1925-03-20

TAN COLLECTIONS


Mr. W. C. GOOD (Brant) moved:: That the standing committee on Public Accounts be instxucted 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.


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance) :: The Minister of Customs (Mr. Bureau), whose department now administers the business profits tax and the income tax, is absent, as also is the Acting Minister of Customs. I am not sure that they have had notice of this motion, and in their absence I would ask my hon. friend to allow the motion to stand as notice.


William Charles Good: A word of explanation might be due the House in this connection. Last year, on the 16th of June, there was a fairly lengthy debate on this question, and at the conclusion of the debate the very same resolution that I am now asking to be passed was adopted by a large majority. Unfortunately, it was fairly close to the end of the session and the Public Accounts committee was
Miners and Steel Workers

called four times in succession without securing a quorum. Last year the first and final report of the Public Accounts committee, which was presented on the 17th of July, read as follows:
Your committee, to which was referred instructions " to investigate the method by -which the business profits and income taxes, especially in the case of large concerns, have been assessed and collected," was summoned on four occasions, in the usual way, to meet for the consideration of the business in question, and on each and every occasion a quorum failed to appear.
All which is respectfully submitted for the information of the House.
All I am asking is that there be a renewal of the instructions given last year to the committee. Nothing was done, and as the authority lapsed with prorogation it is necessary "that a motion be made in the House this session in order to renew the instructions given to the committee last year. The motion is in identically the same words as the motion of last year, and I do not think there can be any objection to it. I submit that the House should authorize the committee to go ahead with the work that was in contemplation last year and which was not proceeded with for the reasons I have mentioned.


James Alexander Robb: The minister in charge has
some responsibility, and may I again ask my hon. friend to let it stand until the minister or his representative is in his seat?


William Charles Good: Let it stand, then, Mr. Speaker.
Motion stands.



RAILWAY ACT, 1919, AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 31, to amend the Railway Act, 1919.
He said: The object of the amendment is to restore the special rates that applied prior to the war in regard to tickets purchased on such special occasions as Thanksgiving Day and certain other holidays and for the purposes of attendance at fall fairs, conventions and sporting events which are held throughout Canada. Before the war, single fares or a fare and a third were charged, instead of the full return fare, to persons attending various functions of this character on certain days, and special occasions and conventions of different kinds held by farmers' and other organizations. In connection with sporting events, such as soccer, lacrosse, football, hockey, and other games, there was also a cut rate for week-ends. If the old special rate that obtained on such occasions prior to the war were restored there would be a large increase in the earnings of the railways from this

class of traffic, in the ordinary course of good business.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 30 (from the Senate) to correct a clerical error in chapter 166 of the statutes of 1924, intituled:	"An Act for the relief of
James Hemy Kirkwood."-Mr. Anderson.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. W. A. BLACK (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call the attention of the government to an article in the Montreal Gazette of this date. It is headed:
Nova Scotia Premier Slams Mackenzie King in Provincial House.
The Prime Minister of Canada was quoted as having said that the responsibility was with the Nova Scotia government, and the Premier of Nova Scotia, according to this despatch, said:
The Prime Minister, if he really said it, doesn't understand the first principles of responsibility. The responsibility is just as much his as it is mine.
Then Premier Armstrong went on to say that legislative action would be taken at the proper time, and with the consent of the whole House.
It would be gratifying to myself, and I am sure to the people of my province, and especially to the workers of the mining district of Cape Breton and of the other coal areas of the province of Nova Scotia, if the Prime Minister would reconsider his attitude.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. On the orders
of the day only a question is allowed.


William Anderson Black: May I ask if the
Prime Minister will reconsider his attitude, and if he would be prepared to grant assistance to the sufferers down there, which would have my support and that of many members around me.	.


Hewitt Bostock: Order. I am sure the
hon. member does not want to break the rules of the House. He is allowed to put a question on the orders of the day, and must not amplify it.


