere. Britain is prosperous because she keeps down the cost of living for her people. It is not likely, either, that she will materially depart from her -present system. Britain is the market of the world, and she knows that those who come to her shores with the wares of other countries will purchase something for export that she is well able and particularly fitted to supply. Great Britain is giving us a free market, and there is neither chivalry, patriotism, nor business sagacity behind the demand for the preference in -her markets, or the demand that we abolish the preferential column in our own tariff schedule. This country to-day is relying on the exports of agriculture to produce its yearly income, and we are relying on Britain for a market for such products. We in -our blindness have granted also privilege to the extent that the products of the farm cannot any longer be grown at a profit. Yet we are asked to abolish the British preference and put the cost of raising these products, on which the Dominion depends for its income, on a much more difficult basis, for the sake of a class of producers who are already privileged and still admit incompetence and helpless impotence in connection with the industries they are engaged in.\n\nSupply-Tariff Revision\n3S33\nA circular reached me last year from Car-leton Place announcing the closing down of wha\'t they call the Hawthorne Woollen Mills in that town. Whether they did actually close down or not I do not know; or whether they were trying to scare this government into granting a higher duty. Now, Ithe owner admitted that even under the British preference he was still receiving from 15 per cent to 24} per cent advantage by tariff protection. Yet he said the competition from Britain was destroying his business because he did not have what he considered sufficient price-fixing power. Well, here was that mill situated in the area of what the resolution calls "the markets so developed" with the advantage of 24} per cent in price-fixdng, enjoying cheap power and cheap water, and not able to compete with the industry in Britain over 3,500 miles away.\nI ask, what use is it for this country to tax itself further to keep going a concern which is not paying, and at the same time to demoralize the industry that can live without help? The living cost in this country would have been much higher in the years gone by than it has been had it not been for the British preference. The crisis in agriculture would have come sooner but for the British preference. The logical thing to do is to seek free trade within the empire. The trouble with Canadian industry to-day is not due in any way to the war, which excuse we are so prone to use. It is not too much to say now that a million farmers in Canada are short of some of the manufactured products they can with economy use, but their buying power is gone. The reason they do not purchase is because the price charged for manufactured products is fixed by the manufacturers according to the powers given them by tariff protection. Added to this is a further discrimination in the law which classifies the citizens according to the rules of the manufacturing and distributing combine, whose rules are recognized in the legislation of this land. So that instead of 15 to 24} per cent it is more like 50 or 60 per cent. Any importer outside the privileged ring never knows what he will have to pay if he imports anything.\nI have reference here to the Customs Act regarding trade discounts and the dumping clause ivhieh together gives the combine unlimited domination over the manufacture and distribution of all commodities.\nAnother thing the resolution asks for is a tariff commission. The idea of a tariff commission is that, under a body of men further removed from the people than their elected\nrepresentatives class privilege may go on unhampered, that the people\'s rights may be more unrestrictedly bartered away by the politician. It is to be a screen behind which the piratical legislation can be enacted, and the henchmen of privilege in the House of Commons will be immune from attacks by public opinion. It is to be a cloak of hvpocrisy by which it is hoped the people will be fooled. It is all designed to keep dark the doings of the great ring of privilege of which the politician forms the chief part.\nBut perhaps the greatest incongruity in the resolution lies in the last paragraph. It reminds me of the Kilkenny cat fight. The last paragraph of the resolution is like placing the tail of the last Kilkenny cat into its own mouth. A subsidy to the railways will have to be borne by somebody, but what would rich Toronto or rich Montreal care how much they subscribed to the railways by way of subsidies so long as they were able by tariff privileges to pass it all on, on the price of manufactured goods, till it comes down to the man on the land who has to meet the competition of the whole world, which includes the products of the cheapest labour in the world, Europe and Asia alike.\nI ask right thinking men to-night in this House if there is any justice or fair play in a system of that kind. I am sorry that the right hon. leader of the opposition only sees this country within the confined precincts of those interests which live upon the country and cannot live without despoiling it. If the tariff did in any way benefit anyone except the privileged class, if the mass of people could live under such prohibition of exchange as well as they could when enjoying their inalienable rights of barter, and if our working men were saved from the nightmare of unemployment, this country might be tempted to view, class privilege with leniency. But it does none of these things. To the masses it causes suffering, and to the workers it creates rather than prevents unemployment. In yesterday\'s Citizen is a news item that is worth consideration by anyone who is advocating protection or class privilege. The Bankers\' Trust Company of New York received from their British Information Service in London, this information.\nBritish Linens Easily lead in World Markets Notwithstanding I>uty of 55 Per cent. United States Imported Huge Quantities During 1024 British Supremacy is Clearly Shown Competition From Countries With Cheap Labor Does Not Affect Lead\nNew York, May 31.