1925-03-23

Mr W. C. GOOD (Brant):: I should like
to know if I may proceed now with the motion that I made on Friday last regarding the investigation of certain matters before the Public Accounts committee. This motion stood at the request of the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb).


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Go on.


Mr. MACDONALD (Pictou):: What are
the terms of the motion?


William Charles Good: I should like to move:
That the standing committee on Public Accounts be instructed that they have power to investigate the methods by which the business profits and income taxes, especially in the case of large concerns, have been assessed and collected.
This is simply a renewal of the instructions given to the committee last year, -the committee not having secured a quorum last year, and not having performed the work that wa3 assigned to it.


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance):: I do not wish to unduly delay
my hon. friend in presenting his motion and reaching a conclusion on it, but I think it fair to point out to the House, and for the information of the Public Accounts committee, before which committee I suppose my hon. friend will bring these matters for investigation, certain considerations. I was a member of the House at the time when the business profits tax and the income tax were introduced. I think that both these taxes are based upon the legislation of the British House, and that it was the desire of the representatives of the people in parliament that in so far as possible we should follow the British practice. My recollection-and I stand in the judgment of hon. members who were then in the House-is that parliament at that time unanimously decided that there should be secrecy, that confidential reports made to the government either by firms or private individuals should be treated as confidential. For the information of the House and of the Public Accounts committee, I especially desire to direct their attention to section 14 of the Business Profits War Tax Act, chapter 11 of the statutes of 1916, and my recollection is that the same clause will be found in the Income Tax Act:
No person employed in the service of His Majesty shall communicate or allow to be communicated to any person not legally entitled thereto any information obtained under the provisions of this act, or allow any such person to inspect or have access to any written statement furnished under the provisions of this act. Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding two hundred dollars.
I am not going to oppose the resolution of my hon. friend. This is a new House, and the Public Accounts committee is constituted from members representing all parties in this House, and it will be for the Public Accounts committee, having regard to the

Immigration of Labourers
law as laid down by parliament, to determine how far they should go. I should like to say that so far as this government is concerned, we have endeavoured to carry out the principle of the law and to maintain secrecy so far as possible in connection with these reports. I have had the honour of presiding over the department administering these acts, and although personally I had the right, under the rule that the Minister of Finance is an officer of the department, to look into these matters, I have never attempted to dig into the affairs of firms or individuals making these reports.


William Charles Good: May I ask whether the minister does not recall that this matter was pretty fully debated last year? The resolution as it stands does not necessarily imply that private files are to be gone into. I think that matter was pretty fully considered and settled last year.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: I desire to ask the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) if the report from Dr. Tory has yet been received, and if so, when it will be tabled.


James Alexander Robb: It has not yet been received, but
I expect, to receive it on Tuesday of this week. Dr. Tory has been very busy the last few days attending the sittings of the Industrial Research Council, but I understand that he is now rounding out his report, and I expect to receive it shortly.



EXPENDITURE AND COMMITMENTS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Sir HENRY DRAYTON (West York):: We are to have the budget, I understand tomorrow. There is a question on the order paper, question No. 10, standing in my name, the answer to which would give information which, I think, the House would like to have when considering the budget. The question refers to outstanding claims for capital expenditure for the current fiscal year, and the total amount of commitments as yet unpaid.


James Alexander Robb: I shall direct this matter to the
attention of the Deputy Minister of Finance. I am not sure that we have that information
available in the department. It refers to all the different departments of the government, does it not?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes. In other words, the country's claims, commitments and the like.


James Alexander Robb: I will try and get the information for my hon. friend.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I would also
like ordinary as well as capital.



PROPOSED IMMIGRATION OF LABOURERS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (East Calgary):: I want to ask the government a question arising out of a short news item which appears in the Lethbridge Herald of March 17. I will read it:
Orders for thirty cars of cement from Exshaw, a million bricks from Redcliff, ninety tons of lime from the Summit lime works, Crowsnest, have been placed by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. Five cars of lumber have also been ordered, and heavy stocks of hardware. To meet the labour requirements of the beet growers, an order has been placed with the Canadian Pacific Railway Colonization Department for twenty-five Russian-German families.
The Beet Growers' Association will bring in a limited number of selected Japanese labourers, while there is also talk of a colony of Highland Scotch being brought out. The company have decided to operate in Canada under a Dominion charter.
I would like to ask, if this company has been granted a Dominion charter, and if so whether the government would consider trying to prevent if possible an importation of workers until we have absorbed the surplus labour that is now without employment.


James Alexander Robb: The question of my hon. friend is rather a large order. I shall first have to inquire in the Department of the Secretary of State whether a charter has been granted; my hon. friend could have obtained that information himself, I think. I have always regarded the Lethbridge Herald as a fairly reliable newspaper.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: I should like to ask whether as a matter of policy the government is content to allow a large number of foreign labourers to be brought to this country without some protest or without any regard to the unemployment which now exists. I think we have a right to that information.


James Alexander Robb: I think my hon. friend had
better put his question on the order paper in the regular way, and we will look into it.
Questions


Mr. LAPOINTE:: I may say that this
question would be ruled out of order if it was made in the regular way, because it makes an assertion of fact.



QUESTIONS

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

Henry Lumley Drayton: What were the average receipts and expenses for revenue freight per freight ton mile in each of the years 1923 and 1924, in the different regions of the Canadian National Railways and affiliated companies?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 


REGIONS
[Stage Direction]
Atlantic
Central Grand Trunk Western System Western
Revenue from rates per freight ton mile (cts.). 1.080-1.093
Total revenue	1.111-1.129
Expenses per revenue ton mile	 1.285-1.402
1924-1923 1.152-1.150 1.191-1.192 .922- .941
1.307-1.377
1.365-1.440
1.045-1.000
1924-1923	1924-1923
.771-.718 1.010- .990 .784-.733 1.040-1.032 .711-.703	.875- .884
Sir HENRY DRAYTON;	years 1923 and 1924, in the different regions of the
.	,	, Canadian National Railways and affiliated companies?
What were the average receipts and expenses for revenue freight per freight train mile in each of the Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:

[Stage Direction]
Atlantic
Central Grand Trunk Western Western
1924-1923	1924-1923
Average receipts per freight train mile (dollars).. 3.86-3.90	5.96-5.92
Average expenses (ditto)	4.46-4.84	4.61-4.67
1924-1923	1924-1923
7.52-7.52	4.52-4.01
5.75-5.22	4.09-3.85
System
5.39-5.18
4.53-4.44

Mr. DOUCET:: Referring to questions answered by the ministry, page 515, Hansard, "How many deputy ministers are there at present and what are their names and salaries?"	_
Are any of the deputy ministers named, in receipt of any other moneys or remuneration from the public treasury than that stated in the government's reply to said question? If so, what is the total amount, yearly, received by each such deputy minister?


Hon. Mr. COPP:: No.


GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, VANCOUVER
Hon. Mr. STEVENS:: 1.	What amount of insurance is carried on property in Vancouver: (a) In the name of the Dominion government; (b) In the name of Vancouver Harbour Commissioners; (c) In the name of the Board of Grain Commissioners?
2.	What was the total premium paid on said insurance for each of the years during 1922, 1923, 1924?
3.	To whom was the said insurance given and who were the agents of the companies with whom said insurance w'as placed?


Arthur Bliss Copp: This information has to be received from Vancouver. It will theref're be some time before the question can be answered. The same applies to question No. 8.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-BOX CARS
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	What was the number of empty box cars moved over the central region territory by the Canadian National Railway System in each of the years 1923 and 1924, in preparation for the movement of grain from prairie points?
2.	What was the approximate cost of such movement?
LMr. Woodsworth]
3.	Is the movement of empty box cars for this purpose in the central region charged to the expenses of the central region?
4.	What percentage of the rail grain movement east in each of the said years stopped at the head of the lakes?
5.	Are all the receipts of such movement to the head of the lakes credited to the western region?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	1923, 16,344; 1924, 10,963.
2.	These cars were moved in the ordinary" course of business and no attempt -was madfr to record the cost of their movement.
3.	Yes.
4.	1924, 95.49; 1923, 94.54.
5.	Yes.



BANKRUPTCY ACT

Mr. SPENCER:: 1.	Is it the intention of the government to introduce legislation at this session of parliament, in connection with amendments to the Dominion Bankruptcy Act as proposed by the standing committee on Banking and Commerce at the close of last session ?
2.	If so, when will such legislation be brought down?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	The matter is engaging the attention of the government at present.
2.	Answered by No. 1.



CANADIAN GOVERNMENT MERCHANT MARINE-CARRIAGE OF COAL

Mr. CLARK:: 1.	How many tons of American coal were carried from United States ports to eastern Canadian ports on vessels of the Canadian Government Merchant

Questions
Marine during the calendar years 1922, 1923 and 1924?
2.	What proportion of said coal was anthracite and what proportion was bituminous?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	1922, Nil; 1923, 2,235 tons; 1924, 9,249 tons.
2.	All bituminous.



JUDGE CODERRE

Mr. BENOIT:: 1.	Is the Department of Justice aware that Judge Coderre has been sitting for some months on a police inquiry in Montreal as commissioner?
2.	Has the Minister of Justice authorized such judge to devote his time to this inquiry?
3.	Is the Department of Justice aware that the said judge has sent in a bill to the city of Montreal for more than $8,000 for his services?
4.	Has the said judge drawn his salary during the time devoted to this inquiry?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	Not officially.
2.	No.
3.	No.
4.	Yes.



CROSS POINT-CAMPBELLTON FERRY

Mr. JONES:: 1.	Was the department communicated with about the time of the expiration of the contract of the Cross Point - Cam pbellton Ferry Service?
2.	If so, by whom, and what offers were made?
3.	Were there any representations made to the department that it would be in the interest of interested parties on both sides of the river to have this contract open to tender?
4.	If so, what representations and by whom?


John Warwick King: 1, 2, 3 and 4. As the license for Cross Point-Campbellton ferry service expires on the 30th of April, 1925, the licensee, having made substantial expenditures on his boat to provide more efficient service and better accommodation, made application to have license renewed. Upon a thorough investigation made by the department, and in view of the request for renewal of license having been approved by the municipalities concerned, it was decided to grant the renewal as authorized by the act for an additional period of five years from May 1, 1925. At the time the matter was under discussion, in the summer of 1924, representations were made by Robert L. Sinclair, G. B. Harper, A. A. Andrew and Capt. Frank J. Allard, all of whom desired that the renewal of the contract be opened to tenders, but sufficient reason was not found to exist to grant their request.



GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES'-FREE TRANSPORTATION

Mr. JONES:: 1.	When free transportation is provided for government employees as authorized by law, is the department whose official receives the transportation charged iivith the same and the amount credited to government railways when the service is performed by the Canadian National Railways?
2.	Otherwise, how is the matter dealt with?


Hon. Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	No charge is made a government department by Canadian National Railways, nor i3 credit taken, when a government employee presents free transportation authorized by law.
2.	Answered by No. 1.



LEGER'S CORNER SHOOTING RANGE

Mr. DOUCET:: 1.	Has the Militia department a shooting range at
Leger's Corner, in the county of Westmorland, New Brunswick?
2.	If so, is it the intention of the government to use this range during the coming summer or in the future?
3.	Has the Militia department or the government received any complaints from the residents of this community opposing the use of this range as being dangerous to the residents?
4.	If so, what steps have the government taken to remove this danger?


Hon. Mr. MACDONALD (Pictou):: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes.
3.	Yes in the spring of 1922.
4.	It was found on investigation that firing on this range is not dangerous to the residents of the vicinity.



RICHIBUCTO PUBLIC BUILDINGS

Mr. DOUCET:: 1.	Were tenders invited for repairs and improvements on public buildings at Richibucto, Kent county, New Brunswick ?
2.	If so, what tenders were received and amount of each tender?
3.	Who made the repairs and at what cost?
4.	Was the work passed as satisfactory by the district engineer?


John Warwick King: Fiscal Year 1924-1925.
1.	Yes.
2.	For general repairs to masonry, Richard J. Daigle, $250; for the interior minor repairs and painting, John Blanchard, $580; Chas. Lovelock, $550; H. C. Cameron, $498.
3.	General repairs, Richard J. Daigle, $250; interior minor repairs and painting, H. C. Cameron, $498.
4.	Yes, by the district resident architect.



HARTLAND PUBLIC BUILDING

Mr. JONES:: 1.	Have electric lights been installed in the Dominion building at Hartland, Carleton county, New Brunswick?
2.	If so, on whose recommendation?
3.	Has John W. Adams resigned or been dismissed from the position of caretaker of said building?
4.	If dismissed, what were the reasons for dismissal?
Questions

5.	Who has been appointed to fill the position, and upon whose recommendation?
6.	What are the names and occupations of the applicants for said position?
7.	Which of said applicants were returned soldiers?
8.	Was the person appointed a returned soldier, and, if not, why?


Hon. Mr. KING (Kootenay):: 1.	Yes.
2.	The district resident architect and the mayor of Hartland.
3.	Dismissed.
4.	Incompetency.
5.	No appointement yet made.
6.	Wm. Fraser, labourer; Lewis E. Mc-Farlane, carpenter; John A. Drake, clerk; Geo. I. Movers, no occupation given; E. A Britton, Cement worker; John F. Murdock, town marshal; W. E. Price, farm helper.
7.	Wm. Fraser, E. A. Britton, W. E. Price.
8.	Answered by No. 5.



EXPENSES OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

Mr. HARRIS:: 1.	For what purpose were travelling expenses .paid to A. H. Brown, W. H. Casselman, R. S. Glass, TV. Kearns, J. W. Reid and J. N. Tribble, as shown in Auditor General's report, page BB. 7?
2.	Is it a part of the duty of these officials to go on trips of inspection?
3.	What reports, if any, were received from the said officers?
4.	Will the government lay said reports on the Table?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 1.	To inquire into the methods of accounting of revenue and expenditure at the office visited and to make a test audit of stores.
2.	Yes.
3.	Reports were made to the Acting Auditor General in each case.
4.	Reports will be tabled if asked for.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. LANCTOT:: 1.	What is the present number of officers of the Permanent Force who are qualified for a higher rank, but who are waiting for a promotion: (a) lieutenants for the rank of captain; (b) captains for the rank of major; (c) majors for the rank of lieutenant-colonel; (d) lieutenant-colonels for the rank of colonel; (e) colonels, to command a military district?
2.	Does the Minister of the Department of National Defence intend to retire the generals and other officers who have been in the service for some years, thus stopping the promotion on the staff and in the permanent force?


Mr. LANCTOT:: 1.	What is the actual strength of the Canadian Permanent Force?
2.	What is the present number of officers of the staff and permanent force who are holding the full, temporary and brevet ranks: (a) colonel; (b) lieut.-colonel ?

3.	What is the position and the salary of the following generals who are yet in the service: General MacBrien, General Ashton, General Panet, General Macdonell, General King, General Elmsley, General McNaughton, General Thacker, General Bell, General Ross, General Ormond, General Ketchen, General Armstrong, General Landry?
4.	What is the name of each of those generals whose tenure of appointment or the extension of term will end during the fiscal year, 1st April, 1925, to 31st of March, 1926?
5.	Does the Department of Defence allow a six months' leave with pay and allowances to the officers before being pensioned?
6.	If so, is it the intention of the Minister of National Defence to notify, through the Adjutant General, each general six months before the expiration of his tenure of appointment or his extension of term that he will be retired from the service for giving promotion to other officers?



PAS MINERAL BELT-GOLD CLAIMS

Mr. BIRD moved:: For a return showing the total income from gold claims in the area known as the Pas Mineral Belt, for the years 1922, 1923 and 1924; the income for the same years from the following sources: entry fees, in lieu of development work, renewals, surveying, rentals, royalties; also total amount expended by the Department of Mines during the above years for development and administration of the said area.


Hon. CHARLES STEWART (Minister of the Interior):: It would1 be a little difficult to give the administration costs for this particular area, but we will give it as closely as we can. The other information we can furnish.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


William Charles Good: That, in the opinion of this House, the select standing committee on Banking and Commerce should be instructed, in accordance with that committee's recommendation at the 1923 session of parliament, to continue during the present session of the House, the investigation into the basis, function and control of financial credit and the relation of credit to commerce and industry, with a view to advising this House as to the desirability of some constructive and fundamental changes in the present financial system.
He said: I should like the close attention of the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) for a few minutes at all events.


James Alexander Robb: I am always much interested in the remarks of my hon. friend.


William Charles Good: On the 9th March, 1923, the House ordered as follows:
That in accordance with the recommendations contained in the second report of the select standing committee on Banking and Commerce, the said committee be given power to investigate the basis, the function and the control of financial credit, and the relation of credit to industrial problems.

Financial Credit
In accordance with that order the committee spent very considerable time in hearing a number of witnesses on the question under consideration, among whom were the following: Messrs. Bevington and East from Alberta; Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor from Montreal; Sir John Aird from Toronto; Major Douglas from England; Sir Edmund Walker, Toronto; Professor Adam Shortt, of Ottawa; Professor Swanson, of the University of Saskatchewan; Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale University; Mr. Tom Moore, of the Dominion Trades and Labour Congress; and Mr. H. T. Ross, Secretary of the Canadian Bankers Association Immediately after the evidence of these gentlemen was received the committee proceeded, not to consider that evidence, but to consider the revision of the Bank Act, and that revision took up the remainder of the session. At the last sitting of the committee the following resolution was passed which formed the eighth report of the committee:
Your committee in obedience to the order of the House of March 9, 1923, have had under consideration the question of investigating the basis, the function and the control of financial credit and the relation of credit to the industrial problems; and in connection therewith have held several meetings and examined the following witnesses, namely: Messrs. Bevington, Douglas, Fisher and others, but have not been able to complete their inquiry into the matter covered by the order of reference.
Your committee specially recommend that a further reference be made at the next session of parliament on the matters referred to in the said order of reference.
Your committee beg to submit printed copy of their proceedings on such reference and all documents submitted and not contained in the proceedings.
All which is respectfully submitted.
This report from the committee was made to the House and acquiesced in by the House. It was necessary, however, that the matter should be revived last year if anything further was to be done. Therefore the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Irvine), if my recollection serves me, placed a resolution on the order paper with the intention of reviving the matter, but as hon. members will recollect the disastrous failure of the Home Bank necessitated the Banking and Commerce committee last year devoting its whole attention for the complete session to that particular matter and to various questions arising therefrom. Moreover the resolution which the hon. member for East Calgary placed on the order paper, along with many other resolutions, was not reached, on account of the fact that the government took private members' day very early last session. This matter therefore was not revived last session, and I am asking this year that the committee be given power to complete the investigation
undertaken two years ago. I should like to remind the House and the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) that so far the Banking and Commerce committee has not held any meetings, and, so far as I know, it has very little business before it this year. It seems to me therefore that the time is opportune for the completion of the work begun two years ago. In my judgment there is no need to spend further money in securing further witnesses. We have a vast amount of very useful information already in the report, information which has never been discussed,-which has not had five minutes' discussion in the committee. It seems to me to be only reasonable and fair that this year the committee, with very little to do, should be given instructions by this House to complete the report which they should have made two years ago. Indeed, I am asking nothing further than the committee itself recommended at the conclusion of the session of 1923. If the government were disposed to grant this request I would feel disposed to save the time now by not setting forth further reasons why, in my judgment, the work of this committee should be completed, and if I may, Mr. Speaker, I should like to pause to ask the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) whether or not, with the information I have already placed before him and the House, he will not grant the request that I have made. I should not like to exhaust my right to speak, but I would ask him the question now, if he feels disposed to answer it, as to whether or not, in view of the facts I have set forth, it is not a fair and reasonable request that I make.


James Alexander Robb: If my hon. friend would so amend his resolution as to carry out the statement just made, that no additional witnesses would be required, I would not be disposed to offer any opposition to it; but if I may be permitted-following the example' of my hon. friend,-without exhausting my right to speak later on, I would point out that if he is going to call witnesses this resolution might conflict somewhat with the resolution of his coworker the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) who only recently brought in a resolution and made a speech emphasizing the importance of the House going over and reviewing carefully all expense before the expense was incurred. If my hon. friend will give a guarantee in resolution that there will be no additional expense of witnesses I will not oppose it.
Financial Credit


William Charles Good: I am very pleased indeed to have the assurance of the Acting Minister of Finance. It was not my intention at all to ask for the hearing of further witnesses. I think we have abundance of information already before the committee, and while, just at the moment, I do not know exactly how the resolution should be amended, I should be very glad to consider amending it in such a manner. I presume there are other hon. members of the House who would like to speak to the motion, and if the minister is agreeable I will reserve what further I have to say until the close of the debate. Meanwhile I shall see what can be done to amend the resolution as has been suggested.


James Alexander Robb: Perhaps my hon. friend would like to have the motion stand until he can have it amended.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: That means it will have to stand until the next motion is taken.


William Charles Good: No. If I may have consent, I would move as I have already read the motion with the addition of the words:
-providing, however, that no further witnesses are to be called.


James Alexander Robb: "Outside witnesses".


William Charles Good: Very well:
Providing, however, that no further outside witnesses are to be called.
The suggestion has been made as to outside witnesses. I think the feeling is that any of the departmental officials who are here might be available. Does that meet with the approval of the Acting Minister of Finance?


James Alexander Robb: Yes. No further witnesses
outside of Ottawa.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, this seems
a most amusing form for a resolution to take to be submitted to parliament. It expresses the acquiescence of this House in the Banking and Commerce committee continuing an investigation providing it does not make the investigation useful. The House is quite ready in its opinion that the Banking and Commerce committee
-should be instructed, in accordance with that committee's recommendation at the 1923 session of parliament, to continue during the present session ^ of the House, the investigation into the basis, function and control of financial credit and the relation of credit to commerce and industry, with a view to advising this House as to the desirability of some constructive and fundamental changes in the present financial system.
-providing the committee does not get any witnesses outside of officers of the govem-
ment. I know the amendment is put on at the suggestion of the Acting Minister of Finance, but surely the hon. member sees that it is making simply a farce of the whole resolution. The House is to have a continuation of an investigation into a question that is not only vital but so abstruse that the numbers of those who really comprehend it in any country are remarkably limited, and the committee are to be hobble-skirted as soon as they start out. They are told that they already have had enough expert advice on the question, and all they can get from this on is from officers of the department. At the same time, there is an implication in this resolution that this Dominion requires a constructive and fundamental change in its whole financial system. I cannot help remarking on the absurdity of the House intimating that our financial system requires constructive and fundamental changes, and our committing the task of devising those changes to a committee whose powers are abbreviated, whose investigations are limited, into making inquiries from a few officers of the department. Is the thing not absurd?


William Charles Good: Does my right hon. friend
not recall that we have already on hand from experts a large quantity of evidence, that has never been considered or discussed or reported on at all?


Arthur Meighen: Very well. Then I
think the committee would use its own judgment. How does the committee know, before it has studied that evidence, whether it requires any more evidence or not, and how does this House know, when it has no word from the former committee on the subject? If we are going to appoint a committee on a question so important, we must trust the committee not to waste the money of the treasury. It is a small compliment to the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Good), as well as all hon. members of the committee, that the minister should be quite willing that they should investigate, dig, delve, think and report as long as they do not spent a cent.


George Newcombe Gordon: The amendment must be moved by another hon. member. Moved by Mr. Hoey, seconded by Mr. Lewis, that the resolution be amended by adding at the end thereof, the following words:
Providing, however, that no further outside witnesses are to be called.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the resolution as amended?


William Charles Good: Just before the amendment
carries, I would say very frankly that I should

Unemployed Immigrants
have much preferred that the government would leave this to the discretion of the committee, but I am willing to concede the point, and if the Acting Minister of Finance is worried over the question of expense-


James Alexander Robb: I am.


William Charles Good: -I will try to get along.


Mr. CARROLL:: I think my hon. friend
will be able to call all the witnesses he wants under the amendment.


William Charles Good: I just wanted to state my position for the benefit of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen). I quite appreciate what he says, and I think it would have been a little more courteous to the committee on the part of the Acting Minister of Finance if he had allowed them a little more liberty. But at the same time if there is any anxiety on his part in regard to the matter, I am quite willing to concede the point, and we shall try to get along with the limitation imposed by the amendment.
I was prepared to argue the whole case before the House on this occasion; but quite a large number of private members have resolutions on the order paper, and out of consideration for them, perhaps I ought to reserve what I have to say for the committee, now that the committee is open to discuss the question. The House will recall that about a week ago there was a debate on the taking away of private members' days, and a very strong feeling was expressed on that occasion that an opportunity ought to be given to private members to bring forward their resolutions. For this reason and out of courtesy to them, I have decided to say nothing further on the present occasion, provided the resolution carries, as I see now it is likely to do.
Motion as amended agreed to.



