1925-02-20

REPORTS AND PAPERS

[Stage Direction]
Minutes of the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons for the year 1924, pursuant to rule 9.-Mr. Speaker.
Copy of a convention between his Britannic Majesty, in respect of the Dominion of Canada and the United States for the extradition of offenders against the laws for the suppression of traffic in narcotics, signed at Washington, the 8th day of January, 1925.-Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King.

Ocean Shipping Rates
Copy of regulations made under the authority of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment Act, chapter 29, section 1, second session of 1919.-Hon. Mr. Beland.

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That four hundred copies in the English language and two hundred copies in the French language of a convention between Canada and the United States for the extradition of offenders against the laws for the suppression of traffic in narcotic drugs, signed at Washington on the 8th day of January, 1925, be printed forthwith, and that rule 74 in relation thereto be suspended.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING
(Prime Minister) moved:
That the name of Mr. Bancroft be substituted for that of Mr. Bird on the select standing committee on Railways, Canals and Telegraph Lines.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 7, to amend the Post Office Act.
He said: The object of this amendment is to provide for a uniform law, as in the United States, England and Australia, requiring swom semi-annual statements from all newspapers, magazines, trade journals and other periodicals which contain articles designed to influence public opinion, giving the names and addresses of editors, owners and stockholders. There is a proviso that this act shall not apply to religious, fraternal, temperance, scientific, or such other publications. The names of small stockholders are not required to be given. A copy of these sworn statements shall be published in such newspapers or other publications after they have been filed as required by the act. Any such publication which fails to comply with these provisions shall be denied admission to the mails. Paid editorials and other reading matter for which money is paid shall be plainly marked "Advertisement", as they properly should be. Statements under the act are to be made in duplicate and delivered to the Postmaster General, who shall make regulations for the carrying out of the provisions of the act. This legislation is introduced solely in the public interest and in the best interests of a free press and of the liberty of the press in a liberty-loving country. If the press is to serve the public more ade-28
quately in the future this legislation is not only a social but an economic necessity.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways) moved:
That rule 10 of the House of Commons relating to the appointment of the select standing committee of the House be amended by adding to the select standing committees of the House for the present session a select standing committee on Railways and Shipping, owned, operated and controlled by the government, to which will be referred the estimates of the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Merchant Marine for the present session for consideration and for report to the House provided, however, that nothing in this resolution shall be construed to curtail in any way the full right of discussion in committee of Supply, and that the said committee consist of Messrs. Cannon, Drummond, Drayton, Euler, Graham, Harris, Jelliff, Jones, Kvte, Mackinnon, Milne, Rinfret, Robichaud, Stewart (Humboldt) and Stork.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (for the Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved that on Tuesday next the House go into committee to consider a certain proposed resolution to approve of the agreement between the government and Sir William Pedersen.
Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):: I wish to ask the government if they will table the correspondence in connection with this matter prior to the consideration of it?


Mr. GRAHAM:: Well-


Henry Herbert Stevens: If you will permit me to complete my remarks. There must be considerable correspondence, because in the report of Mr. Preston he states that he carried on his investigation largely by correspondence. That is, he submitted a sort of questionnaire -it was not a questionnaire but a letter of that nature to a large number of companies; but he does not give the replies in his report. There is that correspondence and such other correspondence as may be in the possession of the government.


George Perry Graham: There is no objection to tabling any correspondence that is not confidential. We will have the matter looked into and give a reply at the next sitting of the House.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Surely the minister will not suggest that correspondence between Mr. REVISED EDITION
Chicago Drainage Canal

Preston and the steamship companies should be confidential?


George Perry Graham: I am not making any
suggestion. Probably there is none, but there may be correspondence between some other companies, say, and Mr. Preston that the company would wish to be confidential. However, I do not know that that is the case.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. L. J. LADNER (Vancouver South):: Yesterday I asked the question and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) being here to-day perhaps I can put it again:	Has the
government received, and will they file, a report by Lewis Duncan, a commissioner under the Combines Act who investigated charges affecting certain companies alleged to be in a fruit combine in western Canada?


Hon. JAMES MURDOCK (Minister of Labour) :: A report of the nature suggested .by the hon. gentleman will be laid on the table of the House within a few days.



CHICAGO DRAINAGE CANAL

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto):: I will make two statements of fact and on them ask a question regarding the diversion of water in connection with the Chicago drainage canal. In the first place, is the government aware that to-day at Washington Hon. Mr. Weeks, Secretary of War, is hearing an application to increase the 4,000 cubic feet allowance allowed by treaty to 8,500 cubic feet, and for a period of years? In the second place, several deputations, including private people and others are appearing before a committee of congress of a foreign power, and a foreign secretary, purporting to represent Canada in regard to a British treaty. They are taking this course over the heads of the Canadian government, and the British government, and the British Ambassador at Washington, instead of making representations through the usual channel of the Canadian and British government and the British Ambassador. I should like to ask how it is that the parties referred to are allowed to represent Canada.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not wish to interrupt my hon. friend but I submit that he is not putting a question, he is making a speech.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I would remind the hon. gentleman that questions on the orders of the

day must be very short and concise. The hon. member should put his question and not argue the matter.


Thomas Langton Church: I should like to ask the Prime Minister: Is the government of Canada represented at Washington to-day?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The answer is, yes.


Thomas Langton Church: I should like to ask if the course which I have indicated is the proper one to pursue? Why are representations not made to the British Ambassador instead of through a committee of congress?


Arthur Meighen: In regard to the question of the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Church) I understood the Prime Minister to say we were represented at Washington in the matter. Will the Prime Minister say who the representative is and before what body he is acting?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The representative is Mr. Stewart, of the Department of Marine and Fisheries.


Arthur Meighen: Before whom?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: He is appearing at the hearing. Fie is not taking any part at the present time other than observing the proceedings, and keeping the government informed.


Arthur Meighen: May I ask, is the government doing anything?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, the government has kept very careful watch of the entire proceedings, and has repeatedly placed itself before the United States government, through the British Ambassador, the Canadian viewpoint in the matter.



EVACUATION OF COLOGNE AREA

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Centre Winnipeg) :: I should like to ask, has the government protested against the refusal of the Allied governments to evacuate the Cologne area, and does the government approve of the act of the Allied governments?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not aware of any protest having been made.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I did not get a reply to the second part of my question: Does the government approve of the action of the Allied governments in regard to the delay in the evacuation of the Cologne area?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I may say to my hon. friend that the government has not

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really considered the matter to which he refers.



GRAIN INQUIRY COMMISSION

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. O. R. GOULD (Assiniboia):: I should like to repeat my question of yesterday. Perhaps the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) can give a definite assurance to-day that the evidence presented to the Royal Grain Inquiry Commission will be laid upon the table.


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: I shall direct the question of the hon. member to the attention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce as soon as he returns; he is not in his seat to-day.



KAMLOOPS-ICELOWNA BRANCH

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: I should like to ask the Minister of Railways whether the negotiations carried on between the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Pacific regarding the Kamloops-Kelowna branch have been completed, and if so with what result?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals): I am not prepared to say with what result, but there have been certain conferences, and I will give a definite answer in a day or two when I get the information from the management of the Canadian National Railways.



DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
The House in committee of Supply, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Agriculture-Fruit, including grant of $8,000 to the Canadian Horticultural Council, $200,000.
Mr. SPENCE:: I do not want to hold up
the estimates unnecessarily, but here is a large item without any definite statement or detail as to what the money is to be used for. I also object to the increase of $18,000. I do not see why there should be any increase in this estimate. There is also an item of $S,000 for the Canadian Llorticultural Council. What are the functions of that council? What good do they do to the fruit industry or to the country?


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):: The first question is with regard to the increase. I may say that last year in a small way we took over a new service, which consisted of grading apples in the Okanagan valley, and issuing a certificate therefor. That was done on the request of 23i
the apple growers of British Columia, they offering to pay for the service. This service was only inaugurated with the Okanagan people to give us sufficient information, in order to show that a fee of $5 for inspecting a car and issuing the certificate would cover the cost of service. This $18,000 additional is for the purpose of extending the service to all the apple growers of Canada, in return for which we will charge a fee of $5, and the money will be recouped to the treasury. It was found that the old method of grading by the barrel was not as satisfactory nor as good for the industry as the government certificate would be.
With respect to the second question I may say the Horticultural Council was organized in Canada in 1922 and I think I could not do better than just read the report of the council to the House. The report says:
To advance all matters tending towards the improvement of the horticultural and allied industries in Canada, including plant origination and registration, production, grading, packing, transportation, storage and marketing;
(a)	Bj' bringing about a closer co-operation between those engaged in the horticultural and allied industries in Canada and a fuller understanding of their problems;
(b)	By initiating, fostering and assisting in obtaining such legislation and regulations as will be beneficial to the horticultui'al and allied industries;
Then as to the vegetable industry the report says:
(c)	By emphasizing through inter-provincial co-operation the importance of the horticultural and allied industries and to obtain for them the position they deserve as an important and progressive branch of agriculture;
And it goes on with a number of subdivisions; I do not think I need read the whole of them. The amount of grant each year was: In 1922 $5,000; 1923, SS.OOO; and so on. The reason the addition was made to the grant was the new work they took up in connection with the registration of new plants and new shrubs. That has been established for the first time in Canada, and I think for the first time on this continent: that is, issuing registration certificates for new breeds of plants and fruits, so that the originator of a new apple like the McIntosh or any other new variety of fruit could get a registration or pedigree, just as they obtain a pedigree for an animal. The report continues:
What the council has (a) undertaking is:
3. To bring about a closer co-operation between those engaged in the horticultural and allied industries in Canada and a greater understanding of their problems;
2.	The establishment of a plant registration bureau.
3.	The establishment of trial gardens.
4.	The establishment of demonstration gardens.
5.	The encouragement of horticultural research and production by means of medals, awards and diplomas.
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There are a large number of others. This vote was included in the miscellaneous vote in former years, but this year it is attached to this particular branch.


Mr. CALDWELL:: Do we understand that the fees for grading apples will make this industry carry its own expense of grading?


William Richard Motherwell: No, just the new
grading. We have never officially graded apples or potatoes for shipment. It has always been done by the owner, and while that practice, which was introduced with the introduction of the Fruit Marks Act something like twenty years ago, has given great service, it is not altogether satisfactory. Consequently a species of government inspection on the car at the point of shipment was provided, to supervise the grading done by the owners, by opening the barrels and packages, to ascertain if they were graded correctly. If they are graded properly we issue a certificate to that effect. The issuing of that certificate by an impartial inspector gives additional value to the grades. The fee for that inspection is $5 a car.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Then this $18,000 is to make the initial payment for this service?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: And this will be returned in fees?	*


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, it will be
returned in the revenues of the country.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: We understand this is only an advance to carry on the work and it will be returned in grading fees?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. I may inform the committee that it cost us last year $11,000 to give the service in the Okanagan valley and the fee of $5 a car would amount to about $12,680. It was done in a place where it could be done more cheaply before, and it will cost more now.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: If the results are the
same next year your revenue will be double the outlay, and you will be able to reduce the cost per car.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, it may work out that way. With reference to charging the fee, it is a question whether we should not do the same thing for a large number of inspectional services. With reference to the inspection of wheat by the grain inspectors at Winnipeg, it has always been the custom to charge in the old days 60 cents a car for small cars and 90 cents a car at the present time. We have not, except on some occasions like

this carried on the practice of charging for inspection or grading fees with regard to other farm products. We have the grading now of cheese and butter, and we have been discussing the wisdom of putting on a charge for grading butter and cheese, so much per box, two or three or four cents, and have this cover the cost of the service. We have discussed the wisdom of doing the same thing with regard to the grading of hogs. If the committee thinks that the time has arrived when these services are so well recognized, so valued and appreciated that we could very well charge a fee in the same way as we do for the inspection of wheat, I should be glad to hear what hon. members have to say regarding the matter.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: As regards the inspection of fruits and vegetables, is it proposed to have an inspector supervise the grading?


William Richard Motherwell: No. The grading will be done exactly as before. A number of the receptacles will be opened in order that the inspector may find out whether the contents are up to grade and in good condition or not.


Mr. ROBINSON:: Will this iriake a complete change in the method of inspecting
apples?


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Clifford William Robinson: To what extent will there be a change?


William Richard Motherwell: It will be supplemental to the present grading. The grading will be exactly the same. Whether it is a carload at the port or point of shipment, we send a man in to inspect the fruit and find out its condition and whether it is graded properly. It will be an additional precaution.


Mr. LOVETT:: Will this be done by the same inspector?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Clifford William Robinson: The inspector will issue
a certificate?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, a government certificate.


Mr. MORRISON:: Is government inspection of these products to be made compulsory for goods consumed in Canada as well as goods for export?


William Richard Motherwell: This is entirely
optional. A request was made by the apple growers of-British Columbia. They felt that they could well afford to pay five dollars a car to get a government inspector's certificate,

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so they made the proposal and offered to pay that amount of money. We thought we would try out this inspection in a small way last year. The proposal is to extend the service to any part of Canada where the people of that locality wish it to be applied. It will not be compulsory. Any part of Canada that wishes to get the old system of grading will be at liberty to do so.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Did this request come from the shippers or the growers?


William Richard Motherwell: From both.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Does the inspection apply to potatoes as well as fruit?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, I understand the same request has been made with regard to the shipment of potatoes.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: From the growers?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: What potato growers?


William Richard Motherwell: In British Columbia.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: How many additional inspectors does the minister expect this will mean?


William Richard Motherwell: That will depend upon how many people take advantage of the service. It will probably mean from ten to fifteen inspectors. We had eleven last year. If the Niagara peninsula and the Annapolis valley both request a similar service, probably fifteen additional inspectors will be required.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: That will be for the fruit. Supposing this service is extended to vegetables, for instance potatoes?


William Richard Motherwell: That will take still more. The Ashcroft potato growers and others in British Columbia made the same request and we acceded to it on the same terms.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: The minister has men who look after seed, feed and fertilizer control, and a great deal of that work comes at a different season of the year from the grading of fruit and vegetables. Would it not be possible to use the same staff on the two different branches of work instead of adding to the departmental staff for this purpose? It has been suggested to me that especially the seed inspection is a seasonal occupation that may occupy only a short part of the winter season, and owing to the fact that there is no continuous occupation for these men, the same men do not come back next year and a new crop of men is taken on. My
opinion is that if the same men could be employed in the other branches of inspection work the minister would be able to retain those men through the season, have the advantage of any experience they had in past years and ensure much better results than would be possible with a new force of men taken on each year.


William Richard Motherwell: That request on
the face of it is reasonable enough. As regards the Seed branch, that will come before the committee in a little while. A Sufficient number of new activities have been taken on by the Seed branch during recent years to occupy the whole of their time. The Feeding Stuffs Act has necessitated more time and men; but even since then, the act with respect to the grading of hay was taken over recently from the Department of Trade and Commerce and the act with respect to the inspection of hides and fertilizers has been taken over as well. All these additional services have been taken on by the Seed branch and -they keep the time of the staff entirely occupied. The work of the great majority of the fruit inspectors, except possibly the port inspectors, is of a seasonal nature, four or five months.


David Spence: Does the shipper or the buyer pay the charge of five dollars for the inspection of a carload of apples or other fruit?


William Richard Motherwell: Whoever asks for
the service pays for it.


David Spence: The minister says that the inspector issues a certificate. Provided that the inspector issues a certificate that the fruit is in first class condition and deterioration sets in from any cause after a few weeks have elapsed in transportation, will the buyer be forced to accept the oar on that certificate? I presume that is the intention.


William Richard Motherwell: We are giving the same service, no matter who asks for it. If there is any objection on the part of the buyer to the grading after the certificate is issued, we will give a re-inspection.


David Spence: Where?


William Richard Motherwell: At the point of
delivery.


David Spence: Then it is optional whether a car is inspected or not.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


David Spence: I think the minister should go further and inspect every carload before it leaves the shipping point.
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Clifford William Robinson: Was the total number
of inspectors in Nova Scotia reduced last season, and if so by how many, and why?


William Richard Motherwell: WTe thought that
by making them work a little harder, cover a little bit more ground, maybe go on duty a week or two earlier and maybe stay on a week longer, a smaller number of the best men would be able to cover the work. As these activities increase in volume and number, the number of our staff is necessarily increased, and in our desire to keep that down to the minimum consistent with service, we cut some of them out. The taking on of this additional service will, of course, necessitate additional inspectors, but this expense will be paid out of the revenue that we derive from the charge of five dollars a car.


Mr. BOYS:: If a car of apples is ordered
and inspected and a certificate is given, has that certificate any binding effect so far as the purchaser is concerned in the event of the consignment proving on delivery to be not in accordance with the specification?


William Richard Motherwell: The system is merely a means of facilitating business between buyer and seller. The same question came up the other day in connection with the grading of dairy products and it has also arisen in the case of the grading of grain. I do not know of any system of inspection under which the government holds itself responsible for the consequences of its grading certificates.
Mr. BOY'S:	The minister misunderstands
me; I do not suggest that the government would be responsible. If the certificate had a binding effect as between the two parties to the contract I could appreciate the fact that it would be far-reaching and useful. But so far as I know, it has no legal effect; it does not preclude the purchaser from rejecting the stock, whatever it may be. If, however, there is such a provision I should like to know where to find it.


William Richard Motherwell: Invariably, where
there is a system of grading provided by law, the certificate is accepted by buyer and seller, but I am not sufficiently versed in the law to know whether such a certificate would hold in court. That, however, is the practice. If, for instance, a car of potatoes is graded at point of shipment in the Maritime provinces, the purchaser being in Montreal, let us say, the consignment might be refused on the ground that the grading was too high. An inspector of the department would then be called in and would re-inspect the shipment, and the decision is usually accepted by the

buyer in such transactions. I do not know, however, what force the certificate would have in law, although in my experience the arrangement has always been satisfactory to both buyer and seller. Indeed, both .parties have always seemed to be so satisfied that new services of this kind are constantly being asked for. That is the reason for the present service. Last year, I might mention in illustration, several carloads of turkeys arrived from western Canada for Toronto and Montreal, the draft being attached to the bill of lading in the usual way. The buyers refused to take delivery on the ground that the shipment was not properly graded; the poultry, it appeared, was not dressed. There was no system of grading for dressed poultry; it was merely a matter of sending representatives to the siding to superintend the transportation of the consignment. It was cold weather, the birds got frozen, and their value was reduced. Finally by negotiation and adjustment an agreement was arrived at, but owing to the fact that there was no federal grading system some difficulty was experienced. The public are always running up against such difficulties and that is why they are asking for grading in order to facilitate business and reduce friction to the minimum.


William Alves Boys: If the certificate were made
binding by statute it would prevent a great deal of litigation which now goes on. If inspection were asked for by vendor and purchaser at point of shipment, the goods being sold f.o.b., and if the certificate being once given were in law binding on the parties, it would be of great service to the people. Without some such provision, however, it seems to me that very little good results; at the very most I suppose you provide a witness who may be called at the trial of the dispute and who, of course, by virtue of his office, would be an independent witness whose word would have weight with the judge. Beyond that I do not see what good results will accrue from the system without the element of binding force.


William Richard Motherwell: In my opinion, if
the purchaser of a carload of vegetables or of apples refused to accept the inspector's certificate, he would find that the case would go against him if he attempted to defend his action in a court of law.


William Alves Boys: Supposing that in the transportation of a carload of potatoes-the consignment got frozen: surely you do not suggest that the purchaser would be bound to accept that consignment, notwithstanding that a certificate might have been given?

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William Richard Motherwell: I dc* not suggest
that. If the consignment was found to be unsatisfactory at point of delivery that information would be forwarded to the proper department and a re-inspection would ensue; and if the potatoes were frozen a report would be made accordingly and non-acceptance would be justified.


William Alves Boys: That, then, involves the question as to whether the contract is inspection on delivery, or f.o.b. The whole feature lies in that.


William Richard Motherwell: Re-inspection will
be available to anyone who demands it, and our experience is that the system has always worked satisfactorily.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Then your first certificate would not be of any effect. The question has been asked as to who pays for the inspection. Well, I think that is easily answered. The producer will pay for it eventually, because if there are two or three charges for inspection added to a cargo of goods, from the time it leaves the producer to the time it reaches the consumer, it is clear that a man will purchase cheaply enough to meet those charges. As a matter of fact, the purchaser does so, and that is right. My fear is that if you have two inspections on every carload, each of the parties will have to pay a five-dollar fee for the inspection and this will cut down the proceeds to the producer, which are already below cost of production, at any rate in the case of potatoes.


David Spence: What about the consumer?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: The price to the consumer is controlled by competition from other sources. If our potatoes are made to cost, through inspection, more than we can buy potatoes for from the United States, the minister can see what a disadvantage the local producer would be under. And I presume that the imports from the United States would' not be subject to the inspection. On that point it would be interesting to have some information.


William Richard Motherwell: Whoever asks for inspection gets it.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Would potatoes coming from the United States be subject to inspection?


William Richard Motherwell: Those coming in would be subject to grading, but in the case of our own product the system is purely optional; only those who ask for the service receive it.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: I am aware that the number of inspectors in the Maritime provinces has been reduced during the past year. Was the same proportion of reduction made in Ontario and British Columbia last year as in the Maritime provinces?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. We endeavour to divide the inspectors among the constituencies in the provinces on the basis of the number of barrels of apples exported. I can assure the hon. member that it is no easy matter to get down to mathematical exactitude, having regard to all the interests concerned. But the reduction was made uniformly.