William Anderson Black: I am sorry, Sir, if
I was out of order.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: As to the despatch to
which my hon. friend refers, I would say, first of all, I am not responsible, and I imagine

Miners and Steel Workers
Premier Armstrong is not responsible, for a despatch that appears in the Gazette. I would like to assure myself of the source of the despatch, and then in addition, reading the language of it, I would want to know before commenting upon it, what communication was read by Premier Armstrong before he used the words he is reported to have used. I have a copy of the despatch here, and my hon. friend probably noticed that Premier Armstrong said, "The Prime Minister, if he is correctly reported-" Well, I do not know what reports have been going from Ottawa to Halifax and appearing in the Halifax Herald and other papers, but I should feel that Premier Armstrong would be quite justified in using language such as he did there, with respect to some of the reports at least that I have seen of things that I was supposed to have said and have never said.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Mr. Speaker-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will my right, hon. friend allow me. He is not content with interrupting everyone on his own side who rises to speak, but attempts to interfere as well with everyone who gets up to speak on this side of the House.
I was saying, Mr. Speaker, when the leader of the opposition got up to interrupt in his usual way, that I do not know what report it was that the Premier of Nova Scotia was supposed to be referring to. I would wish to see that report before I commented on the despatch that has just been referred to. However, with respect to the position of the government in regard to the Nova Scotia situation, it remains exactly what it has been, and as I have stated it in this House over and over again. In Hansard of March 10 my hon. friend will find the following statement:
The position the government takes in the matter is this: The Premier of Nova Scotia has already intimated to the president of the Mine Workers' Union that the government of Nova Scotia would be prepared to co-operate in any matters of distress where it appears that the municipalities are not able to take care of the situation. This government, therefore feels, that unless requested by the government of Nova Scotia to do so, we should not intervene at this time.
I have repeatedly said that unless the government of Nova Scotia requested this government to intervene in this matter, we did not intend to intervene. When requested, we will take the request of the government of Nova Scotia under consideration.


Arthur Meighen: Do I understand the Prime Minister to mean that no action for purposes of relief can be taken by this administration, or will be taken, unless requested by the government of the province where the relief is needed?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have stated that until this government is requested by the government of Nova Scotia to interfere in the Nova Scotia situation-


Arthur Meighen: With regard to relief.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In any particular-this government intends to await a communication from the government of Nova Scotia.


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (East Calgary):: I think that the Prime Minister just quoted from Hansard the position of the government based upon a press report regarding what Premier Armstrong had said.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Irvine: My question is this: Why
does the Prime Minister accept that report of the press, and not the one that has just been read to him?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Because, on the face of it, it appears to be correct; the other does not.


Arthur Meighen: The other report is
exactly in accord with what the Prime Minister did say.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: , Another question on the orders of the day!



INQUIRIES FOR RETURNS


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):: Regarding returns, I want to bring to the attention of the government, and indeed, I think, to Your Honour's attention, that certain returns ordered last session have not yet been laid on the table. I have particular reference at the present moment to one in my own name, passed on April 30, 1924:
For a copy of all evidence or statements made before the Royal Pulpwood Commission by Mr. Piche and other witnesses, members or officers of the government of Quebec.
That return 'has not been brought down yet. I understand, Sir, that under the rule, returns ordered during one session, if the government cannot produce them before prorogation, are to be laid on the table immediately after the opening of the following session. I have already brought this matter to the attention of the government, and I would ask the Prime Minister, or the responsible min-
Business of the House

ister in this case, if we can expect this return immediately.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: When the matter was
brought to my attention the other day I mentioned that I was quite sure that it was through inadvertence the return had not been brought down, and I immediately spoke to my colleague the Secretary of State (Mr. Copp), and asked if he would have the officer in his department who is responsible for seeing that these returns are brought forward, communicate with the departments of the government concerned and see that the returns were prepared and brought down as speedily as possible. I have since been informed by my colleague that he has taken that step, and I think the return will be brought down very shortly.