UNEMPLOYED IMMIGRANTS


James Shaver Woodsworth: That, in the opinion of this House, if at any time during the first two years after his arrival in Canada any immigrant is unable to obtain employment. th9 federal government should accept full responsibility for his maintenance.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it will be noted that this resolution does not cover the general question of unemployment, but rather limits itself to responsibility for unemployed immigrants. In reality, it involves little more than a regulation that will check up the effectiveness of the government's immigration
policy. If the government brings in only those immigrants who are needed, there will be no necessity whatever for any added responsibility. If, however, the government's policy is unsound or its administration inefficient, why should the resulting burdens be laid upon the provinces or the municipalities? If the principle of this resolution is adopted, it might lead to a correlation of the activities of, if not to a consolidation of, the Departments of Immigration and Labour. At the present time there appears to be no correlation at all between these two departments. We have on the one hand the reports of the Department of Labour showing that there is to-day altogether too great a supply of labour, and on the other hand there is the utmost activity being put forth by the Department of Immigration to bring in still more labourers. It would seem to be only reasonable that these two departments should work in close cc-operation; indeed, it would seem advisable to consolidate them under one departmental head.
With regard to the question of the acute unemployment that exists at the present time little need be said. This government within the past few months has been literally deluged with deputations from the nearby cities, and with resolutions from the cities that are more remote. I have no thought whatever of attempting to bring before the House the sheaf of resolutions which have been submitted to the government. I think we all recognize that from Halifax to Sydney representations have been made within the last few months to the effect that there is a very great deal of unemployment.
Although I have said that the resolution i3 directed specifically to the question of the unemployed immigrant, it must be remembered that the general question of unemployment cannot be ignored, inasmuch, as if work is found for immigrants in an already overcrowded labour market, others are bound to be displaced in consequence. This has happened again and again through the high-pressure methods which have sometimes been adopted by the Immigration department. New arrivals have been quickly placed, and the department has boasted of their quick placements, at the very time that other workers who have been longer in the country have been wandering about in search of positions.
We all recall that a few months ago there was held in the city of Ottawa an unemployment conference, or perhaps more correctly a national conference with regard to winter unemployment in Canada. This conference, although it was called primarily to deal with winter unemployment, broadened out into a
Unemployed Immigrants

discussion of the whole question of unemployment. There were some fifty delegates present representing the Dominion and provincial governments, the municipalities, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, Canadian building and construction, labour, the Canadian railways, and the employment service of Canada. Evidence was given of much unemployment in all sections of Canada. Mayors and responsible officials from one end of the country to the other testified to the serious character of the unemployment situation in their several cities, and at the conclusion of the conference there was passed the following very significant resolution:
The existing conditions are being aggravated by the present policy of bringing immigrants to this country who are drifting to our industrial centres as casual labourers without possibility of employment. Immediate action being necessary to correct this condition, we urge upon the federal and provincial governments that all such immigration shall be immediately regulated until it is proved that there is a reasonable demand for labour and that it is possible of being absorbed.
That seems to be a very reasonable contention ; but it is a rather strange commentary on our immigration policy that a group of responsible officials should pass this resolution and send it out broadcast, declaring that we have no further need for immigration because of the large volume of unemployment that exists at the present time. It is not my intention to read at any length from this report, although I think that every hon. member should read it carefully. There are, however, one or two very interesting statements made by representatives from the Scandinavian countries. They show very conclusively that these immigrants whom we have always regarded as most desirable are often not easily planed after their arrival in this country. Here is one of the statements presented by the mayor of Vancouver from a Scandinavian emigrant station:
Mayor and Council of Vancouver:
Many hundreds of Scandinavians have lately arrived here, and we are glad to see them. But we admit it pains us often when young men and girls arrive without funds, no work, no friends, and not knowing the language. We try to find jobs for them, but with the city full of idle men, what chance has a newcomer? We find men among them who are educated. We find among them mechanics, chemists, musicians, almost starving. And this is what they tell us: that the government carries on propaganda in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, employing agents whose business is to induce as many as possible to migrate to Canada.
Now I, for one, do not believe that this government employs such agents. I rather think the railroads, together with the steamship companies, are the guilty ones, and they should be made to look after them when they get here.
In the meantime here they are, and more arriving almost daily. Would someone think of a plan to help these sturdy Norsemen, and be a big brother to them in their hour of need?

Just one more thing. If these companies persist in such methods of bringing in settlers we will consider ways and means by which we can counteract their propaganda, to wit: write a strong protest and explain in the publications of Europe the rotten methods employed by these people. Give us a square deal. Respectfully yours,
J. J. Petersen,
In charge.
Since the unemployment conference last tautumm the situation has grown steadily worse. X will not emulate the example of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and read the large numbers of letters which might be produced regarding this matter. I would simply indicate that from almost every industrial centre there have been sent in protests against the present policy. It will be remembered that- two years ago from my own city of Winnipeg there came a resolution which I placed on the order paper to this effect, in part:
And whereas a percentage in excess of 33$ per cent of persons under relief are returned soldiers, or persons with short residence in Manitoba, who might property be classed as "citizens of Canada at large", and that the relief of such persons should be borne by the country as a whole;
This clause calls attention to the fact that a considerable number of the people in Winnipeg who need help have recently arrived in the city.


Mr. FORKE:: Who passed that resolution?


James Shaver Woodsworth: 
William Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I should lake
to ask the hon. member if he does tiot think it would be advisable to send for the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to hear these statistics, if we are to expect any result?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, I
should be very glad indeed to have both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour in their seats, but I cannot compel their attendance. I trust their attention may be directed to these statistics. The manifesto concludes:
And further still, that copies of this resolution be forwarded to the press, and public bodies; and that this campaign be not launched unless sympathetic consideration of the problems of the unemployed workers be withheld;
And lastly, that this manifesto be translated into foreign languages and printed.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I submit that with the very large immigration from all parts of Great Britain and the continent, there are already a sufficient number of people in Canada to either make or break 4 pm. any immigration policy that the government may devise. If the people now here are not satisfied, and continue to write to .their home papers telling the actual conditions that prevail in Canada, it is almost hopeless, even with the expenditure by the government of enormous sums of money, to induce any more immigrants to come to this country. I notice, for instance, in the Daily Herald, the one labour daily which is printed in Great Britain, there occurs the following statement, in the issue of February 5:
Notices displayed outside employment exchanges in Britain declare that thousands Df men are wanted in Canada.
Why do the authorities lie to our unemployed?
The Canadian papers are full of reports of unemployment and suffering in that country.
Here are a few of the headlines from three recent issues of the "Evening Telegram," an important Toronto newspaper:-
"All types of men seek jobs. Veteran's badge isn't a help. Labor Bureau up against big task hundreds of applicants. Outsiders come to city: single men out of work suffer-some cases of near starvation."
"No food for four days. Man's pitiable plight. Sought work, not alms-fell exhausted at 'House of Industry' door."
"How 'Other Half' Lives. Told by mother. Distressed wife shows how furniture is broken up to keep
her children warm."
Unemployed Immigrants

These headings are not taken from a Canadian Labour paper, nor from any paper that is confessedly out of sympathy with the government's immigration policy; they are taken from the files of the Evening Telegram of Toronto. We are already in such close touch with the Motherland that conditions here cannot continue to be unsatisfactory without their becoming very definitely known by. the Labour papers of the Old Country; and I would repeat, that conditions being so known, all the efforts the Canadian government officials overseas may put forth to induce immigration to Canada will be largely nullified.
The Department of Immigration has emphasized the statement that only farm labourers and domestic servants are being sought for in England or in Europe. At the unemployment conference the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart), for years the Acting Minister of Immigration, stated:
The most careful scrutiny is made of entrants to Canada, and they are the agricultural class very largely.
Now, is this actually true? I notice a very interesting editorial in The Federated Railwayman of November, 1924, commenting upon this statement of the Minister of the Interior. That editorial contains a very enlightening table showing the emigration from Great Britain to Canada by occupations. With the permission of the House, I should like to place excerpts from this editorial and the table it contains on record in Hansard.
The document submitted is as follows:
Since the unemployment conference was held, evidence has come to hand, which shows that the statements made by the Hon. Charles Stewart were not in accordance with facts. The British Board of Trades Journal in a recent issue contained tables showing the number of emigrants from the British Isles to various countries including Canada for the years 1921, 1922 and 1923. The following tables give this information in so far as it relates to Canada, for both male and female emigrants.
Emigrants from Great Britain to Canada in 1921, 1922
and 1923, by occupations			
Males	1921	1922	1923Agricultural	4,996	3,601	9,815Commercial, Finance and In-	surance	2,526	1,492	2,243Professional	835	494	552Skilled Trades-	Mining and Quarrying.. ..	554	648	1,344Metal and Engineering.. ..	1,334	1,103	2,816Building	340	208	687Other	1.811	1,230	2,010Transport and Communications	667	366	725Laborers not in Agriculture or	Transport	3,551	1,016	3,827Other and ill-defined occupa-	tions	1,483	1,234	1,630Total (18 years and over).. ..	18,097	11,392	26,249Females 1921	1922	1923Domestic, Hotel, etc., Service..	4,764	3,279	3,852Commercial, Finance and Insurance	850	380	426Professional	802	524	486Clothing Trades	324	215	270Wife or Housewife (not otherwise described)	10,975	6,455	8,622Other and ill-defined occupations	908	652	1,040tTotal (18 years and over)..	18.623	11,505	14,698Inclusive of 152 males of 12	years of	age and	overin 1921, 75 in 1922, and 82 in	1923, whose ages	werenot specified. *[Inclusive of 138 females of	12 years	of age	and
over in 1921, 99 in 1922, and 64 in 1923, whose ages were not specified.
It will be noticed that just Slightly a little more than one-third of the male emigrants for the period covered by these tables, were agricultural, in other words, out of a total of 56,738 male emigrants from Great Britain entering Canada during the years 1921, 1922 and 1923, only 18,412 entered as agricultural workers. While the female emigrants who entered Canada during the same period less than one-fourth were for domestic or farm service.
This report covers only Great Britain, and we have every reason to believe that the immigration from other countries, for the period stated, is at least in similar proportion.
In view of these facts and the statements made by the Hon. Charles Stewart, one of two things are very evident, either the government does not practice what they preach on immigration, or they are being badly hood-winked by their own agents and the agencies who are interested in flooding this country with immigrants.]
Now I should like to ask: upon whom should the responsibility for these unemployed immigrants fall? First of all, should it fall upon the individual and his family? That is largely where it falls to-day. Mr. Speaker, I regard it as absolute cruelty to induce people to come here either by false statements or by statements that are not sufficiently understood by the intending emigrant, and then allow that man to be thrown out upon an overcrowded labour market. I do not suggest that the government deliberately makes false statements in inducing people to come here, and yet I know sufficient of English life and of the viewpoint of the ordinary Englishman to know that a great many of the statements that are made leave a very false impression. I hold in my hand one of the postern which is broadcast on the other side. In large type appear the words "Why Pay Rent? Why not own your own farm?" And there is a picture of quite a comfortable farm house. I do not think I need to go into this question very fully to show to hon. members that there are tens of thousands of farmers who have been a good many years out on the western prairies who do not own as comfortable a house as the one pictured. I know perfectly well, on the other hand, that there are hundreds of

Unemployed Immigrants
houses that are equally comfortable, and some much more comfortable than the one pictured. But the impression left is that any man may hare a house like this, and that he may secure it very readily.


Edward Joseph Garland: Does the
advertisement indicate that there is a mortgage on that house?


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, nor does it
indicate that the vast proportion of the farms in the three prairie provinces are very heavily mortgaged. There is nothing said about that. The poster goes on:
The British and Canadian governments have arranged to advance funds for the settlement of farm workers and tenant farmers of limited means, and other suitable families who desire to engage in farming, on improved farms in Canada.
It states that there are farms ready for occupation within a reasonable distance of schools, railways and markets. I will leave the agricultural members of this House to say whether all these farms spoken of are within easy range of schools, railways and markets. If so, how is it that a large number of rural schools in my own province of Manitoba were closed last year? If so, how is it that bills for new railways were placed before this House last year? Surely this would indicate the necessity of bringing railways nearer to the homes of those already located?


Mr. COOTE:: Might I ask the hon. member if this is one of the farms that the government is going to sell to these new settlers on twenty-five year terms, and easy rates of interest?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I believe so. Another statement made is that loans repayable over twenty-five years, with interest at 5 per cent per annum can be secured. That is a better rate of interest than people already living here can secure. I do not know that I need go any further in reading this poster. My point is simply this: that although the statements may not be absolutely false, yet in the atmosphere in which they are published in England they convey an absolutely misleading idea as to the conditions that actually prevail in Canada, and we have large numbers of people coming over in response to such advertisements who are bitterly disappointed after they have been here for a short time.
I ask whether the individual should be allowed to bear the whole brunt of the unemployment, and permit me in this connection to quote one or two brief paragraphs from speakers who presented a case a few months ago before the mayor of the city of Montreal. This clipping is taken from the Montreal Daily Star of October 17, 1924:
A thorough review of the condition of unemployment in this city was given by H. B. Mackenzie, president Board of Trade; Geo. Lyman, chairman of the special committee, interviewing His Worship; J. T. Foster, president of the Trades and Labour Council; Right Rev. John Farthing, Bishop of Montreal; Lady Drummond, and several others. Mayor Duquette presented his views. He summed up by attacking the immigration policy of the country for allowing more men to come to Canada than could be absorbed in industry, and suggested that an embargo on the country's natural resources would help to promote manufacturing and give work.
In the course of that discussion I notice this appeal from J. Howard T. Falk, a prominent social worker in the city of Montreal:
You may leave the unemployed alone, but if they are left alone with their wives and children, you will have all the other problems crowding in, sickness, character breaking, wife desertion, non-support, delinquency, for which you will have to pay through the nose later on.
Undoubtedly, under modem conditions, the question of unemployment cannot be settled by the individual. There are admittedly shiftless individuals, and lazy individuals, and drunken individuals, but the great part of unemployment to-day is involuntary, and hence the state in some form cannot divest itself of certain responsibilities. I should say that one of the first responsibilities of the federal government here is to insist that there shall be a greater correlation between the work of its own officials and that of the officials of the several railway companies. The other day I asked several questions, which were passed as an order for return, as follows:
What salary was paid to the manager of the Colonization Department of the Canadian National Railways in Europe in the year 1924?
The reply came:
The management does not consider it in the public interest to publish this information.
I asked further:
What sum was paid to the manager as expenses, travelling and personal, in addition to this salary?
And the reply was:
The management does not consider it in the public interest to publish this information.
Here we have a very curious situation, Mr. Speaker. We have the Canadian National railways branching out into all kinds of sidelines, among others into an immigration policy, a policy upon which this House is by no means unanimous, a policy which may very easily lead to duplication of effort on the part of the Colonization department of the railways and the government's own agents; and yet when we ask what are the salaries and the expenses connected with those departments of the railway's operations we are told that the management "does not consider it in the public interest to publish this information." As a

Unemployed, Immigrants

member of this House I protest against this view of the matter. I urge that it is decidedly "in the public interest" that we should know how much money is being spent by the Canadian National. It is of very little use scrutinizing the expenses of our own departments, very little use deciding what policy we shall follow, when any policy we determine upon may be overridden and much larger amounts spent by a board over which we have no control. I submit that the position taken by the Minister of Hallways (Mr. Graham) the other day is quite indefensible. He laid it down as the policy of the government that this House should not interfere with the details of railway management. I submit that this is not one of the details of railway management. If the railway company embarks upon an immigration policy it seems to me it is high time we should understand that such a matter in all its details should come under the purview of this House.
It is not my purpose to go into any detail in considering what part of the responsibility for unemployment should be borne by the municipal, by the provincial, or by the federal authorities. That ought to be a matter of arrangement. But there are two factors which are very largely responsible for unemployment. First, financial policy of the government, and second, immigration. Perhaps, after the speech of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) the other day, I should add, ocean freight rates-I am not going into that matter. But in any case the federal government is definitely responsible for all these three. Under these conditions it is absolutely unfair to unload on the provinces or on the municipalities, the responsibility for immigrants who are unemployed shortly after their arrival in this country.
Why should the government refuse to accept responsibility for the effects of its own policies? That is a question which ought to be answered. If the government accept my motion it seems to me they would be simply showing their sincerity and good faith by admitting that if we bring people to this country, and those people are out of work within two years, the least we can do is to take care of them. I would not venture to suggest what form this care should take. Personally I think we might very well hold the railway companies responsible for that care, because even more than the federal government the railways are responsible for the propaganda that brings these immigrants here. In any case the responsibility for these new immigrants who are unemployed is placed directly with the government.

At the present time and for some time past we have had this question of unemployment tossed backward and forward between the provincial and federal authorities, and in the meantime the people themselves have suffered and are suffering to-day. I wish we in this House could sometimes get away- I have said it before now-from our statistics and from our thought of general policies, to picture to ourselves what unemployment really means-the discouraged men and the broken home, the under-privileged and in many cases under-nourished children. Surely we cannot go on indifferent to matters of this kind. So I would ask that even if the government are determined that the general matter of unemployment is not a federal concern; even if they are determined-and I do not acquiesce at all in that point of view-that they will not give relief but will leave that all to the provinces, I would urge that the least the government can do is to assume this little bit of the unemployment responsibility and care for the immigrants for two years after their arrival in this country.


Mr. PIUS MICHAUD (Restigouche and Madawaska):: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that we need a larger population in Canada. There is a class of people that I know would be willing to come back to Canada if they could afford to do so; I refer to our Canadian-born who are now in the United States. These people would not require to be maintained or supported by the Dominion government, by the provincial government or by any cities or municipalities. Since 1911 a great many of our Canadian people have gone to the United States in the hope of finding better conditions, but I am informed that after a few years' experience in that country they would be willing to return if the conditions were favourable. I am aware that the federal government have done a good deal to try to get these people to come back, but I would urge upon the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Robb) that he renew his efforts in that direction. Those of our Canadians who are willing to come back from the United States are familiar with our laws, usages and customs; they have had the experience of earning their living in this country. They are fishermen, farmers' sons, men who have worked in the woods or in saw mills, and this class of men will not be a burden to the country.
It is not my intention to make any extended remarks on this subject, but I submit this is the class of people we should first look after. If immigrants from foreign

Unemployed Immigrants
countries prove to be a burden then I hope we will not have too many. On the other hand I understand that the government has lately been making a careful choice of the immigrants coming into Canada, and I must congratulate them upon taking that step. In the past there has been a tendency to allow people to come into this country who could not become good Canadian citizens. I hope the minister will see to it that larger numbers of our Canadians who went to the United States will come back to Canada in the near future.


William Charles Good: What inducements, does my
hon. friend suggest, should be held out to the Canadians who have gone to the States?


Pius Michaud: Whatever money we
would spend to bring foreigners to this country, we should first spend to bring our Canadian-born back from the United States.
Mr. SPENCER; In what way would the hon. member have the money spent?


Pius Michaud: In different ways. In the first place I would suggest that their travelling expenses back to Canada should be paid. These people should be induced to go on the farms and not to the cities. In order to induce them to go on the farms we should adopt the policy of the province of Quebec where the government has to-day opened up the forest for settlers. The government is opening up little farms, putting up small houses, _ building bams, and clearing a few acres of land. They invite these people to come and settle down in the province. A part of that forest which has been opened to the settlers possesses a valuable resource in the form of lumber. A settler full of health and ambition is not afraid to go into the forest, chop down trees which he can sell as pulpwood or for manufacture into pulp, lumber or other products. The policy adopted in Quebec gives a great inducement to these men to come there. In the last few months this policy has been made known to a great many Canadian subjects who are now in the United States, and many of these people have accepted the invitation of the province and have come back to their homeland, and are good settlers.


Mr. H. C. HOCKEN (West Toronto):: If there is any one phase of immigration that this government and the preceding government has carried on with energy, it has been the attempt to repatriate the French Canadian. If that policy has not succeeded up to the present time, I do not think there can be 91 i
very much hope for success in the future. In the last ten years large sums of money have been spent to encourage colonization. Many people, mostly ecclesiastics, have gone to the New England states in order to personally endeavour to persuade those who have left Quebec to come back. They have offered them all kinds of inducements in the shape of farms in the province of Ontario and other places. If all these endeavours have not brought results, I do not think there can be very much hope for that particular kind of immigration in the future. My hon. friend from Restigouche and Madawaska (Mr. Michaud) says they are coming back and glad to get back, and that the province of Quebec is providing ready-made farms for them. My information is that they are not coming back in very large numbers, and judging from the statement of my hon. friend, they cannot afford to come back; they must have their fares paid. Perhaps they will ask for a return ticket. In that case they might come back, have a holiday in the village, and if they did not like it any better they could go away again.


Pius Michaud: With reference to the
settlers who come back to Canada, not only to the province of Quebec, but also to the province of New Brunswick, where I live, I would suggest that their travelling expenses1 should be paid, and they should not have * return ticket. They never had any return tickets, I am informed, and the suggestions from my hon. friends are not called for.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: This resolution presented
by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) is to my mind a most extraordinary proposal. I think we must assume that he anticipates unemployment as a permanent condition in Canada. He does not see any hope of relief from unemployment. He does not foresee a time when the people of Canada will all be employed. I know that there will always be some unemployment, but evidently my hon. friend anticipates that the condition that exists at the present time must be provided for by legislation continuously. I would be very sorry to have such an idea as that about our country. The conditions would be desperate indeed if we had at this time to provide for the maintenance of men who come into this country at least during the first three years of their residence here.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Are there not already arrangements that an immigrant who is unsuitable in certain respects may be returned by the transportation company? And are there
Unemployed Immigrants

not- also provisions that the immigrant, no matter how long he is in this country, who labours under certain difficulties, may be deported at the will of the Immigration department? It is not a new idea that an indigent immigrant should be cared for.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I think the maintenance of every person who comes into this country and does not get employment for two years is a new thing, and would have an effect which my hon. friend does not anticipate. Why should not the native-born citizen who cannot get work be maintained? Why should the man who has just come here be supported by the state because he cannot get work, and the man who is born in this country and unable to find work be compelled to make a living by some other means? Such an arrangement would discriminate against the native-born. Perhaps a little more may be expected of the men born in this country, but I do not think a solution for the unemployment is to be found in the direction my hon. friend suggests, and I do not think his resolution could be put into effect. I want to give my hon. friend credit for the motives which prompt him to make his proposal. I think we all have the deepest sympathy for the man who is willing to work and unable to find work. Perhaps those who have been through that experience would have more sympathy than any others. But, it is a desperate state of affairs for a man and for his family, when he is strong, willing and able to work, yet cannot find employment. What I think is needed, Mr. Speaker, in a new country like Canada is a national policy that will provide work instead of paying doles in the shape of maintenance. I hope the time will never come in Canada when we will pay doles, and certainly to begin now and take a considerable sum of money annually from the federal treasury to maintain men who are out of work-and I submit it could not be confined to men who have just entered the country

would create an additional tax upon industry; and thus still further depress conditions and postpone the day when there will be employment for all the citizens of Canada. This government has refused to accept any responsibility fqr unemployment. They will not relieve distress. They say that is the burden of the municipalities. When the unemployed march down here from Toronto and make their request, this government says, "We cannot do anything. Here is the British North America Act. If you can get anything out of that, why, feed on it, but we will take no further responsibility. That must come IMr. Woodsworth.]
from the municipalities and private charities." Of course, private charity means that these men are put in the position of mendicants, and that is most dangerous for this or any other country. The development of the mendicant spirit is one of the bad features of the dole system, and I hope the time will not come in this country when men will be able to look forward to maintenance whether they work or not. You keep a man who is unable to obtain employment for a certain period until he loses more or less all his selfrespect, then he is willing to take dole for the rest of his natural life. A trade policy such as we have to-day in Canada, which closes factories, produces the unemployment that exists in Canada. It is not so much the reduction of duties, not so much what is being done, as the threat of what is going to be done; with responsible ministers standing in their place and telling us that this is "the death knell of protection."


Robert Forke: Terrible!


Horatio Clarence Hocken: It is terrible. My hon.
friend may use that word seriously, because the effect of it is to prevent capital from opening up new . avenues of employment. Nothing can be worse in this country than that. What was the effect of the declarations from the other side of the House during last session? It was the curtailment of many extensions that otherwise would have taken place. It made capital fearful, and it has prevented many from going on with enterprises because they did not know wbat next would come from this government's policy.


Mr. SHAW:: Presuming that my hon.
friend's statement is correct, would the assurance of the Prime Minister, given, I think, at Toronto, that there was going to be no further interference with the'tariff, not somewhat abate the feeling which my hon. friend suggests?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I might remind my hon.
friend that in 1919 the Prime Minister adopted a platform for his party or his party adopted a platform for him. Immediately afterwards, he went around this country telling the leaders of industry that that did not matter at all; that they were not going to put it into effect. The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler) stated that on the floor of this House. While that stood, things were not so bad in this country. My hon. friend will remember that, following the platform which was -adopted in 1919 declaring for free trade, assurances were given that free trade would not be introduced; that the manufac-

Unemployed Immigrants
rimers would be perfectly satisfied. Following that again came the reduction and the threats that were made by the different ministers of the crown. After those threats were made, unemployment began to be serious in Canada. That unemployment has continued, and I am afraid it will continue. What is worse than men being brought out here who find themselves unemployed for a period, is the fact that tens of thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands of the native-born of this country, people bom here, educated here, who have learned a trade or profession, by the time they are ready to work, have to go over the border to get employment. Conditions in Canada to-day are just what they were in 1876, 1877 and 1878.