Mr. MARTELL:: For what reason was the inspectorial staff reduced and on whose advice was this reduction made? The province of Nova Scotia is a very important applegrowing centre, and this is becoming one of its great industries. The minister is proposing a system of certification and he wants to charge the producer of apples $5 on every car sent out. This will raise a riot among the fruit growers of the country. The inspection either is good or is no good, and it may be made at point of delivery or at the point where the apples are put on the train for transhipment. Nobody knows what is going to happen to these apples in transit; but if a man comes along with a government certificate that the apples were all right when shipped, then the vendee, who probably is defending an action on account of the goods not being in accordance with the guarantee, is non-suited. The sooner the minister gets away from endeavouring to put too many restrictions upon the fruit growers of this country, and the sooner he sees that adequate protection is given to our fruit growers the better it will be for all concerned.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I do not mean "adequate protection" in the sense understood by my right hon. friend; I mean adequate protection to the man who puts up an honest pack. That is all I am asking. The minister brings down legislation regarding which, I venture, to say he has consulted nobody but his officials at Ottawa. He has not gone through the province of Nova Scotia, for instance, and ascertained the views of the fruit growing people there. With a lot of high paid officials here he endeavours to force through the House legislation which is detrimental to the fruit growing industry of Nova Scotia. The first thing he should do is to decrease the number of his high paid officials an Ottawa instead of cutting down the number of inspectors in Nova Scotia. Every one of those
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inspectors is a good man, I do not care who appointed him; each tries to do his duty. Last year he cut off an inspector in my constituency.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is the trouble.


Lewis Herbert Martell: No, it is not my trouble. He can cut out the whole bunch so far as I am concerned. All I want to see is our people properly protected. The department cut off two inspectors in my hon. friend's (Mr. Robinson's) constituency in the county of Kings, where more apples are raised than in all the rest of Nova Scotia. Two more inspectors were cut off in Digby and Annapolis. The minister is not going to get a thorough inspection by discharging such good men. So long as there are apples to be shipped let the department keep a sufficient staff on hand so that the packers will not have to wait for inspection. To-day shipments are held up for lack of inspection. The minister says now that he is going to penalize the packer. Well, the average packer has faith in his pack, and he knows very weli that any failure on his part to keep his pack up to standard means that in the final analysis he will simply penalize himself. But the minister wants to have a big staff of pack inspectors to issue certificates to the packers, with the result that the vendee has no rights whatever in a court of law. Everybody knows the minister is talking against reason.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I say that without
hesitation. Every lawyer knows what he is up against in such cases.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Lewis Herbert Martell: It is all very well for
my hon. friends over yonder to laugh; they never saw an apple grown; and I venture to say that the hon. minister never saw an apple grown where he came from. Why does he not take the same 4 p.m. course as his colleagues would take in similar circumstances, consult the men who are to be affected by his proposals? If he does not want to take his friends on this side of the House intc his confidence, men who come from the apple-growing districts of Nova Scotia, let him get in touch with the apple growers themselves, instead of attempting to put legislation upon the statute book which is going to retard the apple growing industry of Nova Scotia. Let the minister come down to Nova Scotia, and we will show him that we can raise apples. We want proper inspection, we are not ashamed of the quality of our apples; but on account of a few men who do not agree on

what constitutes proper packing, do not let the minister take the advice of his officials in Ottawa, who do not know anything about apples, and then turn around and try to put restrictions upon the apple growing industry, of Nova Scotia.


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: The hon. member
for Hants (Mr. Martell) has touched a very important matter in connection with this item. I observe there is an increase of $18,000 over the estimate for last year, and an increase of $55,000 over that for 1921-2. What proportion of this vote is for the payment of officials and their expenses?


William Richard Motherwell: Mr. Chairman, I
suppose we have to give this information to every newcomer, and I will try to furnish it again as briefly as possible. This service is entirely optional; no part of Canada, whether it be the Annapolis valley, the Niagara peninsula or any other fruit growing district need accept it. The service was asked for in the Okanagan valley, we gave it last year, and we have found it self-supporting. Now the proposal is to extend the service to any other part of the Dominion that asks for it. If the fruit growers of the Annapolis valley do not ask for it the service will not be forced upon them; but if they do ask for it we have to assume that they want it.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Who are the parties to ask for the service-two or three agitators?


William Richard Motherwell: The packer, the
buyer or whoever else chooses to ask.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Would the minister put all the expense of administration on any locality at the request of one or two packers?


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend has been upbraiding the officials at Ottawa for not knowing anything about apples; well, we do not pretend to be lawyers, but we do know that this service has worked out satisfactorily in the Okanagan valley, and we know that the people there want it continued. Obviously it would be unfair to give that service to one part of Canada only. Anticipating that other parts of the country will want the service, in spite of what my hon. frienld says, we have asked for this increase. If the money is not wanted it will not be expended. If the service is required by other orchardists throughout the Dominion we think it should be given them. Instead of being *upbraided for introducing this new principle, I think we should be congratulated on the fact that the service is self-sustaining I have come to the conclusion that a great

Supply-Agriculture
many other services that are now given free might very well be charged for just the same as this is. For instance, the grading of wheat is all paid for, and practically the entire cost of administration of the gram commissioners' offices at Winnipeg and Fort Wiliam is paid for out of the inspection fees.
Mr. SALE'S: There is a substantial profit besides.


William Richard Motherwell: That principle is
recognized there. The reason we have not adopted it in the smaller services is because we thought it not advisable to do so until, through education, those services bad become popular. The grading system is being popularized, and I do not think any hardship would follow if we charged a reasonable fee. We have adopted the principle in this case because a request came from the apple growers for the service, and we were in a position to say, "All right, we will give you the service if you pay for it."


Lewis Herbert Martell: Why give some people subsidies and take them away from others?


William Richard Motherwell: We are not taking away anything at all, with the exception of the inspectors my hon. friend spoke about in Hants, Digby and Annapolis and Kings. You cannot split a man in two and give two districts a man and a half each; we had to have an even number of men. We had to reduce the staff by one man and we did it as nearly as possible on a pro rata basis according to the export business done.


Arthur Meighen: The minister complained about having had to answer questions so often every time a member came in, but he has not yet answered the question asked by the hon. member (Mr. Sutherland). What the hon. member asked was this:	How much
of this entire fruit vote goes for the payment of officials?


William Richard Motherwell: While my deputy
is looking that up, I may say that that was not a complaint; I was rather apologizing to those of the committee who had been here from the beginning and who had to sit in torture listening to the same explanation, two or three times over. I do not object to giving the explanation, but it is not very entertaining to hear the same answer repeated several times.


Arthur Meighen: The minister has not
given it even yet.


William Richard Motherwell: I am giving it in
regard to the voluntary nature of this service.


Arthur Meighen: That is not what was
asked.


William Richard Motherwell: That is what the
hon. member (Mr. Martell) spoke about. I overlooked the last part of the question of the hon. member for South Oxford. I am informed that a large proportion of this vote, the work being educational and in-spectional in nature, goes to salaries and travelling expenses. That is inevitable.


Donald Sutherland: I must protest
against the practice which has been adopted by the minister of lecturing hon. membera when they ask for information in order that they may get an intelligent idea of what money is being voted for. On Tuesday night we had the same experience: questions were asked time and again and the minister endeavoured to make the committee believe they had been answered. On Tuesday night, after putting a question to the minister several times, I was informed by the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) that he had heard the Minister of Agriculture answer the question three times while he had been in the House seven minutes. Now, if the Minister of Railways will look up Hansard he will find that the question was not even answered once; and the same thing is being done here again to-day. Instead of bringing a statement before the committee which would indicate what the money is being used for the minister asks us to vote a lump sum to be used in any way he sees fit. Why not bring down a statement which would indicate to what various branches this money is to be devoted? The minister undertook to lecture us the other night and he is going to lecture us again; he is going to "torture" the committee, as he terms it, with long lectures that have no bearing upon the matter at issue. It would facilitate the work of the committee and shorten the discussion if a businesslike method was adopted; if a detailed statement was brought down showing what the money is to be used for. We are now informed that the bulk of this vote is to be used for certain purposes. The amount used for this purpose for the year ending March 31, 1924, was $147,477, so that a considerable portion of it was used for other purposes. With regard to the officials to whom the member for Hants (Mr. Martell) has been referring, I have had some experience of the minister's attitude with regard to inspectors in the county that I represent. Two inspectors received notice from the department that their resignations were required. Both were efficient inspectors. One of them complied with the request, and as a result he received a bonus and retiring
Supply-A griculture

allowance. The other said:	"No, I am not
going to send in a resignation. I think I have rendered good service, and if you want to dismiss me, you may." Well, he was dismissed, and he did not get any bonus. Is this the practice that the minister adopts in regard to the whole system, involving the payment of nearly $200,000 to an army of officials? We know his skill in evading the regulations of the Civil Service Commission with regard to the appointment of officials, but I did not think it was possible that two men working in the same locality, with practically the same qualifications and the same experience, could be accorded such discriminatory treatment. The minister will have to give something a little better than a lecture to the committee; he will have to give us some information if he wants to get his estimates through as easily as he imagines he will.


William Richard Motherwell: The first question that was raised when the committee opened proceedings was put by one of the members from Toronto and related to the increase over the estimate of last year. We started to discuss that and to show cause for the increase. We discussed the merits of it, the value of it, the effect of it. I must say to my hon. friend (Mr. Sutherland) that I did not hear his request for the amount that was to be paid out in salaries. My deputy informs me that he heard it, and I assume that the hon. member asked it, but I did not catch it. I thought we were on the question of this principle of charging for service, and that is what we were discussing in a general way. Now I have in my hand the exact information the hon. gentleman wants.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Let us have it.


William Richard Motherwell: That, I supposed, was the next step in connection with the information that would be handed out.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Richard Motherwell: What are my hon. friends laughing at? I cannot see where the fun is.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Will the minister explain to me-*


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member for South Oxford is now going on to a new phase of the question. There was no object in my withholding the information, and I have it here. I confess I am at a little disadvantage, but I usually hear what my hon. friend asks. The difficulty is that he not only asks questions but he makes pretty long speeches, and

it is not easy for me to catch all his questions or even to remember them if I did catch them. Now, here is the information.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Will the minister explain-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Pardon me; I am asking
the minister a question.


William Richard Motherwell: It will be understood, then, that we are still on the other
phase of it.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I am not going to be put off that way, because I represent the fruit growers in the county of Hants, the finest citizens of this country. I want to know from the minister why a person who grows fruit should pay for an inspection that he really wants, when the government is giving large subsidies to other people for services that the people do not want.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, they have
volunteered in this case, and why should the government refuse a voluntary fee of five dollars for a service rendered when we need the money so badly?


Lewis Herbert Martell: Use it to encourage the fruit growers.


William Richard Motherwell: I think the principle of taking a fee for a service rendered is a sound one. It is not a new principle, and it is something which I think we might carry out in a larger way.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Mr. Chairman-


Donald Sutherland: Mr. Chairman-


William Richard Motherwell: When we have
finished with this phase of it I shall be delighted to give the information

but one at a time is good fishing.


Donald Sutherland: I am merely pointing out certain matters in order to enable the minister to reply with absolute clearness, because I am afraid he will wander away from the question-


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Donald Sutherland: -and I want to lay suitable emphasis on the point. It has been pointed out that there was an increase of $18,000 in the estimates for the coming year over those for the year previous, and that there was an increase of $55,000 in this item over the years 1921 and 1922; and I ask what portion of the item we are now asked to vote is for the payment of the officials and their expenses?

S upply-Agricul ture


William Richard Motherwell: I will tell my hon. friend. I was replying to the hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell) first of all before taking up the questions of the hon. member for South Oxford. Let me now give the details asked for:
Fruit Branch
Estimates 1925-26
1. Inspection Service:
Salaries 5 district inspectors .. .. 11,730 Salaries 17 permanent inspectors.. 31,440 Salary 1 additional permanent inspector (fruit and vegetable) promoted from seasonal, additional five months	 625
Salaries 46 seasonal inspectors (average 1 mos. plus statutory
increase)	 42,000
Salaries 5 temporary inspectors (average 6 mos. at $125 each per month as compared with salaries 5 temporary inspectors average 3 mos. at $125 each per
month 1924-25)	 3,750
To provide for suggested reclassification district inspectors.. ..	480
Travelling expenses 74 inspectors 44,300 5	district inspectors..	..	$	8,75017	permanent inspectors	..	8,50046	seasonal inspectors	..	23,0005	temporary inspectors	..	3,7501	additional permanentinspector	
300

Salaries for stenographers, Middleton ($320), Montreal ($600), Toronto ($600), Winnipeg ($600)
and Vancouver ($750)	
Rents	2,870	2,750For rent of Halifax office	
For rent of office Winnipeg $480,	300	300Hamilton $600	
For rent of office Middleton $180,	1,080	1,240St. John $180t Toronto $480.. .. Fruit Transportation- Salaries 3 seasonal assistants in transportation (average 7 mos.	840	700each at $150 per month).. .. Travelling expenses 3 seasonal assistants in transportation	3,150	3,150(N.S., Ont., B.C.)	
Technical Instruments, for use particularly in connection with	3,000	3,000car testing	
Fruit Packing & Orchard Specialist-	500	Salary	
Salary assistant fruit packing &	2,400	2,400orchard specialist for 6 mos.. Travelling expenses fruit packing &	900	orchard specialist	
Travelling expenses assistant fruit	1,300	1,300packing & orchard specialist.. Office Expenses, Crop & Market	500	Reports	
Office supplies, stationery express etc.)	$ 4,000 Publications	
4,500 Crop & Market reports .. 7,500 $16 000	16,000	15,000
The item for fruit transportation supervision and assistance deals with the inspection at the ports. At the port of Halifax, for instance, there is an inspector who opens an occasional barrel to see that everything is all right and in order, and that the fruit has been properly graded. As to the item of "Fruit growing and orchard specialist," that is educational work, I presume, in connection with the grading of fruit. It is carrying out the provisions of the law in respect to grading. Ever since the law was passed twenty years ago the grading has been done by the owners of the orchard, or whoever was packing the fruit, and educational work needs to be done from time to time to see that the fruit is properly packed. Indeed, a great deal of harm has been done to the fruit industry as a result of work of this kind being improperly done.


Donald Sutherland: The minister has
given considerable information that I did not ask for. I observe that for the year ending March, 1924, the amount paid out for officials and their expenses was $147,477. Now, the minister states that there is $139,415 for that purpose in this vote.


William Richard Motherwell: These items are
for different kinds of services but they have been classified under various sub-heads such as transportation, fruit packing, and so on.


Lewis Herbert Martell: The minister in tfie
course of his remarks referred' to an inspector at Halifax. I should like to ask him who the cargo inspector at Halifax is and what his qualifications are. I should also like to ask the minister what steps he has taken to provide proper wharves, warehouses, and so on at Halifax for the purpose of enabling the fruit growers of the western portion of Nova Scotia to ship their fruit under satisfactory conditions. I have been told that the matter has been taken up with the department and that there is a dispute between the Dominion Atlantic and the Canadian National railways as to who should supply these facilities. Now, many of the people from western Nova Scotia ship their fruit to Halifax. They are not exactly aware as to what time the boat which is to take this fruit overseas will arrive. The result is that much of the fruit that is sent down becomes frosted. There is also a danger that some of this fruit when it is put on board the vessel is cooked, owing to improper ventilation, and arrives in England in bad' state. I submit that the Minister of Agriculture, who is supposed to look after the horticultural interests, as well as the agricultural interests in the Dominion, should see
Estimates
11,520
30,210
1,500
42,015
1,875
41,800
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to it that proper care is given and that the right kind of facilities are provided in the city of Halifax for Nova Scotians who grow fruit and wish to ship it abroad. It is all very well to say that it is a question of a dispute between the Canadian National Railways and the Dominion-Atlantic Railway- and' I may say the latter brings in the most fruit-as to who should provide the necessary wharf or pier; these facilities should be provided by the Dominion of Canada, and if there is a dispute between the Dominion-Atlantic Railway and the Canadian National Railways, I recommend the Minister of Agriculture to go to that very excellent administrator the Minister of Public Works and get him to supply the wharf, because the latter never starts arguing with you; he tells you " yes " or " no ", and does not endeavour to put you off by a long argument.
Now, as I say, in the city of Halifax there is an inspector. Who is that inspector? If the minister does not know where he can get a good inspector I will tell him where he can get one.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Some hon. members may laugh but this man has proven his worth for the last three jrears. He is Mr. D. M. Wilson, of Windsor Forks in the county of Hants. He was down for one year as an inspector, and as a result of his work the fruit growers in western Nova Scotia were greatly benefited. This man is not one who fills an office for the salary that he receives; he is a man who is endeavouring in every way to find means and methods whereby fruit can be more efficiently packed, and the fruit growers can be protected. You have an old man in the city of Halifax at the present time as cargo inspector, and if the minister will have his officials inquire into the matter he will find ninety per cent of the time during the cold days of the winter this inspector was not on his job. If the minister had a man like Mr. Wilson down there, the fruit growers of western Nova Scotia would be amply protected. Wilson is a poor man as far as material interests go, but he is one who is constantly looking after the rights of the fruit growers of the province.
I want to impress upon the minister this fact: I happen to be one who is not particularly in his good books, but nevertheless I can protect myself and I can protect my constituents. Furthermore I am going to advocate the interests of my constituents as long as I have the honour of having a seat in this House. The minister went to the city of Halifax after he made a tour of western IMr. Martell.]
Nova Scotia and he was very much impressed with the proposition that proper piers, warehouses, and so on should be provided for the shipment from that city, which fruit, I may say, is largely grown in the western part of the province. It is all very well for our people to advocate shipping into the central market of Canada. It is all very well to ask us to sell our produce in western Canada. We cannot do it under the present system of railway rates. But though our people grow the best apples that are produced in the British Empire, we are unable, through the fault of the Department of Agriculture, to get our apples into the English market which should be our chief market. The minister when on a visit to Nova Scotia came to the conclusion that we were badly treated. What we are asking to-day is, not that he should ask the Dominion Atlantic Railway, nor the Canadian National Railways, to remedy the evil it is not their business; but it is the function of the Department of Public Works to provide properly heated accommodation, so that we may be in a position to ship our products to the markets of the world. Of course, I am only speaking as the member for Hants, but the people of Nova Scotia are not going to be satisfied, they are not going to be put off with long speeches and fancy terms and pats on the back. We want proper facilities in the city of Halifax, proper piers and proper warehouses, and it is up to the Minister of Agriculture, if he is going to be true to the principles of agriculture, and endeavour to make agriculture the primary industry in this country, to see that his colleagues give us the proper facilities.


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. gentleman from Hants (Mr.. Martell) has raised a very important and very old question: that is, with regard to the proper care of fruit at Halifax while awaiting shipment. The arrival of the vessels is sometimes a little uncertain, and during the time of waiting a trainload1 of apples may freeze on the track in the exposed piers at that point. Believing that something should be done to correct that menace to the industry, I made inquiries about a large pier that is there, a magnificent one, that I thought was capable of being heated sufficiently to take care of a cargo of apples, but I was told that we could not prevail on the vessels to tie up to that pier. So that I had to abandon that idea. The next idea was to repair one of the old wooden piers, so that the train might have sufficient shelter to protect the apples while they were held there awaiting the arrival of the incoming boat, but.

Supply-Agriculture
that would cause additional expense. The last year or two the Fruit branch by intervening with the railways have succeeded in inducing them to put on a sufficient number of heated cars to take care of the fruit shipment from the Annapolis valley during the severe weather. I have not discussed the matter with my deputy or with officials of the Fruit branch recently but I was assured last fall, when I asked our fruit commissioner how the situation was working out, that the railways had supplied a sufficient number of heated cars to avoid any reasonable risk in connection with the fruit in transit awaiting the arrival of the boats. Since then I have heard no complaint. While we did not get the protected pier, we got the protected cars; and so long as the difficulty complained of has been remedied, I do not know that it makes so much difference what method has been employed. The idea would be to run the trainload into the pier, and have sufficient protection to avoid possible freezing; but sometimes these trains of apples meet with severe storms in transit, and the best pier in the world would not protect apples that were storm-stayed; consequently the heated cars would take care of them in transit, as well as at the port awaiting the arrival of the ships. Whether that is a complete remedy or not the hon. member for Hants, knows better than I do, but that is my information. A year ago I made an interesting visit to that district and saw the condition of things, and I spoke to the Minister of Public Works about it, but I am sure the Minister of Public Works has a great many requisitions besides mine that he finds it impossible to fill at the present time. Mr. Wilson was the official down there who was giving such good service, and we are all glad to hear that good services rendered by a government official are acknowledged. Sometimes we hear them spoken of disparagingly.


An hon. MEMBER:: Perhaps that is the
reason he was let out.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not know
why he was let out but I presume somebody had to be let out, when there were too many in the department. I do not know how that was. The gentleman who is there now is Colonel G. A. LeCain. I have no information as to him. It is the first complaint I have against him.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I am not complaining
of Colonel LeCain but complaining of a man by the name of Johnson who is your cargo inspector at Halifax.


William Richard Motherwell: I understand he is
in the Dairy and Cold Storage branch.


Lewis Herbert Martell: He is dealing with fruit.
I know more about your department than your officials.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: One thing I have not got quite clear. I should like to have the minister explain again what is the need for two inspections of apples. If apples are inspected at the point of shipment, what necessity is there for having a second inspection at Halifax?


William Richard Motherwell: They are not inspected by the grower. They are packed by the grower and graded by him. His work may be done quite conscientiously, yet naturally he sees his own apples with a favourable eye and will sometimes grade them a little higher than they should be graded, and in order to make sure they are according to grade they are inspected at the port. But they are not all inspected; the inspector will loosen the hoops of a barrel and open up the head and inspect, and if he finds evidence of over-inspection, he will inspect the barrel more thoroughly and will mark what they are. If the inspection is done with an apparent desire to deceive, then as the law makes provision for prosecution in such cases, action of some kind is taken.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Is there no inspection at the point of shipment where they are loaded?


William Richard Motherwell: No; that has always been the case. I remember when the Fruit Marks Act came out first over twenty years ago it did not provide the best kind of inspection, but it was the only one practicable, because otherwise you would require a whole army of inspectors.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Is the fruit inspected at the Okanagan valley?


William Richard Motherwell: It is the grower who asks for the inspection. He is the one who gets it, and he pays $5 a car.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is, in the Okanagan valley, at the point of shipment.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Donald Sutherland: Does inspection take place of the apples which are imported into the country?


William Richard Motherwell: I understand so.


Donald Sutherland: Will the minister tell us what quantity or what numbers of barrels of apples were imported last year into Canada from the United States?


William Richard Motherwell: From the United
States or from all places?
Supply-Agriculture


Donald Sutherland: Prom the United States.


William Richard Motherwell: Does the committee desire all the years or just last year? We have the returns for 1923-24; the number of barrels imported was 195,693. We have each year dating back to 1919-20.