-Exports of linen goods from Great Britain in 1924 were valued at \xa313,332,000 as\nSupply-Tariff Revision', u"against \xa311.735,000 in 1923. This increase in value was not due only to the rise in prices, but also to an actual expansion in the volume of exports, according to advices just received by Bankers' Trust Company of New York from its British Information Service.\nThe quantity of piece-goods exported increased from 89.666,000 square yards in 1923 to 110,793,000 in 1924. Such exports accounted for \xa38,444,000 of the 1924 total and for \xa37,043,000 of the 1923 total.\nLike the cotton industry the linen industry is largely dependent on export trade for the disposal of its products, and consequently it is peculiarly susceptible to changes in world economic conditions, but whereas the cotton industry sends the greater part of its exports to the east, the bulk of the exports of linen go to western countries.\nIn support of the contention of Great Britain's leadership in the linen industry Bankers' Trust Company's informant draws attention to the fact that of the total imports into the United States of various kinds of linen goods in 1923, from 70 per cent, to 82 .per cent, came from Great Britain. For example notwithstanding a duty of 55 per cent, the United States imported 82 per cent of the woven fabrics of flax from the United Kingdom 14 per cent from Belgium; of woven fabrics of flax on which the duty was 40 per cent, 81.7 per cent, came from Great Britain and 12 per cent from Belgium; of plain woven fabrics, 91.8 per cent, came from Great Britain and of flax table damask and manufactures of flax, 78.8 per cent from the United Kingdom, 13.5 per cent from Czechoslovakia, and 12.5 per cent from Germany.\nSurely this is an object lesson to this country at this time. Tariff protection does not keep capital in the country. It also fails to keep out manufactured goods. The item which I have just read deals with linen goods only. In cottons the condition is still worse, and more astoundingly favourable to Great Britain, as the Manchester Guardian of May 29, 1924 stated, that cotton exports to the United States in 1923 had, under the Fordney tariff quadirupled the exports of 1914.\nI have here a cutting from the British Weekly, a paper that I have never yet seen called into account for any misstatements. I am using this in answer to a contention of the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) in the last speech which he made in this House. He had lately visited France and he was struck by the prosperity of that country due entirely, as he stated, to it-s high protective policy. The British Weekly editorial reads thus:\nThe second important point which has received little public comment is the Chancefllor's definite statement that no repayment of debt from France and Italy was allowed for in his ^ budget because no such repayment was anticipated during the financial year. Everybody who reads the papers knows how simple it is under our law' for an individual to avoid payment of a business debt. We have learnt, both during the war and since, that nations also can repudiate their debts and continue to exist-continue, indeed, for a time to spend vast sums of money. But debt repudiation, whether for the nation or for the individual, means bankruptcy, or at best an arrangement with creditors. Is there no chance, even now, that France and Italy will learn financial w'isdom? It is ridiculous, of course, to talk about making them pay. You cannot make a\n\nnation pay without such a demonstration of force as it is inconceivable that this war-sickened country of ours would allow itself to use. But just' as a business man who does not pay his debts cannot expect to receive further credits or further loans, so France and Italy, dependent for their very existence upon credit, are receiving and will receive no more from outside. Soon after peace was declared France raised large sums in this country. Now it is our late enemies, not our late Allies, who are receiving credits. Why? Because Germany is making some show of facing her creditors. The sums may be inadequate-they are inadequate; but it is very foolish of people to shut their eyes to the fact that Germany is paying large sums. We, (too, are paying large sums. Our payments to the United States are a very sore subject, and the terms of that payment are certainly still open to debate. But compare the purchasing pow'ers abroad of the pound sterling with that of the franc or the lira! Judged by the standard of mere expediency, it pays to pay.\nHere is Britain paying her debts, making her payments, under this free trade policy which our friends condemn so much. France with her high protective policy has run the gauntlet. She is now at her wits' end to know what to do and her franc\n11\tp.m. is falling. It has not the purchasing power it might have, and there is also a hint in this editorial of what I have already spoken, of the immoral side of class privilege having its effect on the nation that adopts it.\nIn conclusion, I want to say that protection is an artificial basis for trade and it cannot stand. In this country it has miserably failed. Those for whom it was first inaugurated have repudiated every promise they have made. They have taken no responsibility either for the development of our natural resources or for the employment of our workers, and this was practically a promise that amounted to a contract when privilege was first inaugurated. Protection is a fallacy; it is immoral in itself, and it has failed in all that it was ever supposed to do."]
Mr. DOUCET:: I was paired with the hon. member for Inverness (Mr. Chisholm). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. JONES:: I was paired with the hon. Secretary of State (Mr. Copp). Had I voted.
I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. HANSON:: I was paired with the hon. Minister of National Defence (|Mr. Macdonald). Had I not been paired I would have voted in the affirmative.
Motion agreed to on the same division reversed, and the House went into committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair.