Mr. SPENCER:: Are they not somewhat
similar to what they were in 1913 before this government began to tinker with the tariff?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: If my hon. friend lived in a city, in any centre of population, he would know that would be a perfectly silly question to ask. Unemployment in 1913 was not a fraction of what it is to-day, and unemployment that existed in 1913 was due to a depression in the United States as much as to any depression in Canada. That depression began over there, but what is happening now is that our neighbours are prosperous while we are in a state of depression.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: My hon. friend speaks
about unemployment in 1912 and 1913 being less severe than it is at the present time. The winter of 1912-13 was the only time when we had bread lines in the province from which I come.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: In 1912-13, I was personally responsible for the relief of anything in the shape of unemployment in one of the principal cities in this country. I was as close up against it as I am to my friend here, the hon. member for Strathcona (Mr. Warner), and I can assure my hon. friend that there was nothing at all to be compared with conditions that exist to-day. We had no bread lines in the city of Toronto. The House of Industry was not spending more than twenty-five per cent of what it is spending to-day in the relief of distress. We did not have missions throughout the city as there are today providing soup and meals for the unemployed and those who are hungry. There is one there conducted by a French-Canadian evangelist where they are feeding from one to three hundred men every night. That is going on now.


William Irvine: Did you have any donations from Russia in 1913 for the unemployed?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I cannot recall any donations from Russia in 1913, but I can assure my hon. friend that conditions in 1913 are not to be compared with conditions to-day. Conditions to-day are twenty, yes a huhdred, times worse than they were then.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: My hon. friend suggests that
serious threats on this citadel of protection were the cause of much unemployment. I should like to know, as a matter of interest, where these serious threats came from.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The first one came from
the Prime Minister himself, but the most striking one came from the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart). Then we had a very elegantly phrased one from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell).


William Irvine: Does my hon. friend really
take them seriously?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: It would not matter so
much about my taking them so seriously, but capital generally has taken them seriously. That is the point to which I direct the attention of the House. Almost from the day that these threats were made from that side of the House, there has been a tightening up of capital, a curtailment of industry and an increase of unemployment. My hon. friends may smite, but there is the fact and it cannot be controverted. Conditions to-day are worse than they have been in this Dominion to my knowledge since 1876.


Charles A. Stewart: I will take
issue with my hon. friend there. I think my hon. friend was living in Toronto in 1891, 1892 and 1893, and he will remember if he thinks back, the procession of workmen carrying the black flag. He will also remember that a great portion of the city of Toronto, a very large portion of Parkdale was uninhabited at all. If conditions are as bad in Toronto today, I would like to know it.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: My hon. friend has raised a question that needs some explanation. He tells about the hard times that existed in Toronto in 1891. I can tell him the reasons very largely for that. From 1885 to 1890 there had been the wildest and craziest land speculation boom that ever took place in any part of this Dominion. By 1891 the bubble burst, and men who thought they were worth half a million or a million dollars were in poverty. When they had to meet their covenants they were completely insolvent.
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Charles A. Stewart: Will my
hon. friend not also admit that that was the *period during which Canada enjoyed the highest protection?


Arthur Meighen: I lived in Toronto at
that time and I never saw that procession.


Charles A. Stewart: I did not
live in Toronto. I happened to be there and I saw the procession take place.


Arthur Meighen: Likely it was a funerai.


Charles A. Stewart: It was not a funeral. It was a funeral for some poor people, but my hon. friend will not deny it because he knows it very well.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I can explain and describe it to my hon. friend. I remember 1891 and the processions that took place then were composed of, perhaps, a hundred or a hundred and fifty persons.


Charles A. Stewart: No.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I cannot remember any
very large one. I will tell my hon. friend something else. The man who organized those processions under the black flag was offered a position to work on the building of the city hall. He would not take the work, and when that fact was published, we had no more carrying of black flags or processions. I happen to know that because at that time I was a reporter of the city hall, and it was my duty to describe those processions, to go over all the facts as to who organized them, what they were for and all the rest of it. They were organized by two or three men who did not want to work. That is proved by the tact that when work was offered they would not take it.


Charles A. Stewart: 
Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member
propose to toll the bell for the death of protection in the coming debate?


Charles A. Stewart: I will toll
the bell of protection when the time comes.


Arthur Meighen: My guess is that he
won't.


Charles A. Stewart: My right
hon. friend used the bell vigorously in Montreal and St Antoine; he used it in Hastings.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member's friends did not use the bell; it was something a lot more filthy.


George Newcombe Gordon: Order. The
hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) is supposed to have the floor.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I am always ready to give way to the Minister of the Interior.


Charles A. Stewart: Thank you.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I have no more to say
than this, that instead of the government preparing to pay out doles to men out of work it is the duty of parliament to provide work. I do not gather from that poster that men are being brought in to go .into the cities; those who come in response to the poster are coming to do farming. And that is the best kind of immigration we can have, because we have lots of land in Ontario, thousands of farms that can be purchased for very much less than they are worth, including the buildings on them. This is due to the fact that the farmers have grown old and their children have gone away, so that they are unable any longer to work the land. There are thousands of farms in Ontario in that state which can be purchased for a great deal less than they are really worth, and these would be ideal places for immigrants to settle in. I say therefore that it is the duty of the government to make such arrangements as will make it possible for these men coming out with a knowledge of agriculture to go on the farms of Ontario. But I am opposed to any principle of paying maintenance money to men who come to this country. It is better a thousand times for the government to enter upon some extensive works to give them employment than to begin to turn them against work as soon as they get here.


Robert Forke: I did
not intend to speak in this debate but a few remarks have been made upon which I feel obliged to make some observations. I recognize the sincerity of the mover of this resolution and I know that he wishes well in regard to this great question of unemployment. I have also listened to the remarks of the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken), and I must say that I always feel disappointed that, in these trying times when so many difficult questions face us and when conditions are so troublesome, our friends to the right,

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whose ability I would not question for a moment, have no other solution to offer us than the one panacea of higher protection.


Mr. MANION:: What solution do you
offer?


Robert Forke: Perhaps I should admit that I have no great solution to offer.


Robert James Manion: Then why criticize us?


Robert Forke: Have patience. I do not feel called upon to propose any solution irrespective of whether or not I am sure it is going to benefit us, simply because it happens to be the god that I have always worshipped in days gone by. As regards the steamship companies, I have a little experience gained a number of years ago in the way of getting immigration into Canada. I do not know what system the government follows, but I do think that if the Canadian government has an agent associated with any steamship company it should discontinue that policy. The government cannot interfere or find fault with propaganda issued by the steamship companies, but if there is a steamship company's agent who is also an agent for the Canadian government, then the government has some responsibility in the matter. The government has a responsibility so far as immigrants are concerned after they have come to Canadia, but the steamship companies have none; consequently the companies want nothing but a certain amount of passenger traffic to make their business a paying proposition.
In connection with the class of immigrants that come to the country, we have heard a good deal about unemployment, and I take it that we all agree that this is deplorable. No one cares to hear of destitution or hard times or suffering on the part of women and children, or of men, for that matter. And we are up against a situation that calls for the most serious consideration. To begin with, ours is a large country, one that has room for an immense population. The country is traversed by railways; and as I mentioned not long ago our -house in Canada is too large for us; its furnishings are too expensive and we cannot pay the rent. That is the condition we are in to-day. Are we going to sit idly by and do nothing? There is unemployment in Toronto, in Winnipeg and in the other larger cities, and are we to sit down and do nothing to provide work for these people, at the same time getting more immigrants into the country? I would point out that there has never been unemployment in the agricultural districts of Canada.


William F. Carroll: Will the hon. member mention any time in the history of this country when there was no unemployment in the large cities?


Robert Forke: I was going to say a few words on that.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Is it not true that a very large number of the unemployed in the cities during the winter have been employed out on the farms in the summer until the land was frozen? Do they not work up to the harvest and then drift to the cities?


Robert Forke: That may be true to some extent, but I do not think that things are always what they are made out to be in this regard. I can only speak for one province, where I know men have been able to get good wages all summer. They have a large amount of money when the cold weather comes and they drift into the cities, and owing to the attractions of city life that money soon disappears after they -have got there. They then become a burden on the city.
A good deal has been said about the industrial system, and it is my belief that its operations are responsible for a large amount of unemployment in Canada. If you foster industry by artificial means you are likely to have unemployment; if you could make all the factories of Canada really prosperous by such means, so that you could have more of them established, I believe the same question of unemployment would come up again. Let me tell the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) that the question is not one of production but of consumption. Canada can produce twice as much as the people of Canada can buy to-day. But under our present system we are unable to compete in the outside markets anywhere with our industrial products and consequently we must look to the home market to dispose of them. Our industries have been developed to such an extent that they can produce much more than the people can buy, and therefore the unemployment situation is inevitable. It is a vicious circle; however I have no doubt that my hon. friend from West Toronto is sincere in his belief that, if protection were given all these industries, the people would immediately be in a position to buy all that was produced.	t


Horatio Clarence Hocken: We are buying too much from the United States.


Robert Forke: I do not say they are buying too much. People are buying what they can afford to buy. The buying power of the
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people, more especially of the agricultural community, has been reduced to such an extent that they are unable to purchase the goods they would purchase if conditions had been as prosperous as they had reason to expect. I claim, Mr. Speaker, that the great problem

it has been repeated again and again in this House, and it cannot be repeated too often-the great problem we have to-day is an agricultural problem, and that when we have solved it we Shall find that our industrial problem will be to a large extent solved as well. My hon. friend from West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) says that we buy too much from the United States. Again I come back to the question-of course I know some of the arguments that will be advanced-why is it we cannot get Canadian goods that we are so anxious and willing to purchase? Why is it they cost so much more than similar goods coming from the United States? There must be some reason, and one is that Canada has been made one of the dearest countries of the world in which to live in. Consequently you find the cost of production gets so high that the product cannot be sold to compete with the similar product of other countries.


Mr. LADNER:: Will the hon. member
explain why goods are so cheap in the States?


Mr. HANSON:: -a more highly protected country?


Robert Forke: My friends always get back to that cry, "A more highly protected country." The idea that is being promulgated in t'he States at the present time is, "America for the Americans." They are getting tired of Europe and all its troubles, and they are going to build a ring around the United States of America and protect agriculture, they are going to bring everything up to a certain level and forget all about the troubles and miseries of the outside world while they live in complete happiness themselves. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is not such a dream as it may appear to be on the surface.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Robert Forke: My right hon. friend says, "hear, hear." Such a policy may be possible in the United States, a country of immense distances and possessing a climate so varied that the soil is capable of producing everything necessary for the life of mankind even under the advanced civilization of to-day. But what are the circumstances in Canada? We are a debtor nation, we have a large indebtedness to Great Britain and other foreign countries-
[Me. Forke.]


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Do you call Great Britain a foreign country?


Robert Forke: I said Great Britain and
foreign countries.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: You said Great Britain
and "other" foreign countries.


Robert Forke: That is a slip of the tongue. My hon. friend from West Toronto will never have to blaane me for lack of love of my Motherland. But the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meigben) in the course of his speech on the Address pointed out that we had interest to pay to Great Britain and foreign countries to the amount of $300,000000. How are we going to pay that immense sum every year unless we are able to sell our products to other countries? Now, 5 p.m. the United States is in an entirely different position; and when you begin to compare Canada with the United States the comparison is useless because the conditions are not parallel. A policy that would work well in the United States would be entirely unworkable in the Dominion.
But I am getting away a little from what I intended to say. There are two sides to this question, and I should like to meet them fairly and squarely. I am just as anxious as the hon. member for West Toronto not to see any unemployment, any hard times, but to have everyone prosperous and happy in this Dominion. I think we are all agreed upon that. The only trouble is, we cannot see eye to eye as to what remedy should be applied to bring about this desirable state of affairs.


Arthur Meighen: Will my hon. friend explain how the United States ceased to be a debtor nation? He will admit that not many years ago it was not a creditor nation.


Robert Forke: The war was largely responsible for the United States getting out of debt.


Arthur Meighen: They were out of debt
before the war.


Robert Forke: Even supposing they were,
their soil produces almost everything that its people require. The United States is not in the same position as Canada is to-day.


Arthur Meighen: It is.


Robert Forke: They are the largest free
trade area in the world.


Arthur Meighen: They are no bigger than we are. We are just as big.

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Robert Forke: We are in an entirely different position.


Arthur Meighen: We have not so many
people.


Robert Forke: If each state had been independent and had erected a tariff wall against its neighbour, does my right hon. friend say that the United States would be as prosperous a country as it is to-day?


Arthur Meighen: Such a thing would be nonsense. Why in the world would, a country have a tariff within its own borders? It does not matter where the business is done so long as it is done. The difference would be this, there would be a wider distribution of what the United States now has over the different states, but it would be accompanied by some expense, and I do not think it would be wise. If the hon. member will give us what the United States has we will be satisfied.


Robert Forke: I do not exactly follow my
right hon. friend's argument.


Arthur Meighen: Give us the kind of "free trade" they have and we will be satisfied.


Robert Forke: They have free trade among
themselves,-


Arthur Meighen: So have we.


Robert Forke: -and if we were in exactly the same position probably we could get along as well as they have done, although I do not think their prosperity has come from protective principles-I do not admit it for one moment. There are a great many other reasons why the United States should be so prosperous without going into the field of protection.


Arthur Meighen: There is one disciple
left.


Charles A. Stewart: My right
hon. friend is aware that last Saturday morning there appeared in the newspapers a statement that the American steel industry have had the worst year in the past five years; and they are a highly protected industry.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: How does that compare
with Nova Scotia?


Robert Forke: We will have sufficient time later to discuss free trade versus protection, or low versus high tariffs. In fact I do not think the subject would have been introduced so largely had it not been for my hon. friend from West Toronto, whose favourite theme protection seems to be. I have no doubt he sincerely believes that all our troubles today follow from the so-called low tariff now in force. It is simply a difference of opinion, and I hope some day my hon. friend will get more light upon the subject.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Hear, hear.


Robert Forke: We have a vast country sparsely settled, and yet we have unemployment. We are all anxiously seeking for the light. Listening to the stories which the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) has recited to the House, I have no doubt they are true. But only last night I picked up an Old Country newspaper in which I read a letter written by a family in Toronto to friends in Berwickshire,, saying, "We have been out in this new country just twelve months, and we are very happy." Only recently I read in another Old Country paper a speech made by a farmer from Alberta while visiting a town in Berwickshire in which he painted a most glowing picture of the prosperity of the Alberta farmer. I have no doubt that what he said was true in his particular case. At the same time-and I have mentioned this before-I have heard stories of destitution and want on the western prairies, and I also have no doubt that those stories unfortunately are true. I am perfectly certain that two members from the western provinces could tell directly opposite stories of conditions in their respective districts and both would be speaking .the truth. This is a fact which no one oan deny. Circumstances during the years which are past and gone have been not what they ought to have been in this country. But, Mr. Speaker I do believe that we have reached the point where if we get the proper dass of immigrants and proper conditions we are going to see better times so far as agriculture is concerned. I also realize that the government has no right to bring more immigrants into the country unless they are prepared to find places for them on their arrival.
I am not so sure about the federal government not being responsible for unemployment. So long as it pursues what may be termed a vigorous immigration policy I question very much as a matter of equity and justice whether it is right in asserting that it has nothing to do with unemployment. Were no new people being poured into the provinces under a federal immigration policy, I think the provincial and municipal authorities would be entirely responsible and would have to look after those unfortunate people who are out of work. I merely make this remark in passing.
I have watched the whole process of immigration into a new country, and no matter under what circumstances the immigration is
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conducted you will always find pathos and humour and tragedy in the immigration of a people into a new land, I would urge upon the government that the greatest of care should be taken in the handling of the immigrants immediately after they have landed upon the shores of Canada, and to see that they get located where they can earn a living.
I was rather astonished at the figures given by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr Woodsworth) showing that only about one-third of the male immigrants to this country belong to the agricultural class. I am sorry to hear that, because I do believe that immigrants who are unfitted for agricultural work are going to be a liability on this country for a good many years to come, if they come here m any large numbers. I am perfectly aware of the fact that a good many immigrants who were quite unacquainted with agriculture have come to this country, and have in the long run made good; but these are the exceptions and not the rule. So I would like to see great, care taken in the placing of the immigrants after they come to our shores.
But we shall never solve this question until we have made agriculture prosperous, until we have established an equilibrium between the wages paid in agriculture and the wages paid in other callings; the wages should be on a parity. We sometimes hear about the high wages that are paid to agricultural labourers, but, Mr. Speaker, I am one of those who believe that agricultural labourers are not paid high enough wages; and that is the trouble. We speak about farm labourers, and sometimes the phrase is used as if farm "labourers" were not of the very highest order. But m these modem times the farm labourer on the modern farm, if he is efficient, must be a man of intelligence, he must have some ability m the handling of machinery, and be a fairly good all-round man. I think an efficient farm servant is entitled to be well paid. But conditions have been such in farming as not to allow the wages to be paid which ought to be paid for what might be called efficient farm help. If we could put farming upon a paying basis with other industries, then I think a great many of our difficulties would be solved.
Why do people leave the farm and go to the cities to swell the ranks of the unemployed? It is because there are periodically boom times in the cities, and because wages are higher there for the time being, and consequently the young men and the young women on the farms become dissatisfied and go to the cities. Then a slack time comes, and we have the whole stoiy of unemployment

over and over again. That brings me back to where I began. We shall never solve this question of unemployment until we have made the farm an attractive place to live, and until the remuneration there is equal to the industry and energy expended on the farm. I know a great many people think that agricultural people are selfish in always advocating this as a remedy for our difficulties in Canada; but I do not advocate it for a single minute from a selfish point of view; I do it because I honestly believe this is the solution of our problem.
I have repeated again and again in this House that I have no quarrel with our industrial people. I would like to see the factories in this country prosperous. I am just as sorry as the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) to see people idle in Toronto or in other manufacturing cities. But we should realize that the system we are fpllow-ing is economically unsound, and that to preach a little higher protection will never solve our problem. I want to tell the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) that I am very much disappointed in him that, with his great ability he does nothing more to help us out of our difficulties than to preach this one doctrine of high protection.


Arthur Meighen: You won't do what I
do request.


Robert Forke: I think probably I have said enough. I have not thrown very much light on the problem, I know that very well; but at the same time I am perfectly well aware that this doctrine of high protection will not solve the problem. Nor do I believe the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg is altogether right when he would stop all immigration until we have our unemployment problem solved.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, did I suggest anything of the kind? That is not contained in the resolution.


Robert Forke: I am sorry if I have misunderstood imy hon. friend, but that was the impression I got in listening to his remarks. I believe that it is quite right to get immigrants provided they are of the right class, and provided they reach the places where they can earn a living. And that will not be in the city of Toronto or in any other large centre of population. A small percentage, of course, can always be absorbed in the great cities, but I believe that those who are there now should first be taken care of before we get more in to swell the popu-

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lation of our cities. One of the great problems of modern times is the continual drift of population from the rural districts into our large cities. And how can this be stopped? I do _ not know- I only hope that under modern conditions of life in the rural districts, where we have now the car, the telephone, radio, and easier communication with the great centres, rural life will become more and more attractive and people will stay on the farm. That would help to solve our difficulties.
In conclusion, my heart and sympathy are with the new immigrant, because I know just about how he feels when he plants his foot on an unknown shore.


Mr. JOHN PRITCHARD (North Wellington) :: Mr. Speaker, this problem of wages
seems to be one of the biggest problems that we have to grapple with to-day. If we were to follow the advice of our friends to the right, we would boost our industries and keep them running full time, and thereby get rid of the problem of unemployment; but I fail to see any sound reasoning in that suggestion. Provided that industry prospers, as my leader (Mr. Forke) has said, industry adds to industry, and under the system of protection of our industries, organized labour and organized capital are able to demand the rate of return that each of them wants for the service it performs. Then when in addition we add interest on the capital invested, what is the position in which we find ourselves? We find that the man who is working where he has not the benefit of organized labour drifts to the place where he will get big wages. This drains not only the rural communities, but other countries as well where the wages are lower. I fail to see how-even if you had a tariff so high that it would prohibit everything coming in, and prohibit men drifting to the places where conditions were not advantageous to the worker-you can prevent unemployment even if you give protection to the limit and develop industry to the limit.
I listened with interest to the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) advocating the cause of the worker. I have as much sympathy with the worker perhaps as any man in this House. I have be.en a worker practically all my life, and at manual labour, I might say. I have studied tihe prevailing conditions in this country. The hon. member for Centre Winnipeg referred to a poster that was being broadcast in the old land advertising conditions in Canada. I have employed help myself, and as he showed that poster my mind went back to the nineties when times were rather hard on the farm as
well as in industry in Ontario. I remember hiring a man, at that time, twenty-one years of age, and without a dollar in his pocket. He worked five years on our farm, three years for my father, and two for myself. That man to-day owns his home, and it is the equal of the one described in that poster. He has paid for his home, for his stock, chattels, farm and everything. And he did it all by honest labour; he has played the part of a good citizen. I will cite some other cases. It was my privilege some years ago to go to Onoway in the province of Alberta, about forty miles northwest of Edmonton. I had occasion to go ten miles from Onoway, out into a section where the roads were not built at that time, and what did I find when I got there? I found a man from the centre of London, England, who had hewn out a home for himself in that place. He had good buildings, a comfortable home, and he was clerk of the municipality.
I was more than astonished that a man of his intelligence should pass over so much of this vast country and go to such an undesirable section to settle. I have another case in mind, that of a man with whom I am very intimately acquainted, who came from the heart of London at sixteen years of age in those early nineties; came to our section of the country where work was very hard to get even in the rural sections. In those days he worked at fifty cents a day or whatever he could get. To-day he has just as nice a farm as the one described in the poster that has been referred to. He went home, by the way, the early part of this winter on a visit to England. That man never got a dollar that he did not earn by his own hard work, yet when he came here, as he said himself, he did not know how to put a set of whiffle-trees together.
I claim, as someone has already remarked in this debate, that land is just as cheap in the older parts of Ontario as it is anywhere else in Canada, when we consider the value of the improvements. We have free-grant land to-day in Ontario in close proximity to churches, schools, railways, markets and everything else. Why is it, therefore, that men are going to the cities? Organized labour has made certain demands. They will work only eight hours a day and at a certain rate; they will only do so much work for so much money. The farmer has to compete in the markets of the world, and he has to work longer hours and harder for less pay. Last session, a little less than a year ago, there was a strike of letter carriers in the city of Toronto. They were then getting about $1,500 a year,
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while mail carriers in the rural sections were getting only S600 a year,, and at that time we were endeavouring to get a little more for them. In other words, the man in the city was getting two and a half times as much as the man in the country. Now why is that? Why is it that wages are high in the city while in the country even the government persists in paying men less than they pay those who work in the cities? That is a thing I cannot understand. Until these wages are made more uniform by the government and by everybody concerned, the drift cityward will continue and we will have unemployment. If wages were made lower in the city, in the governmental departments-even in the civil service-results would be beneficial so far as the movement to the city is concerned. Those in the civil service think they are not getting enough, but I claim that if the salaries paid by the government were lowered a little bit you would find less of a stampede from the rural sections and you would not have the competition of the bright, brainy boys and girls from the country who come into the cities and take up some of the best positions in the gift of the government. Moreover, many of those who love fanning would stay on the farm; they now come to the city because of the mere pittance they get for their labours in the country. We want to make the conditions more difficult in the cities; we want to make them less attractive. Remuneration for work in the country must be made at least equal to wages paid in the city, otherwise we cannot hope to hold our people on the farms; we cannot hope to have a prosperous country or accomplish all that we should accomplish. It is right that industries should prosper, but they can only go so far when they have to call a halt and the agricultural sections of the country have to take the lead. So I say that if we are to have any real national prosperity we will have to bring about a reversal of the present conditions; those engaged in agriculture will have to get a- little more for their labour, and employment in the cities will have to be made a little less attractive.


Robert James Manion: Mr. Speaker, allow me first to say that I believe the hon. member who introduced the resolution (Mr. Woodsworth) is sincere in doing so and that undoubtedly he shows a very great interest in the working men of this country. Though I cannot agree with some of his conclusions, at the same time I am sure he deserves the gratitude of the unemployed in this country for the interest he 
takes on their behalf. I cannot support the resolution myself, because I can hardly see how you could provide a living for unemployed immigrants while you allowed our own Canadian unemployed to go without similar assistance. Practically the same argument was put up by the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) who spoke a little while ago. However, the resolution does bring before the House and the country the present conditions in Canada and shows the need for deep thought on the part of us all with regard to the solving of the problem.


Arthur Meighen: There is this difference: that the native-born Canadian who is unemployed can go to the United States, but the poor fellow who is an immigrant cannot get through.