David Spence: Is that boxes or barrels?


William Richard Motherwell: Barrels.


Donald Sutherland: Has the minister the figures of the exports to the United States during the same year?


William Richard Motherwell: We have not them classified by countries. The total export last year, 1923-24, is 1,653,206 barrels of apples exported from Canada entirely.


Donald Sutherland: I have the figures here, but I wished the minister to .put them on record. I cannot understand why he has not the exports to the United States as well as the imports. According to the trade returns issued by the Trade and Commerce Department, the quantity is 55,042 barrels.


William Richard Motherwell: I have that.


Mr. COOTE:: I heard the minister say some time ago that the gentleman who grew the apples graded them himself, and naturally he looked on them with a favourab'c eye. I heard the hon. member for Centre Vancouver (Mr. Stevens) inquire how the apples that were shipped out of the Okanagan valley were graded, and apparently some of them are not graded at all. The hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martel!) said that he would like an honest protection for the honest fruit grower; we need a little protection for the honest fruit buyer. I have here a few samples of apples that came from the Okanagan. The label on the box stated that they were "fancy, delicious." I should like the minister to take a good look at each one of these apples. They come from the province of British Columbia. I would wish that these samples could be laid upon the table of the House. The one that I am holding in my hand is the best looking apple in the lot and it would make about two bites for a child.


Lewis Herbert Martell: If the hon. member wants some good winter apples, we can give him from Nova Scotia Northern Spies or Wag-eners. In the early year we can furnish Gra-vensteins and so on. Our late apple, which is the Russet, is a very small apple, but when we pack them we pack them well.


George Gibson Coote: My particular reason for
exhibiting these apples to the committee and

the minister is to draw attention to something that, I think, is very unfair. I had what I thought was No. 1 wheat that weighed 65 pounds to the bushel and it was graded by officials of the government as No. 3 wheat. With the proceeds of some of this wheat, I buy No. 1 apples, Fancy, and then I get such apples as I have exhibited in this chamber:	Is there any protection for the
fruit buyer? If not, it is time there was some, if we are to spend thousands of dollars in grading apples and other fruit. If we who live on the prairies are to have our wheat and oats graded in this very strict manner and then have to buy apples that are graded by the growers themselves, certainly an injustice is being done to us. Either we should be allowed to grade our own wheat or the department should see that these apples are properly graded.


Lewis Johnstone Lovett: Were these apples that are exhibited here to-day marked as No. 1?


George Gibson Coote: No. 1, Fancy.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I appreciate the grievance my hon. friend has brought to the attention of the committee; but 1 think that in justice to the grower of fruit in this country one simple basic principle ought to be remembered, and that is, that all fruit is perishable; it is not like iron or wood, that will last indefinitely. The variety of apples to which my hon. friend refers is what we call an early winter apple. I think about December is its main month of marketing. You cannot expect to keep a fall apple, for instance, a Transparent, through to Christmas. Another variety, the McIntosh, which comes along about October and into November cannot be kept over until March unless it is kept under ideal cold storage conditions, and then, once released from cold storage, it must be used immediately. The placing of creamery butter in cold storage may keep it in perfect condition, but once it is released, it must be used. The same applies to any article that is of a perishable character. It- is most unfair of the hon. member to suggest laying on the table a few selected specimens of apples and to say that these are a sample of what the Okanagan fruit grower sells or markets as No. 1 Fancy. The hon. member knows quite well that that is not the case. He, like anyone else, when he buys an article, is at liberty to use his eyes and to look the article over. I quite admit that if a retailer buys from a wholesaler a dozen boxes of apples, they are released from cold storage and he offers them for sale in his store. If he does not sell them for a few days, the

Supply-A gricul ture
very fact that they have been in cold storage and released will cause them immediately to commence deteriorating. If he keeps them in his store for a week, a month or two months-and probably these apples were in a store for six weeks or two months-naturally, they will deteriorate and they cannot be expected to maintain their perfection over a long period of time. No amount of inspection, no skill on the part of the inspector, no element of science in cold storage facilities, will ever rectify what my hon. friend is complaining of at this time. There is nothing that can be done in or out of this parliament, by scientists or others, that will change this condition; It is a condition of nature and nothing on earth can change it. I deprecate very much this suggestion being broadcasted throughout Canada in regard to the Okanagan fruit growers, a class of producers and horticulturists who have suffered perhaps as much as any other class of agriculturists in this country during the last thirty years in endeavouring to bring their products up to the highest degree of perfection possible. The result of their work is that this year the Okanagan fruit grower has, I think, time after time, taken first rank and first prize in international exhibition for his fruit.
While I am on this subject I should like to say a word in regard to some observations made by the hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell). I was in the Old Country last fall for a few months and I took particular care, for my information and satisfaction to look into the marketing of Canadian fruit. I saw a very large quantity of magnificent Nova Scotia apples marketed in England. I saw many of our own, and also a very large quantity of western American apples, that is apples from Washington and Oregon, Hood river and Wenatchee and so on, districts in the western states, offered for sale. The Canadian apples for sale on the London, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool markets in England did splendid credit to Canada. We are gradually building up a system of marketing these perishable goods at great distances and we ought to pause and realize what the grower is doing for himself, with the assistance certainly of the various governments, Dominion and provincial, through their officials. We ship scores of carloads of apples from the Okanagan Valley three hundred and fifty miles by rail to the Pacific coast, load them on steamers, ship them down through the tropical climate of the Panama canal, a month's journey or more, and unload them in England. And then they are distributed all over England, and distributed successfully, too. In a less circuitous way the Nova Scotians load their fruit on the
Atlantic and do a similar business. This is something which a few years ago was looked upon as a hopeless undertaking and yet it is done successfully to-day. And we are doing it by the aid of science and through the devoted attention and assiduous application of the growers, and the persistence of the producers generally, with such help as is given by the department. I say, therefore, that Canadian fruit is not represented in anything approaching a fair light by the remarks and the exhibits of my hon. friend.
Now, as to the protection of the consumer. Undoubtedly we ought to do all we can to protect the consumer, but I do not know what more we can do than we are doing. You will not do it by inspection, for if you inspect an article you examine it when it is packed, and you cannot expect that box to remain in the same condition from the time it leaves the producer until it is used by the consumer. Perhaps the consumer leaves it in his cellar or in a hot pantry, and apples that are treated in that way must fall to pieces through the very processes of nature. So that when anyone gets up and suggests that a fruit after going through these miscellaneous experiences should stand up like the perfect article he is not talking-well, I was going to say, common sense, but at any rate he is not saying what is reasonable.


Mr. HOEY:: That would not apply to the
size of the apples.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The apples have shrunk in size in the natural course of things.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Does not the size depend on the quality of the apple?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Anyone can tell by looking at this apple which I have here that it has shrunk, and apples that have been in cold storage for any considerable length of time inevitably get that way. This particular apple that has been exhibited here looks to me as if it were half cooked; possibly the assortment from which it was taken was left near the stove in a country store in Alberta and shrivelled up.


William Richard Motherwell: It is supposed to be for December consumption.


George Gibson Coote: When the hon. member interrupted me-


Henry Herbert Stevens: I did not interrupt you.


George Gibson Coote: You did interrupt me.


The CHAIRMAN:: The hon. member for Maoleod (Mr Coote) had taken his seat when the hon. member (Mr. Stevens) rose.
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Henry Herbert Stevens: In less than half a day apples that have been kept in cold storage will deteriorate when brought into a warm store. Scores of times I have seen boxes of apples in this condition in grocery stores where the grocer had no interest in nor knowledge of the business of taking care of fruit, and very often the lid is knocked off the box and the apples are set beside a stove. Naturally this would ruin them.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Does not the size depend on the variety?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, of course. As to size, a No. 1 apple, which is preferred by the very best hotels, our highest class of trade, is usually about the size of this specimen I have here. You can get a Wolf River apple almost as big as my hon. friend's head-not as big as he thinks it is but as big as it actually is; and you can get on the other hand a Northern Spy, which my hon. friends from Nova Scotia produce in such perfection, two or three times the size of this one. It is not reasonable, therefore, to produce a few culls, the brief history of which no one knows, and suggest that they are a reflection on the producers of fruit in this country.
Personally I do not know very much about the activities of this branch of the department, but I do know some of the inspectors; and speaking only of those with whose work I am acquainted, I must say that the department deserves credit. And if the department observes in all its inspectors the same high standard I have found in the case of those whom I know, I should have no complaint to make in regard to the inspection of fruit. As to the broad problem of how far we should extend the system of inspection while at the same time taking care to conserve the public rights in the way of taxation, this is a question of considerable importance. I rise now, however, merely for the purpose of repudiating, and repudiating strongly, the aspersion that was being broadcast by my hon. friend in regard to the producers of Okanagan whom I have known for the last thirty years and .vith whose struggles I am quite familiar.


George Gibson Coote: In my remarks I did not refer to the condition that the apples were in. Now, I was bom in an apple country and I have eaten my share of apples ever since I have been big enough to eat them, and I hope to continue d'oing so as long as I can get them. I know that a Delicious Apple will become bad in time; but for a man to say that these apples that have been exhibited here were entitled to the brand Fancy, even when they came off the tree, is absurd;
[The Chairman.]
he must have a very great imagination so far as the grading of apples is concerned. If the hon. member is proud of them I am sure he is at liberty to feel that way.


David Spence: Did the hon. member see the box out of which these apples were taken? I have never in my life seen a No. 1 like the specimen we have seen here and! I have seen many cars of apples that came out of British Columbia.


George Gibson Coote: I may inform the hon. gentleman that the box from which these apples were taken is still in my cellar at home. I bought the apples as No. 1 Fancy Delicious, and hon. gentlemen will not wonder that I have brought the matter to the attention of the minister. I have a good deal of admiration for the apple growers of Okanagan, just as the hon. member (Mr. Stevens) has, I have personal friends in that part of the country. For this very reason I think it is in the interest of these fruit growers that such apples as these should not be put out under the label Fancy. The hon. member told us of the prizes which the British Columbia apple growers were able to win in the markets of the world. That is something we are all proud of. But what we would1 like would be to get some of these prize apples at home, and to know that we were getting good fruit when we paid $3.75 a box for apples. And that is what I paid for this particular lot. I bought them in the town of Nanton, sixty miles from Calgary.
I am not blaming the fruit growers of the Okanagan collectively for the condition of the apples I bought, I am simply bringing the matter to the attention of the minister; and when I do so I get a nice curtain lecture from the hon. member. Has he the interests of the apple growers at heart when he tries to make out that it is all right to label apples of this size and colour Fancy?


Henry Herbert Stevens: The hon. member has misrepresented' and misquoted me wholly and absolutely.


George Gibson Coote: So far as that goes, I leave
it to the members of the committee who have heard all that has passed; I am quite content to leave the matter there. I want to ask the minister what constitutes a No. 1 Fancy apple; is there any regulation providing what size and colour such a grade of apple should be? I was very much disappointed with the apples and sent them back to the store with a request that they send me a larger size. The apples in the second box were not sufficiently red, and I sent them back with the intimation that I did not

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want to buy green Delicious apples. Anyone knows that such an apple is hardly fit to eat; neither is the su.Jl size. The small sizes of certain varieties of apples are all right, but surely no one who is familiar with the Delicious apple would want them green and very little bigger than crab apples. If I may repeat, it is in the interests of the growers themselves that their apples should be graded properly, or else they are going to undermine the confidence of the public, who will want to examine every box before they buy. We on the prairies have become used to taking it for granted that the apples we purchase are of the grade marked on the box, and very often they are.


Mr. TOLMIE:: Will the hon. member
kindly give the name of the shipper and the district from which the apples came?


George Gibson Coote: I will tell my hon. friend
when I get out of the House. If I told him here I am afraid that the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) would say that I .was broadcasting the firm's name to the world. If necessary I will send home and try to get the label off the box. If the minister would give us specifications for No. 1 Fancy apples, it might help to clear the air.


William Richard Motherwell: This is the description:
Fancy, which shall include only firm, mature, clean, smooth, hand-picked, well-formed fruit of one variety of fair colour for the variety and free from all insect pests, diseases, bruises, spray bums, visible water, clear from skin puncture or skin broken, and provided that-
I accept this sample as being a bona fide sample of the grade that my hon. friend from Macleod (Mr. Coote) says it is. But might I point out the impossibility of checking up every parcel, whether box or barrel. The apples are packed by the growers or packers and graded by them. Our inspector does not inspect every box or every barrel; that would be impossible. He does not empty the apples out. He takes the head off the barrel, knocks down the hoop so as to loosen the staves, and sometimes he takes out a stave so as to get a sectional view of the contents, and from the information so obtained he has to judge about a dozen other barrels. As in eggs we inspect only one case in a dozen, so in apples we inspect only one barrel in about a dozen. Even with that inspection we require a considerable number of inspectors. I hear complaints that my department has too many inspectors, yet if we gave inspection of every parcel of apples we would need ten times as many men, and even then an apple such as that my hon. friend refers to might escape 24
detection. My hon. friends from the west will appreciate the fact that in spite of our inspection staff at Winnipeg and Fort William some cars of wheat get by that are
5 p.m. plugged with low grade wheat. If detected the whole carload is put at the lowest grade. Similarly with apples, when it is remembered that we inspect only one barrel out of twelve or fifteen, some inferior apples may get through. It only shows that if we had no inspection a much larger number of inferior apples would escape detection. When we had no Fruit Marks Act, I remember the quality of fruit sent into the west was terrible. A very marked improvement has taken place since, and we expect a still further improvement when the grower knows that he is going to be checked up more and more closely. Let me confirm the statement made by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) with respect to the quality of our apples. It is not on the inspection of one barrel or one apple that we are to judge of the quality of our apples. I can not only confirm the hon. member's statement, but I can go further, for according to the report brought back by my deputy, Canadian apples stand highest of any apples on the British market, showing that reasonable care is taken, not only b}' the men who grow the apples and pack them, but by the inspectors. I do not say that the system is perfect; you cannot get a perfect system of inspection as long as it is done by human means; even if every barrel were opened some odd apples of inferior quality would get past. The idea is, as has already been pointed out by one hon. member, to get such a system of inspection as will ensure to the buyer that he is getting the quality of apples described on the package and to get this inspection at (a reasonable expense.


James Dew Chaplin: It seems to me that the inspection should take place where the apples are grown and not at the seaboard. I see no economy in reducing the number of inspectors in a county like Hants, and putting on an inspector in the city of Halifax. I think such inspection is an unqualified joke. We find the estimates for this department are increased by $18,000. We find also another item of $24,000, which is really an increase, because the minister takes that sum off this estimate in expectation of getting it from the growers. As I said before, this minister is some little spender, and I think he had better get down to earth.


William Richard Motherwell: I have been charged with evading questions. I do not want to

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avoid answering any inquiries. Has the hon. member asked a question or made a speech?


James Dew Chaplin: I have made a statement. I have asked all the questions I want answered.


William Richard Motherwell: If we are going
to give such inspection as will stop apples of the quality referred to by the hon. member for Macleod from coming through we will need ten times as many inspectors as we have to-day. We are giving reasonable inspection that ensures Canadian apples of the highest quality arriving on the British market, and we have the testimony of my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre, of my deputy and of others that our apples are the best of any arriving there. That is pretty good.


Lewis Herbert Martell: The minister should keep up the inspectoral staff instead of cutting it down as he did last year, thus putting too much work on the inspectors who have to work morning, noon and night, because they have often to show the packers the requirements of the law. Surely the apple growers of this country are entitled to have every possible assistance from the department, and I am only asking the minister not to overwork his inspectors. We were satisfied with the staff which the department had in Nova Scotia two or three years ago, but unfortunately that staff has been cut down. Now the chief inspector of fruit in Nova Scotia should be located at or near Kentville in the county of Kings which is the centre of the fruit growing belt and is a county which produces more apples than the whole of the rest of the province put together. The chief inspector has been in his present location since the days of the Laurier government. I am not criticising the chief inspector personally, but there is no question that he should be situated where the inspectors from the other counties-Hants, Kings, Annapolis, Digby, Lunenburg-can conveniently meet him. Lunenburg, I may say, was not very much of a fruit growing county in the days gone by but is rapidly coming into its own in that respect. Last year the minister dropped five inspectors in Nova Scotia. That should not have been done. The result may have been to save $5,000, but the consumer as well as the fruit grower have been injured to that extent. The fruit grower is an honest man, but perhaps one in a hundred would be crooked in the packing of his fruit, and he has to be watched. There should be a proper system of inspection, and the inspector should exercise a little common sense in the carrying out of his duties; he should, you might IMr. Motherwell.]
say, temper justice with mercy. If he finds a man wrongfully packing, a man who, perhaps, did not understand the law, the inspector should show him his error and point out the requirements of the regulations. When I asked the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) if he did not vote for reciprocity in 1911 he quoted the words of Tennyson:
Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
Yes, I doubt not that in commercial matters we must be broadened out with the process of the suns, and that is why I direct attention to some of these matters affecting my province. The hon. member for Digby and Annapolis may not agree with my suggestion regarding the chief inspector, as he is now in the hon. member's county. But the counties of Hants, Kings and Annapolis are the fruit growing counties. In Hants fruit growing is increasing, and Kings produces sixty per cent of the apples of Nova Scotia. So I say to the minister that these matters should be adjusted, and the expenditure should not be cut down with the effect of making both the consumer and the producer suffer. The apple producer in Nova Scotia is not afraid of inspection; what he wants is a fair inspection by men who will do their duty without being elated over the job they hold and without trying to put down industry. The minister brags about the fact that the fruit of Canada arrives in Great Britain in first-class shape. Quite true, but that is altogether due to the fact that the honest producer of fruit in this country wants his goods to be put on the market in the best possible condition. That is why I ask for the provision of apple facilities at Halifax by way of heating and cooling houses on the piers so that the present difficulties in respect to the handling of fruit through that port may be overcome. When the fruit arrives at Halifax it is in good order, chilled or frozen, but it often becomes overheated, before it is put on the boats. I am not advocating anything particularly for Halifax; I am asking for facilities for the fruit growers of Nova Scotia. As I have already said, do not put it up to the Dominion Atlantic Railway. They are bound to get the traffic there anyhow, whether the result is good, bad or indifferent. The Canadian National will not do it; the Canadian National to us in western Nova Scotia is not worth a snap of the fingers. I ask the minister to go to his colleague the Minister of Public Works and demand that this be done. The thing we most need in Nova Scotia is

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proper facilities at the chief port in the province for the shipping of our products; we need that before we can look for larger markets. The hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coor.e) made reference to.certain apples which he displayed here. Now, he was bom in the fruit country, but I am afraid that when he got away from fruit he ceased to know what good fruit was. He does not remember that what may be an excellent size in Northern Spy or Bishop Pippin or Gravenstein or Wagener, might be considered a very large size as compared with Russet, for instance, which is a very small apple. Now, we are not asking for unfair things. All we ask is that we get proper inspection, under efficient inspectors-and I am not complaining of any inspector-properly situated, and the necessary facilities in the way of piers and warehouses at Halifax for the handling of our fruit. The minister was himself impressed with that necessity when he was in Nova Scotia about two years ago, because he gave an interview to the press and we thought something was to be done. We were put off, however, with fine words and nice pretensions.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend
knows that he has a heated car service now that he did not have then.


Lewis Herbert Martell: The heated car service
is due to the Dominion Atlantic Railway, not to the department or to the government. In Halifax the department has a man by the name of Johnson who does not spend one-tenth of his time in the inspection of cargoes that go abroad. I understand that he is interested in the dairy end of it and that he also inspects fruit. It is said that he had a scheme of his own for a cage or loading device that he wanted to foist on the department. No, I cannot prove this in any way and I do not want to say anything on the floor of the House by which advantage would be taken of a man outside, but the rumour current in Nova Scotia is that Mr. Johnson was in league with the others in a plan to foist on the department this cage or loading device in which he was interested.
I say to the minister that the quicker Johnson is_ removed from there, the quicker the chief inspector is placed in the central portion of the fruit growing belt and the quicker you get proper facilities established at Halifax, the quicker you will have a contented fruit growing people in Nova Scotia. Do not give us promises; the day has gone by in this country when people are willing to accept lukewarm promises-the patting on the back an<j s*'atemell,t that you are a good fellow and that sort of thing will not go down. We 24J
want a recognition of the facts; we want action. We want to see results, and if we do not get results, party politics in this country will not last long-though I am a Liberal of Liberals I say this and abide by it.


Mr.   S@: I should not like this
matter to be dropped without my making a few remarks with regard to the disgusting looking vegetables which were exhibited to the committee this afternoon. The hon. member describes them as No. 1 Fancy. I know what a No. 1 apple used to be. It has now been susperseded by an Extra Fancy. I am familiar with a Fancy apple. But I have not the least idea what a No. 1 Fancy is. It rather smacks of the mixture of thought which sometimes emanates from the oriental's brain, and I think it is possible that in some sections of the valleys of the interior the orientals may have invaded the realm of tree fruits, and have shipped out an article which they have chosem to call a " No. 1 Fancy." But whether it was fair or unfair on the part of the hon. memlber to bring these things here with the object of tainting the name of Okanagan fruit, I do not regret that he did so, because no finer argument could be advanced in favour of this inspection service which the growers in the interior of British Columbia have asked the Dominion government to help them to provide. It was a voluntary act on the part of the shippers of fruit. Their desire in asking for such an inspection was to demonstrate by their grade, by the accuracy with which their grade was maintained, that the exhibition fruit, which in international and imperial shows has demonstrated the unexcelled qualities of the Okanagan product, is of the same standard as their commercial pack. The fruit is grown in valleys of the interior that are pretty widespread and1 is collected in those valleys by various shipping houses. Many of them come under the control of the co-operative movement known as the Associated Growers of British Columbia. That associated head office has under its control from twenty to thirty "locals" and it is by the "locals" that the collecting and the shipping of apples is done. In addition there are a considerable number of independent fruit shippers, but they ship small amounts of fruit in comparison to the large quantity shipped by the Associated Growers. And so long as human nature is what it is, there will be times when the grading is not carried out in the best possible way, and if fruit inperfectly graded ever goes on the market in that way it is certain to bring trouble. That is the very reason why the growers voluntarily approached the
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Dominion, government, through its fruit commissioner, to help them to put on such an inspection service that they would be helped in demonstrating to the wholesale trade that they were endeavouring at any rate, to live up to the grade that is stamped on their boxes. They did not wish, in this matter, to ask for a gift from the government, for they recognize the very considerable advantages there are in working toward something they are ready to pay for. That service, as the minister himself stated earlier in the afternoon, is more than paid for by the growers themselves; and we would like to see it extended so as not only to ensure that every consignment that goes out of the various packing houses in the valley may be subject to careful inspection, but in order to stamp it on the minds of wholesalers who handle our fruit in the market, and of the consumers in Canada as well as in the export countries to which our apples are increasingly going, that when they see the British Columbia apple marked a certain grade they may be perfectly sure, so far as human possibilities go, that the apples contained in that box are of that grade. I should like, in closing, to ask the minister if he will give us the opinion of his department as to how far that very aim has been attained this year in the inspection?