[Stage Direction]
Civil Government-External Affairs-salaries, $84,440;
contingencies, $27,500.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: Perhaps we can get an explanation of the in crease V


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The increase is more apparent than real. Two temporary clerks have been made permanent. There is only one additional clerk.


Arthur Meighen: What the Prime Minister has said may be the cause of the increase, I would consider it is just as real as it is apparent. What is unreal about it?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I mean that the clerks were being paid the same amount when they were holding their positions temporarily as they are receiving now that they have been made permanent. As my right hon. friend knows, there are a number of clerks who have been in the service many years, and from time to time they make requests to the Civil Service Commission to have their appointments made permanent. In the case of this department two of the clerks were made permanent who for a number of years had been temporaries.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My right hon. friend the Prime Minister used to express
Supply-External Affairs

some very severe strictures on tie cost of government in 1921-22. I see in this department there is an increase in salaries of $19,815, or over 30 per cent.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think my
hon. friend is out $10,000 in his calculation. There is an increase altogether in civil government salaries of $4,475.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Perhaps the
Prime Minister got hold of the wrong figures. I referred to the year 1921-22, at a time when my right hon. friend complained very, very much about the cost of government.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not think I complained about the cost of this particular department.


Henry Lumley Drayton: His complaint was so loud, so general, so long and so continuous that I do not know that I could except any department. But I point out to him that in 1921-22 the number of employees in the department which he now looks after, and which has to do with external affairs, numbered thirty-five. There is an increase of nine. The salaries were $64,625. There is an increase of $19,815, or over 30 per cent.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Is my hon. friend giving the number of temporary employees as well as permanent?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am giving my right hon. friend exactly the same information in the estimates for 1921-22 as is shown in these estimates. I am comparing like with like. If he wants to go into temporaries, perhaps he will tell me later on how many temporaries he has. I am just pointing out this one thing, that instead of the administration reducing the cost in this department, we have an increase in salaries of over 30 per cent since they took it over.


Arthur Meighen: The Prime Minister has to admit an increase in his own department of 30 per cent as respects permanent employees. Will he now give us the figures for the temporary employees in 1921-22 as against the temporary employees now?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not admit an increase of 30 per cent in the temporary employees.


Arthur Meighen: What do the figures show?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: One takes the total number of employees in the department. Included in those that are listed here as permanent are those that were at that time

temporaries, but who had been a long time in the department. I think my right hon. friend will find that the number is considerably decreased.


Arthur Meighen: I am ready to take the
facts as they are. I said that in permanent employees there had been an increase, and I quoted the figure of 30 per cent used by the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton). W'hat are the facts? The estimates for 1921-22 show the salaries of permanent employees in the Department of External Affairs to have been $64,625; contingencies, $46,000. The contingencies now are $27,500. Of course the right hon. gentleman has the right to consider contingencies, but I was speaking of salaries. My statement was that there was a 30 per cent increase in the salaries of parmanent officials, and the figures show that the increase was from $64,000 odd to $84,440, so my figure of 30 per cent was certainly below the mark What is the number of temporary employees to-day and what was the number of temporary employees then in this department, and what is the cost in each year?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know whether I can give the figures for each year-


Arthur Meighen: ' Just the two years.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: At an earlier
period I know that a number of clerks were being paid out of contingencies. At present five clerks are being paid out of contingencies.


Arthur Meighen: Permanent clerks would
not ibe paid out of contingencies.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, temporary.


Arthur Meighen: If we can get the number of temporary clerks now and the number then, it will clear the matter up.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have not the information here with respect to four years ago.


Arthur Meighen: I would like very much
to get the figures, in order to be able to compare the number of temporary employees now and the number then, as well as the permanent employees.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall be very glad to lay on the table a return giving the number of clerks, both permanent and temporary, at the next sitting.


Arthur Meighen: And the total salary cost for that year.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the minister give us some idea as to the nature of the work carried on by this deDartment?

Supply-External Affairs


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The	department has to do with all communications between the government of Canada and foreign governments. The office of High Commissioner for Canada in London, the office of Commissioner General at Paris, the representation at Washington

all these activities come under the Department of External Affairs. The work in connection with the League of Nations, and such correspondence as is carried on with that body and with its representative in Geneva, is done through this department. All the correspondence -between the British government and the government of Canada goes through this department. It has also largely to do with communications with the Governor General's office. It is little difficult to mention the variety of subjects dealt with, but hardly a day passes that some question is not a matter of correspondence between the government of Canada and some outside part of the world.


James Shaver Woodsworth: As I understand it, we have now a committee on international affairs. As to the protocol, for instance, and other such matters, members of the House have no opportunity of discussing them or of coming in close contact with them. In the interest of the country at large might it not be as well to make vital the work of that committee and refer certain of these matters to it?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think my
hon. friend is perhaps correct with respect to some of the matters that have come up. If he or any other member had made the suggestion with respect to any particular matter the government would have been glad to consider the advisability of referring it to the committee. The suggestion he makes is the first of its kind I have heard this session .


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Civil government-Governor General's Secretary's office-salaries, including Governor General's secretary, additional to salary authorized by R.S., C. 4, $3,600, $33,810; contingencies, $66,000.
James Shaver Woodsworth: May we have the
details?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is no
change. The same number of clerks are employed and the same amount is asked for contingencies and sundries as was asked last year. There is simply the addition of a few hundred dollars for statutory increases.