Mr. E. B. RYCKMAN (East Toronto):: On the 9th of June, 1924, an order for a return was passed:
For a copy of all telegrams, letters or other messages, or documents, despatched from the Department of Justice to the authorities of Portsmouth penitentiary respecting the non-infliction of lashes on the person commonly known as Red Ryan.
That return has not yet been brought down, and I would ask the government when I may expect it.


Ernest Lapointe: I will look into the matter.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Arthur Meighen: I am rising to make a
request of the government which I made some time ago. I have a resolution on the order paper the importance of which I do not think anyone will deny. There has never been opportunity to move it yet except at twenty minutes to six on a Wednesday and at about a quarter to eleven on another day. No hon. member with any intention of being reasonable would have suggested the resolution could have been gone on. with then. In view of its importance I am going to ask the government if they will be good enough to set a day to the extent of saying that government business will not be gone on with on that day in advance of this business. I am quite aware that the government cannot guarantee that a private member will not go on on a private members' day; but the government is not being asked anything unreasonable if it is asked to fix a day for the discussion of this resolution in so far as it 
is in the power of the government to give it. This has been done repeatedly. I think this request should have been acceded to before, and an opportunity provided for debating this resolution before the budget. I make that request still.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I might say that several
hon. members of the House have been making special requests regarding their resolutions, and with due deference to my right hon. friend, I think all are entitled to equal treatment. Much as I would like to please my right hon. friend in the matter of his particular motion, I feel that the government owes a like obligation to every member of the House who has a motion appearing on the order paper. As far as the motion is concerned, I should think my hon. friend would have ample chance to move it, if he wishes, as an amendment to the budget, and if he so desires may debate the matter at great length there.
EASTER ADJOURNMENT On the Orders of the Day:


Mr. J. FRED JOHNSTON (Last Mountain) :: I would like to ask the government
if the length of the Easter recess has been decided upon; and to say in this connection: if it is to be brief, the majority of members in this quarter of the House would like it to be veiy brief; If it is to be lengthy, make it long enough so that members living at a distance will have an opportunity to go to their homes without losing their time.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The one desire of the government is to expedite the business as far as possible. The intention, as far as the government is concerned, is to adjourn on Wednesday night of Easter week until the following Tuesday.
THE BUDGET On the Orders of the Day:


Arthur Meighen: Is it the intention of the government to press the budget on prior to other measures that have been promised, especially in view of the fact that the Senate has nothing to do?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The intention of the
government is to carry out the programme as originally arranged to expedite the business of parliament. The budget will be brought down on Tuesday.

Ocean Shipping Rates



AUSTRALIAN TRADE TREATY

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. R. J. MANION (Fort William and Rainy River):: I should like to draw the attention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce to a telegram-which I shall not read to the House but which I shall hand to the minister for his kind consideration and on which I shall base a question-that I have received from a very outstanding business organization in northern Ontario dealing with the Australian trade treaty. I should like to ask the minister if any further progress has been made in regard to the Australian trade treaty. I will pass the telegram over to my hon. friend later.
Hon. J. A. RlOBB (Acting Minister of Finance): I shall be glad to look over the telegram and discuss it with my hon. friend. There has been no further progress to that announced the other day.



IMPORTATION OF HOGS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: I desire to call the attention of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) to an article that appeared in the weekly issue of the Manitoba Free Press, from which I read the following sentence:
The minister's refusal last week to allow the Hon. Mr. Hoadley, minister of agriculture in Alberta, to bring in some hogs from Denmark to show hog breeders in that province what a real select hog looks like-
And so on. Is it true that there was such a refusal, and if so would the minister briefly indicate why?


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):: Yes there was such a refusal. There has been an embargo on hogs from Europe for the last twenty years.



PEACE RIVER RAILWAY OUTLET

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. H. E. SPENCER (Battle River):: Would the Minister of Railways inform the House if a decision has been arrived at between the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway officials regarding an outlet in the Peace river district, and whether the government has received a report on the subject?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals): I have not received a report, and I cannot say whether the heads of the railways have arrived at any decision as to what they will suggest.