William Richard Motherwell: In reply to the hon.
member for Yale I beg to say that the results have been very gratifying, and that we are getting complimentary letters and communications testifying to the increased guarantee the inspection gives to the purchaser of the fruit that he will get what he is paying for.


Mr. HUMPHREY:: I desire, in particular, to refer to the remarks which have been made by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) and the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling). The discussion has developed practically into a consideration of the fruit growing industry as it affects British Columbia. May I be allowed to point out that the Okanagan valley is not the only fruit growing district in Canada, although hon. gentlemen to my right seem to convey that impression, nor is it the only fruit growing district in British Columbia. Let me say that the Creston district in my constituency is a very promising one, and in the matter of carrying off prizes has been quite equal to the Okanagan district. Furthermore, no such fruit as that to which the hon. member for Macleod has drawn attention has ever been known to be grown in the Creston district. With respect to the samples which have been
(Mr Stirling.]
displayed it should be pointed out that fruit on its way to the consumer has to pass through so many hands that the grower should not be held responsible for the shortcomings in every instance. Even though the grower devoted all his time and attention to the packing and grading it is sometimes hard to assure that every apple going into a box shall be up to the required standard. In the particular case to which m3' hon. friend (Mr. Coote) has called attention there were probably, say, four inferior specimens out of a total of one hundred or two hundred sound apples. I am in very close touch with the fruit growing district in my constituency and I believe I am safe in sa3dng that this is an absolute!}' isolated case, and I am sure if the hon, member had gone to the trouble of bringing this to the attention of the grower, together with the packer's number, he certainly would have been reimbursed and would have been willingly provided with another box up to the standard it was supposed to be.
Now in regard to the fruit grower, he is the one who is most anxious to put his apples on the market in first class condition. The grower in the Creston district is doing everything possible to put the best grade of apples upon the prairie market; and I state before this committee that they consider the prairie market as one of their best markets. There is no such thing as two grades of apples going out from the fruit growing district of British Columbia. It has been stated too that the best grades go to the foreign market and that the inferior grade is used for home consumption. I believe I am quite safe in saying that that d'oes not work out. The apple growers endeavour to supply the best grade of apples for home consumption. Two or three of my prairie friends are eager to buy if they can be supplied with the best grade of apples; and the grower has agreed to supply that market with the ver3' best grade of apples that he can produce. In regard to the inspection, I again say that I am in close touch with the inspection of fruit throughout the Creston district, and this is the first time I have ever heard it stated by anyone that the matter of thorough inspection had been overlooked in any way. I can commend the government for the way they have endeavoured to carry out the regulations and to assist fruit growing in the Creston district. They are endeavouring to inspect this fruit, and' to protect not only the grower but the consumer, giving as good a service, I think as it is possible to give under the circumstances. I have had some complaints from the growers; but as a whole the regulations have been working out fairly well, and

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I am sure I would not like to have the impression created in this House or throughout the country that the case brought to the attention of the committee by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) was a common occurrence. Keeping in mind the thousands upon thousands of cars that are sent out of the British Columbia fruit growing districts in the year, this being only one case of poor apples, I think it is not worth while occupying very much time with it. If it were'a common case you may be sure that the different retail men, the jobbers and consumers would bring it to the attention of the fruit growers.	.
Mr. LO\ ETT: I cannot let the hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell) get away with the contention that the fruit growers and the fruit growing industry of the Annapolis valley have suffered as a result of the office of chief fruit inspector remaining in Middleton. I believe it is only a personal interpretation on the part of my hon. friend. I may say that the chief inspector is not an appointee of this government but of the preceding government, at the instance of my predecessor, Mr. Davidson. The location of the chief inspector is in the town of Middleton on the border between Kings and Annapolis. I have never heard of a request from those associated with the fruit industry to have the location of the chief fruit inspector changed. Middleton is situated an equal distance from the county of Hants and the county of Yarmouth. It is in the centre of the fruit producing section of the Annapolis valley, and in addition to that the chief inspector does not sit in his office at Middleton, but visits every fruit producing section of the entire province. He goes out to the different places and looks after the section of the country under him. The hon. member for Hants spoke of the county of Lunenburg fast becoming a fruit growing section. I am glad to know that Lunenburg is improving in that respect, but if Lunenburg is to be served by the chief fruit inspector, he should remain where he is at the town of Middleton, as that is the terminus of the Canadian National railway which comes in from the south shore, and it is therefore much easier for the people of Lunenburg county to get in touch with the chief fruit inspector. I do not know the feeling of the hon. member for Kings (Mr. Robinson) on this point, but I have not heard that he was insistent on any change of this kind.


Mr. McBRIDE:: The hon. member for
West Kootenay (Mr. Humphrey) was quite right when he said that some people tried
to represent to the people of Canada that in British Columbia the Okanagan valley was the only place where fruit could grow. I am here to state that the best fruit grown in British Columbia is grown at Salmon Arm, and if people would insist on getting fruit from Salmon Arm, they can depend upon getting no such fruit as has been exhibited here this afternoon.


Leon Johnson Ladner: After listening to the
criticism of the remarks on fruit inspection, which is very important, I am at a loss to learn why the minister should have any difficulty in that respect. Many hon. members will remember that in the famous year 1921 one of the charges levied against the government that preceded this one was that it was extravagant and wasteful. The fact of the matter is that, notwithstanding the unsatisfactory conditions mentioned in the debate this afternoon-I would like the minister to pay attention to this point, and I will wait until he is disengaged-since 1921 the increase in this one item has been 35 per cent, apparently without satisfaction to those engaged in the fruit industry. The expenditure was as follows:
1922		 5145.000
1923		    151,000
1924		 171 000
1925	estimated	 182,000
1926		 200,000
Now has there been an increase in sendee to the country to the extent of 35 per cent. In these days of economy we are reminded of the election time in 1921 when these gentlemen spoke from platforms in the country, declaring that they would not only practise economy, but would reduce the extravagance and waste of the previous government, but now we find an increase of 35 per cent in this item which apparently does not even satisfy the members of the government themselves. The hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell) is not on diplomatic relations with his ministers largely because some of the expenditures in his district have been cut down and because there is a lack of expenditures which had been previously made in his district. The point I am making to the committee-and I propose to make it on every item that comes up-is that the government's protestations as the champions of economy are not sincere when we find at this juncture and under present conditions in the country, although these items in themselves may be important, an increase of 35 per cent in the expenditure. Now I have a question for the minister:	What services have been increased during those three years in addition
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to those which existed formerly to account for the increase of $55,000 in this item? I would remind the minister that the inspection is paid for by the very industry and is not an item chargeable against the department.


William Richard Motherwell: We will start first
on the general complaint that the cost of administering this branch, indeed, of almost all the branches, has increased during recent years. If my hon. friend will look at the bottom of the estimates, he will find that the vote for agriculture this year is $103,500 less than last year. I am not going to boast about that; it is nothing to boast about. 1 ' would much rather see it $103,500 more than last year, as I am afraid that some of the services may not be taken as good care of as circumstances would warrant.
You cannot get away from the increase in regard to the fruit service. That is accounted for by the new service that is going to pay for itself. It is unavoidable that the amount be paid out first, but it will come back to the Receiver General and will really mean no increase. As regards the other services that have been introduced in addition to this new service, there is an improvement all along the line. More advertising is being done for fruit; more expenditure is being made in the matter of securing markets, of keeping fruit- growers posted with regard to market prices, and when you add a little here and a little there all along the line of improving the service, that means more men and travel and costs money. In the main, the increase that has caused the discussion is the additional $18,000. Part of this increase is caused by the fact that we have absorbed a vote of $8,000, the grant to the Canadian Horticultural Council that was formerly in the latter part of the estimates under the heading of " Miscellaneous."


Clifford William Robinson: As Kings county has
been brought into this discussion by various members, it seems only fair that, as the representative of that county, I should say a word. The placing of the chief apple inspector in Annapolis county was done some years ago, and at that time Annapolis county was possibly a greater producer of apples than Kings. The situation, however, has changed, and to-day Kings county is the banner county in Nova Scotia in the production of apples. I think though that the question of where the chief inspector should be placed would be a matter to be dealt with by the department rather than by this committee. I would not in any way speak against the wish of the hon. member for Hants (Mr. Martell) that the chief inspector be placed in Kings county. It

would hardly be loyal to my county for me to repudiate that in any way, but I still believe that is a matter for the department to decide ultimately.
I wish to say a word about the decrease in the number of inspectors last year. I do not believe this is a wise move. The apple crop in Kings county was smaller last year than in previous years, and I understand that the number of inspectors was decreased on account of the crop being about 75 per cent of an average crop. I do not believe that is a reason for decreasing the number of apple inspectors, because as the crop was small, there might be a greater tendency to over-grade. The people having been educated to expect a certain degree of grading, that should not be lowered in any way, and I do not believe the inspection during the last year was carried on as well as in former years simply because we had not sufficient inspectors to do the work.
I wish to say a word also about the bringing into this chamber of apples by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote). Speaking of the fruit growers as I know them, I believe, as a class, whether British Columbia growers or Nova Scotia growers, they wish to put on the market the very best apples possible. I do not believe it is fair to select a few apples or even one box or one barrel and to try to measure up the entire production of a province by that. We grow good apples in both British Columbia and Nova Scotia. What we require is stricter inspection, and a training and education of the people. If the new method of inspection that the minister speaks of will produce better inspection and a better grade of apples, I can assure him that we in Kings county will be in favour of it in every way.


David Spence: I think the minister will agree with me now that it will be much better to put in a detailed statement of the expenditure for this particular item. The Fruit Marks Act has been attacked by hon. members, and in defence of this, I want to say that since the act has been established, packing in this country has been improved 100 per cent. I am sorry the hon. member for Macleod had occasion to bring into this chamber apples of this variety and sample. I have no reason to doubt that he bought this box of apples, but I have not yet known of an apple being marketed as No. 1 Fancy. There is no such grade that I know of. I have been in the business for thirty-five years and possibly I have seen many more apples than any hon. member who has spoken, but I never saw a box of that variety or quality packed or shipped anywhere. British Columbia, in the last ten years, has de-

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veloped the apple industry much better than she expected. In the early days, we had to buy all our apples from Oregon and Washington. To-day, instead of doing that, we are buying all the apples we possibly can from British Columbia, and they are giving entire satisfaction. The people in that province have learned both to grade and to pack. No doubt, the Department of Agriculture has been assisting in that work and to-day we are getting good results from British Columbia.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I have in my hand an
apple which is a Nova Scotia Wagener and which has been in the House of Commons in both heat and cold. When it came here it was hard and firm; to-day it is spongy, but it is a first class apple. Will my hon. friend undertake to help me to get a cheap freight rate for our apples?


David Spence: I would like to get cheap
rates everywhere, because high freight rates are hurting the apple business as well as every other business. An apple such as one of those exhibited by the hon. member for Macleod could have been perfect when it was shipped, say in November. It may never have been in cold storage, but lying around a place, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, it will commence to deteriorate. The time for this variety of apple was past around Christmas. It is a mean, contemptible thing to bring up a matter like that on the floor of this House and to try to hurt the apple industry of British Columbia. It ill becomes any member of this House to discredit the apple industry of this country.


Lewis Herbert Martell: My hon. friend knows
that certain apples are good at certain seasons.


David Spence: Certainly.


Lewis Herbert Martell: It is of no use to bring in the month of February say a Bishop pippin which is good in the month of December, or a Gravenstein, which is good for September or October and possibly until the first part of December, in February when it is spongy, and to show them as samples. Apples must go according to season.


David Spence: That is perfectly true as
regards apples. Some apples will live up to April and some up to June.


Lewis Herbert Martell: It depends on the variety.


David Spence: Yes. These apples that
have been shown here probably went bad about two months ago, but there are apples that will be worthless in November and others in December. A Delicious No. 1 can be kept in cold storage and be of real value at this
time of year, but that does not necessarily apply to this apple. I am proud to know that there are in the House members from British Columbia who are capable of defending their own province; and I refer especially to the new member who represents the constituency of Yale (Mr. Stirling). That hon. gentleman certainly knows how to defend himself and his country and I am glad to have the opportunity of saying this word on his behalf. We should all be pleased to see the apple industry of this country develop and we should give it every encouragement. If the apple industry of British Columbia went down we should all be forced to buy our apples elsewhere. Of course, we should no doubt get supplies from Nova Scotia, but that province, being on the seaboard, commands an overseas market in England, and for that reason we do not use many of the Nova Scotian apples. A few years ago we got considerable quantities of the eastern fruit in Toronto and Montreal but there is a bigger demand for it in the Old Country. I must congratulate the province of Nova Scotia as well on its apple industry; undoubtedly there has been a great improvement in every respect. I remember the time when one could not get an honest apple from Nova Scotia any more than from Ontario, but to-day there is not. a province that ships out apples that are not fit for consumption. You can sit in your office and ship a consignment of apples from any one of 90 per cent of our packers, and without looking at the fruit rest assured that it will be free from criticism. That is what the act has done for us and the Department of Agriculture is to be complimented on its work. I am not referring particularly to the present department, but ever since the act came into force every minister over the department has approved of it. And why should they not? We are spending a lot of money in this connection and some day I hope we shall see perfection.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: I am quite surprised that neither the minister nor his deputy has referred the committee to the section in the act which would easily answer all complaints made in regard to the selling of fruit. This summer a large quantity of peaches was shipped throughout the country and one dealer in Kingston had the misfortune to receive a large number of packages which were unfit for consumption.


An hon. MEMBER:: Surely not.


Arthur Edward Ross: If the hon. gentleman who makes that remark knows so much about fruit he ought to be aware of the pro-
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vision in the act which would save him and others a few dollars in transactions of this kind. But whether or not the Department of Agriculture thinks fit to draw the attention of the public to this matter, I, for one, would feel that I had been remiss in my duty if I did not refer the committee to the section of the act which I have mentioned. If those who have made complaints had been aware of this provision it would have prevented the loss which they have incurred. This summer a large quantity of peaches was shipped from the Niagara district and sold, and a few days afterwards it was found that the fruit was unfit for consumption. I took the matter up with the department and I will give them credit for having referred me to the section of the act governing this matter. By that one action of the department the consumer in the city of Kingston was saved quite a few pennies. The section in question reads:
(7) No person shall sell, or offer for sale, any fruit in any package that is so diseased, wormy or otherwise depreciated as to render it unfit for consumption.
That provision appears on page 8 and it is sufficient to protect the consumer. If the fruit is not fit for consumption all he need do is return it. The dealer in Kingston refused to pay for the consignment of peaches and I was pleased to know that this section was in the act.. The consumer in all cases can have recourse to it, for it is intended for his protection. As I said a moment ago, I am surprised that the minister or his deputy did not mention the clause in reply to the complaints made.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Is there not also a
clause in the act providing for prosecution and summary conviction in case of misrepresentation.


Arthur Edward Ross: Absolutely; it is all in the act.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Seed, feed and fertilizer control, $295,000.
Arthur Meighen: The man who makes up the agricultural estimates deserves the description which one of our writers applied to King Charles I. He said that the king just before his death had confessed his sins in half an hour, ana' observed that he was a great master of condensation. The other estimates are all much more detailed than those of the Department of Agriculture; why, I do not know. In the agricultural estimates five or six million dollars is crushed into about eight or nine items: for example, there are live stock, $1,280,000; experimental farms $1,440,000; health of animals, $1,905,000, and so on. It seems to me that we could study

them in advance and compare them with other years much more easily if they were subdivided as is the case in Railways and Canals or in Public Works. I do not say that the minister initiated this plan; I do not know who did; it may have been the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar), but the condensation is carried to an extreme. It means nothing at all to ibe told, "Live stock, $1,280,000 ", if the various activities of the Live Stock branch do not appear. If they were given half a dozen in number the estimates would be much more illuminating and one could study them in advance.


William Richard Motherwell: That criticism is well taken. I have not found it easy introducing reforms in this House; I have tried a few but I find that one runs up against a stone wall before he has got very far. To a large extent, therefore, I have been accepting these matters as I found them. If, however, my hon. friend will look more closely he will find! that the arrangement is different. I have here these votes subdivided however, into six or seven items. We have for example, for administration $11,000; subventions in connection with seed fairs, $77,500; Inspection and Sale Act-that is to say, the new Hay Act we have taken over this season for the first time-$12,000. Then we have laboratory and inspection services, which is a system of laboratories that extends across the country almost from ocean to ocean. The first of these is situated at Calgary and proviri'es for the inspection of grass and clover seeds, germinating tests, freedom from weed tests, and so on. That inspection applies to the whole five subdivisions into which Canada is divided. The next is at Winnipeg, and gives similar services. The next is at Toronto, the centre of the grass ana! clover seed business of the Dominion. The next is the central station here at Ottawa. There are also fees for chemical analyses; these are given to certain analysts who have authority to analyse the various brands of fertilizer placed on the market. Roughly speaking, that is the subdivision of the work under this branch, but it includes other services of minor importance.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


George Newcombe Gordon: Item No. 50: Seed,
feed and fertilizer control, $295,000.


Mr. LUCAS:: Will the minister explain this vote?

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William Richard Motherwell: We had five minutes on this vote before six o'clock. The leader of the opposition suggested that these votes be subdivided as to the various branches of expenditure, and I have concurred in that suggestion. I will give the subdivisions of each vote as we come to it.


Mr. BROWN:: Will the minister repeat
the subdivisions of this item, which he gave before six o'clock?


William Richard Motherwell: Administration costs, $11,000; subventions for seed fairs, $77,500, including production and markets; Inspection and Sales Act, $12,000; laboratory and inspection service, $180,000; fees for chemical analyses, $5,000; sundries, $10,000.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What progress is being
made in that branch which has to do with the improvement of seed?


William Richard Motherwell: About twenty years ago the Canadian Seed Growers' Association was organized with the idea of producing pure seed which would be true to variety. They have members all over Canada and they conduct a very active campaign in this direction. In Alberta a plant has been established for the cleaning of any of this registered seed that is offered for that purpose in order that it may be fitted for the market. It is impossible to put seed in first class condition for the market with the ordinary farm appliances, and by means of this seed cleaning apparatus they make the seed comply with the provisions of the Seed Control Act. There is a similar organization in Saskatchewan, with Moosejaw as its headquarters. During the last twenty years not only this registered seed but the various commercial seeds that are put on the market- clover, grass and garden seeds-have been greatly improved, and an export market has been established on account of the high quality of our product. Moreover, when seeds are imported our inspectors have samples sent to their laboratories and these are carefully inspected before they are allowed to go on the market. This service has also been extended to field and garden seeds such as beets, mangels, and the like. The Seed Control Act, which came into force a little over twenty years ago and has been twice revised, is admitted to be one of the best seed control acts on the continent.


William Thomas Lucas: Is this seed cleaning done in a central plant, or are there various plants throughout the Dominion?


William Richard Motherwell: In Alberta it is
done at one plant, and there is one in Quebec. It is purely a voluntary matter.


William Thomas Lucas: Are these not provincial
activities?


William Richard Motherwell: Oh, yes; they are
usually organized provincially, and in each case I think a good deal of assistance is given by the provincial government.


William Thomas Lucas: I know that Alberta has
recently established a seed cleaning plant but I was not aware that the Dominion had given any assistance to it.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, we give them a grant.


William Thomas Lucas: What is the amount of the
grant ?


William Richard Motherwell: It dees not go to
the cleaning plants; these have only recently been established. The grant is for educational work generally and for the organization of seed fairs. The straight grant to the Seed Growers' Association is $10,000, and the amount under the head of production and markets, including subventions for seed fairs, is $77,500. This plan was adopted some fifteen years ago for the purpose of unifying seed fairs.
The Dominion held seed fairs, and the provinces also held seed fairs. Finally it was decided by the Dominion Seed branch that instead of holding Dominion seed fairs they would hand over the amount available for the purpose to be administered by the provinces, and that practice has been in vogue ever since. It was one of the steps taken to avoid overlapping. While it did not save us any money, it resulted in a consolidation of the work and, I think, yielded better results.


Mr. DECHENE:: Is the ministei able to
tell us whether any money is still given to farmers who are trying to raise seed for seed purposes? I Temember that some years ago the federal authority used to give a subsidy, or an amount of some kind, to help the farmers to produce seed. In fact I remember that in the province of Quebec clover seed was grown by encouraging farmers to form co-operative associations and obtain the necessary machinery for the purpose. The province used to make a contribution, and I think the federal government also granted a certain amount towards the production of this seed. Since that time the province of Quebec has been growing its own clover seed, instead of making importations as it used to do. I think if we could aid the farmers to some extent in the way I have indicated it would have very good results.
37S
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William Richard Motherwell: From wbat I can gather from the hon. gentleman's remarks he is referring to one of the functions of these seed fairs.


Mr.   DEOHENE@: I remember well that in my constituency some ten years ago; the farmers organized a small co-operative society to buy the machines necessary in the production of clover and other seeds.


William Richard Motherwell: I think any aid
granted of that kind must have been by the provincial Department of Agriculture.


Joseph Bruno Aimé Miville Déchêne: No, I think there was a grant from the federal government as well as the provincial authorities, and it gave very good results. In fact they were so successful that we are exporting clover seed now instead of importing it.