Mr. GARDINER:: There is a vote of $63,000 for sundries. What would this be for?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the
main part of the expense would be for cabling
despatches between this country and the Old Country, stationery, and other charges of that character.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Miscellaneous-salaries and expenses of the Paris agency, $35,000.
Henry Lumley Drayton: I rise to point
out one instance of petty politics that I hope will be remedied when I call attention to it. Since this government came into office leading Conservative papers have been struck from the file of papers kept in the Paris office.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am astonished.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I thought my hon. friend would be surprised to hear it. I would ask him to look into it and see that the usual list is returned. Speaking from recollection, I think the only Toronto papers were the Globe and the Star. That might appeal to some of my right hon. friend's followers, but I think it would hardly appeal to him that an office supported by public money should be carried on in quite that way. I drew the commissioner's attention to it, and he said he had nothing to do with it at all. Of course, if we are to understand that this is the way in which the game is to be played, it is quite all right, but I thought I had only to mention it to my right hon. friend to have it corrected.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am very much obliged to my hon. friend for bringing the matter to my attention, because this is the first intimation I have had of it. I cannot understand why the commissioner is not perfectly free to order what papers he likes, or at any rate he would probably ask the deputy head of the department, and I cannot conceive that the deputy minister, who has been in the office right along until the last few months, would have put any Conservative paper, or any other paper, off the list. I agree with my hon. friend that there ought to be strict impartiality in the matter.


Mr. COOTE:: What are the duties of the Paris agency? Are they of a business or diplomatic nature?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should say largely business, and quasi-diplomatic. There are matters that come up with the French government that are dealt with through the Paris office. There are also a great many matters of a business nature which are also dealt with through that office. Canadians visiting Paris on different matters find the office, I think, very helpful in enabling them
Supply-External Affairs

to get in touch with different persons connected either with the government or with business firms they wish to meet. The office, in fact, is open for any purpose which will be of real service to the country.
Mr.	WOODS WORTH:	In diplomatic
affairs does Canada deal directly with France or through the Colonial Office?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It depends upon the importance of the matter. For the most part communications with France would be through the Foreign Office of Great Britain, via the Colonial Office at the present time.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I can set my hon. friend's anxiety completely at rest. So far as Paris is concerned, Canada is extremely well represented. The present aommissioner, Mr. Roy, is most efficient, painstaking and courteous to everybody. So far as his status is concerned, I would tell my hon. friend from Winnipeg that his status really depends far more upon the man than upon the title, and Mr. Roy has won for himself quite a unique position in Paris. There is no governmental door of the French government that is closed to him, and whatever form the final deliberations go through, there is no difficulty whatever that Mr. Roy experiences in carrying on that business. In fact, I have been told by people in Paris that he really was a much more useful representative than many more highly ornamental and more highly paid representatives; in other words, that the work was done. Whether he be called a representative, ambassador, charge d'affaires or anything else, he does his work well.
There is just one more matter I would like to mention. The office is .in an excellent building in Paris, but there is really not enough room. There are two more rooms required there in order to look after the work, because there is a lot of work done, both of a diplomatic and business nature.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Canadian representation in the United States, $60,000.
Henry Lumley Drayton: Do you not
think we might very well rest at this point, Mr. Chairman?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let us pass
this item, and then rest.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not know that this is an item that we can pass. We are not using the money, as I understand. What did we spend last year?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is true we
did not use all of it last year. $12,000 covered the total outlay, but the government does intend to have more extended representation at Washington in the near future.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I really think
in this case the government ought to be saved from itself, and I would like to help them in saving a little money here. I suppose Mr. Mahoney is still engaged at Washington. He is a very excellent representative, and I do not know of any interest, business or anything else, that is suffering at the present moment because he is there instead of a ornate, more highly titled and far more expensive, and more or less useless representative of this country.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Well, well.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend
says, Well, well. I use the terms advisedly; I mean just What I say. I mean that at the present time, without throwing away money on frills or anything else, we are having our material business interests well looked after by that gentleman. I know he looked after them well when we were in office, and I assume he is still doing it or he would not be there. It is not very far from here to Washington, and my genial friend the Minister of Justice has taken several trips there. They like him down there, and he likes the trip, and it is very, very easy for him to go whenever somebody a little more formidable in appearance and armed with greater dignity and more titles is required. Whenever it is necessary, my hon. friend is always on the job. He can go down, and does go down, and I think he has done pretty well. I really think, Mr. Chairman, if the government press this vote, it is really a vote of want of confidence in the Minister of Justice, because he may well be looked upon as our ambassador, plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary so far as Washington is concerned. I think we should leave him in that position at this time. Certainly I do not want to object to him or his activities. But, seriously, Mr. Chairman, I would think that the government might very, very well leave things as they are now, and reduce this vote to the amount we are using, namely $12,000. I would ask the government to let this item stand, because if they persist, I am afraid we will have to say something on it, fairly extended too.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would say to my hon. friend that when the government came into office they found an appropriation