Robert James Manion: Well, unfortunately, in
addition to the Canadian-born people who are going to the United States I happen to know that a number of the others are going also; they are both going out of the country at the present time.
It is rather interesting to sit here this afternoon and listen to various hon. members in different parts of the House describe the conditions as they exist in Canada. When my right hon. leader (Mr. Meighen), in moderate terms, described those conditions he was accused of being nothing but a pessimist; and when in my remarks on the Address I took the same attitude, pointed out exactly the conditions which we all know to exist, many of the Liberal papers and a number of Liberal speakers accused me of simply talking pessimism. But the country generally knows that these conditions exist and is crying for some remedy.
I consider the conditions worse than they have ever been so far back as my memory goes, and I have been taking an interest in business affairs in Canada, in the conditions of unemployment and business generally, for at least twenty-five years. I certainly have never known the conditions to equal those in Canada at present-the conditions of unemployment, of depression, and of exodus from the country. The very fact that last year, in, October, a month when business and employment are usually at their best, fifty mayors of Ontario waited upon the provincial premier asking him for help on account of the unemployment or the threatened unemployment for the ensuing winter-that is something that never occurred before in the history of Canada so far as my memory carries me, and even so far as my knowledge of history carries me. So there is no doubt

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that unemployment conditions are severe. There is also no doubt that there is no use bringing into this country labourers, at any rate of the ordinary Kind, labourers who intend to work in the cities, to take up employment in industrial plants. It is true we may still continue to bring in-and I think we should do so-as many of those who are willing to go upon farms as it is possible to bring in and as it is possible to place upon the land.
May I say in regard to the remarks of the hon. member for Restigouche and Madawaska (Mr. Michaud) as to the bringing back to this country of the French Canadians who have gone to the United States, that I at least- and I believe I speak for the larger number of Canadians-would be only too happy to see those French Canadians who left the country brought back once more to take their place as good and useful citizens of this country.
But at the present time there is no use in attempting it, because there is no work for them any more than there is work for any other labourers who wish to come back. So far as it is possible to put them on the land they certainly should be brought back, but there is no use at the present time bringing into the industrial centres of the country either French Canadians or any other class of people who cannot get work, and who would consequently have to join, the ranks of the unemployed.
What a tragedy it is, when one considers the -immense area of the country;-Canada has an area greater than that of the United States, a country with a population of a hundred and ten million, Canada has twice the area of the whole of Europe, if you leave out Russia, yet in that part of Europe there are three hundred millon people; and we have in double the area only nine million people! And when you consider all our magnificent resources, our millions of acres of' fertile land and all the other resources of which we speak, what a tragedy it is that to-day, in this House of Commons of Canada, we are debating what can be done for the unemployed1-for that is the basis of the resolution. It is certainly a terrible condition, in a new country with such possibilities and such potentialities, to be spending the time of the House of Commons wondering how we can help the terrible conditions of unemployment that exist. In spite of the criticisms of my hon. friend the member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) and the other hon. members who take the same attitude, I submit, after serious thought, that the chief cause of the depressed industrial conditions in our country is the
unstable tariff policy of the government. I submit that that is the chief cause of the depression in the cities. I do not contend it is causing depression in the prairie provinces. I go so far as to admit that in the prairie provinces they have very good reason, from their individual and sectional standpoint, for arguing for a lower tariff. There is no doubt they would gain to a certain extent, temporarily at least, under lower tariff. But there is also no doubt that in the industrial centres of the country, in cities such as Toronto, Hamilton, Peterborough, Galt and Paris in the provinces of Ontario, and Sherbrooke, Montreal, Three Rivers, Quebec and other cities in the province of Quebec, they absolutely require protection in order to carry on their industries. And there is no doubt that the farmers surrounding those cities absolutely need protection for the cities for the maintenance of the home market of which the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke), the leader of the Progressive party, spoke a few moments ago. If you have not protection for the industries you simply allow the cheap labour of a Europe and the low standards of living of a Europe to be imported into Canada. Without that proper protection you cannot keep out their goods.


Robert Forke: Might I point out to my
hon. friend that the people who have this low standard of living he speaks about are the people who have to buy our goods?


Robert James Manion: They have to buy our
exports whether they have a low standard or not, but there is no reason why we should buy from them goods that will put out of business our industrial concerns.


Robert Forke: Just another question-


Robert James Manion: I know what your question will be before you ask it.


Robert Forke: My hon. friend has such
a logical mind that he can tell what question I am going to ask him. How are we going to pay for the exports if we do not buy anything from them?


Robert James Manion: We not only import the
goods we produce in this country, but we import a lot we do not produce. This government in the past negotiated a trade treaty with France, and in that trade treaty we have lowered the tariff, for example, on a lot of luxuries. We are being paid by importing a greater amount of luxuries into Canada for the goods we export to France. But as to the goods we can produce in this country, lines of production in which our industries have been developed, I submit, it is far better
Unemployed Immigrants

to have a little more expensive article if necessary and keep our own people employed, than to force them to go to the United States, the most highly protected country in the world, to earn a living. That is what I believe is necessary-we must have a stable tariff policy. As the hon. member for West Toronto said, it has not been so much the cuts in the tariff, but the continual threatening of cuts, although the cuts of course have done harm. The threatening of the further cuts, the absolute uncertainty, and the instability resulting to the business interests of the country have made those business interests fearful of investing money in industrial plants, and fearful of extending the plants and giving work by producing goods in our country. If you cannot give that certainty of the home market at least to your industrial plants, you cannot keep those plants going.
Referring to the United Kingdom, at the present time we find that there is probably greater unemployment in free-trade Great Britain than there is in any other country in the world. There are worse conditions of unemployment and worse conditions of depression in free-trade Britain than in any other country of the world, so far as my reading teaches me. Not only that, but you find within the last few days in the press of Canada and the press of the world that the British ship-builders, who were the greatest ship-builders in the world, have been losing contracts for construction of ships, and these contracts have gone to the highly protected German ship-builders. The Germans, who are the most highly protected people in the world, are under-bidding the British shipyards and putting those industries out of work.


Ernest Lapointe: A poor argument.


Robert Forke: Suppose all the countries
in the world had a high protective policy, what would the condition be?


Robert James Manion: That is what we have at
present, except Canada-not only high protective policies, but they are raising them higher; Canada is the only country with a low protective policy except free-trade England.


Robert Forke: Are we in a worse position
than the other countries?


Robert James Manion: Worse than any other protected country. I think the only other country in the same position is Great Britain with her free trade.


Mr. MOTHERWELL:: We are having the budget debate a day ahead.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton):: Does the
hon. member contend, as between Great Britain and Germany for instance, Germany being a protected country and Britain not a protected country, that Britain was losing contracts to Germany on account of the tariff?


Robert James Manion: I know that long before the war had anything to do with conditions that exist to-day, England was losing her trade to Germany. I can cite ten of the important countries of Europe, the greatest of them was Russia, the others being Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Austria-Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, Italy and Switzerland- every one of which was buying more from protected Germany before the war than from England. Practically the only countries that were left to whom England was selling more than Germany was selling before the war were France, Spain, Portugal and one or two small countries. England was driven out of the market by protectionist Germany, and why? Because Germany under her protected system was producing just as cheaply and-


Mr. BROWN:: Is this discussion not out of order? There is a resolution on the order paper by the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) dealing with the whole matter of tariff.


Arthur Meighen: They would not let me move it.


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. gentleman may get a chance yet. The particular question is, how should the Dominion deal with unemployment?


Robert James Manion: I am telling my hon. friend that if we put in a proper protective stable tariff policy', then we will be able to deal with the unemployment situation.


Ernest Lapointe: Did my hon. friend not read in the newspapers the other day that Mr. Green, the President of the American Federation of Labour, said that there were twenty million men unemployed in the United States?


Robert James Manion: I doubt if there are twenty million artisans in the whole United States in ordinary' times.


Ernest Lapointe: That is a statement of Mr. Green.


Arthur Meighen: Either the newspaperman or Mr. Green must have been suffering from delirium tremens.


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend was not looking at that article with his usual clear

Unemployed Immigrants
mind, because if he will think for a moment he will realize that there are probably not more than twenty million artisans in the United States.


Ernest Lapointe: It is the statement of Mr. Green.


Robert James Manion: If my hon. friend believes that statement, he had better read some other statement. As a matter of fact the United States has unemployment, and I do not mean to argue that under any policy in the world we will ever get rid of unemployment entirely. But never in the history of Canada, so far as I can go back-and I can go back in memory at least to the beginning of the century-have conditions been as severe as they are at the present time, and never, I believe from my reading, have such bad conditions existed, except during the period when we were under low tariff between 1873 and 1878. While I am not arguing for a fence around the country to keep out goods, and while I go so far to say that when any manufacturer is taking an unfair advantage of the tariff, he should be penalized by having his protection wiped out, we should have a stable tariff policy which will give confidence to the industries in this country and make them produce as they used to produce. Within reason we should have a protective policy, as they have in other countries, to hold our home market for our Canadian people. If we have that, we shall have much less unemployment than we have at the present time.


James Alexander Robb: Mr. Speaker, the resolution as presented by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, if at any time during the first two years after his arrival in Canada any immigrant is unable to obtain employment, the federal government should accept full responsibility for his maintenance.
Around that resolution hon. gentlemen have debated the question of unemployment, the keeping of immigrants out of this country, the advertising for immigrants that we do in other countries, and largely the tariff. That shows the impatience of my hon. friends opposite to debate the tariff question.


Robert James Manion: The tariff changes are the cause of the trouble.


James Alexander Robb: Both wings of the opposition seem to be anxious to have the tariff question debated.


Arthur Meighen: There is only one opposition.


James Alexander Robb: The question of immigration has always been a live question in Canada and there is no reason why it should not be. We are all immigrants either directly or as descendants of immigrants, and in considering the question of immigration we should assume a more friendly attitude towards the incoming settler. I will admit that conditions in Canada to-day for the immigrant who is desirous to establish himself on the land are somewhat different from what they were when my good friend the leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke) came to Canada. But I do not think at that time the government of Canada were under any obligation or made any commitments towards taking care of my hon. friend upon his arrival in Canada beyond advertising, as we did advertise in different countries of the world and in eastern Canada, that we had 160 acres of free land to give to any man who was ready to go on and develop the land. Much has been said this afternoon about the obligations of the Dominion in cutting out advertisements that are somewhat coloured. But hon. members must- remember that it is not only the Department of Immigration of the Dominion that is advertising, particularly in the United Kingdom, for immigrants. The province of Ontario has a very complete immigration organization operating in the United Kingdom and some of the other provinces have organizations. We have an arrangement with most of the provinces, co-operating with them for immigration, and notwithstanding the arguments advanced to-day by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg, we have requests from those provinces for more and still more immigrants to go on the land. It may surprise the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manaon) to learn that I hold in my hand a letter dated the 8th December, 1924, from the Fort William Board of Trade, asking this government to see what we can do to send some immigrants to settle in the Fort William section of the north country.


Robert James Manion: I suggested that too.


James Alexander Robb: Why has my hon. friend gone back on that to-day and intimated-


Robert James Manion: I did not oppose immigration. Moreover, may I point out also that this government and previous governments have made the mistake of settling all immigrants in the prairie provinces and not in northern Ontario where we need immigration?
Unemployed Immigrants!


James Alexander Robb: I am glad my hon. friend
is in favour of immigration. I have a letter from the Dysart, Saskatchewan, Board of Trade asking for immigration. I have not the records before me, but I am sure the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) will accept my word for it that I have in the department a resolution from the Toronto Board of Trade asking me to settle Frenoh-Canadians along the northern part of their province and pointing out that they are the most suitable people to settle there.


Robert James Manion: Has the minister yet received the resolution which the Great War Veterans' Association and the boards of trade and the city councils passed the other day as to the terrible conditions of unemployment that existed in the industrial centres of population in Fort William and Port Arthur?


James Alexander Robb: I have not that. It may be
in the department. I was glad to hear the hon. member say that we would always have unemployment in this country. Particularly, we shall have unemployment in those cities that are tributary to the ocean, river and lake ports of Canada. Hon. gentlemen must remember that there are thousands, yes hundreds of thousands of people who find employment during the season of navigation, for instance sailors sailing on the boats. Among them are those who sail on vessels in the United States ooastal service, but whose homes are in Canada. When navigation ceases in the fall they go back to their homes. In this way, you can always get up a parade of unemployed if you set out to undertake that particular job. This may sound somewhat contradictory, but I believe it is correct that the busier we are in the summer with navigation, the more traffic we have to move in the summer, the more unemployment will there be in the winter at those ocean ports, particularly those that are frozen up in the winter time, because there are hundreds of thousands of dock labourers who work at trimming the boats and so on. In that regard there always is some unemployment.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member
say that there are hundreds of thousands of dock labourers in Canada at ports that are frozen up in the winter?


James Alexander Robb: Tens of thousands of dock
labourers.


Arthur Meighen: Tens of hundreds would be better.


James Alexander Robb: Has my hon. friend ever been along the docks at Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Hamilton and Fort William?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


James Alexander Robb: Let him ask his supporter behind him how many dock labourers there are around Fort William and Port Arthur moving grain and so on?


Arthur Meighen: In getting my hon. friend down from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, I think I did pretty good work.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend retreated somewhat too.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: If these men are working all summer they will have enough saved up to tide them over the winter. They are not in distress.


James Alexander Robb: They are not, and for that
reason, I contend there is not the unemployment or distress that has been represented throughout the country. I am not alone in that opinion. I think it was late in December or early in January I had occasion to sit in one day with a group of bankers of this country, gentlemen who are pretty well posted in the city of Montreal, and a man who is respected by everybody in this country, a prominent man, a man who never was recognized as a supporter of the Liberal party, but a man whose relatives were recognized as prominent supporters of the Conservative party, made the statement that he thought it was a crime upon our country, as he said, this overworking of the idea that there was unemployment in Canada. He said, "I am satisfied that here in the city of Montreal conditions are no worse than they have generally been from year to year." And he was most emphatic in the statement that these headlines in regard to unemployment were a calumny on the country.


William Irvine: Does the minister mean to say that he would rather take the word of a banker with regard to the unemployment situation in Canada than the word of organized labour throughout the country?


James Alexander Robb: I would rather take the word of that gentleman than of gentlemen who were organized for political (purposes and who were interested in representing that there was unemployment throughout the country.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the minister throw any doubt on the statistics from which I quoted, taken from the Bureau of Labour of the government of Manitoba, showing that this last year 11,304 persons were given relief at a cost of $180,790, and that this was considerably in excess of the amount spent the year before? I have the whole statement

Unemployed Immigrants
which I could read giving the total. Does the minister say that these facts are drawn up for political purposes?


James Alexander Robb: I say that in these particular cities there is always unemployment to some extent.


Henry Elvins Spencer: I believe the minister was not here when the conference was held to inquire into the subject of unemployment. I would ask him whether the general opinion of that conference was similar to the opinion of the bankers to whom he has referred.


James Alexander Robb: That gathering was called by the department early in the year to lay down conditions so that there might be no misunderstanding as to where this government stood on the question of contributing to unemployment relief in the winter. Now, there is another gentleman who comes from western Canada and who is not opposed to immigration coming to this country. He is a pretty sane man and he does not lay down the proposition that we should provide, by any system of doles or unemployment insurance, for those who are out of work. I hold in my hand a copy of an address delivered on December 6 in Ottawa by the Hon. Herbert Greenfield, Premier of Alberta. He points out that his father had wanted him to be a tradesman but that he desired to be a farmer; and, coming to Canada, he has been and is recognized as a successful farmer. He lays down the principle that there are as good opportunities to-day for the man who wants to work as there were at the time he came.


William Irvine: What is the date of that report?


James Alexander Robb: It is an address delivered on December 6, 1924. Now, the government cannot accept this resolution as presented by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth). If it means anything at all it means that we are offering a premium to those who do not desire to work, and the men who are spoiled by doles in the Old Country would come here and expect the government to board them. This the government is opposed to, and speaking for the government I say that the resolution cannot be accepted.


Leon Johnson Ladner: In a portion of my constituency the problem of unemployment becomes acute every year; it has become a question, in the judgment of many people, of federal and national importance.


Charles A. Stewart: What time
of year?



REVISED

Leon Johnson Ladner: About December, largely
when the outdoor work in British Columbia closes down and the harvests of the prairies are reaped. At that time thousands of people come from the prairies into Vancouver and many settle down in the municipality of South Vancouver; and when the winter comes on we find, owing to the general conditions, a serious degree of unemployment.


Robert Forke: Is it not true that a large
number of men come from Vancouver to the prairies to get work and take money back with them?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Yes, but the trouble is
that they do not take very much back; owing to difficulties of one kind and another. Through no fault either of their own or of the farmers, they have not much money left when they get through. They come into South Vancouver and it is exceedingly difficult for them to get along. There are men who come in response to such advertisements as hon. gentlemen have shown to the House; they move from one province to another, and finally end in the municipality. In British Columbia a large number of them find their way to South Vancouver. The resuLt is that that municipality, burdened now with debt, has to shoulder a responsibility which really belongs to the federal government. This government advertises in all parts of Europe for people to come to Canada, and some of us hold that it is unfair to expect the responsibility for the hardships that ensue to rest on the municipal authorities. If these people are not helped by the municipalities they suffer conditions that are indescribable.
I commend the hon. member (Mr. Woodsworth) for having brought this resolution before the House. It is an important matter from the point of view of immigration and municipal administration, and it is of importance from the provincial standpoint as well. In British Columbia a large number of people who come into the municipalities find it impossible to obtain employment and they are naturally thrown upon the charitable institutions of that section of the country. There is one feature of the resolution which I do not exactly appreciate, if I interpret it correctly, 'and that is that the government should accept full responsibility for the maintenance of the immigrant in the sense of giving him money. It seems to me that if it means giving doles to the .men, no hon. member will agree to it; I know for a fact that the worthy unemployed themselves would not agree to it, for they do not want doles but work.



EDITION

[Stage Direction]
Unemployed Immigrants
James Shaver Woodsworth: 1 agree with what the hon. member says, but my point is that if provision is not made for their employment they should not be left without some opportunity of securing maintenance.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I am glad the hon. member makes that explanation. I think the resolution would be more commendable if he would embody in it words to the effect that work should be provided for such immigrants; because after all that is what they want. Now, the government of the day, not only in their pre-election promises but in one speech after another from the throne, have given undertakings to deal with immigration, with the tariff, with the railway problem, and so on, although in actual accomplishment-and I appeal to the judgment and the fairness of hon. members in thiis- they have not done very much in the last four years. When they deal with transportation, by restoring the Crowsnest pass agreement they unsettle and disturb the whole transportation system and create a confusion that is bad for the Dominion, and they Still leave the problem unsolved. When they deal with .the tariff, they introduce suggestions having a tendency to eliminate the protective system, and so disturb conditions that capital is frightened away, industry becomes timid, and the national welfare suffers. I see according to. the predictions of the newspapers -and it is astonishing how accurate our journalists are in forecasting the plans of the government-the budget will contain proposals for raising the tariff on a number of commodities. How such proposals will appeal to hon. members on my left I shall be interested to know to-morrow.
As to unemployment, when the government took office there was an accepted responsibility on the part of the federal authorities for unemployment because it was considered a national problem arising to some extent out of the Great War. But this government on assuming office declared in breach of their primer promise that they would not dteal with the unemployment question, and they gave as a reason that under the British North America Act it came under the jurisdiction of the provincial authorities. The provincial governments deny this responsibility, insisting that it is a national condition and arises to some extent out of war conditions, and that therefore the federal government must look after the unemployed. In the meantime our unemployed are suffering. I would ask the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) to go through any of the poorer sections of our cities and see conditions for himself. He will

then find that unemployment does exist and that many Canadians are suffering great hardship and privation. As a result of the inactivity of the federal authorities the suffering women and children of the unemployed have to be looked after by the municipal authorities and various charitable institutions. This is certainly not right when the responsibility is primarily upon the federal government, especially by reason of its immigration policy. I would suggest that before any more people are brought into this country to swell the ranks of the unemployed, the federal government should look after the destitute and suffering people already here.
It seems to me that one remedy for unemployment is the establishment of the sound principle of tariff protection I am sure hon. members to my left will dissent, but I believe my hon. friends opposite, although agreeing with me in their heart of hearts, would never have the courage to come forward and support such a proposal to relieve the present deplorable condition of affairs. I heard my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Forke), the leader of my friends to my left, remark this afternoon that protection is always brought into these discussions.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Some hon. gentlemen say,
"hear, hear." Well, Mr. Speaker, we introduce the protective idea into this and other discussions because we honestly believe that it is the only way of relieving the industrial and commerical stagnation which to-day afflicts the Dominion.


An hon. MEMBER:: I wonder where you
get that idea?


Arthur Meighen: Don't laugh until tomorrow.


Leon Johnson Ladner: When hon. friends to my left question the soundness of our views, and we refer them to the United States as an example of the benefits of a protective policy, they tell us that that country is entirely different from Canada. As a matter of fact there is only an imaginary line between the two countries, to a large extent they have similar geographical conditions, but while the population of the United States has grown to about
120.000.	000 in the last 125 years, that of Canada has reached the meagre figure of only
9.000.	000. Where is the explanation for this tremendous difference? It is not to be found altogether in immigration, because we know that the population of the United States has been augmented by immigration to the extent

Unemployed Immigrants
of only 30 per cent, while 70 per cent is due to natural increase.


Edward Joseph Garland: (Bow River): Is the hon. member under the delusion that we have not been applying the protective tariff for the past fifty years?


Leon Johnson Ladner: No. The hon. member is
himself under a delusion. The fact of the matter is we have not been under a real protective tariff, we have been under a very low tariff. Taking ten-year periods from 1870 to 1920, it will be found that the average duty on dutiable goods in the United States has been from 50 to 255 per cent higher than in Canada. It will also be found that wages have been higher in the United States and the cost of living lower than in Canada.


Mr. HOEY:: Why was not the tariff increased then between 1911 and 1921?


Arthur Meighen: It was.


Leon Johnson Ladner: In my judgment the increase was not sufficient. The economic and political conditions in the country did not inspire the government of the day with sufficient courage to go ahead and make the increase which should have been made based on experience. It is regrettable that this government, through the Acting Minister of Finance, is unable to endorse the resolution of the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg, for it is a most important resolution, and in my view it should receive the earnest consideration of the government. I do not know whether we would be entitled-


John Livingstone Brown: Is the hon. member in
favour of the resolution or is he against it?
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Leon Johnson Ladner: At six o'clock the hon.
member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) had asked me the question whether or not I favoured the resolution under consideration, and I was just about to answer when the Speaker left the chair. The resolution as framed, and as one -would understand it from its wording, would indicate that the federal government should provide doles or payments of money for the unemployed. The hon. member for Centre Winnipeg explained that that was not the intention at all, that the intention was to make proper provision for the unemployed by providing them with work or by establishing conditions in the country under which they 92i
could have work. On that interpretation of the resolution, I am in favour of it and would support it. The conditions in Canada are such that we cannot long continue to handle this unemployment question the way it has been dealt with since the present government took office.


Edward Joseph Garland: The last
government too. They were just as much to blame.


Leon Johnson Ladner: If the hon. member will
recall, the last government appropriated large sums of money in an effort to assist in remedying unemployment conditions, and also, to their great credit, devised and used every means they could to get industries started in this country, and to have ships built in this country, and to have work provided for the people of this country rather than sending that work outside. In that respect the Conservative party has been consistent for the last seventy years. They have always endeavoured so to construct their economic policy that work would be provided for the people of this country, and that markets within this country would be provided for the consumption of our products before foreigners had an opportunity of taking them from us. I do not intend to engage in a dissertation on the protectionist idea, yet I am satisfied that a practical study of the question on this North American continent, faced as we are with the United States just across the line, will cause any hon. member to come to the conclusion that that policy is sound, and that it is the only one that will solve this unemployment question.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Does the hon. member
include in that word "foreigners" Great Britain?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I did not use the word in any opprobrious sense. We had a discussion in the House the other day whether the word "etranger" meant foreigner or stranger. By the word foreigner I mean somebody outside our gates, which, from an economic point of view, means everybody outside of Canada.
I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that of the 590,000 men who enlisted to defend this country in the time of aggression on the part of Germany and her allies and who actually saved this country, the figures show that when they came to find a home in this country and Claim their heritage and rights as Canadians, conditions were such that they were not able to earn a living here. Nearly 4,000 Canadian pensioners are now liv-
Unemployed Immigrants

ing in the United States, and over 152,000 have been dbliged to go to the United States to earn a living which they should have been able to earn at home in this country. Not only that, but we know perfectly well that, although the official figures show that some 182,000 people paid head tax, indicating their decision to make their residence in the United States, more like 350,000 people have gone to the United States during the past year-those are the figures which have been given me by responsible officials of the United States Immigration department-many people crossing to the United States have not had the money with which to pay the head tax. They have , gone in by by-ways and side-ways, and passed through forests in order to gain admittance to the country to the south.
In the interval since six o'clock, I have got from my office a book which most hon. gentlemen I think should have before them on occasions like this. Extracts from this book have been read before in this House. It is called Industry and Humanity, and is written by the Prime Minister. Now if we consider his solemn and serious reflections before assuming his position as a political leader, if we consider his opinions as a student of political economy and economic conditions, we find that he had views very much along the lines of those advanced by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg. At page 237 we find these words, I am not going to say that there is that precision and clarity which one would expect to findl in his language, but on this particular occasion one can get an idea, at any rate as to the tendency of his mind:
It is the fear of unemployment which lies at the root of most of the minor fears which labour entertain. The fear of unemployment is in reality the fear on the part of labour-
I would particularly draw the attention of hon. gentlemen opposite to these words:
-that capital will not be provided to carry on industry continuously, and under conditions which will afford adequate remuneration to effort.
That is exactly the contention of this side of the House, that so disturbed are conditions in this country through the vacillation on the part of the government in dealing with the tariff that capital is apprehensive, and as any hon. gentleman who has consulted with those engaged in business or having investments in manufacturing industry knows, the one fear that capital has is that after having made an investment in some particular industry calculating that the tariff would remain where it is, they might suddenly find the tariff changed and their capital investment gone. Capital is something which walks very easily on its own

legs from one country to another; you cannot hold it here, and the Prime Minister writing as an economist states very properly, capital will not be provided to carry on industry continuously and under conditions which will afford adequate remuneration to effort unless there is some prospect of stability.
Again, on page 346 of this book, there is another paragraph relating to unemployment. I have endeavoured to find all references in this book to unemployment. The book contains 548 pages, and all I have been able to find are two very short paragraphs, not more than ten or fifteen lines each. The other-reads as follows:
Insurance against unemployment recognizes that an isolated human being, not less than a machine, must be cared for when idle. It recognizes also that nothing is so dangerous to the standard of life, or so destructive of minimum conditions of healthy existence, as widespread or continued unemployment. Where idleness is the fault of the social order-
And I commend these words to hon. gentlemen opposite.
-where idleness is the fault of the social order, rather than of the individual concerned, it places the onus on the state to safeguard its own assets, not more in the interests of the individual than in the interests of social well being.
Hf these words mean anything they mean, very largely, what is expressed in the resolution moved by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth): I do not know, Mr. Speaker, any example of a practical kind that better exemplifies the need of action on the part of the state than the trouble now prevailing in Nova Scotia. We have already had some discussion on that matter, but I commend to hon. members again the statement of the delegation which came here to interview the government in these words:
At no previous time thas employment been so scarce and insecure, the future so unpromising and the industrial community so discouraged, as at this date. Faced with a disappearing livelihood large numbers of skilled artisans may be forced to leave Nova Scotia unless relief is forthcoming.
I commend these words particularly to the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) who in his remarks just before six o'clock said he found it difficult to detect unemployment in Canada. That delegation came to Ottawa not only to lay the complaint and the difficulties before the government but also to suggest a remedy. Now, what was the remedy suggested? An increase of duty upon slack coal, and a system of protection-for what purpose? To give employment to those who are out of work. It is all right for hon. members to discuss theories and to put forward hypothetical cases and then suggest a

Unemployed, Immigrants
solution, but in the world of affairs we must give consideration to actualities. Here is a concrete example of a bad state of unemployment, and we have men qualified to speak on the subject coming here and explaining the details to the government and also proposing a remedy-and it is the remedy of protection. I would like bon. gentlemen opposite and on my left who have been disagreeing with us this afternoon to comment on this and tell us if they can suggest some other way by which these people can find employment, without leaving the country as the ex-service men have done.
I think we must admit in a general way, Mr. Speaker, that in the state of society as organized through this industrial age we find capital sometimes in combines, sometimes in the form of companies or corporations, where a large number of small holdings-


James Shaver Woodsworth: I rise to a point
of order. I introduced this afternoon a resolution in very specific terms, as follows:
That, in the opinion of this House, if at any time during the first two years after his arrival in Canada any immigrant is unable to obtain employment, the federal government should accept full responsibility for his maintenance.
That deals with just one aspect of unemployment and calls upon the federal government to take one particular line of action in that regard. It seems to me that it is hardly in order that the debate should broaden out to a discussion of the whole general question of unemployment or that there should be substituted an altogether new means of dealing with this question.