William Richard Motherwell: I understood some assistance of the kind used to be granted towards the purchase of machinery, but it has not been given of recent years.


Joseph Bruno Aimé Miville Déchêne: As I say, the grant was very helpful to the farmers and brought about very good results without much cost to the federal treason'. I think if the minister would look into this question again he would see the desirability of restoring the federal grant for this purspose. Aid by the government should not be confined to the fair associations. In the case of these agricultural associations the farmers usually come round to the member for a five dollar contribution. My hon. friend the member for Rimouski (Sir Eugene Fiset) who is sitting beside me suggests $50. That might be a proper amount for wealthy men but in the case of poorer members they are satisfied with $5. I think it would be a very wise measure to encourage the formation of co-operative associations of farmers to purchase the proper machinery for growing improved seed. When they go to a dealer they get what is called " No. 1 " seed but sometimes that seed is not what it professes to be. I would urge the minister and his officials to consider the matter and see whether aid of some kind cannot be granted. The provincial government might also unite in helping these co-operative organizations to purchase the necessary machinery in order to produce their own seed. In that way more beneficial results could be had than by any other method.
' Mr. MOTHERWELL: I shall be very glad to consider my hon. friend's suggestion.
Mr. LUCAiS: Will the minister tell us how the $77,000 referred to is apportioned among the provinces?


William Richard Motherwell: It is primarily on
the basis of population as nearly as it can be arrived at. Of course some provinces, by reason of their more efficient organizations, take greater advantage of the system. In other provinces there have not been organized so many seed fairs. At any rate the basis of apportionment is the population. But the farmers must organize locally before they are eligible for the grant.


William Thomas Lucas: Does the administration of
the Feeding Stuffs Act come under this vote?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


William Thomas Lucas: Last year that act was
amended. I should like the minister to State how it is working out in its amended form?


William Richard Motherwell: We have not had
a single complaint since. We were acting right on the straight in connection with that matter, although I noticed at the time there was a good' deal of suspicion as to what the object of the amendments was. However, I do not think we have had a single complaint since. Our miller friends are behaving beautifully.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
For experiments in dehydration, $15,000.
William Richard Motherwell: This class of expenditure was first incurred two years ago for the first time for the purpose of utilizing some of our second' grade fruits. They were not exactly culls, but at the peak of the season it was felt that every -practicable means should be used -to take care of the peak crop when the fruit was ripening in order to save as much of it as possible from any ultimate damage. In view of the fact that millions of pounds of dried fruit of various kinds were coming into the country from the outside, it was felt that it would be a calamity to allow a lot of our own fruit to go to waste for the lack of some system of dehydration. Dehydrating is nothing but drying in accordance with the most scientific methods. There are members of the committee who can recall that apples used to be dried by hanging them round the kitchen stove pipe, a convenient roost for the flies. Later on the evaporated apple system came into vogue and it was a great improvement. Well, the dehydration system is just as -much an improvement on the evaporated method, as evaporation was an improvement on the old kitchen drying system, and three experimental plants have been put up, one at Grimsby to take care of the Niagara peninsula, one at Ottawa, and the other one at Penticton in the


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Okanagan valley. I do not know that I can furnish any evidence yet that capitalists are prepared to put the necessary money into a plant; but we are demonstrating the feasibility, and the practicability of it, and the quality of the goods. They are being recognized as very much superior to dried fruit and almost equal to green fruit. That is the position, and that is what this vote is for.


John Livingstone Brown: Have the experiments upto-date been profitable? Have you demonstrated the profitableness of the venture?


William Richard Motherwell: As we are experimenting with such comparatively small quantities, we have to make an estimate as to that; but we figure that it will be profitable. Really a commercial plant would be much larger than these plants I refer to, and making allowance for that fact we think it will be profitable. There is no reason why it should not be.


Mr. STEWART (Huimfooldt):: Can the
minister tell us how dehydrated fruit is received by the public? I have noticed that it is offered for sale in certain stores in this city, and perhaps the minister has some figures as to how the public are receiving it.


William Richard Motherwell: We have had
samples of it in the offices here, and a good many hon. members took pleasure in sampling it, because it tasted " real good," and the public have taken to it well. It is -a matter of keeping it before the public. That is a practical way of advertising it and I think will get the result.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: What is the difference in
the effect between dehydration and evaporation on the tissue of the fruit itself?


William Richard Motherwell: I think the secret
of it is that the dehydration is done under better conditions and the fruit is not subject to the constant change of air, and the effect on the tissue is not the same. Dehydration is very -much more favourable because of the fact that the product retains the flavour of the green fruit better than in the case of any other method.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Dehydration does not break down the cells the same as evaporation does?


William Richard Motherwell: I think not.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: What is the difference in
the cost of dehydration as compared with evaporation?


William Richard Motherwell: We have no figures on that. It is pretty hard to get figures sufficiently reliable; and furthermore we have not an evaporation plant.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I understand the handling is about the same, but what is the difference in the consumption of fuel?


William Richard Motherwell: We have only one plant. In order to make an intelligent comparison we would require to have an evaporating plant running at the same place.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I understand it (requires only half as much fuel in the one case as the other. What was the nature of the test they had in British Columbia? What quality' of fruit d'o you use for best quality of dehydrated product?


William Richard Motherwell: It is just like anything else, the better the fruit you use the better the dehydrated product would be; but we can use a second grade fruit, which otherwise would be a drug on the market; and in this way we prevent that waste. First class fruit would make a good dehydrated product but there is no particular object in putting first class fruit into dehydrated plants, because it could be sola' on the market. In the same way you would not want to make pulp-wood out of first class timber although I believe it is sometimes done.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: How many pounds of fresh apples are required for one pound of evaporated fruit and how many pounds would be required for the dehydrated fruit?


William Richard Motherwell: We have not that information. To make a real test between this system and the evaporating system all along the line, we would require to have both systems. The principal object we had in mind was to take care of a lot of second grade fruit as the season was approaching when it would be a glut on the market. We desired to put it on the market in a more toothsome and acceptable condition than ordinary dried fruit. There is really a prejudice against dried fruit, if it is not well done. However, there is not sufficient prejudice to prevent enormous quantities of it coming into Canada. Apparently they have it down to a greater science in other countries than we have reached in Canada; otherwise I cannot imagine why so much is imported. Plums, apricots and apples come into Canada in enormous quantities, running into the millions, and our aim is to put a better article on the market by means of this dehydration.
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I may say to my hon. friend from Victoria (Mr. Tolmie) we have not the information as to what amount of raw fruit it takes to make a pound of dehydrated fruit. We know however that because of the cellular construction of the fruit being well maintained, the moment it is moistened it swells out almost like green fruit; you can scarcely distinguish the difference. I have here statements of some of the importations of dried fruit', which we wish to have replaced by dehydrated fruit eventually. Apparently there is a great deal of fruit which is not dehydrated
being brought in. Here	are the figures:	
	Pounds	Value
Apples dried	1,216,631	% 56,000Apricots dried	1,627,000	144,000Peaches	1.574,000	132,000Prunes and plums unpitted ..	10,403 000	474,000
I am not giving the odd dollars, just round numbers. In the face of these large importations and the very considerable waste of green fruit in the fall, we felt it was advisable to use every means practicable to take care of our green fruit rather than to have it go to waste. The future only will tell the result.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Suppose you had a hundred pounds of evaporated fruit and a hundred pounds of dehydrated fruit, and you moistened them, how many cooking pounds would you have of each?


William Richard Motherwell: I do not think we have that for information.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I am not asking these
questions to embarrass the minister. I may say that the dehydrated fruit is of very great value to British Columbia.


William Richard Motherwell: WouJd the dehydrated fruit be the heavier?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Yes, it is heavier. With
reference to the sun-dried fruit in California that we hear so much about, are they still drying it in the sun or using the dehydration process?


William Richard Motherwell: Our information
from the Fruit branch was that most of these importations are dehydrated fruit.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I understand, that dehydrated fruit is taking the place of dried fruit in California to such an extent that, whereas in 1922 there were only four plants in California, last year there were 1,500. Owing to the fact that they have advertised sun-dried fruit in California to such an extent, and sold so much real estate on the strength of the sunny climate, they are keeping the dehydration under cover; but dehydration of 
prunes can be done in 22 hours as compared with six weeks by the sun-drying process.


Mr. STEWART (Humboldt):: This is the third or fourth time that I recall this vote having come up in the estimates, and I am wondering how long this experiment will have to be conducted to get conclusive results. Perhaps the minister can give us some information as to what further results may be expected if the experiments are carried on this year.


William Richard Motherwell: This is only the
second year that I can recall-and my deputy confirms me in my statement-that we have had this vote.


Charles Wallace Stewart: The estimate of last year was $10,500, I think.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, then this is
the second year.


Charles Wallace Stewart: I mean for
the year before.
Mr.' MOTHERWELL: Let us put it then at three years. This is more or less like any other class of investigation work. We do not expect to sow to-day and reap to-morrow in this world. It is a sort of missionary work. You have to cast your bread upon the waters and sometimes wait for many days to get returns. At this time when there is not much capital seeking investment, you cannot expect many results. There are many reasons why there is not much capital seeking investment. In the first place, capital would want to see this a little further demonstrated. Moreover, we have labour and other troubles that make capital timid at this particular time, and I would be surprised to see a great deal of capital invested in this right now. Later on, -when capital is not so timid, is freer, I hope to see investments, if we can demonstrate in the meantime that this is good business. Judging from the remarks of the hon. member for Victoria City (Mr. Tolmie) and from our own information that large quantities of dehydrated fruit have been coming in from the United States, I see no reason why we should not be able to dehydrate just as well in Canada. So far, we have not done so. We have been keeping on importing the foreign goods. We have no estimate how long we shall have to continue this experiment, but I would imagine that we shall have to continue it for two or three years more.


Charles Wallace Stewart: I was desirous of finding out whether there was any hope of achieving any result, or whether the de-

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partment is simply tiding this over for a further period. What is the nature of this vote? Is it for experimental purposes, or is it simply to keep this product on the market?


William Richard Motherwell: For both purposes. It is to demonstrate that dehydration can be done in Canada and also to take care of the surplus fruit. Some varieties are better adapted for putting on the market in a green state. Others, that are less acceptable for putting on the market in a green state, can be put on the market in a dehydrated state. One would not think of putting on the market as pulpwood some of our finest timber. It is timber, of inferior quality that is put on the market as pulpwood.


Charles Wallace Stewart: The minister does not get my point. We do not maintain an experimental bureau year after year in order to demonstrate to the lumbermen of this country that they should not put certain timber on the market as pulpwood. It has been pretty well demonstrated, through these experiments and experiments in the United States, that dehydration is a success and can be just as successful in Canada as elsewhere. If that is so and there is nothing further to be gained in the way of experiments, why continue this vote from year to year?


William Richard Motherwell: Would my hon.
friend suggest a period at which he thinks this experiment should terminate? The committee will remember that the other day we ceased demonstration work in connection with the dairy business, the Finch creamery. That was run for twelve or thirteen years as a demonstration to show that a large creamery was capable of turning out butter and cheese and of handling milk and cream. It took twelve years to get the full advantage of that experiment. After having sold it to a private company, we were still adversely criticised because we did not keep it on. We concluded that we had come to the end of that experiment; that we had made the demonstration, and yet we were criticised for parting with it. My hon. friend wants to know why we do not discontinue this experiment at [DOT] the end of two or three years. I do not think twelve years will be necessary to demonstrate this properly; but in addition to experiments as to the acceptability of fruit when it is dehydrated, there are other experiments as to what particular varieties of fruit lend themselves best to dehydration and what it is best to put on the markets in a green state. That will take some years to demonstrate, and I
do not think my hon. friend should be in too great haste to terminate this experiment. It is doing good work and we will not run it one year longer than necessary.


John Livingstone Brown: Are experiments being
carried on in regard to other fruits than apples?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, all fruits.


Charles Wallace Stewart: I do not
wish the minister to misconstrue my attitude in this matter. Although I come from a province which does not engage in the production of fruit, I would not want it to be supposed that I am opposed to experiments along this line. I have, however, observed that it is sometimes difficult to discontinue these experiments and inquiries that we start in this House, and it is well that we keep our eye on these points. If the minister can show us-and that is the question which I have asked him-that there is actual reason why this experiment should be carried on with the hope of good results, I am in favour of carrying it on to the extent of twelve years, if necessary, but I want to be sure that it is being carried on with some prospect of definite results.


William Richard Motherwell: I think I have
shown my hon. friend, in the case of the Finch creamery, that we can stop these experiments, return to the government treasury the full amount that was expended and also distribute a very large amount of money amongst the farmers of the district. We do not hope to have such magnificent financial results in this case, but we hope to d'emon-strate to capital that this is a good business in which to invest money. This is not a particularly attractive time for capital, and we should not stop in the middle of an experiment of this character, but should proceed.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: As regards British Columbia, the government plant was binned out in 1923 and there has not been a chance to demonstrate there.


William Richard Motherwell: We have restored
that.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I understand that in 1924
it was very successful. Has the 1924 crop been disposed of?.


William Richard Motherwell: It has been distributed around and sold. We have renewed the plant.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: What success has the department had with crabapples?
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William Richard Motherwell: The experiments have been successful in the extreme in connection with crabapples. They jelly out as well as if they were green apples.


Mr. ANDERSON:: What was done with the product?


William Richard Motherwell: It was sold. There are a few samples around Ottawa.


Robert King Anderson: What quantity of fruit has been experimented on?


William Richard Motherwell: The following
amounts were paid for fruit in Grimsby and
Ottawa in 1924:
Grimsby-
Apples	
$2,576	99Pears	
548	40Peaches,	cherries and plums	
57	15Total	
$3,182	54
Fruit bought at Penticton, in 1924, apricots,
peaches and pears, fresh	
$2,435	18Prunes and crabapples (culls)	
167	18Total	
$2,602 36From the United Growers, outside lots, including loganberries	
$ 600 00


Robert King Anderson: I presume it is the object of the minister to get some private concerns to take up this method of dehydrating fruit and' to establish a plant in Canada?


William Richard Motherwell: That is the idea. I would not be surprised if the fruit growers, if they can once get their stride, will take this up themselves as a part of their activities.


Robert King Anderson: Are any companies
thinking of taking up the system?


William Richard Motherwell: The associations
are taking more active interest in the matter. They have already taken the initial steps to organize a co-operative pool throughout Canada for the purpose of selling fruit and there is no doubt that they will investigate every branch of activity to make the thing successful.
Mr. .MARTELL:	Is the government subsidizing any plants at the present time, or are there any in existence of which the government is in control?


William Richard Motherwell: We are handling it
ourselves.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Where are these plants
located?


William Richard Motherwell: There is one at
Grimsby, one at the experimental farm in Ottawa and one at Penticton in the Okanagan.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Does the department
contemplate establishing one in Nova Scotia?


William Richard Motherwell: We will establish
one if there is a demand for it, but there does not seem to be any necessity for such an undertaking in the Annapolis valley, where climatic conditions are cooler and consequently there is no danger of glut on the market. In the Annapolis they can harvest their apple crop conveniently inasmuch as they have early and late varieties. By starting soon with the early varieties they can get this crop off their hands before the late ones come in, so that there is no danger of any loss through a glut on the market. And the facilities make for a satisfactory condition of affairs. I do not think that there has been any particular demand for a plant down there. In British Columbia, however, where there is a quantity of smaller fruits, things are different; and the same applies to Niagara. In these places there is a tremendous glut and every conceivable effort is necessary, in the way of cold storage, freezing, drying, and so on, to enable producers to harvest and dispose of their crops satisfactorily.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Some of the earliest
varieties in Nova Scotia are not picked, for the reason that the fruit growers have no market for them; and there is also a great percentage of culls or windfalls which people do not bother with at all. Will this process enable them to treat their apples profitably?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, I think so.
If there is any demand for the system down in Nova Scotia we shall be glad to test it out. I remember a violent storm that took place in that part of the country some time ago when the ground was covered with windfalls, which no doubt could have been profitably treated. We shall be glad to consider the matter.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I take it that the minister will undertake to give the system a trial in what is commonly called the Annapolis valley, but particularly in the county of Hants.


Grote Stirling: Is dehydration carried
on in the three western states of the American union, Washington, Oregon and California, or 4re those states watching the experiments in Canada?


William Richard Motherwell: They took the lead in this matter. Their interests are extensive and their co-operative activities are quite marked, particularly in California. I understand that a great part of the fruit we import from the United States is treated in this way. I have no information as to how the system is working there.

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Simon Fraser Tolmie: Under this process 5 pounds of crabapples will make 4i pounds jellied; at the end of one week they will yield only 3i pounds, while after two weeks there will be only 1 pound of jelly. Many of these apples reach the prairie provinces in about a week's time and the jellying properties are preserved in this process; the apples can make as much jelly as the fresh fruit will yield.


Mr. KELLNER:: In operating the plants,
do you buy the fruit and re-sell the product or is the farmer charged so much for the operation? A second question I should like to ask: In view of the fact that we have had a two-day discussion now of provincial rights, does not the minister think that this whole work belongs to the provinces and that he is infringing on their sacred rights when he undertakes activities of this kind?


William Richard Motherwell: As soon as any
particular kick is registered from the standpoint of provincial rights we shall accept the hon. gentleman's suggestion and gracefully withdraw. We are not imposing ourselves on anyone who does not want our assistance. The plant at Penticton and the one at Grimsby were anxiously requested.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: With regard to the operation of the plants, do you buy the fruit and resell the product?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. I read the amounts a moment ago showing what quantities were bought.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Did the minister read a list of the sales also?


William Richard Motherwell: We have not a complete statement of that inasmuch as we have certain stocks on hand.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Live stock, $1,280,000.
William Richard Motherwell: In regard to this item I might submit the following analysis
of this substantial amount:
Organization of horse clubs	$ 65,000
Remount stations, of which there are 4, 2 in Ontario, 1 in Alberta and 1 in Quebec.. ..	15,000
For motors and inspectors	 46,000
Fox development:	for promotion of the
fox industry, principally inspectors, and in connection with registration and certification	 20,000
Cattle, record of performance	 56,000
Bull distribution	 140,000
Livestock promoters' work	 lig 000
Sheep and goats, including wool grading.. ..	8'000
Sire distribution	 5,000
Co-operative marketing	 7,000
Sheeps fairs	 7.000
Boys' and girls' clubs	 3,000
Salaries and expenses	 65,000
Various minor matters	 5,000
Without going further, I may say that the same activities run all through the departments of swine and poultry. Some of these services should' be strictly provincial, such for instance as boys' and girls' clubs, swine clubs and sheep clubs. Strictly speaking these activities are associated with production and they are provincial; and whenever a province becomes familiar with the value of the work we have gradually handed it over to the provincial authorities. In the western provinces at the present time a good d'eal of the cow testing and organization work has been handed over to the provincial departments. In the Maritime provinces and in the older provinces the work is still conducted by this department although I am watching for the opportunity of gradually handing it over to the local authorities because it is really work that they should do. Sometimes they cannot do it however and rather than have it neglected we take care of it for the time being.


Mr. FORKE:: It is rather unfortunate that estimates should be printed in this way. I cannot keep track of the different amounts and the various activities to which they are devoted!. I tried to follow the minister while he was making the statement, but I could not get the details. The right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) objected this afternoon to the items being included in a lump sum; I make the same objection now. I think the estimates are printed in a very impracticable form.


William Richard Motherwell: I agree with that, Mr. Chairman, Before the estimates were prepared I asked my deputy to try to remedy the situation, and I have two pages of particulars affecting all the branches of live stock under one vote, exactly as I have read the details. If it is the wish Of the committee to have the vote so minutely subdivided, I shall certainly endeavour to have it in this form.


Robert Forke: We had better proceed as
we are at present. We are not shorthand writers and therefore cannot take down the details as the minister reads them out.


William Richard Motherwell: I suppose the
present form was thought more convenient by those who originated it, but I agree it is not satisfactory to hon. members who are not familiar with the vote and desire to criticise it.


David Spence: Take it item by item, and we will get through it a little quicker.


William Richard Motherwell: All right; horse
club-
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Donald Sutherland: Before the minister proceeds, I took exception the other night to the voting of money in a lump sum without having information as to what it was to be used for. After several hours of discussion we elicited that there were two items in the estimates which were not to be used under the vote in which they were included, one of those items being cow-testing, which was to be transferred to the live stock vote. This is a very large sum, amounting to $1,280,000, and probably the most important of the minister's estimates. By referring to the Auditor General's report we find how the money was expended in the previous year under the headings there given. They are not so very numerous. I think if the minister would have particulars of his proposed expenditure placed in the hands of members it would facilitate the passing of his estimates and save a lot of cross-firing that does not conduce to the very best feeling at the time. I know there is a good deal of dissatisfaction with the way in which a considerable portion of the money voted under this item has been expended in the past. As the leader of the Progressives (Mr. Forke) has indicated, it is impossible for us to take down the particulars as read out by the minister and know exactly what is being done.