Supply-External Affairs
of I think $80,000 for representation at Washington which my hon. friends had voted, and the item was out at that time. It is true that up to the present time the government has not carried out the course which was proposed by hon. gentlemen opposite of having a minister plenipotentiary at Washington, who was not only to represent Canada but to take the place of the British ambassador in his absence. We thought that went a 'little bit further than we would care to go, but- we felt that the interests of Canada would be well served if we had a minister plenipotentiary at Washington. It has not 'been convenient up to the present time to make that appointment, but the government hopes to be able to make it very shortly. Certainly this amount will be required if that appointment is made. If we were to reduce it we would have to abandon the idea of appointing a minister. We do not wish to abandon that idea-in fact we want to implement the promise we have made that a representative will be appointed. I say frankly to my hon. friend that it has not been as easy to secure the person we would wish to have as representative as it might appear to be. Anyone going to Washington has to spend a good deal of money to reside there and the appropriation the government is asking from parliament it not of a kind to invite a person without means to undertake the duty and expect to have that equipment which is necessary if an office is opened and carried on as it should be in the capital of a great country like the United States. Unfortunately in our external relations up to the present, so far as Canada is concerned, we have rather had to rely upon men of private means to fill these positions. But it does not always follow that this is the course the country would -wish to see pursued generally. I think we should pay a sufficient amount to a representative of Canada abroad tio fill the position in a dignified and proper way, regardless of what his own personal fortunes may be; and I submit that this is the lowest amount with which the goverment could hope t/o undertake the opening of a residence for a minister at Washington.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Supply-External Affairs

pointment immediately by appointing an Ambassador to Paris. And is not that logical? What particular reason would the government have-
Mr. MAfcKENZIE KING:	Was that the
view of Sir Robert Borden when he introduced the resolution?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am perfectly
free to state-I have already stated-that I never adopted that view, and that the cabinet never implemented that resolution.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The cabinet
asked the House for the appropriation.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That may be so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: And my hon.
friend voted for it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That may be so; it may all be so. But my right hon. friend knows there is such a thing as cabinet responsibility when you are a member of a government and he knows it stops when you are out of it. My right hon. friend knows also that he has had differences in his cabinet upon matters which have been iput before this House and which had the united support-properly united support-from his cabinet but which to-day do not carry the judgment of certain members of that cabinet. It is the only way we can carry on. I am not approaching this matter in any contentious spirit at all, but simply just trying to get an honest expression of why we are doing this thing, or the necessity on doing it to-day. Now is it an unreasonable thing for France to expect that if we appoint a Canadian Ambassador to Washington we should not also appoint a Canadian Ambassador at Paris, and if we do it in that case-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let me correct my hon. friend as to the use of the word "ambassador." The government of which he was a member may have used that expression;
[ do not think the present administration has ever used it. There is a great deal of difference oetween "minister" and "ambassador," and the term "ambassador" has never been used by this government that I am aware of.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not know what term my hon. friends have been using at all-I confess that at once-but that is the term that was used in the French press. " Minister " is the same thing. My hon. friend says not.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is not the same thing-entirely different. Why do they have ministers, and why do they have ambassadors?


Henry Lumley Drayton: My right hon.
friend is getting a little peevish.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not at all
The House of Commons is entitled to be dealt with in a rational way.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I can get peevish just as quickly as my right hon. friend, and I might say some things with perhaps a little more reason.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Say them.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not know why we have this sudden attitude of bad temper on the part of the Prime Minister, and I do not know why I should lower myself at the moment by indulging with him in that sort of thing, and I do not intend to do it. As I was pointing out, in so far as the question is as to the interest of France on the one side, and the interest of the United States on the other, and the natural wish of France to have just as much recognition from Canada as Canada would get from the United States, it really makes no difference whether we call him ambassador or minister. If we send a minister to the States it will be expected that we sent a minister to France, and if we start in on that proposition, where are we going to stop? I suppose the reason of having a minister there is a diplomatic one. I understand that is how the government are supporting this question:	that is
that we are to have diplomatic representation in Paris, and I can use the word " minister " with pleasure instead of the word "ambassador ". As I say, it makes no difference so far as this consideration I am advancing is concerned. Is the government intending to appoint a minister to Paris, and if not why not? On the matter of principle what is the distinction?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I answer?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government at the present time have a commissioner in Paris, France, whom my hon. friend has just extolled1 as being of great service to Canada. We have no corresponding official at Washington. The business we have at Washington is ten times the business transacted with France, and the variety and scope of it is very much greater. Lord Bryce stated that nine-tenths of the work performed at Washington by the British ambassador related to Canada. Sir Esme Howard, British ambassador at Washington, stated in the hearing of my hon. friend himself that he would welcome a minister from Canada and