George Newcombe Gordon: Does any other hon. gentleman desire to speak to the point of order?


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I can see the desire of my hon. friend (Mr. Woodsworth) to limit attention to his resolution, but I submit that it Is utterly impossible to discriminate between the unemployed who are recent arrivals and the unemployed generally. It is not possible in discussing the subject to limit one's remarks to the unemployed who happened to come in within two years. We shall be precluded from discussing the question altogether if that be the ruling.


Leon Johnson Ladner: On the point of order, I
submit that when such general words are used as "accept full responsibility for his maintenance," they have no meaning unless the responsibility is transferred into some form of remedy, and the form of remedy not being suggested in the resolution, it is within the
right of hon. members to suggest the form of remedy they think the government should adopt. I do not see how the hon. member who has raised the point of order can deny that we have the liberty and the right to suggest what remedy we think should be provided.


Mr. ANDREW McMASTER (Brome):: Mr. Speaker, I will not detain the House long with the few observations I have to make upon the point of order. The resolution is not an indirect one. It says:
That, in the opinion of (this House, if at any time during the first two years after his arrival in Canada any immigrant is unable to obtain employment, the federal government should accept full responsibility for his maintenance.
The resolution is of the nature of a modified socialism in which the state shall for the first two years accept the responsibility for finding employment for newcomers. Now, our friends in the comer, with truly apostolic fervour, desire to take this text and then go everywhere preaching the gospel of protection, but to do so would be a flagrant violation of the rules of the House. I would submit that nothing would, be easier than for people to put on the order paper some broad and vague generalization and then proceed to discuss anything and everything under the cover of such a resolution. Now, this resolution is not one of that sort. I think the rules of the-House provide that discussions of this sort must be relevant to the point under discussion and to the resolution submitted to the-House, and although I have not had the pleasure of listening to all the eloquent words of the member for Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner) I think he is out of order and should confine himself strictly to the point at issue.


George Newcombe Gordon: With respect to the point of order raised, the resolution states:
That, in the opinion of this House, if at any time during the first two years after his arrival in Canada any immigrant is unable to obtain employment, the federal government should accept full responsibility for his maintenance.
I think it is open to any hon. member, within certain limitations, to show that by reason of the failure of any federal government to take certain courses of action or adopt certain policies, or remedies or by reason of some matters -being dealt with by the state in a certain way, immigrants were placed in such a position that they could not obtain employment within the two-year period, and that therefore the state was not relieved of the-responsibility of taking care of them. It seems to me that the hon. member for Vancouver-South (Mr. Ladner) is in order in setting forth
Unemployed Immigrants

certain policies the adoption of which would in his opinion prevent these immigrants from being in a state of unemployment and so becoming a charge upon the revenue.
Mr. M Alt TELL: Your Honour referred to any federal government or parliament. May I suggest to you that there is only one federal parliament.


George Newcombe Gordon: There are several parliaments, but only one federal parliament.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Under our system as we find it to-day capital has a very useful place in the business affairs of the country, and not only that, but under the present system of companies and corporations, thousands of people with small holdings, perhaps two or three hundred dollars each, are enabled to join together in a limited liability company, with a united management and with single directing force, in order to obtain a revenue and a profit from their investment. Sometimes these directing forces join together, and we have those institutions which the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) is attacking now and again, combines, trusts and mergers. By the way, I might direct the attention of the Minister of Labour to the fact that the fruit combine, which is alleged to contribute to the difficulties of employment in British Columbia, still goes on, and that the provincial government states that they have no responsibility in the matter.


Mr. MURDOCK:: Order.


Leon Johnson Ladner: And they are leaving it to the Solicitor-General to take action against this particular combine. I believe that under a motion of this kind there are certain obligations of the state. It is a function of the state to take hold of the question of employment, to distinguish between the people who will not work and those who will work, to protect the innocent persons, the women and the children and the men who find themselves in a helpless condition on account of the intensified development of our industrial and commercial system. I suggest that at present the government are doing absolutely nothing. They do not pretend to do anything. They positively state it is the function of the provinces to solve this question of unemployment, a question which is of national importance. I notice in the Mail and Empire of March 23 a despatch dated Calgary, March 22, referring to this matter, and I was expecting to hear some words from the two members from that city (Mr. Irvine and Mr. Shaw). This despatch reads as follows:

Army of unemployed trudge for twenty-two miles.
Calgary marching party iboard freight for Edmonton.
Slush covers trail.
Men allege discrimination by the provincial government.
After twenty-two miles of the toughest trudging in the world, one hundred members of the army of one hundred and twenty-five unemployed single men who set out from Calgary on Saturday morning on a two hundred mile march to Edmonton, reached Airdrie last night and were filled with hot coffee and food by the hospitable villagers and given the basement of the Methodist church as sleeping quarters. This morning they learned that the Canadian Pacific Railway was sending a freight train through to Edmonton and when it pulled in about eleven they made a rush for choice locations, neither the crew nor the provincial police interfering. On board this freight they travelled about one hundred and twenty miles, where they were ordered to get off Canadian Pacific Railway property. The Canadian Pacific Railway police left Calgary on a passenger train at 4.45 for this purpose.
The little army had to make its Friday night bluff good on Saturday. General A. J. Boulter stalled around too long and his men missed a freight train which they had counted on taking. It was up to them to start their tramp or to back down. They hiked.
And yet the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) says he has not heard of unemployment in the country.
In conclusion I submit that this is a matter of which the government should take hold. I think it is a question which should appeal to all hon. members, and with the interpretation that has been put upon the motion by the mover of the resolution I am in favour of it and will support it.
.Mr. R. J. WOODS (Dufferin):	I had no
intention of saying anything on this question until I came into the House not very long ago. It strikes me that if we are going to build up a country we must have immigration. We cannot build up any nation or country without a population. With reference to the question of unemployment, I am convinced that no matter how you restrict immigration or cut down the population, you will always have a certain amount of unemployment. Certain individuals will work at certain occupations, and will refuse to work unless they can obtain the employment they wish to engage in. A great many of our large cities encourage the dole system too much. I have every sympathy with honest labourers who cannot get employment, particularly men in the cities who have families to keep. I have no sympathy with the strong, vigorous and energetic young men who will refuse to go into the country and take hold of honest manual toil in order to make a livelihood. If my memory serves me correctly, in the early part of the winter I saw in the public press where a certain number of unemployed, I think about five hundred, waited upon the government in Ottawa asking for employ-

Unemployed Immigrants
meat. A lumberman came down from the woods and wanted to engage a number of men, about five hundred, to go into the woods and take out timber and logs.


Mr. LAPIERRE:: What part of Ontario
was that lumberman from?


Mr. WOODS:: I am not prepared to say, but it strikes me he was from Quebec. At any rate, when he came to this delegation and offered employment for about two hundred, he was only able to secure one man to go into the woods to perform manual labour.


Mr. STEWART (Humboldt):: It would be interesting to the House to learn how many of those unemployed would fall into the class which the hon. gentleman who introduced the resolution has in mind, that is how many had been in this country for less than two years.


Robert John Woods: It would 'be almost impossible to keep track of immigrants that come into this country so as to state how many of the unemployed came to Canada inside of two years and how many did not. I was told just to-day by an hon. member who was going down to the Immigration department to try and procure labour for some people in his locality, that his time was taken up to quite an extent in trying to get men to go to the district where he lived to work on the farms. While we have in Ontario abundance of labour for many men, yet we find there are many who will not work unless they get some particular kind of employment, or who will refuse employment unless they get a job in our great cities. A session or two ago, a number of men walked from Toronto to Ottawa seeking assistance from the government, and we were informed that as they came along the road, nearly every one of them could have procured honest work on the farms, but they refused to work and came on to Ottawa. Had I had the ruling power, they would have had the privilege of walking back to Toronto again. That is my attitude in regard to labour. Many a day I worked for fifty cents and I have worked whole years for $150 a year. I have laboured and toiled in many different walks of life; I know all about labour and the strenuous difficulties of labour. But in my early days when I laboured, I never refused work. If I could get a dollar a day, I took it. If I could not get a dollar a day and I could get fifty cents a day, I went to work. I believe in that principle yet. Men who want work ought to accept it, when they can get it, at whatever remuneration they can get from those who
are willing to engage them. I am opposed to the resolution.


James Murdock: Mr. Speaker, the question now
under discussion is a matter of sufficient importance in itself to warrant us in staying closely to the particular subject matter involved rather than in wandering far afield to discuss every real and imaginary ill that, in the opinion of hon. gentlemen opposite, this country is heir to. I am going to try to stick closely to the question under discussion, excepting for one moment to digress to refer to a point that was raised in this afternoon's discussion, when my colleague, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) indicated to hon. gentlemen opposite conditions of unemployment existing in the United States, that well favoured and highly protected country, at the present time. This particular article, of course it will be said by hon. gentlemen, is incorrect, biased, untrue, but for what it may be worth, may I place it on Hansard? It appears in the Toronto Star Weekly of last Saturday, March 21, and it is headed:
Business future of United States appears bright. L.F. President-
That means, Labour Federation President.
-rnakas statement despite fact twenty million Americans are workless. Bad as in Austria. British and French show better ratio of unemployment-but conditions sound.
Cambridge, Mass., March 21.
In spite of an army of unemployed which he estimates at twenty million to-day, William Green, President of the American Federation of Labour, is optimistic over the business future of the United States.
President Green, now on a speaking (tour of Massachusetts, said here that the number of unemployed in America to-day is surprising.
" While it is not generally known or realized," he said, " we have at the present time more than twenty million in our army of unemployed. In fact, we have a larger percentage than Germany, France or Great Britain at the present time, and our ratio per thousand is precisely the same as Austria."
This situation, he said, should give no cause for alarm, because of the generally good business outlook.
General conditions in industry, he said, are very good, with an inclination to seek slight increases in wages in some sections while a stand-ipat policy is in force in others.
There are no visible indications of a strike in the coal fields in September, Green said. Rather there is a very good outlook for signing a new wage and working agreement at the expiration of the present agreement, he said.


Robert James Manion: Surdy the Minister of
Labour knows that it is impossible for twenty million men to be unemployed in the United States. In the same proportion, that would mean a million and a half unemployed in Canada. It would mean that practically all the artisans in the United States were unem-
Unemployed Immigrants

ployed. The correct figure is probably two million.


James Murdock: Not at all. No matter how much my hon. friend hopes there is a mistake-


Robert James Manion: I know there is.


James Murdock: -I am firmly convinced that the figures are not in any way exaggerated, and a little later on I hope to have an opportunity of undertaking to prove that they are right, just to present the opposite view to that which has been presented ever since the debate on the Address and other debates have been brought forward in this House.


Mr. RYCKMAN:: How many are unemployed in a family?


George Perry Graham: That depends on the size of the family.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: A larger family than the Minister of Railways and Canals has.


George Perry Graham: Unfortunately he has not any family.


James Murdock: This particular question that the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) brought before the House is not a question to joke about. I hope to do my share as a member of this House in discussing the particular question involved, with regard and concern for those who are directly interested, that is the unemployed people in Canada. Who are they? There are, and there have been for a number of years in Canada two classes of individuals unemployed, one class composed of men-and I am sorry to say there is a considerable number of them-who will not be and who have not been employed for the past several years [DOT]-men who would not accept employment, no matter how plentiful jobs were. That, I think, can be proven as substantially correct from the fact that we find organized in certain parts of the country associations of unemployed, lodges Nos. 1, 2, 3, and so forth, organizations of individuals banded together, who do not work, some of whom, I think, to be as kindly as possible, cannot work, cannot steady themselves down to accepting a job and working at that job as their employer would like to have them work.


Mr. MARTELL:: Will the minister state where they are? I do not know of any in Nova Scotia.


James Murdock: These men are to be found in various parts of Canada.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Say what part of Nova Scotia they are in.


James Murdock: The hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner), the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken) and the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Church) all have some of these men in their constituencies.


Lewis Herbert Martell: There are none in mine.


James Murdock: And there are some of them within less than a mile or two of these parliament buildings as well as in other towns and cities in Canada. Some of them are very unfortunate in that the condition I have just spoken of is a handicap in certain cases resulting from the war, just as truly as the loss of an arm or of a hand would be.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Does the minister think there is anything wrong in any way about these unemployed men banding themselves together in associations and trying to secure work or to better their conditions in any degree?


James Murdock: I certainly think that the forming of unemployed associations in the way this is carried out in two or three points, particularly in the way it has been done in my hon. friend's constituency, is not in the best interests either of those who are-unemployed or of the country as a whole. If my hon. friend cares to do so, he may ascertain from the officials of the employment offices at Winnipeg that in the vicinity of those offices every day for the past three or four years, I think unemployed men have lined up apparently looking for a job. But many of them never find anything, summer or winter, which they feel they can accept or which they would like to undertake. I am not saying this, hon. gentlemen will understand, by way of harsh criticism; I am indeed expressing my sincere regret at the fact. But it is a fact that many of those who to-day are the noisiest about the condition of unemployment are men who are temperamentally so handicapped that they cannot accept a job and perform it as the average employer would expect them to.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Does the minister deny that there are hundreds of able-bodied unemployed men in the city of Winnipeg for whom the employment offices have no work whatever at the present time?


James Murdock: I was coming to that. My hon. friend is certainly quite correct in stating that there is at the present time, as there has been for the past several months, a.

Unemployed Immigrants
*considerable number of able-bodied willing workers who have been unable to obtain employment and who certainly want to work -men who would make good employees.


William Irvine: Does the minister think that the class to whom he refers, namely, those that are seemingly unemployable, represent any considerable number of the men? If so. does he not think that some government, this government particularly, should be responsible for those who are unable to shoulder their own responsibility?


James Murdock: The particular view
which my hon. friend has in mind might be a question for proper consideration, that is to say, with the question of unemployment insurance. That question might be dealt with either by provinces or by the federal government or by whatever authority might be regarded as being most responsible, and some law might be enacted to provide unemployment insurance just as workmen's compensation against accident is provided at the present time. But that is a matter which must be considered at the proper time. Now let us come directly to the point of the resolution; the resolution relates to immigrants who have been here less than two years. During the latter part of February we received telegrams from certain points in the west, particularly from the mayor of Calgary, who indicated that there were certain-


Mr. ANDERSON:: Does the minister know what proportion of those who will not work belong to the Anglo Saxon race?


James Murdock: I am sorry to tell my hon, friend that I fear a considerable proportion of those1 who will not work, or who do not feel that they are able to work, or who do not like the job offered them at the wages stated, belong to the Anglo Saxon race. As I was about to say, in the latter part of February the mayor of Calgary wired indicating that there was a considerable number of immigrants unemployed requesting relief from the city of Calgary. Mayor Webster stated that they could not consider relief to the immigrants and that there were many cases of absolute destitution and suffering. That brought about an exchange of telegrams and a conference between the departments of the government, with the result that on February 27 the Deputy Minister of Immigration wrote to the mayor of Calgary the following letter, which I think it is worth while putting on the record. The letter is addressed to George H. Webster, Esq., mayor
of Calgary, Alberta, is dated February 27, 1925, and reads:
Dear Sir,-The Honourable James Murdock, Minister of Labour brought to my attention a day or two ago his exchange of telegrams with yourself respecting the relief of a number of immigrants recently arrived in Calgary and who were reported by you as in distressed circumstances. As a result of the representations made to the Minister of Labour I asked the director of our Land .Settlement branch to let me have a report as to conditions at Calgary, as shown by the records of the branch, and I am informed that during recent months a British immigrant, following his alleged inability to obtain employment, directed a letter to the Oalgary Herald complaining of his condition. Following the publication of this letter the district superintendent of the Land Settlement branch also wrote to the Herald to the effect that we were prepared to place at farm work the immigrant who had registered the complaint, or any other immigrant who was willing and able to take this .particular class of employment. We obtained no reply to our communication but since then I may say we have placed on the .farm a number of persons who were out of work. My information is moreover to the effect that the Land Settlement branch is in a position to find situations on the farms for all immigrants who are able and willing to accept the same; and that there is no necessity for any of these people to remain in want.
If yon will let me have a detailed statement of the position in Calgary, showing the names of parties who are in distress and giving some information as to the time of their arrival in Canada, I will be only too glad to have our Land Settlement branch take up their cases with a view to having them placed at work with the least .possible delay.
The deputy minister also wrote to me about the same time stating:
You may rest assured that this department will and can secure at any time situations on the farm for out of work immigrants who are ready to engage in the same.
Now then, if that is correct there is no particular necessity at present for the adoption of this resolution. The deputy minister states that they are able to find work on farms for all of these immigrants who are now unemployed.
While vve are discussing this question, I think it is only fair to the people of Canada that I should also discuss the unemployment situation in the coal mine territory of Alberta and British Columbia. What has caused that unemployment? Only to-day I have received pitiful letters asking the assistance of the department to secure work for some miners in those coal fields who intimate that they have been out of work for many months. Let me analyze the reason why they have been idle, and I want to db so without either fault finding or criticism. The facts are that about a year ago a strike was called in district 18 of the western territory involving some 11,000 or 12,000 miners. What for? In order to maintain the same rates of pay that had been put into effect in 1919 and
V^employed Immigrants

1920 under practically war time conditions. The strike commenced on April 1 last year and continued for nearly seven months, the final outcome being that a settlement was reached on practically the exact terms that were proposed by the operators at the outset. But unfortunately during the intervening period the markets for western coal had been seriously curtailed and in many cases absolutely lost, and American coal had been banked up at points on the Canadian prairies-piles of coal that ought to have been built of Canadian coal mined by Canadian miners. Again I say, I do not want to be understood as fault finding, but it cannot be denied that a lot of unemployment in the west amongst the miners is the result of their own errors of judgment, errors which have been disastrous to them as workmen, disastrous to the coal operators and disastrous to western Canada in that the markets for Alberta and British Columbia coal have been lost and it may take many months, possibly years, to regain them.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Will the minister
say if the operators have observed their side of the agreement arrived at when the strike was settled?


James Murdock: So far as I know they
have. But if my friend is referring to whether the operators have been continuing to operate the mines since the settlement was made, I think it would be fair to say no. But in saying that it must be admitted that apparently one of the reasons why they were not able to operate the mines was that the markets had been to a greater or lesser extent lost during the strike period. My hon. friend may have in mind the condition in Fernie and Michel, where the miners have since made a settlement with their employers for a further substantial decrease of compensation, with the result, so the department is advised, that they are working almost steadily and some 130 coke Dvens are active, a condition which had not obtained for a considerable length of time theretofore.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But what has been the effect of that private agreement on work at Hillcrest and other mines?


James Murdock: I do not know that there has been a private agreement made at Hill-crest. At any rate I have no details, neither has my department.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I mean the agreement having been made at Fernie, what has been its effect on other mining camps such as Hillcrest?


James Murdock: I do not believe that
the agreement made at Fernie and Michel has in any way changed the situation at Hill-crest or at any other mining camp in the Crowsnest pass. I think they simply made an agreement which permitted the mines to operate and supply a certain buyer of the product.


William Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I should like
to ask the minister if he thinks it is fair for him to go out of his way to place the blame for the present mining situation on the miners of Alberta, without giving us any reason for his statement and leaving the employers out of consideration entirely? Is it not reasonable to suppose that they are at least partly to blame for the strike, perhaps entirely?


James Murdock: I did not intend, nor
do I now, to unduly place the responsibility upon the workmen for the unfortunate condition of affairs. There has been a succession of disputes out there for which the workmen were not all to blame. The workmen a year ago now only did what the employers had done a couple of years before, and there is no desire on my part to unfairly criticize the workmen. I am simply stating as best I can some of the reasons for the unemployment that we have to consider to-day. Some of those workmen, I presume, would come within the scope of the resolution of the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg should it pass, for possibly they have not been in the country two years.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I think this House could do no more unkindly act towards newly arrived immigrants and those who may follow them than to pass this resolution. In my judgment it would tend to stultify the ambition and the initiative that every newcomer to this country must have if he is going to make good and seize the opportunities that come to him. In substance 9 p.m. this resolution proposes the adoption of the principle of socialism in our dealing with immigrants for the first two years of residence in this country. I repeat, it would 'be an unkindly act and also inconsiderate towards those we desire to become citizens of the Dominion, and I hope that with the statement of the Deputy Minister of Immigration before him the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg will withdraw his resolution, that statement being that every immigrant willing and ready to work can be placed in employment. What more is asked for?


Mr. McDONALD (Timiskaming):: Might
I ask the hon. minister a question for my personal information, that I may get a line on

Unemployed Immigrants
what is in his mind? Does he believe that a large percentage of the people who are idle in Canada to-day are idle because they are lazy, are not willing to work?


James Murdock: Too large a percentage; not by any means the majority of them. There is a considerable number, particularly in some of our larger cities, individuals who cannot get away from the pool rooms, the movies and the bright lights, who will not go out into the open spaces as some of us immigrants in days gone by had to do.


Angus McDonald: What
are you going to do with the 60,000 or 70,000 men who are required for seasonal occupations in this country? When that seasonal work is over and they are thrown on the market, are you going to say that they are thrown on the market because they are lazy? They are thrown on the market at a time when other industries throughout the country are closing down. I am speaking of the 60,000 or 70,000 men who are required to take in the harvest in the west, to cut and thresh the grain and put it in the elevators.


James Murdock: As my hon friend knows, many of those who gather in the western harvest come from the eastern provinces. When the harvest is over, they return to their homes in many cases, but many of them, it has been charged by certain gentlemen in Winnipeg, and I think quite properly, drift into the city of Winnipeg and become charges on the community because they cannot find work there. It is very hard for us to get any accurate figures as to the number involved in the question raised by my hon. friend.
There is a great deal more, Mr. Speaker, that might be said on this unemployment question; there will probably be a great deal more said on it this session; but the particular question involved in this resolution, it seems to me, has been met by the declaration of the Deputy Minister of Immigration,' when he says, "You may rest assured that this department will and can secure at any time situations on the farm for out-of-work immigrants who are ready to engage in the same."