Mr. LEADER:: This very important item
of $1,280,000 is worthy of careful consideration. Good live stock being one of the determining factors in the improvement of agriculture, I may be pardoned for saying a word or two in regard to this industry. I wonder if the minister or the government have entirely given up the notion of effecting better trade relations with the United States? The rearing of live stock can only be profitable if we secure proper markets for its disposal. Our logical market is to the south. I do not wish to minimize the importance of the home market, which I think is the best, but the next in importance for live stock, as well as for other farm products, is certainly that to the south. In 1923 we shipped 120,947 head of cattle to the United States, in 1924,
183,000,	and in former years our shipments were even larger, amounting in 1920 to as high as 500,000 head. In spite of the fact that we are penalized by a duty of $20 per head entering that market, we have to send them there anyway.
I have secured some figures from the Bureau of Statistics relating to the cost of shipment of our cattle to the United States markets. The cost of transporting a one-thousand pound steer from Calgary to St. Paul is $7.05, and to Chicago $9.20, as against a cost of $45

per head to Liverpool; from Winnipeg to St. Paul the cost of transporting a thousand-pound steer is $4.20, and to Chicago $5.85, as against $42 per head to Liverpool; or a saving in favour of the American markets of approximately $36 per steer. The following quotations from the Chicago and the Winnipeg markets, taken from the agricultural papers of February 5, will no doubt be interesting to the committee:
Comparative prices on Feb. 5, 1924
Winnipeg	Chicago	DifferenceChoice steers	$6.75	$12.50	$5.75Prime butcher's steers ..	6.00	10.50	4.50Common butcher's steers	4.00	9.00	5.00Choice feeder steers ..	4.75	8.00	3.25Choice stockers	3.75	7.25	3.50Butcher cows	4.00	7.50	3.50Butcher heifers	5.00	10.50	5.50Choice calves	8.00	14.75 [DOT]	6.75Now, I maintain	that one	of the	greatest
blunders ever made in Canadian politics was when we voted against reciprocity with the United States. I say "we" because I was one of those-as I have confessed in the House before-who voted against 9 p.m. the proposal. Since then I have had my eyes opened, and I wish I could get another chance to-day to vote in favour of reciprocity. I know that this proposal is not considered in a favourable light in some sections of the House and in certain sections of the country; and we read that reciprocity is not now favourably considered by many people in the United States, particularly the government, but I believe a big body of people across the line are in favour of closer trade relations with this country. In proof of this statement I have here a clipping from the Fair Tariff League pamphlet printed in the United States, a league having a backing of about three million people. The matter is of such importance that I deem it my duty to delay the committee in order to put this on the record. It says:
The research department of the American Farm Bureau Federation, after thorough investigation declared that there is practically no benefit to any phase of the American cattle industry from the present tariff, and that it is a distinct injury to cattle feeders.
The U. S. Tariff Commission reported to congress in 1922 that the only effect of the emergency tariff was to injure Canada.
In 1923 the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, Illinois Agricultural Association and others appealed to the Tariff Commission for relief from this tariff.
Our tariff on cattle is a direct affront to Canada, that formerly exported some 200,000 head of range cattle annually. Northwestern farmers need these Canadian feeder cattle. The United States as a whole requires 4,500,000 feeders annually. Canadian feeder cattle should carry to Europe the com and other feed of our Northwest. By the sudden imposition of our Fordney duties Canada was left without a market.

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The just wrath of Canadians will not be overcome in many years. Their purchases front us were reduced by $400,000,000 in one year, not from anger only, but mostly because we would not accept, on fair terms, of such of their commodities as we could well use in payment for our goods.
This goes to show that if we are to sell goods to a foreign country we must buy goods in return. I quote further:
A destructive phase of this tariff, intended to be protective, is seen in the recent diversion of Canada's surplus cattle from the United States to England.
It goes on to say:
We make a mockery of our boast that our unguarded Canadian boundary line is imaginary only. We fortified it with worse than guns, with a tariff of distress and ill-will that gave us never a benefit.
Canada errs in attributing this action to the American people. She apparently thinks that our public rules in tariff matters. She does not realize that the Ford-ney law was enacted by a few over-powerful manufacturers, who betrayed the principle of protection, fooled the people and disregarded the better judgment of many manufacturers who wanted lower duties on their own and other manufactures.
Then I have an article from the Breeders' Gazette by Alvin H. Sanders, one of the plenipotentiaries who was sent over by President Taft to negotiate a treaty of .reciprocity with the Canadian government. The heading of this article is, "Boosting the Tariff on Wheat." Mr. Sanders says:
While the action may meet with the approval of wheat growers for the time being, The Gazette questions the wisdom of any move that has for its object any serious restriction of interchange of commodities between Canada and the United States. As a member of the United States Tariff Board some years ago, the writer hereof was a party to the negotiation of a treaty of reciprocity by President Taft between the two governments which was finally approved by our Senate, but ultimately rejected by the Dominion authorities, due, as we recall the facts, largely to Ontario opposition.
Note this-Mr. Sanders says:
The Gazette has always been a believer in reciprocity -the exchanging of customs concessions in the interest of increased interchange of commodities.
Mr. Sanders is a protectionist, yet he believes in a measure of reciprocity with Canada. Recently I have had some correspondence with one of the outstanding breeders of the United States. He wrote me a personal letter in answer to a question I put to him. I will not give the name, though I could give it to anyone who wanted it. He says:
I have no information as to when the United States is likely to admit Canadian cattle free of duty, but I imagine it will be soon as there seems to be developing a shortage of cattle in this country, particularly in the middle west; and I believe the corn belt feeders will be demanding free entry of Canadian cattle soon, in fact some of them are already.
The fact that the government of the United States have raised the tariff walls so high 25
that we can scarcely see over them does not lead to the conclusion that it is of no use to negotiate with them with a view to the securing of better trade relations. I would be one of the last to keep knocking at a neighbour's door or to insist on swapping horses or cattle with him if he did not want to trade with me, but I am convinced that a great many of the people of the United States -indeed, the vast majority-are willing to trade with Canada if they only had the chance. If some of the politics and politicians could be eliminated I believe we would have an opportunity for the establishment of better trade relations with this great neighbour. Prosperity in agriculture can be maintained only by the rearing of live stock, therefore it is essential that good markets be found for our products. If the government succeeds in getting a reduction in the transportation charges overseas and in bringing about a decrease of the American tariff on our feeder cattle, the live stock industry in this country will be given a great impetus, and with the prosperity of agriculture the wheels of industry in eastern Canada will immediately respond with increased revolutions.
I heard it stated in the House that we should not send an ambassador to the United States. It is my view, however, that if we had a good practical man at Washington, a man who knew the needis of Canada and was willing to carry on negotiations in a practical way, it would be to the benefit of both countries. I should very much like to see an ambassador at Washington working in the interests of Canada. True, it would cost some money, but I think I can suggest where the minister could provide the necessary funds. We have in this country a great army of live stock promoters, sheep promoters, and so on. In looking over the Auditor General's report for last year I located at least seventy, and their travelling expenses amounted to about $140,000. This year we had less; in the Auditor General's report I could not find as many as I found last year. These are very splendid men; I have met a great many of them. They are doing their best to show us how to improve our live stock. But that is of no use if we are not provided with a market. The first duty of this government is to help to get us a market, and then if we need the live stock promoters we can take them on. In the meantime we do not need any live stock promoters; if we are assured of a reasonable profit we will do the promoting ourselves. So I suggest to the minister and to the government that if they contemplate appointing a minister at Washington they should give some of these live stock

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promoters a holiday without pay and provide the money in that way.
I did not intend to delay the committee so long, but I will close by mentioning just one or two little banquets. I notice in the Auditor General's report for the year ending March 31, 1924, on page 74, an item for a banquet held at the Chateau Laurier, "58 dinners, $116; cigars, $9.50." Then, a banquet was held at the Queen's Hotel, Toronto: "dinners, $200: service and cigars, etc., $30." Now I wish to be as kind as possible in this matter. I do not Marne this minister so much or this government, they are simply following in the steps of their predecessors. These expenditures for banquets and dinners have been going on for some years; we have too many of them and it is high time the practice was discontinued. I would ask the minister, therefore, to bear these remarks in mind and to try to curtail his expenses for banquets. I would like him to tell me what he thinks of the desirability of our trying to establish better trade relations with the United States.


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member
has given us a very interesting resume of the live stock situation. I assure him that I am with him on the question of reciprocity. If eveiybody who was in favour of it had voted for it we would have had it now-and I am not suggesting that my hon. friend did not vote for it. Had it been dissociated from politics, had we had a plebiscite on it, we would have got it. But that was not the way it went. We had the opportunity but we missed it, and we will have to take the consequences; that is all there is to it. The opportunity may come around again but it does not look very much like it now.


An hon. MEMBER:: Try a banquet.


An hon. MEMBER:: Try a plebiscite.


William Richard Motherwell: That would not be a bad idea. It would be a "safety first" way anyhow.
With regard to the promotors, we have got one horse promoter in the three prairie provinces, and last year we succeeded in developing a trade, very largely through his activities, of 12,000 horses that were shipped from the prairies to eastern Canada even down as far as the Maritime provinces. This is a case of very marked success as a result of a promoter's activities. The promoter in question is Mr. Wilson, who is located at Calgary. I do not know when he was appointed, he was in the position before I had anything to do with it, but his services have been valuable to the extent that they facili-

tated that trade last year of those 12,009 horses from the west where they were a perfect drug on the market in some parts.
Now then in the province of Manitoba, from which the hon. member for Portage la Prairie '(Mr. Leader) comes, they have been hammering at our door this last year or more asking us to put on another promoter for that province. I believe we should have one too, but in response to the general desire that these expenditures be kept down we have refrained from putting an additional man in that province. As a matter of fact these services are a little bit undermanned; that is the actual situation.


Robert Forke: Will the minister explain
what he proposes to do in Manitoba? What is the promoter going to promote?


William Richard Motherwell: The promoters are facilitating the sale of horses to buyers in any part of the country where they are in need of them.


Robert Forke: Have you any idea what
those 12,000 horses brought; would the price realized help to pay for the services of the promoter?


William Richard Motherwell: The chances are
that if those horses had not been sold in that way there would not have been any sale for them at all. They were horses that were suitable for the lighter lands down here but were not suitable for the heavy lands in the west. Besides they were getting up in years. A great deal of work has been done in trying to promote the sale of tnese western horses to Russia, but on account of the high freight rates, the exchange, and the difficulty of getting credits from Russia nothing has yet come of the movement. But we have worked up quite a trade down this way. Now, in regard to the question of banquets I do not want-


Mr. SPENCER:: Before the minister gets
away from the point-


William Richard Motherwell: I had three points
to reply to, and I did not wish my hon. friend the member for Portage la Prairie to imagine that I was ignoring him. Somebody suggested that the precedent set by our predecessors was not a good one to go by. I do not think we should assume that all the acts of our predecessors were wrong and cut them all out. We will conduct these matters along the lines of our predecessors if they are sound; if they are not sound we will depart from them. Take the question of legislating in regard to fruit if you like. I have been reprimanded by

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my good friend from Hants (Mr. Martell) today for not consulting the people of his constituency and taking counsel with them. Well, I believe in the principle of consulting every part of the country before you bring down legislation when you are legislating for a country of the size of Canada. We have recognized that principle too by providing, in several of our acts notably the Seed Control Act and several others, for the appointment of advisers, so that the department may be constantly in touch with practical men throughout the country from whom they might obtain guidance and advice.
Now, with respect to this particular banquet it was a banquet to live stock men, in connection with the advanced registration scheme, I think it was, that the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. Tolmie) spoke of the other night, based on a record of performance by dairy cows. We invited them in for a conference on a forward movement along that line. If there is one weak point in our dairying it is the small production of the dairy cow. So we invited the farmers to leave their work and come down to Ottawa, and some of them travelled two thousand miles at their own expense. When we gave them the banquet it saved them that much more on their expense account. I will guarantee that the charge per plate for the banquet was not any more than their dinner would have been at the Chateau, even with the cigars thrown in. There was not any 4.4 stuff there, much less native wine. If that is an evidence of dissipation it comes to about $2 per plate. How many will go to the Chateau-I mean in the proper frame of mind and condition for a good meal- 

and will get away with less than $2 per plate. Turn a farmer loose in there with the government to foot his bill and see if he will let you off with $2. As a matter of fact it is a saving proposition to have these banquets.


Arthur Edward Ross: Seeing that the hon.
member for Portage la Prairie has brought up the question of the export cattle trade, and the barriers against it, I wish, as a farmer in the province of Ontario, to make a few comments on the importance to the farmers of our province of the export market for cattle. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie has referred to the barriers which keep our cattle out of the market in the country to the south. But we are glad to know that we have at the present time, and have had for the last couple of years, a market across the seas for our export cattle without which the cattle raisers in the province of Ontario would be very badly handicapped. Now, as a matter 25i
of fact there is a good demand for our cattle there. They want our cattle in that market, and our cattle are going over there and proving very satisfactory. I think that in the year 1923 the value of the Canadian cattle exported to Britain amounted to fifty-six thousand and some odd hundreds of dollars. In the year 1924 the value of the cattle exported was $80,000.


William Richard Motherwell: That was it.


Arthur Edward Ross: In order to show
you how our cattle are received over there I will read a few extracts from the Commercial Intelligence Journal issued every week by the Department of Trade and Commerce of Canada. In the issue of that publication, dated February 14, last I find the following statements by Mr. G. B. Johnson, Trade Commissioner in Scotland:
During the past year the shipments of Canadian cattle to Scotland have been fully maintained, but the total numbers are still far short of requirements.
Then further down:
The cattle were mostly Stockers of a good class, weighing from 1,100 pounds to 1,300 pounds live weight landed in Scotland; they have been purchased by farmers in many parts of this country, but the Eastern Counties-Forfarshire, Fifeshire, Perthshire and the Lothians-have taken most of the cattle and have been most prominent in the trade.
The demand for Canadian cattle has greatly im-provedt owing to the farmers being well satisfied with them, and the prices have been generally higher. The highest price given for Canadian cattle during the year was 67s. per live cwt. of 112 pounds, and the average for the season was 52s. to 58s. per live cwt.
Farmers have found by experience that Canadian cattle are very healthy, free from disease, good feeders, and quick in coming to prime beef.
It seems to me too bad that for over thirty years we were dteprived of the British market for our export cattle on the plea that Canadian cattle were not healthy. We now know that that was only a plea. I believe the British people realized that, but as long as they followed the old beaten path in their efforts to have the embargo raised they did not achieve this success. But when they departed from the beaten path in the field to the consuming public the results were satisfactory.
Farmers have found by experience that Canadian cattle are very healthy, free from disease, good feeders and quick in coming to prime beef. It is almost an unheard-of thing for a farmer to lose a Canadian bullock through illness, and they are now known to be stronger in constitution than most other cattle.
Just one other paragraph:
The only complaints against Canadian cattle are on account of their age and on account of branded hides. The latter point appears to be in process of elimination, but the matter of the age of cattle is reported to be one that deserves the serious attention of Canadian shippers. The farmers in Scotland want
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young cattle, not more than two years old if possible. If this important point is attended to, and a good class of well-graded cattle shipped, there is ample room in Scotland for a great increase in the number of Canadian cattle which can be absorbed.
I read that just to show the market that we have access to across the sea, and the demand there for our cattle, but the one point which I wish to refer to is the restriction that is placed on us when we try to reach that market across the sea. We have before us, and I have read during the last few days, the report of Mr. Preston regarding the Atlantic shipping combine. I was a little surprised a few days ago to know that practically the whole afternoon was taken up in this House in trying to discredit Mr. Preston, intimating, I take it that this report which was brought down would also be discredited. We do not need to rely entirely on the report of Mr. Preston, but let us read the report of the special agricultural committee which reported during the session of 1923. We find there ample evidence that there was at that time-and we believe there is yet-a combine that is hampering our trade across the sea.
I do not wish to dwell longer on this because we know the government in the Speech from the Throne has promised to deal with this matter and I have no doubt they will endeavour to deal with it satisfactorily. I might say here, by way of asking for information, that I am not very clear as to why it should be necessary for us to subsidize an outside company when we have a fleet of government-owned ships of our own. It does not appear to me that the situation is as it should be. However, we will leave that until the discussion comes up in the House. While speaking about restriction by ocean combine, in the matter of ocean rates, I will read an extract to the House. It is not in reference to the effect of the North Atlantic steamship conference. This is another situation that sometimes does and I believe will this year develop, and I may call it the cornering of space for our Canadian cattle. This is in reference to a private individiiual, and he has apparently successfully cornered the space for the shipment of Canadian cattle. This article appeared in the Toronto Globe under date of January 20, and says in part:
Not only is it established by information in the hands of the federal officials that Charles Schamburg of New York city has effected a comer in cattle space on the various steamship lines sailing from the ports of Halifax and St. John during the present winter, but it is becoming increasingly evident, according to the same information, that the three principal lines handling Canadian cattle-the Donaldson, the White Star-Dominion and the Canadian Government lines-are making a more or less concerted effort to increase the price for

cattle space. The prevailing rate is $20 a space, nominally, but in operation it is more.
I for one thought that the government-owned lines-and I think the average Canadian citizen thought-were to be another facility of transportation, a facility owned by the people, and to be a competing factor to keep down the rates, in order that our produce from this Dominion might reach the overseas markets of the world; but instead of being a competing factor we find that they are in league with the others, and are taking their part in the matter of increasing freight rates. A little further down this article says:
All the cattle space to Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow is now held by Mr. Schamburg, and Canadian live stock producers wishing to ship to those ports must do business with his representatives in Canada and at his rates.
I do not know anything about Mr. Sdham-burg, but from reading the reports, and from perusing the report of the special committee on Agriculture of 1923, I gather that he is a cattle shipper himself; at the same time the impression which I got from this-and I think I am justified in forming the impression -is that he has purchased all the space available, not only for his own use, but also to hold, to force the price up to others who need the space, and that is the feature to which I take exception. If he purchased the space for his own needs, to ship his own cattle across the sea, I would have no objection, and I do not think anybody else would have an objection, but we want to be sure that he purchased the space for that purpose alone and' not to prevent others getting it. It is of vital importance to the farmers of Ontario who have access to the British market for their export cattle, and we are looking to this government to see that the restrictions that are placed upon us in regard to ocean rates and the cornering of space on the ships, are not permitted to continue, so that we will not be placed in such a position that we will be in the hands of those who may hamper our trade in this respect.


Henry Elvins Spencer: The minister in answering a question put by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) intimated that the horses sent from the west to eastern Canada were not good working horses, were not fit to work in the west and therefore sent eastward. I should like to correct that impression in this House. I want to say that, as far as I am concerned, the people were very particular in regard to not buying any horse that was not worth while, or any horse which could not be called a good working horse. I should like the minister to give us some idea of what was being paid on the average for

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those horses. The House might understand from the statement of the minister that there was a good, thriving business in the horse trade from western Canada, but judging from the figures I have seen, the prices that were being paid for those horses were not equal to the cost of raising them.


William Richard Motherwell: I hope I did not leave the impression that they were the culls from the west. I pointed out that there was a certain class of horse in the west running about 1,200 pounds, which was quite common. These horses were unfitted for the heavy lands of that country, but they were all right for the lighter lands down in Ontario. No doubt some good horses were sent down as well as other kinds.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Did not the minister refer to the old horses?


William Richard Motherwell: I pointed out that they had been accumulating and had been, gradually getting older, the market was so poor. Of course no horse on the market ever does get beyond nine years of age. But speaking more seriously, we did not buy or sell these horses; we merely facilitated the getting together of the buyer and seller and promoted the trade in that way, and I presume the class of animal that was required by the buyer was soldi to him, because there was a surplus there, and the buyer could pretty nearly fix his own price. If he wanted a lighter horse, he got it. If he wanted a heavier one and had the money, he got that- whatever he required. The point was that there was a surplus continually getting older, whether they were being used or not.


Mr. THURSTON:: Does the minister think there is a scarcity of horses in Ontario? My understanding is that a small number were sold in Ontario?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


John Jabez Thurston: Was the reason for
giving the assistance that the government thought there was a scarcity of horses in Ontario?


William Richard Motherwell: No, but it was
partly that.


John Jabez Thurston: We have a surplus in
Ontario as well as in the west.


William Richard Motherwell: Why did they go
there then? It must have been because they could secure a cheaper horse.
With regard to ocean rates, I think we had better defer that question until Tuesday when we shall probably have a full discussion. I
do not know how the question of space could be regulated. If the hon. member for North Simeoe (Mr. Ross) desired to make sure of some space and was fore-handed enough to secure it, to get a corner on it, to make sure that he would have enough for himself at all events and, if he had any over, that he could dispose of it, I do not know of any law that would prevent him from doing so. The same thing is true on the Great Lakes. The big exporter, it is considered, makes his profit largely by buying an abundance of space in advance as cheaply as he can.


Arthur Edward Ross: Does he secure that
space to resell it?


William Richard Motherwell: I mean if he had
not enough goods to fill it. There is no law that I know of. against retailing space. At the same time, there is an opening for a great deal of abuse and of putting the small shipper into a comer. I do not know the condition of affairs in Ontario, but the western people who are using space have pools by which they have men looking after their interests and seeing that the small man is not sidetracked. It is pretty nearly imperative these days that farm products be sold in bulk. I might point out that we have a request at the present time for assistance to bring all the potato growers, vegetable growers and fruit growers into one pool for the purpose of promoting the better marketing of these articles. That has been brought into prominence as a result of the investigation under the Combines Act by my colleague the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock). Certain undesirable practices have been discovered that render it necessary for the farmers to follow the fruits- and vegetables further on towards the ultimate market. Should we not look favourably on a project of that kind? I think we should. As regards the space question, as soon as reports were sent abroad with regard to the. cornering of space, my department made diligent inquiries at Montreal, and so far as we could find out, there was no substantial or general abuse of the cornering of space. I think the mercantile marine, with its limited space, was all taken up before some people could secure some who expected to secure it, and they were naturally disappointed. Outside of that and certain other exporters in connection with other liners, the space was largely required for their own activities. If a person had sufficient funds and saw an opportunity of retailing space, he could buy it up, but he would be running a
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considerable risk. I think -the committee understands that in all the sailings of last year about 30 per cent of the spaces that were available either were not used or had to be knocked down for want of animals to occupy them. Consequently, -the man who would buy them all up would run the risk of not being able to fill 30 per cent of the space, and such a risk is not likely to be taken. I understand that our department has had no complaint and we have no complaints now with respect to the shortage of -space. There was some talk of shortage of space for the immediate opening of navigation at Montreal. There was a tremendous demand for space for that particular time by people who did not want to feed any longer than that, and the result naturally was a congestion just for that time. Apart from that, there is abundance of space.