FEDERAL AID TO HIGHWAYS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. A. L. BEAUBIEN (Provencher):: Has
the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) any intention of bringing down legislation at this session to continue federal aid to highways?
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals):	My hon. friend will
find a resolution on the order paper extending the time two years, to allow those provinces that have not already expended the amount to which they are entitled under the original act to do so.


Arthur-Lucien Beaubien: I mean to grant further aid.


Mr. GRAHAM:: Further than the extension of time as I have suggested, it is not the intention of the government to introduce any legislation.



OCEAN SHIPPING RATES


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from March 19, the adjourned debate on the motion of Hon. T. A. Low (Minister of Trade and Commerce) to ratify and confirm a contract between His Majesty and Sir William Petersen providing for the establishment of a subsidized steamship line on the Atlantic, and government control of certain ocean rates, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Clark.
Mr. FRANK S. CAHILL (Pontiac):	I
have not read the Preston report, and I do not know Mr. Preston, but I wish to say that if he is responsible for the admissions contained in the reply to the Preston report he is entitled to the gratitude of his Canadian fellow countrymen. This reply dontains enough admissions to convince the country at least that there is a combine known as the North Atlantic Steamship Conference. They start by saying:
The North Atlantic Steamship Conference is not in any sense a combine, but the interests of the large number of individual companies operating steamers from north Atlantic ports required some form of joint action in respect to rates.
So that they admit joint action in respect of rates, and if that is not a combine it must be what was formerly called by the present right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) a monopoly. They admit the combine. We also have the admission of the chief spokesman for the authors of this reply in this House that there is a combine. The right hon. leader of the opposition admitted
Ocean Shipping Rates
[Stage Direction]
the combine. He also stated in 1913 that there was a combine or a monopoly. The monopoly existed in 1913 to such an extent that my hon. friend, as was pointed out by the hon. Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald) yesterday, moved the adjournment of the House to debate the subject, and he said that alarming increases had taken place in the two years, which would be the two years after the 1911 election. My hon. friend made a very good speech on that occasion, a much better speech than the one he made yesterday. And I have noticed in reference to my hon. friend that his best efforts are not put forth when he is declaiming against the interests of the Canadian people. His speech in 1913 was so good a speech that it attracted the attention of the leader of the government of the day, and my hon. friend a few weeks later was taken into that government and proceeded to forget all about the North Atlantic conference. He then started climbing the ladder of fame and kicking out the rungs as he went up. He went on climbing from that time, and forgetting the interests of the Canadian people unil he reached the pinnacle of his political ambition and became the leader of a great party; and when time compelled him to again appeal to the country he found that he had so forgotten the interests of the Canadian people that the electors of tli >
r-r'ntry merely returned a corporal's guard of t-uat once great party to this parliament, minus the corporal. The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Meighen) said at that time:
In my opinion the time has come when not only this House but the country should have that importance impressed upon them.
Speaking of the combine he further said:
The responsibility will rest upon this government; they will be loaded with it only if they should not avail themselves of any remedy within their reach to relieve the present situation.
And he went on further to say:
Whatever may be the difficulties of the solution, its magnitude will demand that it be attempted.
So that even in 1913 the subject of the North Atlantic conference was one which was agitating the minds of the Canadian people. My hon. friends opposite were then in power, and they attempted to do something about it. Another distinguished member of the Conservative party made his first official trip to Europe as a delegate to try to arrange with the British government to control the rates on the north Atlantic. My lion, friend the member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton), then chairman of the railway commission, made a trip, and returned