Supply-External Affairs
that he believed a minister from Canada working in Washington with him would be of great benefit to us in the British Empire. When it comes to the matters to be dealt with, I have only to refer members of the House to the different matters we have discussed in the House and the questions put almost every week by hon. gentlemen opposite, relating for instance to the St. Lawrence waterways, the discussion with reference to the Chicago drainage canal, the lake of the Woods and water-powers down in the province of New Brunswick, and respecting smuggling along the Canadian frontier. These matters are increasing day by day, month after month and year after year, and the government has been feeling increasingly the need of having a minister at Washington with whom communication may be had frequently, and with the utmost freedom of exchange between the departments at Washington and the government here. In that connection I have said nothing about the important matters of trade. Hon. members opposite may feel that they do not want to trade with the United States or have anything to with them, but we take the view that it is impossible to live upon this continent and not have relations with our neighbours to the south, if we expect them to buy from us and if we are to sell to them. We think it is a necessity, and we think probably we have delayed a little long in having the kind of representation we should have at Washington.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am going to
try and keep away from any talk and will endeavour to look at this matter as a matter of plain, simple business, and I am going to overlook what my hon. friend says about trading with the United States; it does not make any difference to me, one way or the other what he says upon that score. I am trying to see if I can get something like honest dispassionate consideration of this matter with my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, and I am not having much luck. He says in connection with France that we have the commissioner, Mr. Roy. That is perfectly true. I would not for one minute object to my hon. friend selecting Mr. Mahoney or whoever is down there, or if he does not think he is the right man, to put a man in there, with the same powers as Mr. Roy. It is working out very well. I again say his work in Paris is excellent. My hon. friend will find no better work can be done, although the expense will be greater if he has a minister. But I do not think my hon. friend is really touching the larger side of 245i
the question. Does he really honestly think that if Canada goes into the separate business of diplomacy that Canada can stop with the United States? That is the question I put to him.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What does my hon. friend mean by the separate business of diplomacy?


Henry Lumley Drayton: What I mean
by separate business of diplomacy is quite plain. As matters stand at present the British Empire is, in diplomatic matters a united front. It is all done through the British diplomatic office. If we appoint a minister to do our work entirely for us, we are doing direct diplomatic work and we are entering the field of direct diplomacy.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon
friend's view is that Canada should not have any representatives abroad to attend to any of this country's business, and that everything should be done through some official of the Colonial Office.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have not said that for one minute. I do not mean that. I am despairing of trying to get my hon. friend round to an honest basis. I have not said that and he knows it. I said we could have our representatives without any trouble. We have Mr. Roy doing excellent work without any trouble, and my hon. friend turns round and says that I say we cannot 'have anybody else. It is so extremely illogical that it would ibe a grand thing if we could turn that page over and start again.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does my hon. friend take exception to treaties negotiated between members of the government here and the representatives of other countries?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I asked a question and my hon. friend goes back to another question.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I cannot
fathom it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend
is having difficulties about it. Perhaps some other member of the government can fathom it. If my right hon. friend desires to give it up, all right, I do not desire to trouble him. Now I am going to ask some other member of the government if we can very well appoint a minister to Washington and not appoint ministers to other countries. It is a plain, simple question. If we started out doing it could we continue to do it for a long time?
Supply-External Affairs


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I suppose some day we will have a minister in every capital of the world. I shall be very much amazed if iCanada does not some day exceed in both extent and numbers of population any other portion of the British Empire.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My right hon.
friend's idea- is that this is a starting programme, winding up with a minister in every capital of the world, some day. I would suggest that before that perhaps it would be just as well to wait until you are a little better off. My hon. friend may think that any plea of economy is nonsense.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon.
friend's view is that we should have some other country pay our bill.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have not heard before any very great activity or desire on the part of my hon. friend to pay bills of the Mother Country.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I take exception to what my hon. friend is saying. We have been raising taxation to pay bills with respect to the war, every dollar o,f which was money borrowed by the late government, and not a cent of which was ipaid by taxation during the war.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have not heard of any great anxiety on the part of my right hon. friend to relieve the Mother Country in connection with any fiscal dbligaition. He ooun tens by saying that we are now paying for the cost of the war. We are paying. Perhaps, if imy right hon. friend had been here, there would have been no war. Perhaps he would have conducted it from some other place. I dio not know, but the war certainly took place.


The CHAIRMAN:: The hon. gentleman
iis wandering from the subject matter of his debate.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not object to being called to order, but I object to being jailed to order when I fallow the Prime Minster in connection with a statement which he made. I did not invite it. I will drop the question of the war and save you, Mr. Chairman, the trouble of ruling on a matter which was brought up by the Prime Minister. We have in connection with our present association with the Mother Country two distinct ties. We have, on the one hand, the appeal to the Privy Council and, on the other, a common diplomatic representation. I know some hon. members think we should get rid of the appeal to the Privy Council and other