Mr. MURRAY MacLAREN (St. John City and Counties of St. John and Albert):: From the wording of the resolution I think one can conclude that it is within the knowledge of the mover (Mr. Woodsworth) that there is a substantial difficulty in immigrants securing employment at the present time. Otherwise he would not, I think, have brought the resolution before the House. If that is the case, it means that the country, or rather that
portion of the country where these men are being sent, is at the present time unable to absorb the number of immigrants who go there. The mover of the resolution, in order to meet this situation of immigrants being unemployed, or undergoing great difficulties in finding employment, proposes that the government substantially guarantee all immigrants who come to this country some form of employment or maintenance for the first two years. I cannot support a resolution of that character. There is such a thing as giving a man every fair and reasonable opportunity, within the powers of the country, of securing employment. There is such a thing as making fair statements, and avoiding undue promises to men who come to this country; but for the government to guarantee to evezy man who comes to this country that he shall receive employment I believe is contrary to the best interests of the country. Every man must take his chance. I do not mean a great chance, but he must take some chance. He must take the same chance perhaps, or nearly the same chance, as the men who are now living in the country. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I cannot do otherwise than oppose the resolution.
But there is, I think, a proposal that one might make to the House and to the Minister of Immigration in reference to this matter. I take it that where there is a difficulty in securing employment at the present time, and I am speaking only of new immigrants who are being placed in the western portion of our country in large numbers, it is because they are being sent there in larger numbers than the country can absorb. What is the immigration policy of the government at the present time? It is undoubtedly to send a very, very large proportion of immigrants to the west; so much so, that some immigration agents in Great Britain are diverting some of the men who had thought of other sections of this country to which to emigrate, and are directing them to the west. Now we are all perfectly willing that the west should receive a substantial number, as many as they want, but not more than they are able to employ. I am satisfied that the men in the west do not wish immigrants there out of employment, or in difficulties, or poverty. Now what I suggest is that the Minister of Immigration develop and broaden his policy. Let him distribute the immigrants in proper proportions all over this country. In that way, not only will he do justice to the various sections of the country, but he will solve one of the difficulties in finding employment for the immigrant. The larger the area over
Unemployed Immigrants

which they are distributed, the greater will be the power of the country to absorb them. We are not testing out the power of various portions of this country to absorb new immigrants. The immigrants are being concentrated in a certain section of the country. Now if, when they came here, they were more widely distributed over the country, if they were placed here and there where there was work, I believe that would help in solving the unemployment situation.


Mr. D. F. KELLNER (East Edmonton):: I wish to add a word in support of this resolution moved by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth). I am sorry he did not make it a little more comprehensive, and as well as putting the onus on the government have included also some of the companies who are engaged in bringing immigrants to this country; for instance the two railroad companies and some land companies. At the present time we have the Canadian Pacific Railway in particular, whose agents solicit immigration in Europe, and we are told that it is their frequent policy to guarantee positions to immigrants landing in this country. I have heard the allegation made that when an immigrant comes out here, if he cannot get a position, quite frequently the Canadian Pacific will fire someone who is employed in one of their subsidiary companies and give the immigrant a job. The result is that some citizen of Canada is thrown out of his job to provide work for the immigrant. That simply means that when the government refuses to help the immigrant, he must be supported at the expense of the Canadian citizen, who loses his job. I do not think that is a fair policy to follow, but as a matter of fact, it is followed by the Dominion government itself. I think anyone who will go into our civil service here will find that a very large percentage of those employed in it are brought to this country from England, and if we have unemployment the Canadians who probably should occupy those positions are not there. Moreover, if they have any property at all they are taxed to support those immigrants who are brought here.
I	think the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) took an unfair attitude when he talked about the onus of the strike out in the west being on the miners. I should have liked to hear him tell us whom the onus was on when the subway strike in Edmonton took place last winter. At that time a contract had been let by the Department of Railways in the city of Edmonton, containing,
I understand, a fair wage clause which was familiar to the minister, but the contractor
	f
employed men at twenty-five cents an hour. The men went on strike, and I do not think even the Minister of Labour will say it was the men's fault in that instance. So far as I have ever been able to 'learn, neither the Department of Railways nor the Department of Labour took any active part in settling the strike. Eventually when the city of Edmonton got behind the men's case and public sentiment was strongly in their favour the men won and the rate of wage was increased to forty cents an hour.


James Murdock: If my hon. friend will
inquire to-morrow at my office I will give him documentary evidence to prove that he has not all the facts.


George Perry Graham: If he will call at mine I
will give him some evidence to show that his facts as alleged are not facts.


William Irvine: If he will call at my office
I will show that he is perfectly correct.


George Perry Graham: Which office of yours?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I regret to have to inform both ministers that the statement which I have given the House just now is the one we have been led to believe is correct, and it is the allegation of the city council of Edmonton.


George Perry Graham: I am sorry to inform my
hon. friend that it is not the allegation of their mayor.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I do not wish to carry on the controversy. I am still convinced that the mayor has probably put some of the articles to which I have referred in the press of Edmonton, covering the point under discussion.


George Perry Graham: Let us get it right; my
hon. friend I know, does not want to have it *wrong. The subway work at Edmonton was undertaken in the winter rather than in the spring, as an emergency work to give employment to the unemployed. Had the railway been left to itself that work would not have been taken up in the winter at aill. Now, keep that in mind. The onus was not on the Minister of Labour at all but on the Minister of Railways to settle any dispute as to wages. That is a peculiarity of the Railway Act; it is a clause that has been in it for many years. The mayor, when the strike took place, communicated with the Minister of Railways, as under the statute he was the authority. The Minister of Railways submitted the case to the Minister of Labour, and the ruling of the.

Unemployed Immigrants
Minister of Railways was on the advice of the Minister -of Labour. The men were given a certain wage which was absolutely fair and it was made retroactive. That is the whole story.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Forty cents an hour is
the wage referred to as 'being absolutely fair, is it not?


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend must have been wrong of I am right.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: The minister is jumping at conclusions. I did not say he was right.


George Perry Graham: My hon. friend said that
neither the Minister of Labour nor the Minister of Railways had anything to do with settling the strike. That is all I wanted to correct.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I do not think I said
that. The minister might have heard that, or heard what he thought was that, but it is not what I said.


George Perry Graham: Read Hansard yourself.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Yes, I shall be pleased
to do that.


George Perry Graham: I will too. I like it.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: However, I do not think the minister can very soundly argue that the Edmonton mayor or the Edmonton city council were satisfied with the treatment the men received in respect to the subway work last winter. Neither do I think they are satisfied with the treatment they have had in the whole work that was undertaken to relieve unemployment. In fact I have before me a resolution recently adopted by the Edmonton city council, and I hope the Minister of Railways will do me the honour of listening to it. It reads:
Whereas the problem of unemployment is one that is generated or abated by the policies or lack of policy of the federal government;
And whereas the burden placed on this municipality by taking care of the unemployed in this district is inequitable and unfair to the taxpayers of this city;
And whereas three members of the House of Commons represent constituencies of which this city is a part;
Therefore be it resolved that this city council instruct the city clerk to forward to the members representing the Edmonton constituencies an outline of the obligations undertaken on behalf of the unemployed by this city, with the request that they introduce at this session measures that will obligate the federal government to assume its fair share of the costs of relief work.
I take it from that that the Edmonton city council are not quite satisfied with the treatment they have received in connection with this relief for the unemployed. I also have
before me a statement of what has been spent by the city in relief work. They have spent $111,715 this past winter, and added to that is $1,500, two-thirds of which went to the Welfare board and $500 to the Salvation Army to look after emergency cases.
When we were discussing this matter a little while ago the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) stated that in his opinion there was very little unemployment in Canada, and his speech rather suggested that if there was any it was probably Conservative propaganda to affect the coming election. I hope such an insinuation will not be reflected against the council of the city of Edmonton because the mayor got very lenient treatment indeed from the government last year when he was negotiating with the Woodward elevator people at Vancouver. He is at the present time a candidate for election to the federal House and a supporter of the government in East Edmonton constituency. He stated only last week through the press there that he intended to run as a supporter of the King government in the next election. Then they also have an alderman there, Mr. Joseph Clarke, who, I understand, makes the boast that he was a playmate in his school days of the present Prime Minister and that he also will be a candidate in East Edmonton at the next election.


George Perry Graham: There seem to be lots of people who want to run.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I did not catch the minister's remark.


George Perry Graham: I say it is a healthy sign to have gentlemen desirous of being candidates for any party.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Yes, that is a very healthy sign. What I wanted to bring out in mentioning this was the fact that it is not Tory propaganda in this instance; it is Liberal, and unless there was a very real grievance these gentlemen would hardly embarrass the present government to that extent.


Mr. PELLETIER:: Do I understand the hon. member to say it is Liberal propaganda?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: If the hon. member was in~ the House this afternoon he would readily appreciate that I was not the one who made the accusation that it was propaganda. I am simply stating what took place earlier in the debate when propaganda was alleged-not by myself.


François Jean Pelletier: And is my hon. friend repeating it now? Does he realize that at all
Unemployed Immigrants

times, in the Dominion as well as elsewhere, in all large centres we have quite a number of I.W.W.'s, meaning I want work? That is not the fault of the Liberal party or any other party. Let us be fair in this debate.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I hope the hon. member is not accusing the mayor of Edmonton and the aldermen whom I have mentioned of being I. W. W. men. This afternoon during the discussion our friends to my right tried to convey the impression that this unemployment in the country-and I do not think there is any question about unemployment existing-was the effect of the policy, and particularly as it pertains to the tariff, of the present government, and the suggestion was made that conditions were very much better in the United States. I notice in to-day's Globe an article dealing with that very point, which reads:
"Coolidge Boom" has not arrived Federation of Labor Officials Report Much Unemployment in U. S.
Canadian Workers Idle
Organizers of the American Federation of Labor agree with the statement made on Saturday by William Green, president of that body, that unemployment in the United States at the present time affected millions of workers. Mr. Green was optimistic of the future and the ability of industry to absorb the army of workless.
"Conditions appear to be a trifle better in the United States than in Canada just now," said William Powles-land, vice-president of the Blacksmiths and Boilermakers' International Union, who spent a month in the railroad shops of New York State. "The States did not get the boom it expected with the election of Coolidge. For the first time in years the New York Central closed its shop in Albany for a week."
Letters to union officials here reveal that Canadian mechanics in the States have had little work since October, while trade journals are -warning men away from many cities of the United States on account of unemployment.
So that evidently unemployment is not a matter to be treated lightly. If they have it to that degree in the United States, and we know we have had it here all winter, it is evidently a matter that is not going to correct itself in the very near future. The statement was also advanced that we have got very far in debt in Canada and that our tax bills are exceedingly heavy in comparison with the United States. The American Review of Reviews for February has this to say:
In Iowa, for instance, while the farm mortgages in 1910 amounted to $26.83 per acre, in 1920 they had increased to $63.19 per acre. The governor asserts that farm lands can stand no more taxation, and he proposes a stiff gasoline tax, and perhaps levies on incomes and business profits. In Maine a million dollars a year has been lost by decreased assessments on the railways, due to lessened earnings.
Minnesota is to have a supertax on the tonnage of iron ore mined, which will yield $4,000,000. .
. 
Incidentally Arkansas has an educational problem, because last year there were 57 ^school districts with 2,060 children in which not a day of school was held.
I might give many more instances. There is no question that in the United States at the moment, conditions are no better materially than they are here. I think this government admitted an unemployment situation when they called this conference with regard to winter employment in Canada. Different ones who took part in that conference expressed the situation as it then existed, and invariably they credited a portion of that unemployment to immigration. For instance, H. T. Lockyer, general manager, B. C. Stores, Hudson's Bay Company, considers:
That a restricted immigration policy should be put into force at once by the federal government; that immigrants have been sent here under misrepresentation, and that conditions will be as bad here this winter as during past winters. He thinks that municipal, provincial and labour officials-
I presume that is the Department of Labour for the federal government-
-should publicly announce that conditions do not warrant an influx of immigrants.
Then Percy R. Bengough, secretary of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, considers :
That they will have as many unemployed this year as last and that the policy of spending public funds in bringing immigrants to this country when residents, for economic reasons, are leaving, is wrong.
Then the following resolution was passed by the council of the district of South Vancouver:
That whereas this council may be faced with a problem of unemployment during the winter months, and whereas we have a population of approximately 38,000 people, composed principally of artisans, and whereas it is impossible for this municipality to undertake to find employment or to provide relief for all who desire it, and whereas the Dominion government is directly responsible for the bringing in of any immigrants at a time when employment is scarce, be it resolved that we ask the Dominion government to give direot financial assistance in the providing of employment of a productive nature in the municipality of South Vancouver during the winter months; and that we ask Mayor Owen to present this resolution to the joint conference on unemployment at Ottawa.
Then the mayor and council of Vancouver further said:
Many hundreds of Scandinavians have lately arrived here, and we are glad to see them. But we admit it pains us often when young men and girls arrive without funds, no work, no friends, and not knowing the language. We try to find jobs for them, but with the city full of idle men. what chance has a newcomer? We find men among them who are educated. We find among them mechanics, chemists, musicians, almost starving. And this is what they tell us: that the government carries on propaganda in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, employing agents whose business is to induce as many as possible to migrate to Canada.

Unemployed Immigrants
I will just quote one more extract from the proceedings befoife the national conference regarding winter employment in Canada, as follows:
What is going to become of the large immigration that is coming into the west this year. They are a fine class of men that have come in, but some of them may not be able to speak the Eng!ish language. We have not the wherewithal to provide for them. Our own citizens must come first.
I wish to point out that our own citizens, as a general thing, do not come first. Suppose a Canadian citizen and an immigrant are riding side by side on a train and both presumably looking for land. The immigrant will pay a railway fare of about a cent a mile, while the Canadian citizen will pay the usual fare. There is no question about it that the immigrant coming in to-day can get a better deal from the federal Immigration department, which now has control over the Soldier Settlement Board, than any Canadian citizen can get. I think this is very Objectionable, and the Canadian citizen is bound to take exception to it. I could not help but think how pleased the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Robb) was this afternoon, when he read the telegram from the Premier of Alberta, which upheld the immigration policy which the government had entered into. I venture to say there are a certain number of individuals who actually think this immigration policy is going to solve the problems of the country. On the other hand, I think there are infinitely more people who think it is one of the most unlikely things to solve our immigration policy that any government could conceive of, and when you take the whole policy of the government under review, to bring in more immigrants, raise more wheat and subsidize ships, what will be the result? That is practically what the policy of the government is. When these immigrants are coming in I think the general stipulation is to make them promise that they will engage in farm employment for two years. You are getting very close to the old situation; when a man was convicted of some crime he was sentenced to the Siberian mines. Instead of that, to-day you will send him out to the west and tell him to engage in agriculture. That is a reflection on agriculture and such a policy can never be successful. It is somewhat of a reflection on any group of people who would be a party to supporting a policy of that kind.
In conclusion, I do not think the government is justified in bringing those people to Canada and leaving them to shift for themselves under the conditions which have been cited, and under which a man who knew the
language and knew the conditions of the country could hardly hope to make good. One of two things is going to happen to him. Somebody has to provide or the man is going to starve. Surely, in a land of plenty such as Canada, it would be a national disgrace if we allowed people to starve on our hands. The commitments of the federal government are not nearly so heavy as those of the provinces or the municipalities. If the federal government ignores its responsibility in regard to those men, I am a little afraid that it is only a matter of time until the provincial governments and the municipalities cannot take care of the situation. When that day comes, of course starvation will be the lot of those men. I regret that the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg did not make his resolution a little broader, but I am glad to extend my support to it as it stands.


Charles Wallace Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I wish to support this resolution presented by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (M.r. Woodsworth), but I also desire to make certain reservations. I do not think those reservations which I would make would be more than those which the hon. member himself stated when he placed the resolution before the House. I would not wish to support it as a panacea for all the ills that have been mentioned in connection with unemployment and the possible causes of unemployment this afternoon. I do not think his resolution is offered as a solution of the unemployment problem. I take it that it would be about as sure a remedy for our whole unemployment problem as possibly a cup of ginger tea for an acute case of appendicitis. We have an acute trouble in the way of unemployment in this country. I have my opinion as to 'the causes of that unemployment and the possible solution of the trouble; but contrary, apparently, to most of the members who have discussed the resolution this afternoon, I do not think this is the time or place to discuss the causes and solution of our problem of unemployment. I take issue, I may pause for a moment to say, with my friends to my right who have attributed that evil or ill that is upon us, to our lack of tariff protection. If I were going to take time to offer a solution for our troubles here, I would commend the action which the government themselves 'placed before us last year as being necessary, and which they made at least a gesture of supporting. That is the encouragement of the development and of those who are engaged in the development, of the natural resources of this country.
Unemployed Immigrants

Rut I want to support this resolution, because I think it is aimed at something that should be done, that is the transference of the responsibility that now rests upon local municipalities in connection with immigrants who come within their borders for possibly a short term. I think it will be admitted that very few of those who come from foreign countries and make their home within a *municipality contribute much to the social or civic or economic basis of its existence in the first two years that they are there, and sometimes they become a great responsibility and load upon that municipality. It has been stated here this afternoon that this proposal is some advanced form of state socialism. I cannot see the force of that argument. I do not think it is true. At the present time, our municipalities are responsible for the maintenance of those who cannot secure a livelihood through employment. We do not call that state socialism. Some of our provinces have been forced to take action to support those who have unwillingly become a charge upon the country through lack of employment. We have not called that socialism. Why is it that When the problem is brought into this House, it becomes state socialism, and when it is before the municipalities, as at present, It is looked upon as a purely humanitarian matter?


Lewis Herbert Martell: Supposing, under the
wording of this resolution, a man after he came to Canada received employment for one hour, what would be the situation?


An hon. MEMBER:: If he went to Hants?


Lewis Herbert Martell: If he went to Hants he
would get employment if he wanted to work.


Charles Wallace Stewart: As has already been pointed out, there is employment in this country provided the men are placed in touch wdth that employment, not perhaps for all of our people, but at least for those immigrants who come here and for the first two years are with us.


Lewis Herbert Martell: Supposing there is unemployment, and supposing, under the world-ing of the resolution, a man received one hour's employment within the first two years after he came to Canada, then the state would not be responsible for his unkeep after the two years. If that is the case, then, as regards our own people in this Dominion who have no employment for two years, why not make the state support them?


Charles Wallace Stewart: The hon.
member again is reading into this resolution

something that, I think, the hon. member who moved it had no intention ^of placing there. Perhaps the hon. member has been unfortunate in the phraseology he used in framing this resolution. If he had known the full interpretation that was going to be given to his resolution, perhaps he could have worded it so that it would not have lent itself to so much expansion as it has been given this afternoon.
When I was interrupted I was saying that I believed the responsibility that is now upon the municipalities should be borne by the government which brings the immigrants into this country; that it is logical that they should bear at least a share of this responsibility; that it is no more socialism that they should do so than that the municipalities should do so. I am not in favour of doles. If I thought ' supporting this resolution meant that the country was asked to commit itself to offering doles or anything of that kind, I certainly would not speak or vote in support of it.


Lewis Herbert Martell: I am not trying to be
carping in my criticism. Supposing we did support this resolution, even if the House supported it unanimously and a man got five minutes employment in Canada, then the state would not be liable in the opinion of this House.


Charles Wallace Stewart: I have already told my hon. friend that if that meaning can properly be taken out of this resolution, the phraseology is unfortunate, but I do not think it can. If an immigrant who comes to this country is brought here under the regulations which now exist, he is, in the majority of cases, directed to the provinces or to the parts of provinces where agricultural labour is required.


George Perry Graham: Several of the provinces
have very active immigration agencies. This resolution would ask the federal authorities to take care of immigrants under the provincial system as well as under our own.


Charles Wallace Stewart: It might
possibly require some hedging in that respect. Immigrants are brought into this country who were, perhaps, instigated to come here by the action of provincial agents over whom the federal authorities should assume a certain responsibility. I will give an illustration in a moment or two to convey my meaning in that respect. I was trying to point out that the immigration that comes to this country at the present time is directed to the fields of agricultural labour and that there is employment, or, if there is not, immigrants should not be permitted to enter the country

Unemployed Immigrants
for whom there is no agricultural labour. If the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Robb) were in his seat he would no doubt take exception to any charge that his department was permitting immigrants to enter this country for whom agricultural labour was not in sight. And usually it is true that this does not occur. But it sometimes happens that these people lose the position or job they came to take up, and it is then the duty of the municipality in which they reside to maintain them till they get another job. That is an unfortunate condition, I maintain, inasmuch as the municipality is handicapped in placing these men when the work that offers is not within their own limits but miles removed. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) told us to-night that he had on the authority of the Deputy Minister of Immigration a statement to the effect that there was work for all immigrants who came provided1 they would take farm labour. I believe perhaps that is true; so far as my own observation goes it would be true. I have therefore very little sympathy with the man who refuses to take such labour as is offered him. I would suggest that if this resolution were accepted by the government such regulations as might be made should be so framed that any man who refused to take the work offered him, no matter what it was, should be removed from under the paternal care which the government would otherwise have for him for the period of time specified. But I want to point out an example that has come to my attention; and I am told by the officials of the Immigration department that it is not singular, there being a number of similar cases. An immigrant was brought into the country having passed the inspection of the federal department. And here I may say to the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) that possibly this man came in through the activities of some provincial agent, although I do not know. However, he came into the country, passed the immigration health inspection at port of entry, and then went on the province in which I reside where he secured farm labour. He had been there a very short time when he was taken ill and he was unfit to carry on the work for which he had been hired. He was sent to a hospital where he remained for some time, suffering from tuberculosis. All that time the hospital bill was growing. He had been in the municipality long enough to have established residence there under the regulations and so his bill had to be taken care of. His case did not improve with time and he was sent to a provincal sanitarium. The muni-93
cipal authorities then complained to the federal department and steps were taken to have the man deported but the process of deportation was exceedingly slow. I am not critizing the officials in that regard for I do not know just what caused the delay; it might have been that he was not in a fit state to 'be deported. At any rate he remained about three years in this sanitarium and in that time his bill had amounted to a considerable sum, greater than any rural municipality in that part of the country could afford to have shouldered upon it. Now someone had to bear that burden. The immigration officials maintained that the man could not have been sent out of the country sooner and the fact was that in the long run that municipality, sparse in population and not very well off financially, was forced to bear the expense incurred in taking care of this man.


William F. Carroll: How long had the immigrant been in the country before he was taken ill?


Charles Wallace Stewart: He remained in the sanitarium about three years.


George Perry Graham: Would this resolution affect that case?


Charles Wallace Stewart: It is because I believe that it would affect such a case as this that I support the resolution. And this is not a singular case either.


George Perry Graham: But this resolution refers only to those who are unable to get work.


Charles Wallace Stewart: This man was unable to take employment owing to
sickness.


George Perry Graham: But the resolution doe3 not say anything about being unable to "take" employment; it relates to ability to get work.


Charles Wallace Stewart: Well, no
man in a sanitarium can get work.


George Perry Graham: I am only stating my belief that the resolution would not affect such a case; that is all.