to say that he could not accomplish anything. He made subsequent trips but accomplished nothing further, save getting for himself a knighthood, and he and the government promptly forgot all about the North Atlantic conference. It was stated then that my hon. friend in reviewing his career did think of his first rung of the ladder and decided he should do something about it, either write a letter to the Times or to Dr. Magill; so he sat down and wrote a letter to Dr. Magill, and then he promptly forgot all about it. He did not even expect a reply to the letter. Certainly he expected no report, and never thought of the letter again until this question was before the House at this session, when he demanded of the government of the day the production of a reply to his Letter to Dr. Magill. That was the sum and substance of his effort towards controlling the North Atlantic combine, but during all that time the Conservative government of the day, for the ten years they were in power, continued to grant subsidies to the ocean shipping combine. They granted subsides of $2,000,000 a year for several years of their tenure of office. They granted in all in the ten years more than $18,000,000 or $1,800,000 a year.. The present subsidy added to the subsidy that is now in the estimates for the current year amounts to only $1,900,000. So I wonder why all the uproar about this particular subsidy! Is it because it is not going to the friends of my hon. friends opposite? Is it because there is to be something in this subsidy for the benefit of the Canadian people? They paid the subsidies I have indicated and nothing was said about the matter. There was no question of rate control. The only "control" that was thought of was control of the money, and that was left to the people who got it. But my hon. friends attack this now as being a waste of the taxpayers' money. They thought nothing of that when they themselves were paying out more money which did not give any advantage to the Canadian people. They attack it because they say it will not be effective. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) in 1913 had a remedy. His remedy-he was speaking then, of American rates-was as follows:
I refer to it in order to suggest that perhaps that by the joint operation of both governments, with the co-operation if necessary of the British government, a tribunal might be formed that would be able to control freight rates on the north Atlantic in something the same way in which the railway commission controls railway rates in Canada.
After ten years of doing nothing his friend the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark) produces the same old film and decides to