hon. members think we should geit rid of our common diplomatic representation. We are now considering the question of commencing to get rid of -our common diplomatic representation. We are also doing that at a time when, unfortunately, we have whispers and more than whispers as to what the final outcome of Canada is to be, whether she is to remain a part of the British Empire or to be annexed to the United States.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Some hon. gentlemen laugh. I am telling them that they will hear this being discussed. It is unfortunate; it .is improper in the last degree, but it is being discussed. We have, besides that, ties of history and blood. But the real ties that we ,ean get rid of are the ties of united diplomatic front and, as I say, our appeal to the Privy Council. I deprecate this idea of heat about this question. There ought not to be any heat aboftt it, and I have done my best to keep away from any heat. I put this question to my right hion. friend: Is this a good time to raise this issue?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My loyalty is not so thin that I could not trust the representation of Canada in any part of the world.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend may think that is a first rate answer, but I do net, and I do not know whether he means that reference to loyalty as a jibe. I do not know. I have not said a word about his loyalty.
Mr.MACKENZIE KING: I am not talking about my hon. friend's loyalty. I am talking about his remarks as to the tendency toward separation of these questions of representation.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have not said a word about my right hon. friend's loyalty, but as we stand at present, we have at least one front. I am not saying that we cannot and should not have any amount of rows, but they should be family rows. We shall have them in any amount. We are not bound by the representation of British diplomacy in any way. Parliament itself is the sole authority which binds.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does my hon
friend, in speaking about one front, think a mistake was made when Canada was represented at Versailles and at Washington by separate representation in the treaties that were made with those countries? That was diplomacy too. .

Supply-External Affairs


Henry Lumley Drayton: That was a
special matter and a special occasion, and it is not anything which takes Canada out of the empire as a whole in the slightest. It is not any separate formal organisation. It is not any cutting of old ties.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does my hon. friend think it a mistake that Canada should be represented at the League of Nations?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Not the slightest mistake, but she is represented there in connection with the League of Nations. I want to give my right hon. friend the credit of sincerity. My right hon. friend may think this is all nonsense. I am not saying that he does not think it is all nonsense, but I very honestly think it is not nonsense, and that Canada, as part of the empire and working behind a common diplomatic front, has far more power and can use an infinitely greater power for good than she will ever have in any other way. I honestly think it is a great mistake to depart from that principle.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I hear cries of
''carried." I suppose, in fact, I know this will be carried. I have tried to make a quiet statement in connection with this matter and I am concerned about it. I think this is a grave error. Wrong motives will be ascribed to this action, and those motives, however wrongly ascribed they may be, will have an unfortunate effect. This is no time, with the. way things are mixed up at present, to do' anything which, in the heart of the enemy- and he is there-means a weakening of the ties that bind the British commonwealth together.
I honestly believe that to-day it is the greatest force for peace in the world. Never mind what my right hon. friend may think, this step carried into action amounts to nothing except that we may get a little more immediate service spending a little money for it. I am not saying that he does not honestly think that, but he is mistaken in thinking it. In my sincere judgment, he is going to weaken the position of the commonwealth as a whole.
I do not want to delay this matter at all, but I would like the government at least to think it over. If they desire to put it through, that is their business, not mine.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I confess that I have been utterly unable to follow the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) in his argument, if it deserves to be placed in the status of an argument. This question was settled six years ago, when Sir Robert Borden, in 1919, with the full concurrence of the British
government and after the matter had been taken up with the Washington government, arranged that Canada could be represented at Washington by a representative having practically the status of an ambassador. The favourable judgment of the country on that proceeding has, I think, been secured as far as there has been any expression of public opinion anywhere, except perhaps in some of thos ultra loyal districts where it is imagined that our loyalty is in danger if we even look to the United States or think of trading there. I say it has been recognized throughout Canada, and the only criticism I have to offer is a word of censure on the government that an ambassador has not long before this been appointed to Washington. I cannot conceive that our doing so is going to wreck the British Empire. But if such action on our part did wreck the British Empire, then there is mighty little holding it together to-day.
Why do we need a man of the most practical turn of mind at Washington? Not one who is necessarily trained in all the ins and outs of diplomacy, but a man with a knowledge of Canada and of the United States? Because Canada in all her relations with the outside world has far more to do with the United States than with all the other countries combined. I do not wish to call in question what the British ambassadors at Washington in the past may have done in representing Canada's interests. I think probably criticism, might be offered of some of them, but I submit that Canada has to-day reached the point in her development as a nation when she can claim the right and, as I have already said has secured the right to be represented at Washington. In the innumerable matters that come up of Canada's participation in world' affairs, I repeat, we have more to do with the United States than with all other countries combined. And it is natural that such should be the case.
Now, I do not agree with the views held by my hon. friend from West York (Sir Henry Drayton) that it is a bad thing for Canada to have good relations with the United States. I can conceive of nothing that is better for Canada than to have the most friendly relations with the United States.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Why does my hon. friend say that? I never said anything like that.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It is the only inference that can be drawn from my hon. friend's remarks.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is nonsense; my hon. friend knows it too.
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Thomas Alexander Crerar: We need to be on the most friendly relations with the United States. More than half of our trade is done with that country. Furthermore, it is recognized not only by Canadian statesmen but by all the greatest statesmen in the Empire that Canada can play an important part in the maintenance of the best relations between the United States and the other parts of the commonwealth. If we can contribute to that, let us send our man to Washington. As I have said, the only criticism I have to offer is that the government should have done this years ago and not waited until now.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Mr. Chairman, my hon. friend's argument is based upon- I cannot exactly give in parliamentary language what it is based upon. He said I took the position that we were not to be friendly with the United States.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, no, I did not say that.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend now says he did not say so. Well, Hansard is there. That is the position he took. I never said any such thing. He knows it. I wonder why we cannot sometimes discuss things in this House on something like a decent basis.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Mr. Chairman, I am not going to submit to that sort of talk from my hon. friend from West York, or from any other member. I leave it to the judgment of the House to say whether I am decent in debate or not.