Mr. MILLAR:: I should like to make a
suggestion to the minister with regard to an expenditure at the experimental farm at Indian Head that, I think, would be advantageous. I had intended to make this suggestion under the next item, experimental farms, but since the expenditure would come from this grant, perhaps I may just as well make it now. The minister has made reference to the number of horses that have been shipped east, and there has been some little criticism as to the quality. As regards the Indian Head experimental farm where I think some money could be spent to advantage, I have pointed out to the minister before that raising a large quantity of horses, cattle or of any other stock of a very ordinary type, such as can be found on the surrounding farms, does not seem to be of very much benefit. I doubt if we get full returns f-or the money expended. It is necessary to keep well ahead of the community in which the farm is situated-. At the present time the experimental farm there has a fine herd of pure-bred Clydesdales, females, some of them of a very fine type. Many of them have taken prizes in very good classes at Chicago, Toronto and other large shows. They are, however, very much lacking in having a suitable sire for su-ch an important place. I know that a certain amount of money is allotted to experimental farms, year after year, but I am inclined to think the amount available will not be sufficient to get the animal desired. If the minister would use a part of this vote to assist in getting the right type of animal, he would be well ahead of the other breeders in the community and the farm would then render a real service. I believe the herd there is somewhat in the neighbourhood of a score of female animals and

the minister would do well to carry out this suggestion. I have another suggestion to make when we come to the next item, but I trust the minister will see that this suggestion is given consideration. I know that the community would appreciate it if he carried out this suggestion, and if we follow that policy in time, there will not be so much criticism about the poor type of horses we have to sell and to ship out.


Robert Alexander Hoey: I was not altogether satisfied
with the minister's reply to the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) when the latter referred to the desirability of closer trade relations with the United States as respects cattle. About three weeks ago I was present at the annual convention of the Illinois Agricultural Association held at Champaign-Urbana where there were present about 800 delegates and 400 visitors. I was there for two days and I embraced the opportunity extended to me to interview as many of the delegates as possible, all of whom are representative farmers from that state, in an attempt to find out from them their attitude as regards the entry of Canadian cattle, that is feeder cattle, to the middle west. I did not meet a single delegate who was not in favour of reducing or abolishing the duty. You may say that these men were not frank with me in view of the fact that I had gone down there on their invitation as a Canadian visitor. But in my judgment they were frank with me, because the same delegates who told me that they were in favour of the abolition of the duty on cattle also informed me that they were in favour of an immediate increase in the duty on Canadian butter. If I mistake not, that convention appointed a delegation to go from there to Washington with a demand that the duty on Canadian butter entering the United States be immediately increased. I make this statement in the hope that the minister and the officials of his department are fully aware of the sentiment existing in the middle west at present with regard to the entry of our cattle into the United States. There is nothing at all unselfish in the attitude of those people towards us; they are demanding our cattle to-day because they believe they can make money on the finishing. If the agriculturists are in favour of allowing our cattle in free, surely the consumers in the United States cannot possibly be opposed to their entry. I think we might in this way obtain reciprocity piecemeal. There is a demand in western Canada, as the minister knows, for the entry of Wisconsin dairy cattle free, and I have often wondered whether he could not with

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some hope of success enter into negotiations with the powers that be at Washington and come to some agreement whereby they would allow our cattle to enter the United States free if we gave them some concession in return.


William Richard Motherwell: Replying first to
the hon. member for Qu'Appdlle (Mr. Millar), with regard to the situation at Indian Head, at a great many of our experimental farms we have suitable stallions at the head of the stud. At Indian Head, however, it was not thought necessary to purchase an animal for the reason that there was one in the immediate neighbourhood. But if the condition at Indian Head is as represented I have no doubt the suggestion will be taken into consideration and will be kept in mind in a subsequent year. Saskatchewan Clydesdales have won a reputation not only nationally but internationally as well; that province is reputed to raise the best Clydesdales in Canada.


Robert Forke: How would it do to have
one at Brandon also?


William Richard Motherwell: I think there is
one there.


Robert Forke: I never heard of it.


William Richard Motherwell: I know there is
one at Windermere and if there is not one at Brandon it must be owing to the fact that there are exceptionally good ones in the neighbourhood.


Robert Forke: If there is one we never
heard of it.


William Richard Motherwell: With regard to the suggestion of the hon. member (Mr. Hoey) we had ambitions two or three years ago of trying to accomplish what he suggested, that is to say, to bring about a sort of reciprocity piecemeal; and in the estimates of two years ago we provided something like $6,000 of a grant to an organization with headquarters in Calgary, whose primary object was to promote trade relations with the United States in cattle. They had an emissary in the United States and were developing various markets andl we felt that we were going as close to securing a market of that kind in that roundabout way as we dared, having regard to ordinary international courtesies which demand that we do not interfere with another county's business. It was just about that time, or prior to that, that Mr. Manning Doherty met with a good deal of criticism in the United Kingdom for pursuing his activities contrary to the orthodox methods. I am not
entering into the pros and cons of that matter, but if he got results, most of us, I suppose, are not worrying as to how he obtained them. Any port in a storm is an old saying that sometimes is very appropriate. But there are international courtesies that must be observed; and to take part in any indirect method of trying to get into a market by a side door rather than through the front door is very apt to lead to difficulties. Take, for instance, the preference which was promised on fruit by the British government and which was afterwards retracted. There was a very strong effort made by some of the fruit growers in Canada at that time to have us intervene with the British government and try to induce them to stand by their original pllian of a preference for our fruit. Now, that is a very delicate matter and I would point out to my hon. friend that a similar delicacy characterizes this cattle business. As a matter of fact we went as far as we felt we could go and get away with it.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Public opinion may have
changed since then.


William Richard Motherwell: Possibly; and I
think that it is changing. They will not pursue their present course indefinitely because it seems to me to be a false attitude. It is only a matter of time, when foodstuffs go up sufficiently high and the people in the United States cry for cheaper articles, when there will be access given to our stock. But whether we can get our cattle in by means of these local activities to which I have referred is doubtful, although I tried' it, with the dangers I have mentioned apparent on all sides.


Mr. LOVIE:: One of the drawbacks in the transportation of cattle from western Canada is the fact that the animals lose condition on the long rail route from Winnipeg to the Atlantic coast. That difficulty could be overcome if the Hudson Bay railway were completed. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) last year made a trip through the Hudson bay country, although he did not go the whole way, and in an interview published in the Manitoba Free Press in September he was quoted as having said that as soon as he got back to Ottawa and met with his colleagues he would do his very best to see that the railway was finished right up to Port Nelson. Cattle, as we well know, do not lose condition on the ocean trip, but they certainly do on a long rail route, and the thousand miles between Winnipeg and Montreal might be eliminated through the use of Port Nelson. And Port Nelson is just as
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near to Liverpool as is Montreal. This, however, is by the way. What I want particularly to refer to is the matter of horse clubs for which $25,000 is being asked. I do not want the minister to run away with the idea that I am opposed' to these clubs, for I do not object to federal assistance to horse breeders. I do think, however, that there is need for a little change in the operation of these institutions. Some of the parties feel that they have a grievance in the working of the rules, and this grievance could be obviated if section 6 of the act providing federal assistance, page 13, were eliminated1. That section provides that the owner or owners of a stallion shall not belong to a club. I should like to see that provision repealed. Horses are becoming scarce in every part of Canada; indeed, they are becoming scarce throughout the world. There is a scarcity of horses in the eastern provinces, according to the official figures, and in western Canada there will not be many available for shipment. Stallions of high quality certainly are scarce. To get the benefit of federal assistance it is necessary that horse breed'ers should hire a stallion and at present there are very few that can be hired; they must be purchased outside and brought in. But private individuals cannot afford the risk of purchasing high priced sires. Consequently the businesslike way is for a number of fanners to form a company, put up the necessary cash and select one or two of their number to purchase a good stallion; but simply because they are working in that businesslike manner they are penalized; they get no federal assistance. The Breeders' Gazette of the United States in its issue of January 15 last has the following editorial:
The majority of the work animals are nine years old or over; many of them being twelve to fifteen years of age. Many farmers are already looking about for pairs of horses or more for next season's work, and finding it difficult to locate the really good type of horse that they have been accustomed to use. The net result of all this is that there is a general feeling among farmers in the combelt states east of the Missouri that breeding must be re-established.
The editor continues:
The most practical method is for ten or twelve men in the community to organize a corporation capitalized at a few thousand dollars in shares of $100 each. The expense of incorporating with the assistance of a friendly lawyer or banker will usually not amount to more than $50. As many shares can be sold as may seem necessary for the purchase of a horse, and the balance of the stock held in the treasury. Fifteen shares sold to fifteen separate farmers will raise $1,500 in cash; and two men of unquestioned integrity, who are good judges of horses, can take the money and go direct to the stable of any dealer or breeder and buy a very good horse, ship him home, and still have a little money left over.

We have associations in this country doing identical work, but they can get no federal assistance for the simple reason that the clause of the act which I have quoted excludes the stallion owner or owners, as the case may be, from belonging to a club. We know that horses are going to be scarce in a year or two, and if we wait until there is an absolute shortage before we begin breeding operations we will find ourselves in trouble.
To-day I endeavoured to obtain from the Live Stock branch figures of the number of horses in Canada, but without success. However, I have the figures given at Toronto on February 12, by the president of the Clydesdale Horse Association. He said:
"While the total shows an increase as compared with 1923, the number of colts and fillies shows a decrease. As compared with 1919 the number of colts and fillies or young stock coming on to supply the annual wastage shows a decrease of 291,100. There is a decrease of over 13,000 in the number of colts and fillies in 1924 as compared with 1923. The number of stallions in Canada shows a decrease of 20.492 since 1919, or nearly 42 per cent. The figures show a decrease of 10,554 the largest decrease in any one year since 1919.
Horses show an increase last year in every province excepting Ontario and New Brunswick as compared with 1923, the decrease in Ontario being around 10,000. The greatest decrease in the number of stallions is in the western provinces, 1,694 in Manitoba, 5,278 in Saskatchewan, and 2,625 in Alberta.
There is a decrease of 18,000,000 horses, mules and asses taking world conditions all over. The question is, what is to be done to encourage farmers to go into the breeding of horses. It is well known that there are many indifferent sires travelling at a very low fee, consequently the high priced stallions have to compete with them unless they are clubbed, and the really good sires are not being used. It must also be borne in mind that the farmers who have been sufficiently well off to purchase high class sires are in many cases quitting the business, and the young men taking their places do not care to invest money in horse breeding. In my district there has been what you may call a horse club, a horse association, or a horse syndicate, going steadily for 25 years, and yet we are finding it very difficult to carry on, simply because we can get no federal assistance. We are doing our utmost to purchase the best sires available. In proof of what I say, allow me to read a cablegram which I received on January 23:
Can ship genuine good horse rising five years able win international well bred, price five hundred pounds. Cable reply.
James Kilpatrick, Kilmarnock.
I had to turn down that offer because our people felt that they could not afford to put up the money without federal assistance. Last

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year we had on the road the grand champion of Brandon in 1919 and yet that stallion in competition with the poorest grade of horses only had a season of 42 mares where he generally had 100. That is going to put our association absolutely out of business, for on account of scarcity we find it next to impossible to hire or club a horse. Besides, there are disadvantages. In hiring a stallion for a season you may not get the same horse the second year, and it is well understood that a sire has got to travel in the district four or five seasons to get the best results. I should like the minister to consider this proposition, for at present those who are doing their level best to purchase good sires co-operatively are being discriminated against as though they were criminals.


William Richard Motherwell: Touching the. last
point first, I think the remedy for meeting the competition made by the cheaper stallion would be to raise the standard of the pure bred stallions. I understand that Manitoba has a law prohibiting the travelling of any but pure bred animals. Is not that right?


William James Lovie: Yes, but that does not prevent them standing at home.


William Richard Motherwell: That is right, you
can hardly prohibit a man keeping any kind of stallion he wants to for his own use at home. I know in the province of Saskatchewan we introduced the principle of a licensed stallion area, with a board to examine the animals that were allowed to travel in those municipalities, and this raised the quality of the stallions immediately. In Manitoba the principle was adopted generally all over the province at the outset, and I think there must be a marked improvement there. You will have to develop a desire on the part of breeders to use the best animals available. With regard to the other objection raised by my hon. friend, that no stallion owner shall belong to a club, the primary object of this regulation is that the club is intended to help, not the stallion owner, but rather the man who has no stallion. If you permitted stallion owners to become members of a
10 p.m. horse club, they would be getting the benefit of the use of their own horses and the government's subsidy as well. I am sure my hon. friend must recollect that years ago in the west before the horse club business was organized the owners of stallions used to go all over the country organizing syndicated stallions, and with their natural desire for gain, and with no supervision of the animals, a bunch of farmers would be
hoaxed, with the result that when these clubs came in the desire was to help not so much the stallion owner as the man without a stallion in an effort to improve the horse breeding industry. There may be a hardship on some, but speaking generally I think it is a wise provision.


William James Lovie: What is the difference between twenty farmers hiring a stallion and twenty farmers purchasing a stallion? Why should they be benefactors of the country in the one case and criminals in the other? If the stallions are not to be had here and they go overseas and purchase, why should they be discriminated against? That is the point I wish to make, and the point that the minister has not seen yet.


William Richard Motherwell: We will give that somewhat delicate matter further consideration.


Mr. DOUCET:: Is the minister lessening his activities under this vote?


William Richard Motherwell: Where we can
make arrangements with the province to take over some of the activities that are essentially associated with production, yes. In the provinces that are not ready for that, we will continue.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: The activities in the matter of cow testing represented an expenditure last year of something over $40,000, and this year they have been taken from the Dairy branch and put under the Live Stock branch; yet the vote is the same this year as last. Have arrangements been made for the inspection of eggs brought into this country?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. Practically no Chinese eggs have come to Canada via the Pacific coast during the last two or three years, owing to the fact that we have insisted upon inspection. Two carloads of eggs coming from the United States were turned back at the border because they were unfit for human consumption, so that this inspection is very necessary.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: That is certainly a wise precaution, because when you insist upon the inspection of eggs produced locally which have to come into direct competition with imported eggs you are certainly placing a serious handicap upon the Canadian farmer. That condition did exist for a couple of years.


William Richard Motherwell: I think it did exist for a year or two.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: Has any appointment been made to the position of egg inspector for New Brunswick?
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William Richard Motherwell: Not recently, I understand.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: Is compensation paid to breeders and farmers whose cattle are slaughtered as a result of tubercular testing?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, based upon the valuation of the animal as made by the veterinary inspectors. We will come to that very soon under the health of animals vote.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: I am informed that there has been an importation of Chinese eggs this year.


William Richard Motherwell: We have no authority to exclude them if they are sound and comply with our instructions, but we have made our inspection reasonably tight and anything that is not good we do turn back. The bulk of the Chinese eggs that come here are frozen eggs for cooking purposes; they do not go into general consumption. Manufacturers of pastry, cake and the like, made considerable objection when our regulations were tightened up with the consequent exclusion of about half the usual import of Chinese eggs. As they are getting them now in bulk, frozen, their requirements are met and there is very little interference with our own egg trade.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: I suggest that the department tighten up again and keep out the other half.


William Richard Motherwell: We will consider that.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: It is unfair that the Canadian product should be placed in direct competition with the Chinese product.


William Richard Motherwell: There is very little of the Chinese product coming in now. The Department of Agriculture does not control the financial policy of the government. If you want real restriction you have to go there rather than to my particular department.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: I quite understand that, yet the incumbent of the portfolio of agriculture must have something to say in determining the financial policy of the government.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Do I understand the minister to say that you can use a stale egg for cooking purposes? Is it possible to use in pastry eggs that are unfit for food when used in any other manner?


William Richard Motherwell: I am sure my hon. friend has often heard the expression, "Well, it is not just up to the mark but it is all right for cooking purposes." I would not like to say just where the line is. There is a certain

staleness that makes an egg objectionable for eating either boiled or fried, but which still permits it to be used in pastry or for cooking
purposes.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The minister cannot explain how it is that a stale egg may be all right for cooking when it cannot be used for anything else.


William Richard Motherwell: I suppose it is spiced up with all sorts of niceties to disguise it- that may be the reason.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: The addition of the spices would hide the real flavour of the egg?


William Richard Motherwell: The egg would be, there to do the lightening and the spice to give it taste.


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: Have steps been taken by the department to place an embargo on poultry coming from the United States?


William Richard Motherwell: A disease known as European fowl plague has struck the poultry of ten or twelve of the states, and the United States government have themselves quarantined all these states. We have put an embargo against the states that they themselves have quarantined, and that embargo is still on.


William Thomas Lucas: In connection with the list of items the minister read out this evening I notice an item of $140,000 for the purchase of builds?
Mr. MOTHElRWELL: Yes.


William Thomas Lucas: That is in connection with the cattle Clubs?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


William Thomas Lucas: Will the minister say what system is followed in the purchase of these animals?


William Richard Motherwell: Years ago they used to be bought from individuals but that policy has been, I think, entirely abandoned, and now they are usually bought at the bull sales that are held periodically in each of the provinces. A member of the department goes there and competes with other buyers at the sales. All these animals have a certificate of freedom from T. B. before they are allowed to go into the sale at all!, so the department is quite protected in that respect. We enter into competition with the ordinary buyer, but we buy the bull not the owner.


William Thomas Lucas: Is that system strictly adhered to at the present time?

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William Richard Motherwell: Almost entirely.
There may be a very rare exception to it, but we find the policy of attending these bull sales so much more satisfactory that we halve adopted' it generally.


William Thomas Lucas: 
William Richard Motherwell: I think that is
right.


William Thomas Lucas: At the same time it is the duty of the government to remove the obstacles .that lie in the way and to extend any encouragement they possibly can. I trust that the minister will see .to it that a greater amount will be apportioned for encouraging the development of co-operative marketing of the farm .products of 'this country.


Mr. BRETHEN:: There is a feature of
the live stock question, particularly as regards poultry, that I should like to draw to the attention of the minister, "and that is the importation of baby chicks from the United States due, I believe, to a recent ruling of the Post Office Department by which these birds can come in by parcel post. The columns of every Canadian agricultural paper were flooded during the past season with advertisements from large American poultry hatcheries, with the result that hundreds of thousands of baby chicks were brought into Canada. I believe these birds have been brought in to the detriment of the Canadian poultry industry. At the experimental farm we have a record of performance in order to raise the standard of the production of the Canadian hen. I believe that work is carried on at great expense and for a worthy purpose. The Ontario government is doing work along similar lines, and I believe they have accomplished very beneficial results in raising the standard of production. Under the circumstances why should all this work, or a great deal 6f it, be lost by the introduction of inferior chicks from the United States? In view of the price at which these birds are offered I believe they have no records of production behind them-they are simply ordinary chicks. I do not think we can afford to go on spending money year after year building up the standard of our Canadian live stock and then, with respect to one particular branch of it, nullify the whole work in one single season. I think there must be something done to find a remedy, either by a working arrangement with the Post Office Department or by some other method.


William Richard Motherwell: The embargo that
I spoke of with respect to disease will keep them out from all but a dozen of the American states, for the present year anyhow, but I have a question to ask my hon. friend. I am sure there is a lot to be said in behalf of this contention, but I should like to hear him show cause why the man who wants to buy these chicks should be deprived of the opportunity of doing it. Before there is a sale by the United States poultry man there must be a purchaser in this country. He sends an order to the American poultryman that he wants a hundred day-old chicks. Now it is impossible to tell how these chickens are bred; you do not even know what breed they belong to or even what age a great many of
3%
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them are. You do not know how they are registered or anything about them except that they are chicks. They may be two or three days old but they are usually called "baby chicks". How could I defend the keeping of them out when there are a lot of people in this country who want to buy them? I am honestly looking for information because I think I should like to see what my hon. friend suggests carried out. Is my hon. friend not afraid there is something like a protective suggestion about his proposition. I am not joking now, I should like to know how to get over the difficulty.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh, you cannot.


George Arthur Brethen: I am not scared because the minister has introduced the word "protection" in the expectation probably that I would throw up my hands. I think if the minister will look through the record of the Ontario Department of Agriculture he will find all kinds of regulations for saving the farmer from himself. Now, if it is going to ensure Canadian production I do not think it would do any harm to give the Canadian farmer, if necessary, protection from himself. These chicks are shipped over here under a system of camouflage. Hon. gentlemen know very well how it is done. All kinds of criticism has been indulged in with respect to pamphlets that have been scattered abroad to attract immigrants to Canaa'a. That practice has been very strongly condemned here, and I think it has been admitted that it resulted in a great deal of harm. In this case pamphlets are coming in from American poultry hatcheries in order to influence the importation of what I might call " immigrant chickens Surely there should be a stop put to this practice. The flaming advertisements to which I have alluded are, unfortunately, likely to delude some Canadian farmers, particularly the ordinary farmer who has not very much knowledge of the breeding and records of Canadian hens. I think it would be well, and the department would be able to defend its work in this matter, if it devised some means to prevent it.


William Richard Motherwell: I am almost a convert to my hon. friend's contention, for the simple reason that there is no way of checking that up. Under the Customs Act pure bred animals, or animals used for breeding purposes are let in free. Under that section chicks that profess to be pine bred, although nobody can tell whether they are pure bred or not, are let in free. They are often scrub stuff and do our poultry business no good; and because of the impossibility of checking a chick and ascertaining whether it is what 
it pretends to be, I believe some minimum valuation should be put upon a chick before it is permitted to come in. I may say that, discussing this matter a few weeks ago with my deputy, we came to the conclusion that the best way to deal with it would be to make some such provision. Possibly we may take action before the session is over. I am informed by my deputy that the conclusion we have arrived at has already been forwarded to the proper quarters, that the minimum value of a chick must be 40 cents before it will be admitted, and that will be some guarantee of its quality.


Mr. GARDINER:: Would you apply the
Dumping Act there?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: There is precedent for the action the minister proposes to take. I remember round about the year 1900, or a little before or shortly after that date, there was a great influx of what is known as the broncho horses from the western American ranges into this country. They were valued at $10 a head; some were only valued at $5. The government of that day put a valuation of $50 a head on these bronchos, and compelled them to pay duty on that amount, and that had the effect of keeping out many cheap horses. The same thing might be done to stop the importation of chicks.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, I recall that
incident.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This is most cheering,
delightful and entertaining. Here we have my hon. friend from the great free trade party in Canada a Simon-pure free trader-


An hon. MEMBER:: And in a Conservative seat.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes: he dare not utter
such words from his own seat for fear he would contaminate the seat and would never be able to go back to it when he returned to his free trade principles. He sits in a Conservative seat and propounds a doctrine of absolute and extreme protection for the Canadian "biddy" which we approve of, and the minister says he is converted.


William Richard Motherwell: And have been for some time.