Charles Wallace Stewart: The man had no one to depend on and the municipality had to foot the bill. I contend that the whole country should bear the expense in an unfortunate case like that, and when I am informed, as I am, that there are other cases of the same kind I hold that we need some provision such as is now proposed to meet the situation. Personally I do not favour paternalism in relation to immigrants, but we certainly do need to afford them some protection for at least two years until they have
Unemployed Immigrants

a chance to contribute something to the municipality in which they live. After they have made a worth-while contribution to municipal funds, then the municipality might well be asked to take care of them in any extremity. I do not think that the time specified, namely two years, is too long, and as I believe it was the intention of the mover that the resolution should cover cases of the nature I have described I am going to support the motion.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto):: I am not interested in propaganda either for or against the government or the Progressives in regard to the subject of unemployment, but I am interested in the city from which I come which is compelled to contribute nearly a million a year to the relief of the unemployed, and this through no fault of its own. I am also interested in humanity and in those out of work.
It is all very well for the Progressives to talk about the condition of the unemployed out in the west where these men can obtain employment while the harvest is on. But where do they go when the agricultural season is over? Why, they come down to the larger centres of population in central Canada which are used as dumping grounds and those cities are obliged to shoulder the burden of their upkeep although they are in no way responsible in the matter. I will not support any such resolution as that proposed by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woods-worth) because I do not believe it is the duty of the government to get anybody a job, although I do believe that it is the duty of governments, Dominion, provincial or municipal, to help those who are in trouble and out of work through no fault of their own. I further believe it is their duty to get together, solve the unemployment question and give Canada an adequate national policy which will make work plentiful.
I come from a large city where unemployment conditions are more acute than they are in any other part of Canada. It is a British city, an important industrial centre, and we have had serious unemployment conditions there this winter. I do not care who is to blame for this, and I do not say that the government is all to blame; nevertheless I have never known unemployment to be worse at any time in Toronto than it is to-day. The British immigrant's lot is not a happy one under our immigration laws. I have here a, copy of Hansard reporting the debates in the British House of Commons three weeks ago. It shows that of forty-six questions asked in the House on the orders of the day

some thirty-five related to unemployment, its cause and the tariff. I am sorry that the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) is not here; I would point out to him that according to a return given in the British House the agricultural labourer over there is paid twenty-nine shillings or a little over $5 per week. And this under free trade. As I said some time ago:
111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where free trade flourishes and men decay.
It is significant that while the hon. member for Brome was a few weeks ago, speaking eloquently to the students of Varsity in Hart House Toronto on what free trade would do in the way of relieving unemployment here, some 1,200 men, British immigrants and others who could not find any place to which to go, were sleeping in the police stations and the House of Industry in Toronto, depending upon public charity. Let me quote the following news item in regard to conditions in Toronto and this illustrates something that is a daily occurrence:
Many Hungry Men Fed
Reveille Mission, Queen West, Scene of Hungry Crowd Saturday
Pastor Charboneau opened the doors at Reveille Mission, 383 Queen street west, at 2.30 p.m., Saturday afternoon, to a crowd of 236 'hungry people, who were waiting for a free meal. Everybody was fed, and some who could not get in, were fed at a restaurant nearby.
The city, House of Industry and the various charitable institutions of the city and the churches and charities have had a hard time this winter relieving unemployment and families in distress, and it is the duty of the governments, federal, provincial and municipal, the churches, and the social organizations to work in unison, to consecrate their best efforts, and intelligence, to an effort to solve this social disorder in our midst. The first duty of a government is to look after the health, peace, prosperity and comfort of its citizens.
It is cold comfort for the men out of work to read the discussion of their troubles in this House. I do not say the government is to blame altogether but primarily, as I said the other day, the question of unemployment comes within the federal jurisdiction. The control of banking, of immigration, of trade and commerce, of agriculture and other activities set out in section 91 are essentially federal activities, and if there is any agency which should devote itself to the solution of unemployment it is the federal government, for undoubtedly immigration and unemployment are closely linked together. If you find a flood of immigration, you are pretty sure to find some months afterwards a certain amount of

Unemployed Immigrants
unemployment. Unemployment is not a local question, it is not a provincial question, it is absolutely a national question. Every country is more or less troubled with the difficulty of finding employment for many thousands of its working people. In Canada unemployment is to a certain extent seasonal, and for that reason I am strongly in favour of a close season for immigration. What is the use of bringing immigrants to this country in November, December, January, February and March? And yet many British immigrants are misled by the representations and greed of the transportation companies and even of our own immigration agents over in the Old Land who say that there is always plenty of work for every newcomer to the Dominion. A couple of hundred British immigrants reached Toronto as recently as the middle of January last. Do you think they went west? No, nearly all stayed right around Toronto. I had a few come in to see me, including a man- an ex-soldier-and his wife from Cheshire. They were two war workers who had been employed at a golf club in the Old Country, and they produced letters from the transportation companies and from the government agency that work was good in Toronto. They were in destitute circumstances. I am glad to say I was successful in getting them positions. This was not an isolated case; there are thousand's of them. For that reason, I repeat, I am in favour of a close season for immigration.
I think the government have very little conception of their duty in helping, to solve the unemployment problem. For instance, hon. members will observe on page 1316 of Hansard that in reply to a question of mine respecting money votes for agriculture and for unemployment I was informed that while millions of dollars had been granted in 1924 in aid of live stock, health of animals and other agricultural purposes, the expenditure on unemployment had for the same year amounted to only $5,700, While for the current year not a dollar has been given to relieve the situation. In contrast with this I am glad to say that we have in Ontario a government that is alive to the seriousness of the situation. When the Minister of Labour advised a large deputation from various municipalities and provinces that the federal government did not intend to grant any relief to ameliorate the unemployment trouble, the Premier of Ontario announced that his government would assist the Ontario municipalities to the extent of one-third of the excess cost over normaL which any municipality 93i
might have to expend in unemployment relief. In addition, the attorney general has introduced a bill in the legislature enabling a municipality to devote a certain amount of taxation up to one mill for the relief of the unemployed. So the government of Ontario is endeavouring to do its part. The large deputation which interviewed the Minister of Labour last January, and to which I have already referred, included the representatives of several municipalities, of the G.W.Y.A., of the Trades and Labour Council and of the Salvation Army. The Toronto section was headed by Alderman Miller who said:
These people have 'been coming to us, and as we have gone to the limit ourselves, we bring them to the Dominion government to see what they'll do.
In a memorial from the unemployment association, A. E. Smith described unemployment as:
. A social disease arising out of a social system. The cause of unemployment is the (possession of a private interest in the machinery of production on the part of a very small class who exercise it wholly at the impulse of their own advantage or caprice. I call for a public policy regarding unemployment so that there may be an accepted understanding beforehand of what may be expected whenever unemployment is [DOT] forced on the workers.
Alexander Shields, of the Great War Veterans' Association, speaking for the ex-service men of Toronto, said:
I estimate the unemployed at 40,000, of whom 60 per cent were ex-service men. I heard figures quoted the other day that out of over 3,000 registrations of single men in our local employment office only a little over 200 could be classed as bona fide residents of the city of Toronto and the figures from our own relief department show that out of 2,056 cases assisted there were 442 families of ex-imperial soldiers, despite the fact that we have been forced to only grant relief to applicants who have been resident in the city for one year, unless in cases of extreme destitution.
We have only been able to help one applicant in four, most refusals being for this reason, or through the necessity of conserving the funds for very extreme cases only, as relief has already been closed down in four of the most densely populated districts because the quota set aside for those areas has been distributed. It may also be noted that our records show that the average man helped has been unemployed for slightly under four months.
The condition of thousands of single men is pitiable, many are sleeping in the police stations, railway depots, and so forth, and subsisting on meals supplied by the different organizations in the city of Toronto.
In my opinion unemployment is closely related to immigration, and the subject of immigration is deserving of the consideration of the best minds and the best hearts in this country. Social workers, federal, provincial and municipal governments should all get together and work in unison in an effort to solve this problem, which is one of the greatest problems we have in this country. I am not saying it is due altogether and en-
Unemployed, Immigrants

tirely to this government or to that, or to the Department of Trade and1 Commerce, the tariff or anything else. I am not prepared to go that far, but I do say there is a great deal of unemployment in this country, and in my opinion, and I have studied this question very carefully, unemployment in this country is caused! very largely by our not developing our own natural rsources. No one knows that better than the grain growers in the west. Their grain is being taken across the line, to Buffalo, where there are now twenty-eight elevators, and their grain is being milled there, mixed with American wheat and exported overseas and the identity of Canada's fine hard wheat destroyed. All the employment that is furnished by those twenty-eight elevators in Buffalo would give work to 15,000 men at Port Colborne and other lake Ontario points, if a duty and embargo were placed up to 45 per cent on wheat and have it milled in Canada and exported through' Canadian channels entirely. We are not developing our natural recources in this country, and Canada has become the happy hunting ground of American millionaires who are seizing our forest, timber and mineral wealth.
We are exporting mica, nickel, pulpwood, power and coal. If we manufactured or utilized these articles in this country, it would provide work for tens of thousands of men. Canada supplies 85 per cent of the mica of the world, and 95 per cent to the United States. In 1924 Canada sold 112,000 tons of mica to the United States in the mill fibre state, only one degree removed from the crude. For that we received $5,546,000. When that was manufactured in the United States, it realized $70,000,000 worth of the finer products of asbestos, and another $10,000,000 worth of rough asbestos. Had we developed our own mica, $80,000,000 would have been distributed among Canadians.
Canada controls the world's supply of nickel. We need fear no competition in this particular article. We should develop nickel in our own country and help provide employment here. Canada's great nickel deposits give the United States all its supply and the world 85 per cent of its supply.
According to a bulletin issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States is consuming 75 per cent more pulp-wood, and consequently is importing great quantities. Last year Canada sold 1,350,000 cords of pulpwood to the United States, receiving $13,000,000 for it, while this raw pulpwood was converted in the United States into a value of $67,000,000.

We are also sending to the United States $100,000,000 every year to the mine owners in Pennsylvania. We could use $56,000,000 of of that sum to provide work and wages in the maritime provinces, in Alberta and central Canada. So, Mr. Speaker, I contend that unemployment is due in a great measure to our not developing our own natural resources and to our lack of a national policy based on the principle of our own markets for our own products and our own work for our own workmen.
In the city of Toronto to-day we have many immigrants out of work through no fault of their own. Many of them have not been in Toronto one year and are a direct charge on the community. Here is a letter from the Rev. W. L. Baynes-Reed, Rural Dean, Toronto, a splendid returned soldier and patriot, in which he refers to these British immigrant harvesters coming down from the west a year ago and being dumped in the city of Toronto. An appeal is being made by the Anglican people of the city to take care of these British-born who are out of work. Over 9,500 meals have been provided, and over 3,500 beds.
This unemployment situation is not confined to the city of Toronto. We find practically the same conditions in Hamilton, London, Brantford, Ottawa and other cities. According to Social Service Commissioner R. W. Hopper of Ottawa, in January no fewer than 897 families in Ottawa have been given civic aid of some kind as against 685 in December. The number of children who shared in this relief was 2,646. There were 237 Protestant families given relief, 654 Roman Catholic families, and six families of other denominations.
The number of unemployed in Hamilton, Toronto and other cities has been steadily increasing. In Toronto the official records at one employment bureau show about 10,000 unemployed. Those are just civilians registered at one bureau, on Front street. The latest report from this bureau indicates that unemployment has been steadily mounting, and that includes unemployment among the immigrants. There is no evidence that the peak for this winter has been reached. There are 6,700 names on the record of the bureau, which is a considerable step up from a few weeks ago. Last year the peak was not reached till the middle of February. It is expected that this season will be somewhat-worse than last year. This report goes on to refer to the large number of men from the west who have been dumped into the city, and whom the city has to look after.

Unemployed Immigrants
The situation can be traced to some extent to an influx of men from other centres. Toronto's reputation of not letting any man go hungry appears to be a magnet to many of these people, although I might say that the city of Toronto has a rule that no man can get relief until he has lived in the city a certain length of time. Seventy-three thousand men in the past six months joined the exodus to the United States according to the United States Labour Bureau report for January last and intend to reside there permanently.
Here is a chart prepared by Mr. George Ross, of the city of Toronto. It shows the peak of unemployment and gives the amount of money that has been spent by the city and by the government on different works. It is well over 1J mills on the dollar a year.
I have here a return that was brought down to the House showing the amount that has been sipent by this government in the relief of unemployment in the fiscal year 1919-1920. The figures are as follows:
Toronto	
$625,526	08Hamilton	
58,069	59Winnipeg	
249,944	16Vancouver	
464,470	51Montreal	
999,917	22
The attitude of this government is that they have nothing to do with unemployment, but under the British North America Act I contend that they have jurisdiction to deal with immigration, the trade and commerce of the country, the banking laws, the tariff and many other matters. I think the time has come when a new policy should be pursued regarding immigration. There should be a close season for immigration, and there should be some authority checking up the immigration authorities in the Old Country, and checking up the transportation companies who are so greedy to get people out here that they will bring them at almost any price. During the years 1918 to 1921 the government made a grant towards the relief of unemployment on the basis of paying part of the excess cost of certain public buildings. It worked out well and helped to relieve the situation. Unemployment relief always has been and must necessarily be a Dominion matter, in my opinion, for the reasons I have given. The municipalities are doing their part to relieve unemployment. Toronto has spent nearly a million dollars; it will be a million and a half if something is not done to help them before they get through.
This question is one of the most important that is before the people at the present time. It is one of the first principles of government
that the government should look after the health, comfort, and prosperity of its people. In the days of Lord Palmerston when a British subject got into difficulties in Africa in connection with the Ashanti expedition, the government spent several millions to relieve him, the policy of the British government was to maintain the principle expressed by the words civis Romanus sum-"I am a Roman citizen"; that is, in this case, "I am a British subject."
It is the duty of this government to do something for the liberty of the subject in regard to unemployment. It is to be noted that in the Old Country they are taking action in regard to emigration; a question was asked in the British House of Commons the other day on the subject. They are going to check up this matter and find out who is to blame for certain conditions with respect to emigration from England to Canada. Representations are being made there with a view to bringing agricultural labourers to Canada from the Old Country, where the average return for agricultural labourers is about twenty-nine shillings in wages a week. No wonder they are anxious to get away from England. These people are being told that times in Canada are good, that the conditions are favourable and that there is plenty of work, so that the responsibility is on the government, not only under section 91 of the British North America Act, but because of representations made in the agricultural counties in the Old Land by transportation and government agents with regard to conditions here. Many of the men who are coming here from the Old Land are returned soldiers. Figures available from Toronto indicate that 247 of the men out of employment there are Imperial ex-soldiers who were brought out to Canada on the understanding that work was good, but who when they came here found themselves a charge on the social and municipal institutions of the country. It is not fair to large centres of population in Canada which are bearing the peak load of the taxation of the country that this condition should exist. Forty-nine per cent of the total income tax collected throughout Canada is paid by Ontario. Twelve or thirteen millions of the total tax are paid by the city of Toronto. Toronto is an over-taxed city. The people of that city contribute over $100,000,000 to the federal exchequer and it is not their function, it is not their right, to pay for the upkeep of harvesters, for instance, who are sent back from the west, several thousand of them dumped there for the winter months.-
Unemployed Immigrants

Toronto is a dumping ground for unemployed from all over. Many of these men are British born, many of them returned soldiers. We have a large number of social workers in Toronto. Almost every church has a social agency of its own and is endeavouring to take care of its own unemployed, but that is impossible. Thousands of people from all over Canada, from England, Ireland and Scotland and the west have been dumped in our city. I do submit that the government of Canada could be engaged in no better work than that of taking up with the governments of the provinces and with the municipalities, the churches and various social organizations, this question of unemployment. The best intelligence, the best thought, the heart and conscience of every one in Canada should be brought to bear upon the solution of this unemployment question and the immigration problem as it affects unemployment. If the government will do this they will be doing something to make Canada a happier and a better country to live in.


Mr. J. J. DENIS (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to be severe in my reference to the resolution introduced by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth), but it seems to me to be the most insignificant resolution that was ever presented to this House. Not only is it insignificant; it is unjust to the rest of the community. It is no credit to parliament that a resolution of this character should have been debated at such length; much less is it a credit to the hon. member who proposes it.
Now then, what is the resolution? It reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, if at any time during the first two years after his arrival in Canada any immigrant is unable to obtain employment, the federal government should accept full responsibility for his maintenance.
Let us examine this proposal and see what it really means. First of all, I submit that it is a fallacy of the worst kind. If effect was given to this resolution by the Parliament of Canada and by the government it would mean that immediately thereafter any immigrant coming to Canada would be guaranteed for two years against any risk of unemployment. What would be the significance of that provision? Is it right and fair that the people who have come to this country and have shared the risks that every other citizen has shared should be discriminated against, should not have an equal chance with those who now come from other countries? What about the descendants of those who settled this country years ago? They are not covered by this resolution, though they may be two years or
| Mr. Church.]
three years without employment. What about our forefathers who settled this country three hundred yearn ago?


William Irvine: Does my hon. friend suggest that they are out of a job?


Jean-Joseph Denis: Just a minute; I
will answer that. The man who comes from the Old Country should come here on an equal footing with all other citizens; he should not be given a preference, as he would be given by this resolution. We have not in this country any insurance against unemployment; it does not exist for the descendants of those who came here three hundred years ago, yet the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) wants it to exist for those who have been here not for three hundred years, or one hundred years, or one year, or one month, but for one day. Is the man who comes to this country as an immigrant, to share the lot of the people of this country- is he to be protected over and above everyone else and at the expense of those who have been here for years and years? It is the most ridiculous proposal, Sir, that has ever been submitted to parliament.
Let us examine the situation as it exists in Canada. We have in the city of Montreal, in the province of Quebec, thousands of people who are without employment and who have been without employment for months and perhaps years. The same condition exists in Toronto and in all the large cities of Canada. Should the government take'it upon themselves to accept full responsibility for the maintenance of these people? Not at all. Time and again the federal government have declared that unemployment is a matter to be dealt with first of all by the province; then by the Dominion. This resolution would place the problem of unemployment upon the shoulders of the federal government in so far as it concerns immigrants who have come into this country within two years, but so far as the rest of the community is concerned the government would not be responsible. This resolution goes further, and demands that a guarantee be given. If this resolution were passed into law, anyone coming to this country as an immigrant, would have a guarantee, a pledge, a contract, or an insurance policy that if he did not find employment within two years he would be supported by the government.
An hon. member said a minute ago that this resolution would not apply perhaps if the immigrant could get employment say for one day in two years. That is not my interpretation of it at all. If during the two years any immigrant is one week without employ-

Unemployed Immigrants
ment, under this resolution he would be entitled to maintenance. In other words an immigrant is guaranteed employment for two years the moment he comes into Canada. We have had immigration into this country for a great many years and there has been immigration into the United States for many years, 'but never in this country or in the country to the south of us have we ever seen such a preposterous proposition as the resolution now before us. This resolution asks the government to pay a subsidy, pure and simple, to those who come to Canada and cannot get employment. I submit that this cannot be done. It would be unfair to the rest of the community. As I stated at the commencement of my remarks, this resolution had been discussed at too great length. I will take my own advice, resume my seat, and ask the House to reject this proposition.


William Irvine: The hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. Denis, Joliette) has made a bold effort to prove that the resolution the House has been considering all day is the most ridiculous thing that has ever been presented to this parliament,-did he add for a century or more? I do not know whether he included all parliaments or simply this one. But there are at least two other things that I could mention that are more ridiculous than this resolution, even granting it to be ridiculous. The first thing that appears to me to foe more ridiculous is the position taken foy my hon. friend himself (Mr. Denis, Joliette) in relation to the situation with which the resolution endeavours to deal, and the other thing that is more ridiculous is the position of the government itself, directly responsible as it is for the situation with which the resolution deals, and yet that government has absolutely nothing to say with regard to the condition which it has created. It has absolutely no solution for the problem that it has placed upon the shoulders of the people of the country.


James Murdock: Is it not a solution for
the government to state that it is in a position to place every man who is ready and willing to go on the land?


William Irvine: If solutions lie in what the
government says, all the problems of Canada would have been solved long ago, but it is riot what the government is saying that I am thinking of, it is more what they are not doing that concerns me. My hon. friend knows perfectly well that he is not in a position to place everyone that may apply for work. He might say so, but that is another thing that
is more ridiculous than the resolution; so much more so that I shall not take time to answer it.
Let me turn now to the resolution itself. It may permit of a very wide discussion of the whole unemployment question, but the idea of my hon. colleague in moving it was to confine the discussion to the particular phase of the unemployment question as related directly to the government's policy on immigration. I have no quarrel with those who have widened the discussion. I am quite willing to admit that the whole question of unemployment involves government policy as well as other perhaps more fundamental conditions. But I am not going to deal with the question in a general sense. I will confine myself to dealing with that particular phase of the unemployment situation that is mentioned in the resolution.
May I say at the outset that I am not opposed to immigration, and I am quite sure that the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) is not opposed to immigration; neither have I heard anyone who has spoken on this resolution to-day express any opposition to immigration, all of them being willing to see the population of Canada grow. The position that we take is that we want to see an immigration policy that will be at least fair to the people who are here, fair to the people who come here, and that will have regard to the economic conditions pertaining in the country at the present time. Suppose that the government were in charge of a ferry boat; that ferry boat would carry only a hundred people, and there are a thousand people to go across. There is lots of room on the other side, but the ferry boat can only carry a hundred. The government insist on loading a thousand people on the boat, which would sink it. We advocate that they should take one hundred at a time until all are safely across. That is the kind of immigration policy we want. We want the government to adopt an immigration policy that will place people in Canada no faster than we can absorb them into our industrial life, whether they go to the farms or to any other part of our industrial life. That is our attitude towards immigration. We do not wish to close the doors of Canada against all immigrants, but we certainly do not wish to have immigrants brought into the country faster than they can be accommodated. Further than that, we not only advocate a carefully regulated immigration policy, but we are anxious to see this government adopt some economic policy which will provide, not only for those that are in Canada but also for as many as we can possibly bring in. The responsibility for the solution of our immigration policy rests on the should-
Unemployed Immigrants

ers of the government. They must find an economic policy that will make it worth while for people to come here, and then the whole problem of immigration will be solved.
The expressed meaning of this resolution is to bring to the attention of the government some of the results of its own policy, and to urge upon it the necessity of accepting the responsibility for that policy. It may be ridiculous, as the hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. Denis) terms it, for the resolution to seek to guarantee either work or a living to all immigrants for two years, and it may be unfair, as he says, but it is equally ridiculous and equally unfair to bring thousands of people to this country when we already have more people than we can provide work for. That is unfair, not only to the people who are here workless, but equally, if not more unfair to the immigrants. Moreover, in Great Britain, the country from which the government pretends, at least, to seek the larger percentage of its immigrants, they already have a guarantee against unemployment, not for two years, but for all their life. If my hon. friend wants to have an immigration policy that is going to be attractive, he will pretty soon have to guarantee something more than election platforms because the present condition of affairs in Canada will not remain long unknown to the people of Great Britain.
Let me draw to the attention of the government a specific instance that will justify the resolution. I quote from a letter received from an immigrant in the city of Calgary, and I hope the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) will see to it that this gentleman finds work quickly, or else finds what he is seeking in this letter. I will read it:
I came here with the third McDonnell party in August, 1924, to Red Deer, when I was taken to the farm to be employed; the farmer was not there and the S.S.B. agent, Mr. Smith, left me at another farmer's and when the man that was to employ me came, he told me I would have $25 and no board per month and I did not know where I was. I had to accept this pay for harvesting. Weill, I was returned to Indian school and left for bush work but was called back owing to my wife threatening to take my children's life (a job I often think now of). After that episode our deportation was ordered and we started back to the Clyde, but the wily Rev. McDonnell met us and told us Mr. Woods, S.S.B. superintendent at Calgary, had a job for me, but when I went to him- no job, and for three weeks he left me going daily until he offered me five dollars per month and I have since put it in the Calgary Herald of the 7th instant. Well, sir, *1 am now up against it and I am not allowed relief here and I beg you to use your power-
Note the word:
-to have my temporarily suspended deportation put back into effect, before something very drastic happens, as I don't intend to see my wife and family starve, so please do your best for the sake of my children. I

may state, sir, I was employed as a boiler man the day before I left Glasgow with the corporation.
I presume he means by "corporation" the group with which he came here under the Rev. Mr. McDonnell. If hon. members will recall the wire of Mayor Webster which was given to the House by the Minister of Labour, they will note that he referred to a large number in a position similar to that described in the letter, who had come to Calgary under the immigration policy of the government, but who had not been long enough in that city to come within the limits of the provisions made by the city with regard to relief. As a result these poor people were and are suffering. Surely it is ridiculous for hon. members on the other side of the House to object to this resolution on technical grounds, when men like the man whose letter I have just read, brought here by the policy of this government, are starving and threatening to destroy their families rather than see them starve.


James Murdock: Will my hon. friend let us have privately the name and address of that family?


William Irvine: I am sorry that I forgot to read the name and address. It has just been whispered to me that I had better not make it public, but I shall be glad to pass the letter over to the Minister of Labour now. I do not, however, suppose the gentleman who wrote the letter would object to having his name published. That there is a direct connection between the government's immigration policy and the suffering of many people needs no argument. A large number of individuals as well as municipalities and cities are actually suffering to-day because of the blunders of the present government. I read to-day, before the orders of the day were called, a despatch from Lethbridge dealing with the importation of Japanese, Scotchmen and Russian-German families in connection with a new industry that is to be started in southern Alberta. I am glad to think that, we are going to have another new industry in southern Alberta, but I think the position taken by the Trades and Labour Council of Calgary, whose letter I have in my hand, is one that ought to commend itself to the present government. This is a letter from the secretary of the Trades and Labour Council at Calgary:
The above council desire to know if the statement is correct-
That is the statement which I read to the House this afternoon from the press.

Unemployed Immigrants
-and if that is so, would point out that there are at the present time thousands of able-bodied men unemployed in this province and have been for some considerable time, many of whom at the present are receiving relief from the provincial government to keep them from starvation.
We would therefore request (that is if the application has been made) that before it is conceded to that serious consideration will be given to the existing conditions here, as above stated.
The point in connection with this letter is that the company which is about to start a sugar factory in southern Alberta has, I understand, received a Dominion charter, and the Trades and Labour Council of Calgary urge upon this government to use its influence to the end that this company shall employ working men now in Alberta rather than import Russian, German, Japanese and Scotch labour. To that question this morning the government gave not an answer, but a sneer. They refused to recognize the relationship between conditions now existing in this country and the immigration policy which they have been following. It has been alleged by some hon. members who have spoken on this resolution that there is some idea of offering the resolution as a remedy for unemployment. Nothing, of course, could be further from the intention of the mover of the resolution.
The remedy for unemployment, we are aware, must be deeper than the resolution suggests. Again I will recall to the attention of hon. members the fact that this resolution intends to deal only with one small phase of the question, one that 'is pressing at the present time, and that is the question of those unemployment who have come within the last two years as a result of the present government's immigration policy and who are threatened with starvation because there is no municipality that can undertake their support, seeing that many of them have not been long enough in the community to come within the scope of the relief arrangements now existing.
The full intent of the resolution is to see whether the government is prepared to accept responsibility for its own policy. It does not necessarily imply, as the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat would seem'to indicate, that the only way that the government can discharge its responsibility for the immigrants who come in under its policy is to give doles. It does not imply that this is the only way. My colleague (Mr. Woodsworth) suggested some other means; I would suggest another, and that is that the government should deport every one of those immigrants for whom it is unable to find work. That would be accepting the responsibility for its policy, and perhaps it would cure the government,
equally as fast as having to pay money but, if it had to haul thousands of people back every year whom it had been instrumental in bringing out. That in itself might be a means of bringing the government to a knowledge of the real situation.
After listening to the remarks that have been made so far in the debate I have summarized them in my own way. The government ini dealing with the situation has no policy and is proud of the fact. The leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke) has no policy and frankly confesses so, and for his honesty I commend him. Honourable members of the official opposition profess to have a policy, whether it is good or bad. Now I would say that if the mere attempt to do something is any reason why this government should be supported in its policy of subsidizing ships as was alleged by government supporters, then perhaps one might vote in favour of the policy proposed by the opposition on the ground that at any rate it is something more than the government proposes to do in connection with this situation. The fact is that the government proposes nothing and appears to be rather glad of having nothing to propose.