George Newcombe Gordon: The hon. member for West York can not use that expression.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Then I cannot refer to indecencies, so I withdraw the expression. I did not utter one word to justify the remark that I said anything unfriendly to the United States. I make that assertion positively and within my rights. I did not say that we should not have business relations with the United States. I said that we should do there just as we are doing in France, where we are doing it very well. Of course, for the purposes of twisting this case these statements can be made. But I still contend I did not say that we were not to do business with the United States. What I did submit was that we could be well looked after if we had a man like Mr. Roy there. Of course we do business with the United States, and we are going to continue it, too. We have done business with the United States without a representative-in some instances we have done

business which has not paid us, in some instances we have done business which has paid us, and we will continue our business relations. There is no reason in the world why we should not have a proper business representative in the United States, but where we want him is where business is to be got, not in Washington; we need him in New York, or possibly Chicago-a good, sound Canadian selling agent. We need him in the United States, and we need him badly.
But that has nothing to do with the question of diplomatic representation one way or the other. My hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Crerar) says he cannot understand1 my argument. Well, I am not going to try to make him understand it, but I am going to repeat it. There is no reason why we should not have a proper business representation in the United States. Is that clear? On the other hand, just simply because we ought to have proper business representation there, does not say for one minute that it is necessary for us to go into direct diplomatic representation at Washington. I wonder if that is plain? I may be all wrong in the result, but I want to be so clear that there is going to be no further mistake as to what I say. Well, what are we to gain by this change? What are we to gain by spending more money? What are we to honestly gain to-day by saying, "Here is another tie we are breaking.'' That is what we are doing. Hon. gentlemen may say that the ties are so strong that nothing can break them. God grant it be so. But there arc people talking in Canada to-day that do not think so, and some of them are very strong supporters of this government. If our hearts really are in favour of our staying where we are to-day, in the best collection of self-governing peoples that this old world has as yet produced, why do we want this new toy? We can look after our business; there is no difficulty about that at all. But is it really a good thing that this country here or that country there shall have the opportunity of asking for ambassadorial representation at Washington-Australia here, Ireland there, New Zealand there-because do not think we are going to be the only nation with ambassadors and ministers plenipotentiary? Is it not really better that the family should stay together and have their rows-as they will have them-behind closed doors, and do the best they can in the common interest?


James Shaver Woodsworth: It would seem as if we might very well have our representative

Questions
at Washington, call him what you will-ambassador or minister. I quite agree with the Prime Minister that whoever is sent there ought to be placed in a position to carry on the affairs of the country; his salary and expenses ought to be paid. But there is no real reason why we should go into this thing on the scale that is proposed. I cannot understand why we should seek to emulate the practices of the Old Land and have our minister or ambassador preserve a certain state that is not in harmony with the democratic ideals which are supposed to prevail on this continent. I cannot see why we need a huge sum like $60,000 to maintain the office there. There may be diplomatic negotiations to carry on as well as business affairs to transact, but it should be possible to do these in a businesslike way without attaching to them social functions, and so on, which are not in accordance with the ideals of a great many of us and decidedly not in accordance with the principle of economy.


John Evans: Much as I would like to advocate economy at this time, I think this would be money .well spent. 'Canada has suffered a good deal during the last fifteen years because of a lack of representation at Washington. We need a man of the right kind, a man of broad outlook who understands the needs of the two countries. I do not believe at all that we should have "no truck or trade with the Yankees."


Arthur Meighen: Who does? Where did
the hon. gentleman get that hallucination? I would like to disabuse his virgin mind of it, if I could. Nobody ever suggested that outside of bedlam.


John Evans: I believe our interests could
be very substantially promoted if we had the right kind of man at Washington. I do not see why there need be any delicate feeling at all as regards the Motherland or any other part of the British Empire with respect to our hav-
Atlantio region	
Central Region	
Western Region	
Grand Trunk western lines. Canadian National System.
ing a representative in the capital of a country with which we have more to do than any other. You may call him what you please- ambassador, minister plenipotentiary, or simply representative. I would like to see one appointed this year, and I am sure very much good would result from such an appointment.


George Newcombe Gordon: Shall the item carry?


Henry Lumley Drayton: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to, on division.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King, the House adjourned at 12.35 a.m. (Wednesday).
Thursday, June 4, 1925.