Henry Herbert Stevens: We have the splendid endorsement of just what we have been advocating in this House right along, not only for the Canadian "biddy" but for Canadian workmen and manufacturers, for Canadian people and Canadian industries generally. The same principle exactly applies to the great manufacturing industries and great productive in-

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dustries of Canada. My Ron. friend is absolutely right. Why should we go to expense in Canada giving information, and scientific training to breeders and farmers to improve the standard of our poultry, bringing them from what is commonly known in the calling as boarders up to the standard of producers, just what my hon. friend has been discussing with reference to dairy cows, changing them from a non-profitable standard to a profitable standard, unless we protect them from outside competition? He is going to do this by protecting the Canadian products from competition, from the overproduction or from the massed production south of the line, exactly the same principle as we apply, and seek to apply in this House for our Canadian industries based upon other natural resources, and it is certainly refreshing to have that minister declare publicly his conversion to it and to have the member to my left advocating it. I wonder if the leader of the party to my left will give his views.


Robert Forke: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I rather apprehend after
we have disclosed the enormity of the subject we have been talking about we will see a little pussyfooting, and an effort to walk around gently, and view with Scottish care the departure of one of his lieutenants. But seriously I want to commend my hon. friend for the stand he has taken. It is the proper stand. Let us use the words we mean and not evade the thing and cover it over with specious talk about charging 40 cents for a young hen. Let, us understand that we are going to protect the Canadian poultry and put it on a high standard by the process of protection.


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member
is not going to get away with that quite so easily. There is no comparison between the chick and the manufactured article. No living man can tell what a chick is, except that it is a chick, and it comes in under the section of the Customs Act as pure bred stock, but it is not known whether it is pure bred or not.


Arthur Meighen: That would not apply
to the old horses my hon. friend spoke about.


William Richard Motherwell: I am not responsible for that.


Arthur Meighen: The minister applauded
the statement.


William Richard Motherwell: No, not necessarily.


Arthur Meighen: Oh yes.


William Richard Motherwell: I did not dispute it.


Arthur Meighen: I saw the minister applaud. My heart was cheered.


William Richard Motherwell: There is something to be said on behalf of the old chicks, but it is not so apparent with regard to the low-grade horses, because you can see them. You can see a chick but you do not know what kind of a rooster or hen it is going to develop into. No living man can tell. Therefore it is not on all fours with a developed animal of that kind.


Arthur Meighen: No, it is not on all
fours at all-no question about that.


William Richard Motherwell: I knew my hon.
friend would find consolation there. I do not object to it. My hon. friends can apply whatever term they like. There is one thing sure; there is an abuse under the pretence that the old chicks are pure bred when they are not. They should come in under the regulation in the Customs Act- regarding non pure bred animals.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Would the principle which warrants the minister in protecting the chick that had developed into the rooster or hen apply equally to the protection of eggs?


William Richard Motherwell: No, not quite.


Arthur Meighen: We will get the minister into a protectionist on chicks and old horses and oleomargarine, and that is reasonable progress for one night. I have been looking anxiously around to see where the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Evans) had gone. I can just picture the tears dropping from his eyes as he hears these backsliders in his party talking. Where is he going, now? There is not a thing the minister said as to chicks or horses that does not apply to every importation that competes with home production, and if he moves on step by step-and I am told he has that name out west-I believe he may live long enough yet- to become a real Canadian, a man who believes in Canadian industry and protection.


William Richard Motherwell: We are not there
yet. We have only made the recommendation.


Robert Forke: As the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) mentioned my name in connection with this matter, I may say a few words. I could see from the very commencement that the hon. member for East Peterborough (Mr. Brethen) was treading on rather dangerous ground. At the
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same time I think I can draw a distinction between protection, as advocated by my hon. friends to the right, and the protection that the hon. member for East Peterborough is wanting in this regard.


Arthur Meighen: What about the protection that my hon. friend advocated at Montreal the other day?


Robert Forke: I am unaware that I ever advocated, at Montreal, any protection that I would not advocate in this House.


Arthur Meighen: That speech is a pretty good protectionist speech.


Robert Forke: I have never seen a correct report of that speech. Anything I said at Montreal, I am prepared to say in this House or anywhere else in the Dominion of Canada. Our friends to the right are always fond of alluding to this party as a free-trade party. We believe in the principle of free trade. Speaking for myself, personally, I am convinced that absolute free trade is not possible in Canada at the present time, although the principle is perfectly sound. That is what I said at Montreal.


Arthur Meighen: What does the hon. member mean by saying that a principle is sound if he does not apply it?


Robert Forke: Protection has been the policy in force in this country for forty years and you cannot put it out of existence in one day.


Arthur Meighen: Why not?


Robert Forke: Let me proceed with my statement. I am going to refer to the speech of the hon. member for East Peterborough. He is not asking for protection in regard to competition in price; he wants protection against deterioration of the poultry of Canada. That is an entirely different thing from protection against competition in price from other manufacturers. I am not altogether endorsing all that he said; I want to point out simply the difference between the protection advocated by my hon. friends to the right and the protection that the hon. member for East Peterborough is speaking about. I know my hon. friends are sometimes very anxious to put words into our mouths and to place us in a false position. I can, however, assure hon. gentlemen that we are quite prepared to stand on our principles and to defend ourselves when necessary.
The leader of the opposition referred to my speech at Montreal. I had1 a letter from a very prominent manufacturer in the city of Montreal the day before yesterday, in which

letter he stated that he bad entirely lost confidence in the Conservative party in Canada and he hoped that some other friends from the other side of the House would join with some of the Progressive members and form a truly national party that would' do something to save this country from the position in which it was.


Arthur Meighen: I have heard that in
Montreal too and1 I have passed my blessing on it. May it take place. I have never stood between my friends to the left and the gentlemen across the floor. Let them get together in the same camp and quit the camouflage, the sham. Let them walk on together and then we shall have a showdown in this Dominion and see what the people of this country want.


Robert Forke: The right hon member used that very same expression "camouflage" last year. I do not know anything about camouflaging. I said not "members on the other side," but "some particular members on the other side" that are not very popular in their own quarters.


Arthur Meighen: Who are they?


Robert Forke: Oh, oh.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is a principle you
must not talk about.


Robert Forke: I hope hon. members are
getting a little pleasure out of this. I have got it and I hope we have all got it. There is in this House to-night a spirit of good feeling and fellowship that I have not seen for a long time, and we are indebted to the hon. member for East Peterborough for bringing about that state of affairs.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend says that he is prepared to stand on his principles. A moment ago he said that his principle was free trade, but he is not going to practise it. Where is he standing?


Mr. CARROLL:: What has this to do with sick cattle?


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is sick chickens, I think, we are talking about. How is my hon. friend going to protect the Canadian pure bred hen?


Robert Forke: I did not say that I would
protect it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: He says that he is going to do this by the process the minister is following that is, by valuating them at forty cents apiece, although he knows quite well-


Robert Forke: 
Henry Herbert Stevens: I admit that my hon.
friend is very chary about the word "protection". It is, however so difficult to distinguish between his meaning and his words that I find my vocabulary too limited altogether. How is he going to do it? He is going to do it by valuating these chicks at forty cents apiece, which is admitted by the minister- and the minister will not charge me with misstating the facts-is almost if not quite equal to an embargo.


William Richard Motherwell: No. High class
chickens are worth that.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is intended to keep out the ordinary chicken, is it not?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, a poor one,
but not a good one.


Henry Herbert Stevens: By putting on a valuation that certainly is not there. Supposing we were to apply that to our principle of protection, that we were to value all goods coming into this country at twice or three times their value to prevent them from coming in, what would our hon. friends say to us? We do not advocate any such extreme protection; but we say frankly that Canadian industry, whether it is the poultry industry, manufacturing industry, woollen industry, or agricultural industry in any of its branches, should be protected against unfair competition from the outside. For the leader of the party tc my left to repudiate all idea of protection and talk about principles of free trade, but the impracticability of it, is all nonsense and moonshine. It is about time that we faced in this House the main principles of division in the trade policy of this country. One is a drift towards a freedom of imports, a freedom from import duty on the part of imports, and the other is a sufficient protection to Canadian industry against competition from the outside.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: If there is to be any
protective policy on baby chicks coming into this country, I want to protest, because frequently I have had occasion to ship in baby chicks and eggs for hatching purposes, and the man who is going to use these chicks should be considered as well. If we are going to protect the Canadian breeders, that is a different question.
There may be something to be said for the policy of protection that is at present being advocated by my hon. friends to the right. One thing that has amazed me for many years in connection with protection is that the real protectionist was always a free trader when the matter was one of farm production. I am glad to see that it is getting on a more logical
basis. As a farmer I maintain that if it can be shown to be beneficial, it is perfectly logical for the exponent of the policy of protection to ask for protection on farm products too, although in my opinion the farmer cannot be protected. That is what was done in the United States. The farmers there fought protection for a long time, but they realized that protection was going to be the policy of the country and they demanded a share of the benefits. If protection is going to be the policy of this country, then any benefits that might accrue from that policy should be shared by the fanners as well as others. Therefore, I say that my hon. friends in the new policy that they are advocating to-day are putting it on a more logical basis than it has ever been before.
Since the question of cattle marketing has been interjected into the debate under this item, has the minister had any reason during the last year to consider this question of marketing chilled and frozen beef in the old country?


William Richard Motherwell: No, we have not
conducted any more experiments than we reported last year.


Milton Neil Campbell: I suggested something to the minister last year. I am not sure that I have any concrete proposals, but I should like to impress upon him the necessity of looking into this question a little further. From what study I have given of the subject, I am thoroughly convinced that if we can press it far enough we can eventually establish a very profitable market for chilled and frozen beef in the British Isles. We are discussing cattle rates and we are prepared to enter into an agreement with a company and bonus them to a large extent to carry our cattle overseas. I contend, as I have always done, that that is not a proper trade to build up at all. We were told a few years ago that the British people did not want chilled beef, but the figures disprove that. I have here the report for trade and navigation of the United Kingdom for the calendar year ending December 31, 1924, showing that there was imported into the Old Country for home consumption fresh meat to the extent of 34,969 hundredweights, a very small quantity, whereas in chilled beef we find that the British Isles imported 8,307,276 hundredweights from Uruguay and the Argentine republic as well as from some smaller countries. And classified as frozen meat we find importations amounting to 4,226,000 tons. The total importations of beef including a small amount of salted meat are given as 13,630,000 hundredweights. So that after all
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the great volume of the beef consumption of the Old Country, at least of importations- because they have a fresh meat production at home-consists of chilled and frozen beef. A good many people claim that we cannot compete on an equal basis with the Argentine republic, and we have heard it frequently stated also that we are unable to compete with New Zealand in butter. I am not prepared to admit any of that; I contend that we can compete with any of these nations notwithstanding any question of distance or transportation difficulties or anything else. With the price of our land, the quality of the soil and the ability of our farmers to produce we can compete with the Argentine or any other country. But it needs energy and hard work to develop a market. Most of our beef shipped overseas is grain-fed, of a superior quality to the Argentine product. I think the deputy minister is on record as saying that a great deal of our chilled beef is thawed out and sold on the British market as British fresh beef. We get the price of chilled beef for it but it is sold at a large profit by the retailer.
I am not sure that I have any constructive suggestions to offer the minister, but this is something that the department should look into carefully. When we examine these figures and see the enormous quantities of this particular product consumed in the Old Country, and when we reflect that the consumption of this class of beef is increasing rapidly there, we should make some special effort to meet the situation. I am not very sure whether it will ever be practicable to ship live beef into the British market. There are a good many things that may help us; we are trying, for example, to secure a lower ocean rate, and another thing that might help us would be the securing of a reasonable grain rate from Winnipeg to Quebec over the Transcontinental. If we could ship mixed cargoes out of Quebec, including grain and cattle, we could handle the cattle through that port at from S4 to $5 per head cheaper than from Montreal. That is another question which I may discuss at some other time, and although I do not suggest that the minister should carry out any experiment at a loss such as he told us was incurred two years ago, I do think that he ought to examine into this question further and see whether something cannot be done to get us a share of this chilled and frozen beef trade.


Mr. SALES:: I am sorry to disagree with
my hon. friend (Mr. Campbell), but I do not think he thoroughly understands what he is talking about; when he says that our chilled beef goes over to the Old Country and

is thawed out I am sure he does not. Our beef does not need to be thawed out for it is only chilled. When he talks about our competing with the Argentine republic I do not agree with him. The Argentine is a wonderful beef country and we can compete with them only from the standpoint of the shorter distance from Canada to the Old Country. It takes thirty days to bring meat from the Argentine to England and you cannot carry chilled meat that length of time. I contended in this House last year that our geographical position placed us in a favourable position to carry on a chilled meat trade, and I asked the Minister of Trade and Commerce to make the experiment. Where we have fallen down in the past has been in our lack of a regular supply. When I was in the butcher business in the Old Country, if you came with beef from Canada my first question would have been whether I could get a supply of the same quality next week and the week after, and the week after that, so that I could tell my customer who enjoyed his Sunday dinner that I could supply him with the same sort of meat regularly. That is the important thing, and the minister knows that this is the condition with our butter. We have to have a regular supply. I agree that the live meat business is one in regard to which there is not much hope; a great deal of the proceeds is consumed in the rail and ocean rates. I am sure that if the minister would try the experiment I have suggested it would produce satisfactory results. But it must not be spasmodic; it must be carried on week by week for at least six months. The trouble in the past has been that beef going from here chilled was not supplied in a continuous volume; we shipped a quantity this week and shipped none for three weeks. An attempt of that kind certainly cannot succeed.


Milton Neil Campbell: Perhaps I was wrong in referring to chilled beef having to be thawed out, but in other respects my hon. friend (Mr. Sales), after declaring that he did not agree with me, has endorsed practically every word I said. He pointed out that if we continued the trade long enough we could build it up permanently. Beef from the Argentine must Joe frozen, and although it may be classified as chilled beef it is in reality partly frozen when it reaches the United Kingdom. Our beef is in refrigeration for about seven days as against twenty-one days or more in the case of the Argentine product, and that puts the Canadian beef in a different class. I would, therefore, take what my hon. friend says as an endorsation of my

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remarks, and I believe the minister would be well in his rights in carrying out this experiment. This problem is one that concerns not only the west but eastern Canada as well, and if we build up a profitable trade in chilled and frozen beef we do not need to worry about ocean rates; that question will solve itself.


William Richard Motherwell: Having lost so much money on the first shipment we did not feel that we had more money to throw away on the experiment, particularly when we knew that one of the packing companies sent about one hundred consecutive shipments extending over a year and lost money on all with the exception of two on which they broke even and two on which they made a profit. I simply wanted to check up the abattoirs to see whether our figures would correspond with theirs, and they tallied exactly. In the light of their continuous losses for over a year in about a hundred shipments, and our pronounced loss in the one shipment we made, I have not much hope of success even if we observe the conditions suggested by the hon. member, (Mr. Sales). Before you can get the best results you must have a continuous supply of acceptable meat from week to week, so that when the customers get used to it they will buy it regularly. But even with that advantage the abattoir people, with the four exceptions I have indicated out of one hundred, have lost money. In the light of that I did not feel justified in taking more chances of losing money at the present time. I would have no objection to trying it out again if the committee, particularly those members closely interested in the live stock industry, consider it to be worth while. But is it wise to do so when we are almost certain to lose out? I am very glad we conducted the experiment, because it gave us first hand information and removed the suspicion entertained by some that the abattoir experiment was not 'quite bona fide. To-day I believe it was.


Thomas Sales: Has the minister studied the
figures of the experiment carried on by the Harris Abattoir Company?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Thomas Sales: I did not know that we would reach this item of chilled meat to-night. I have the figures submitted to me by Mr. McLean, of the Harris Abattoir Company, and it is apparent that the shipments were a long way from being regular, in fact they were most emphatically what might be termed spasmodic. Any experiment so carried* on is bound to fail. If the minister will look up 26
the figures I think he will find my assertion is correct.


Oliver Robert Gould: Would the minister advise the committee whether it is not a fact that the people of the Argentine, our greatest competitors, own their ranches, their lines of steamships, and their retail shops all over Great Britain? I think that is perhaps the idea in the minds of hon. gentlemen here when they talk of the proposed experiment. I do not think the Harris Abattoir Company conducted their experiment in that way. I make the suggestion-I believe it has been made before-that if the minister established a couple of retail stores in the larger cities of Great Britain and guaranteed shipments regularly, a trade could be established in chilled meat. It seems to me it is a very opportune time, particularly when we have in prospect a line of steamships to carry over our stuff at reduced rates. I dissociate myself from the protectionist remarks voiced by the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Campbell). While he does not believe in protection for the farmer, yet he gives a mild endorsation to the principle.


Milton Neil Campbell: The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gould) misunderstood me entirely; I did not advocate protection at alL


Oliver Robert Gould: I would point out, Mr. Chairman, that if the farmer were given protection in any particular, it would be used as an excuse by the protected interests to ask for increased protection, so that in the long run the percentage of protection to the farmer would be nil; consequently we would be losers in the end. I would bring the protected interests down to our footing rather than attempt to reach their level, because they have the whip hand.


Milton Neil Campbell: I understand that
officials of the Harris Abattoir Company expressed the opinion that if they had been able to carry on the experiment long enough with a regular flow of products to the retailers the trade in the end would have been quite profitable. I have that second hand, but I think I am quite safe in stating it as authentic.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Mr. Chairman, we have
had a very interesting discussion all afternoon and evening on perhaps one of the most important items in the whole of the minister's estimates. We have in this group a number of members who take a very keen interest in live stock matters, but they have been compelled to leave for Toronto and other parts of Ontario and also for Quebec.

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Under those conditions I would ask the minister to be good enought to allow this vote to stand, in order to afford those absent an opportunity to take part in the discussion on Monday, or whenever he brings up his estimates again.


William Richard Motherwell: Mr. Chairman, it is awfully hard to resist so reasonable a request asked in such a gentlemanly way, but the Prime Minister intimated that he would like to see this item go through to-night. I remember last session quite well that in the softness of my heart I acceded to a similar request, on the dairying vote, but that vote remained untouched until towards the end of the session, when it went through with a rush. I wonder if my hon. friend could press his request less courteously so I would have some excuse for refusing it?


John Livingstone Brown: Mr. Chairman, I have a
great deal of sympathy with what was said earlier in the discussion this afternoon about some of us being compelled to listen to explanations over and over again. We on this side of the House have spent a long time upon this item, and if it has got to be passed why should we not pass it now? If the request is acceded to we will have to come back on Monday and listen over and over again to the explanations made to-day.


William Richard Motherwell: That is what I am afraid of.


John Livingstone Brown: Many of us come long distances and spend a great deal of time in the House, and yet often our time is sacrificed for the convenience of hon. members who can go to their homes over the week end. I do not think we should be asked to sacrifice any more of our time on their account.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Let me point out to the minister that we have passed several items this afternoon, and this one under discussion is a very large and a very important item. Let me also remind my hon. friend who has just taken his seat (Mr. Brown) that I do not recall a day last session or this
11 p.m. when there has been more of what I am warranted in terming intelligent discussion of estimates than there has been to-day. This compliment I pay to my hon. friends to my left very gladly; they knew what they were talking about, and we had a very excellent discussion. As far as we in this section of the House are concerned, outside of a little by-play on the protection issue, very little has been said on this item, and several of our members sat here until half past ten before they left to catch their trains. On Fridhy nights we usually adjourn 
even earlier than this. This has been a profitable discussion with not a moment wasted, and we have not by any means touched all the branches included in this item of a million and a quarter, which branches ought to be given consideration. Therefore I think this is a reasonable request, Mr. Chairman, and I am quite certain the minister will accede to it.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, I imagine
that after the rest over Sunday we will simply come at it fresh when we resume next week. The hon, member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) after the week end will be good for another whack at it.


John Livingstone Brown: Having made my protest
against listening to the same statement over and over again I will withdraw any specific objection I offered.


William Richard Motherwell: My difficulty is
to refuse a request made in such a gentlemanly way.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Do not refuse it.


William F. Carroll: Could it not be arranged
that on some other item anyone who is out of the House to-night might express his opinions on live stock? I noticed to-night that matters which had no bearing whatever upon live stock were discussed here.


Thomas Sales: Let us go on for another
hour.


William Richard Motherwell: We have other live stock items, such as the health of animals vote, under which any fag ends of this discussion that were strictly relevant to live stock could be taken up. Will that suit my hon. friend?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I have no serious objections, provided hon. members on this side be given that opportunity, and that the arrangement be clearly understood.


Thomas Sales: Just before we close I would like a little information. I have spoken about duplication of effort on the part of the federal government and the provincial government. At the same summer fair last year I saw the federal government in charge of a live stock exhibition and the provincial government in charge of a live stock exhibition. I would like to know how many bulls were sold under this live stock distribution, what the cost of the bulls was and what the expenses were.


William Richard Motherwell: You mean loaned,
not sold?

Business of the House


Thomas Sales: No; I am asking how many
were sold and what expenses were incurred- that is, in the live stock promotion and in the distribution of animals.


William Richard Motherwell: We do not sell any of them except the old ones. Altogether something like 1,500 are loaned to the cattle clubs throughout the Dominion Last year alone 301 new ones were loaned. The cost was $42,571, an average of $141 for each animal.


Thomas Sales: The cost of distribution is
what I am after.


William Richard Motherwell: That would be difficult to secure; to get the cost per animal would require a good deal of accounting.


Thomas Sales: What was the total cost?


William Richard Motherwell: It is not much, I understand. It consists largely of railway freight.


Thomas Sales: I find that in Saskatchewan alone we have Mr. Byers with a salary of $1,646, a bonus of $54 and an expense account of $2,770. Mr. Byers is a stock promoter. Then there is Mr. Douglas, Mr. Moorehead, Mr. Sully, a stenographer, and Mr. Whiting. The total cost is considerably over $10,000 for our province alone.


William Richard Motherwell: These men are not all engaged in the distribution.


Thomas Sales: All except Mr. Byers, who is a stock promoter, are mentioned in the Auditor General's report as engaged in the live stock distribution. It seems to be a very expensive matter.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, animals will
not travel by themselves; you have got to have a chaperon with them of some kind, and it costs money.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Beland the House adjourned at 11.10 p.m.
Monday, February 23, 1925