James Murdock: The government does
propose something: it proposes to put any immigrant who is ready to work on a farm where he can get work.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Would the government
do the same for the unemployed?


James Murdock: It has not so indicated
and my hon. friend knows that probably that might be impossible. But so far as immigrants are concerned the position of the government is that those who are ready and willing to work may get work.


William Irvine: I am going to deal with
the proposals of the minister. But let me say in passing that if the government now proposes to find employment on the farms for all the unemployed of Canada I personally regret that they did not come to this conclusion some years ago.


James Murdock: I did not make that
statement. I know the hon. member does not want to misquote me but I must decline to let him put words into my mouth. I said no such thing. It would not be bad for the hon. member to stick to the truth if he has an argument.


William Irvine: My hon. friend is warm
and he charges me with misquoting him. Perhaps he will state again exactly what he did say, because if he did not say what I have
Unemployed Immigrants

stated he must have said something far less important.


James Murdock: I stated that the policy of the government according to a statement of the Deputy Minister of Immigration in charge of matters appertaining to the Soldier Settlement Board, which statement I read to the House, was that any immigrant who was ready and willing to work could be placed on a farm to work.


William Irvine: I understand then that the government has developed a new policy, which is to put on a farm any immigrant who is willing to work. Well, I presume that the immigrant can find work there all right. But I wonder whether he will get union wages? I could not dream of the Minister of Labour, a labour man for twenty-three years, advocating the placing of men on farms to work for nothing or even to work for a cent less than union wages, and certainly not to work for less than would be required to maintain their families and themselves respectably. My hon. friend is quite aware, I have no doubt, that in winter in this country he cannot place men on the farms nor can he get wages for them there. He knows perfectly well that that is not a solution, and I venture to say that a month from now it will be necessary for hon. members of this House to be again asking the Minister of Labour what he will do with some of these people. The policy that he has just announced is as ridiculous as some of the supporters of the government think this resolution to be. The minister in dealing with the resolution began in his usual style. He told us that there was unemployment some ten or twelve years ago; and I think that question was first raised by the hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston) when one hon. gentleman to my right was speaking, asking if there were not very many unemployed in the year 1913-14. There were many unemployed in 1913, I have no doubt. I am sure that all hon. members will agree with the Minister of Labour that there were many unemployed at that time.


James Murdock: The hon. gentleman cannot show one word in Hansard-and we will send and get it-indicating that the Minister of Labour referred to the year 1913. Again he misquotes.


William Irvine: I do not think that the
minister will gainsay my assertion that he referred to the unemployment situation at that time when the now official opposition was in power. Did he or did he not refer to that period? He may not have used the words 1913 but did he not refer to that period? If *Mr. Irvine.]
he did not I shall be relady to apologise; but I am quite sure he did. He dealt with unemployment in the, United States, pointing out that there were twenty million people there out of work, and his logic was that since there were twenty millions unemployed in the United States there was ne reason why we should consider pressing this resolution. That is the reasoning of the Minister of Labour. But while he touched on the unemployment of the past, and while he was rather enthusiastic in describing the unemployment of the United States, he had very little to say, about unemployment in Canada -very lit indeed. In dealing with that question he explained to us about great numbers of our unemployed being unwilling to work at all and who perhaps could not work if they tried. This unwillingness or inability to work he attributed largely to our returned soldiers. Then he explained about the errors of judgment on the part of the miners in Alberta, as the true reason why they were unemployed. But what of the real bona fide unemployed,-are there not any? Are all these resolutions that are coming to us, are all the stories in the public press, are all the deplorable conditions in Nova Scotia to which even Russia has responded to ameliorate-are all these pipe dreams, or is there some truth in them? The hon. Minister of Immigration (Mr. Robb) replying to the mover of the resolution (Mr. Woodsworth) is just about as vague and hopeless as the Minister of Labour. He says in effect: We have always had unemployment, and we always will have. And since we are always likely to have it, he seems to indicate that the best thing we can do is just to accept it as part of our philosophy and not pay much attention to it. Those were not the words of the hon. gentleman, but certainly they express the only logic that one can draw from his remarks.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the government has no policy for unemployment, in view also of the fact that some of its own supporters have characterized this resolution as being ridiculous, and in view further of the fact that the Minister of Immigration positively refuses to have anything to do with the resolution and states his intention to oppose it, I beg to move, seconded by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) the following amendment to the resolution:
That all the words after the word "House" be struck out and that the following be inserted: the government, having no satisfactory poflicy either for alleviating the suffering of the victims of unemployment, or for proriding a remedy for the evil, shall resign.

Unemployed Immigrants


Henry Elvins Spencer: Mr. Speaker, the question, before the House is in my opinion one of the very important questions that come annually before us and one that we cannot put aside. The problem has not only been with us in the past, but it is growing in the present and will grow to a still greater extent in the future. The resolution put forward by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth), to which an amendment has been moved by the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Irvine), is of such importance that I cannot see how any government can afford to ignore it. The federal government has a distinct responsibility with regard to unemployment, because it controls certain policies which have a direct relation to the subject. For instance, the federal government has complete control of fiscal policy, and it has complete control-if it cared to exercise it-of financial policy. Both of these policies, handled in certain ways, have no doubt been the means of increasing our unemployment from year to year, and will tend to still further increase it. The federal government also has control of our railway policy, and in that respect it has had a great deal more to do with the present unemployment than a good many members may appreciate. Some ten to fifteen years ago this country went wild over railway building-charters were granted very liberally, in fact too liberally, by this House, and promises were made all over the country that railways would be constructed1, and these promises were particularly numerous for western Canada. Thousands of immigrants settled along the proposed railway routes, and to-day they are becoming discouraged because they still lack the long promised transportation facilities. In many cases these disappointed settlers will not continue farming; they will drift into the cities and help to fill the ranks of the unemployed either directly or indirectly. Only this morning I received a petition signed by several hundred people asking for certain transportation facilities in their district that I know cannot possibly be given them for at least three or four years. They have been promised those facilities for the last fifteen years, and at last they are tired of waiting and are saying that if something is not done large numbers of them will have to go elsewhere.
An hon. member to my right, I think the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Hocken), mentioned that some people seemed to think that, unemployment is come to stay, but he hoped and believed they were not correct. I
cannot agree with the hon. member. I claim that not only has unemployment come to stajq but that it will get worse in the future.
It is a perfectly natural law that this should be so under our present system. Today, science aided by invention is continually producing machinery to take the burden off the shoulders of men and transferring it to machines. We might say that on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we invent new machines to do without labour, and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays we 10 p.m. labour to find some means of doing away with the consequent unemployment that follows from these inventions. The federal government have control of the patent office. I do not say that they should not grant patents. I think inventors should be encouraged. I think we should look forward to the time when man will have less work to do and machines will have more. But if this transfer of work is going to increase the army of unemployed, we must find some means whereby they may gain a livelihood.
When all is said and done, unemployment is simply the reflex of the need of purchasing power. Whenever we have a great need for purchasing power we find the ranks of the unemployed increased. This is one of the problems that the government does not appear to have attempted to solve. The problem of financial reform has been brought forward in this House from time to time during the last few years. It has been something quite new, and has met with the usual fate of new suggestions. In the first year it was brought up, I think it was in 1922, members took no notice of the suggestion at all. In 1923 it was ridiculed. In 1924 the subject and the hon. members who proposed it had nothing but abuse thrown at them. But in future years I have not the slightest doubt the time will come when the government of the day will realize that this problem has got to be faced, and that the control of finance, with the control of other important matters must receive more attention from the government of the day. It is because the federal government have control of such important matters as the fiscal and financial policies of this country; control of the patent office, through which new machines are being continually permitted to be brought into action, and which are taking the place of man's labour; and because they also have control very largely if not entirely, of the matter of immigration, that I think the resolution before the House to-day is very much in order. I would have supported the resolution if an amendment had not been moved,
Unemployed Immigrants

and I shall have pleasure also in supporting the amendment.


Edward Joseph Garland: The hon. member for Fort. William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) addressed some remarks to the House relative to the charges that had been made against the right hon. leader of the opposition, charges of being a pessimist, a blue-ruinist, and all that sort of thing, simply because he had described unemployment conditions in Canada. I thought the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River was hardly justified in giving his leader credit for all the abuse that has been heaped upon him in that regard. If my memory serves me right, about three years ago members in this corner of the House pointed out the very things that are now agitating the mind of the opposition, and described the conditions as they existed then, and continue to exist to-day. We were called blue-ruinists too; we were called detainers of Canada ; we were called grouchers, pessimists, and all the rest of it It did not hurt very much; it does not matter, when you know you are telling the truth, what others think of you These are the conditions that exist, and that must be faced by this government. The government does not want to face them; that is quite obvious; but they must face them sooner or later. The government's position reminds me very much of the definition of an optimist. A pessimist is an hon. gentleman like my hon. friend the leader of the opposition. If he has a toothache, he complains about it; 60 do I. He makes things pretty miserable for everybody around him until he gets that toothache cured or something happens to the tooth. But my hon. friends opposite thank heaven they have a tooth to ache. Just so it aches, let it keep on aching; it makes no difference so long as they have the tooth. But they forget that a .tooth, like everything else, is subject to even worse conditions than mere aching, and if the trouble is not attended to, decay of the pulp sets in, and the tooth has to go. I would suggest that they take steps to change these conditions before the tooth goes. It is aching pretty badly. Some men are actually asking for deportation to-day.
I would like to quote a letter over the name of the Danish consul at Vancouver, Mr. W. W. Ward. This letter is a very striking one, coming from a person occupying the position this man does. He writes the mayor of Vancouver as follows:
I have to submit to you the fact that owing to representation being made by the Dominion government, the Canadian National Railways, and the Canadian 
Pacific Railway, in Denmark, that a number of Danes are emigrating to Canada, and very many of them are coming to Vancouver, having been led to believe, so they tell me, that they can secure entrance to the United States through this port, and on arrival here find it impossible to do so. There being a very great lack of employment, and these men as a rule being without funds, come to this consulate for assistance, and despite the fact that they are willing to work if employment can be found for them, they cannot secure it, and I fear that during the winter many of these emigrated citizens will call at this consulate for assistance, and you can readily understand that the Danish government cannot undertake to take care of its emigrated citizens, and must maintain that it is the duty of every civilized community and country to provide food and lodging for all persons within their sphere. It is therefore my intention, in each case of Danes who are out of funds, to refer them for food and lodging to the municipal authorities, and I will furnish these citizens with a letter to you asking you to provide food and shelter for the party in question, and I feel sure that you will recognize that it is the duty of the city to provide board and lodging for ail unemployed, and if you do not desire to do so for foreign subjects, to repatriate same.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
W. W. Ward, Royal Danish Consul.
This letter was read at the unemployment conference by the mayor of the city of Vancouver, who said quite frankly that that city had its own problem in looking after its own Canadian citizens, without being compelled by this government to look after the unemployed immigrants brought in as a result of the government's immigration policy. This was submitted by the mayor as one of a long list of items of evidence which he brought to support his side of the subject. I will quote further from him. He says:
I have here a statement from the Joint Sewage Board of the city of Vancouver, which shows that we have held back work to the extent of almost $400,000 for the winter months. But that is only a small amount. That will practically take care of only our own citizens, who are the deserving people, who have helped to build our city, and who must be considered first.
They were prepared apparently to look after their own Canadian citizens, but they certainly looked to this government, and in my opinion they were justified, to give them some relief in the matter of looking after the unemployed immigrants who were brought in here. Further on he says:
So if the government is not in a position to assist materially in taking care of the unemployed this winter where work can be carried on, I can assure you that as far as the western provinces are concerned the municipalities are not in such a position. What is going to become of the large immigration that is coming into the west this year? They are a fine class of men that have come in, but some of them may not be able to speak the English language. We have not the wherewithal to provide for them. Our own citizens must come first.

Unemployed, Immigrants
Again:
So far as the Pacific coast and the province of British Columbia are concerned, being perhaps the only representative from there, and being instructed by practically all the municipal councils around there, I want to assure you that we are not in a position to take care of any unemployment outside of our regular citizens, and if those strangers within our gates are to be looked after this winter it devolves upon the powers that be, Who brought them to our country, to feed them when they are hungry.
The mayor of Toronto, Mr. Hiltz, says:
I think that if there is any responsibility in connection with unemployment, we ought to consider also where the responsibility lies. If it is true that the federal government have been bringing immigrants out here and there is nothing for them to do when they get here, then it seems to me they have aggravated the situation, and the responsibilty is theirs to that extent.
If it is true-
And I would commend this to the attention of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham), who raised this point:
If it is true that the provincial government have done likewise, they are to blame. Men have been brought out presumably for the purpose of going on the farms. As someone has stated, they have said they wanted to go on the farm, but have said it simply for the purpose of getting here, and after they got here they went where they liked. If in that respect the provincial government have aggravated the situation, the responsibility is theirs.
And, by the way of digression, if it is true that the Canadian Pacific Railway have notices up at Wembley that there is plenty of work here in Canada for men, and if in Montreal they have notices up that they have no work for men, then it seems to me there is a share of responsibility on the Canadian Pacific railway. Whether it is their thought to get a 'lot of men out and because of the unemployment situation to get cheap labour, or not, I do not know. They know perhaps better than I.
And so on, Mr. Speaker, through this entire book, which is the report of the national conference regarding winter employment in Canada. We find mayors from cities east, cities west, cities central, bringing down the same story to this government, that so far as their own citizens were concerned they were prepared to consider looking after them, but so far as unemployment as the result of immigration policy was concerned they demanded that this government recognize this responsibility-and that is all that this resolution of the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) asks. We find that Mr. Blatchford, mayor of Edmonton says:
We have depending on us unemployed and sick trappers, traders, prospectors; pioneer settlers who went into the Peace river country and have been slowly going "broke" on account of poor transportation. We have all those to deal with. Our hospital facilities are the largest on the American continent. In taking care of the sick people in that particular part of the country our civic hospital, which is operated by the city, is costing the citizens of Edmonton $500 a day, not to mention what we donate to other hospitals. We
have donated to charities in the neighbourhood of $300,000 a year, and this year we have doled out to welfare boards $42,000.
That city was looking after its own people. He says further:
As far as the city of Edmonton is concerned, we are quite willing to try to take care of our own-the married men first and the single men next-but we cannot take care of outsiders. We have a little work in view. If it is passed by the Canadian National Railway Board to-morrow, we shall have a half-million dollar subway to be built this winter. That will assist us greatly and will probably relieve the situation to such an extent that we can meet it; but at the present time, without some work in sight, we cannot do more than we are doing, and if we are going to be obliged to shoulder all the responsibility of looking after the Immigration Department's people, that are there now without work and without money, and also the harvesters who remain the year round, we shall be placed in a very embarrassing position and we absolutely cannot face it.
Again, Controller Tulley of Ottawa says:
We have a number of workers in the country to-day. We have not enough jobs for them. Yet there is a policy being carried on, I am led to believe, whereby more workers are being thrust upon the market, as it were-(X do not like to put it on the basis of the "market", but we will use that language as it is used) -and we have to provide more jobs; which we cannot do.
And so on, Mr. Speaker-oceans of that kind of testimony, not from one political party or the other but from mayors of cities, representing all political creeds; they have come here to this government and put up this story. Let me give just one illustration, one little individual case that I came across this winter in Calgary. A gentleman named Edward Evans writes as follows:
May I ask the pertinent question as to what is being done to provide work for the men now unemployed in the city of Calgary and in the province of Alberta?
I am a stranger in Calgary, having arrived here just a few days ago. I am also a stranger to Canada. I arrived in Montreal from Australia on July 1 of this year.
Now I am in your city seeking employment. I am prepared to take anything, anywhere, at a fair remuneration. The first thing, however, which I learned since arriving in Calgary is that right here in your city are hundreds of men situated as I am whose sole occupation is the seemingly hopeless one of attempting to find employment.
Is this quest to no purpose? Are the energies of these men to be spent in seeking what is not present? I ask the question for I don't know, I am a stranger within Canada's gates.
To me it all appears to be cruel, inhuman. In song and story, in alluring advertisements and in colourful newspaper and magazine articles I have heard and read of Canada, as the arcadia of the industrious, and of western Canada as the " Land of Opportunity " wherein no man need want. Is it all fable, is it all false, an intrigue and trick to lure the ambitious so that the competing force of their fellow men may grind them down in order that the wealth of a few be multiplied and the dollar-pile glorified above all things? Or am I mistaken? Perhaps I have entered Calgary at a particularly unfortunate
Unemployed Immigrants

time; but I hardly think so, for if this were true there would be signs of public alarm. The quietude of press and public leads me to think that an unemployed army is a permanent condition in western Canada. That because it is normal there is no consternation, no thought, or little productive thought, as to how willing workers are to be provided with the means of decent, lawful livelihood.
You have only to walk the streets of the city to see hundreds of men aimlessly lounging about. These men want work, but there is none for them, yet daily this hunger-stricken class is enlarged and daily emigrants arrive in western Canada to swell the workless army.
Can you, Mr. Editor, explain matters, or can any of your readers offer a remedy? The welfare and lawful existence of hundreds depend upon it as well as
Yours faithfully,
Edward Evans.
A little time ago I picked up a report of the Publicity 'Commissioner of Alberta in which I found the following:
The sale has been announced of the 13,320 acre farm of George Lane at Namaka, Alberta, to a colonization company for an unnamed sum. The value of the farm is stated to be about $650,000. The sale is also announced of the Rosedale ranch in the Bittern lake district near Camrose, to colonization interests who it is stated, plan to divide the ranch into small farms for settlement purposes.
What does that tell us? It tells U9 that the old policy of exploitation of the settler who wants to go on the land is to continue. These colonization companies are not doing these things for their health, they are going to hold up the settler who comes in and wants to take up land, and this government is doing nothing to stop it-nothing at all.
Not long ago in Montreal a glass company applied for some men. What happened? I quote the following Canadian Press despatch describing this incident:
A near riot occurred this morning when several hundred men tried to get into the plant of the Dominion Glass Company, when it was announced help was wanted. The plant had been closed down for several weeks.
Early in the morning a crowd gathered in front of the plant. When the gate was finally opened the waiters found to their chagrin that former employees were given preference, while others were kept back by the watchmen on duty.
Those in the rear of the crowd becoming impatient as they saw men passing through the desired goal, commenced pushing and the men closed in more closely about the entrance to the property. The high fence around the property threatened to give way beneath their pressure.
It was at this critical moment that, after several warnings, fire hose kept in the plant was brought out and played upon the unfortunate and hungry mob.
It is this kind of incident, Mr. Speaker, that appeals to my sense of justice and my sense of the need of the making of some attempt to remedy this condition. The Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) rises in his place to-day and tries to dispose of this whole con-

dition of unemployment as simply a matter of Conservative propaganda and non-existent, but a few hours later the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) rises behind him and brands this very problem as the most important one that faces Canada to-day. Now, what is one to do with a government like that? What can be done with them? It is almost hopeless. We find in a Lethbridge paper, by the way, a paper which was quoted to-day, I think it was, by an horn, member and referred to by someone on the other side as a very good paper, the following:
The only work in these parts is to be found at the Lethbridge jail, remarked Magistrate Sanders in the police court Saturday, when Thomas McDougall, Alex Duncan, W. B. Lissett and Fred Vien were before him on charges of vagrancy. They explained that they had come into Calgary from Saskatchewan, looking for work. The magistrate told them that touring around from one place to another would hardly bring results, but he gave them a chance to get out of town.
That is the consolation the men got from the magistrate. They wanted work, that was clear. I have had men come to me on my farm; I have had men come to me at my apartment in Ottawa, pleading for work, evidently anxious for it-clean, upstanding, bright looking men, some Canadians, some immigrants, but no work for them. Yet hon. members to my left there-one in particular- talk about plenty of employment for everybody. I tell the hon. member who says it that some day he may join the ranks of those who are hunting for employment and he will not find it just as easy and pleasant a task as he appears to think it is and not so simple to secure a job.
I received the other day from one of the [DOT] locals of the United Farmers of Alberta in my constituency a resolution which I desire to place on record. It indicates the attitude of the organized farmer towards this problem. It reads:
At a meeting of the Huxley U.F.A. a resolution was passed which I was instructed to forward to you with a hope that you may do your utmost in the matter.
Whereas there is a great amount of suffering in our province due to unemployment and whereas, among the sufferers there are many returned veterans, Be it resolved that:
We the Huxley branch of the U.F.A. ask our secretary to send this resolution to our federal member, asking him to use every effort in his power to help alleviate this suffering, especially among our returned soldiers.
There again you have another angle of the situation. The returned men from overseas who went over there to fight for their king and country, with that high idealism which inspired most of the young men at the outbreak of the war, now come back to find

Unemployed Immigrants
that the country they fought for has not a job supplying a decent standard of living to offer them, and further we find that more than a hundred thousand returned Canadian Expeditionary Force men are now in the States. I think that is the statement of the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Ladner). I noticed that one hon. gentleman said there was never unemployment in an agricultural district. Why, of course not. Why should there be? Just as soon as there is not a jab on the farm, or the farm is dried out, the farmer has to go somewhere; he goes into the mines or to the United States or somewhere else. He cannot stay here and starve to death. He is not foolish enough to do that. A good deal of the work on the farm is work without pay. I remember an instance brought to my attention this last winter. A man came to me and said, "I went into Calgary and applied for a job, and a farmer came along and said "Come out to my place and work for ten dollars a month." The man said, "What do you expect me to do for that money?" "Oh," he said, "just a little hauling and c'horing around. It will not be hard." The man went out to the farm and found he was expected to milk ten cows and feed them night and morning, in addition to doing other chores. That was a deliberate attempt oe the part of the farmer to exploit the unemployment situation and I am ashamed of that man. I would be ashamed of the manufacturer who would do the same thing in his factory. The Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) quoted with some unction a report of a speech made by Hon. Herbert Greenfield in Ottawa. I do not think the Acting Minister of Finance has seen the Greenfield resolution on immigration in the provincial house recently. I will just read one passage of it as follows:
That while the responsibility for framing and carrying into effect immigration policies rests primarily with the Dominion government, the result of such policies seriously affects the welfare of the province in creating demand for extensions of provincial services, and making possible problems of unemployment.
So even Mr. Greenfield, the man accepted with such approval by the Acting Minister of Finance one moment, is quoted the next moment as having pointed out to the government their own responsibility in the matter. I think it is wiser for the government to divert the stream they have started flowing towards the shore, it is much wiser to divert it for a time than to float out our own people, and that is what is happening. These new immigrants cannot go over the line on account of the quota laws. They have got in here and
the labour market is overstocked. There are many Canadians in this country who are anxious to get work at a decent standard of living, but they have to go somewhere else, and they go to the United States. The distant pasture looks green. In the Saturday edition of the Ottawa Citizen, page five, we find an interesting comparison, if hon. gentlemen would care to look at it. The first column is devoted to the story of the huge supply of food that was secured from the children of Ottawa to take care of the unemployed situation in Nova Scotia. It is headed:
Huge supply of food brought on first pound day.
Children expected to bring offerings directly to headquarters to-day. Twenty cases shipped.
Only three columns over we find another article:
Large party of immigrants on the way to Canada.
In the one case the children gathering food voluntarily to help the unemployed conditions in this country, and in another column of the paper a part of the immigration policy of this administration-


Andrew Ross McMaster: Does the hon. gentleman not realize that when people come into this country they create a demand for goods, as well as being able to produce goods in the country?


Edward Joseph Garland: The imagination of my hon. friend for Brome (Mr. Mc-Master) is delightful. The men who come to this country only create a demand for goods when they have the funds with which to buy them, the purchasing power. Most of the people are brought in on an assisted passage scheme. That will be seen from this item in the citizen:
Thirty families leave Liverpool under overseas settlement plan to work farms in Dominion.
And their passage is paid in advance. Now what is the use? How can these people implement the industrial activities of Canada. They have not the means to keep themselves. They require to have advances made to them. The government is as usual so far as policy is concerned vacant, empty. It is just not there, that is all. I have much pleasure is supporting the amendment of the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Irvine). I approve of the whole tone of the resolution, and it is quite evident from the speeches that we have from the government side that they have no constructive policy. They simply say, "We will promise we will put on a farm every man who wants to go there." What utter rubbish that is to those of us who know conditions out in the west. You cannot do that. You
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could put men out there to work for nothing, but is that going to elevate the standard of men or improve conditions of the country? No. It is going to place in that district a lot of pauper labour which would be useless, and it would create conditions that are very undesirable. I have much pleasure in voting for the amendment to the motion.


William F. Carroll: This is rather an important resolution. I do not think, if this House voted in the affirmative on this resolution tonight, it would be a cure for unemployment in Canada at the present time or in the future. There are some aspects of this question I would like to discuss, and as this is a late hour, I move the adjournment of the debate.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I was paired with the
Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. LOVETT:: I was paired with the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Grimmer). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. KAY:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Wentworth (Mr. Wilson). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Welland (Mr. German). Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. McCONICA:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. STANSELL:: I was paired with the
hon. member for South Ontario (Mr. Clifford).

C.N.R.-Branch Lines
Had I voted, I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. GENDRON:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Garland). Had I voted, I would have voted for the motion.
Debate adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjoft-ned at 11.50 p.m.
Tuesday, March 24, 1925