Ocean Shipping Rates
shoot another picture from it. He moves practically the same motion that they incubated for ten years when they found they were trying to hatch a nest egg. The hon. member for Burrard moves:
That Mr. Speaker do not now leave the chair, bait that it be resolved: That effective control of ocean rates can be exercised only with ,tihe co-operation of all portions of the empire, and by a body on which all are represented.
That is the thing which they have been at for ten years, and in regard to which they could not accomplish anything. Now they propose to form another League of Nations to deal with this matter. Of course, they know it is futile; that nothing can be done along that line; but it would have this result that it would save their friends in the combine from any hardship under this legislation. It would not hurt any person; it would still allow them to go on as they have been doing during the ten years; it would allow them to collect those exorbitant rates which the leader of the opposition said in 1913 were so alarming, and which he said last night had increased 47 per cent since that time. But now he says: It is all right; rates are not too high after all. He argued last night just as the reply of the steamship lines argued. First they admit the combine; second, they admit that rates are high; but they say that they must have high rates in order to make adequate returns. That is all that any person wants, as long as he is allowed to determine what is "adequate."
Then the right hon. member proceeded to argue that rates had not increased very much. That is exactly what the reply does. That is exactly what the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) said. There does not seem to be any argument except-leave it alone, do not interfere with this huge combine. They argue that there is no way of enacting legislation that can control ocean rates. If you cannot enact legislation that will control ocean rates, what other remedy is there? That means that there is only one" remedy-competition. How are you to get competition? My right hon. friend asks: Why not use the mei'chant marine? He suddenly discovered that there was something valuable in the merchant marine. He was exercised over this question for ten years. Why did he not try the merchant marine? He did not do so, but he chooses one of his supporters to move an amendment to create a tribunal of all the governments of the empire and then, in his own speech, he proposes that the merchant marine be put on to break this combine. Why did he not move that as an amendment to this resolution if he thinks so much of the merchant marine? Why did he not move that the total fleet of the merchant marine be put on the north Atlantic? I notice that he does not seem to think veiy much of the merchant marine. He is quite calm about it. But he does, on occasion tell us that the Liberal party were just as strong in support of the merchant marine as he was at the time it was inaugurated. As hon. members will remember, when the merchant marine was inaugurated, the war was on. The merchant marine was inaugurated in 1918, and the first vote on the subject was not opposed by the then Liberal opposition, but it was strenuously opposed in the next session after the war was over; it was more strenuously opposed in the following session; and in the final session my right hon. friend had to put through his vote by closure. That is the kind of "support" which the Liberal party gave to his merchant marine that cost this country 870,000,000 and that my right hon. friend does not seem to think very much of, -yet that he now advocates should be put on the north Atlantic in order to break the combine.
My right hon. friend chided the government for not taking action sooner on the McMaster report. He thought the government was subject to censure for not taking action sooner. I agree with him to some extent. I think a Liberal government that could not accomplish more in ten months than a Tory government could in ten years is somewhat liable to censure. The Liberal government is, I think, making an attempt, but it should be able to accomplish more in a few months than my hon friends opposite could in a whole lifetime.
Hon. gentlemen opposite are attacking Preston; they are attacking the merchant marine; they are attacking the management of the merchant marine; they are attacking everything but the resolution that should be the means of reducing rates on the north Atlantic. If the outcome of this resolution will not be a reduction in the rates, what can be done about the matter? The leader of the opposition yesterday said: We have no right to attempt to control rates on the Atlantic. Where does he get that theory, that a country has no right to control rates on its exports and imports? Such a statement is absurd, and it will be taken as an absurd statement by the people of the country when they have a chance to pass on it. Of course, the people of Canada have a right to control the transportation of their commodities both in and out of this country. There is only one effective way of regulating the rates and that is by competition. If you cannot control your own shipping, if you cannot put on your own boats, and now must adopt other means,
Ocean Shipping Rates
[Stage Direction]
I do not believe the merchant marine could compete; in the first place, they have not the docking facilities in Europe, and, second, they are not fitted for this trade. These boats built by the Petersen company will have the docking facilities and will be built for the trade; they will be an effective factor in reducing rates on the north Atlantic, and the government of the day will be congratulated by the Canadian people for putting through this legislation and will be rewarded for their efforts when the time comes at the next election.
Mr. JAMES ARTHURS (Parry Sound):: Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of opposing the resolution now before the House. I do so for various reasons, the principal being that to my mind no necessity has been shown for this legislation, and no proof produced that it would accomplish the purpose for which it has been introduced.
The last speaker (Mr. Cahill) has laid great stress upon the alleged fact that there is at the present time a shipping combination on the Atlantic. There is no question of doubt that there is an Atlantic conference, but it is questionable whether this conference has a malignant influence. We should remember that the various shipping concerns using our ports must have some arrangement whereby shipping may be more or less regular; this is most essential to the trade, and for this purpose at least a conference is necessary. True, the government endeavoured to prove that there was a combine oppressing the shippers of Canada, and for this purpose they had our friend Mr. Preston go over to the Old Country to investigate and report. But the government did not wait for his report. They made a bargain with Sir William Petersen some weeks or months before Mr. Preston submitted his report, trusting that what it contained would justify their action. But we now find that not one single member of the government has treated the Preston report as being reliable. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low) in introducing the bill quoted from various files of the department showing that investigations had been made in the past, and he relied largely on an 'investigation made by the committee on Agricultural Conditions of a few years ago; but not for one moment did he say that he pinned his faith to the Preston report.
I think, Mr. Speaker, the country is entitled to a thorough investigation before it is committed to an expenditure of many millions of dollars. This experiment will be costly to us. Further, it can have no real value in defeating the combine, if there is one;

on the other hand it may injure our trade very materially. For instance, if there is a combine, the shipping companies forming it might say; We will withdraw our ships from the St. Lawrence for one week. What would the result be? We would have a repetition of the situation on the Great Lakes two years ago, when this government undertook to regulate lake shipping rates, and had ultimately to beg United States vessel owners to come to their rescue and violate the law which had been enacted at the instance of the government itself.
It is significant that if there has been a combine on the Atlantic, the government has actually been a member of that combine, until the last few days at least; so have been the Shipping Board of the United States and the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship service. And yet we have no evidence that the government made anything out of the operation of the merchant marine even under the combine. Then again, the government has for two years had full opportunity to withdraw their ships; indeed, they had before them a recommendation made by a committee of this House headed by the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster), which brought in a report in these words:
The committee desire to bring the facta in this regard to the earnest attention of the House, and to respectfully suggest that the Minister of Railways and Canals should take the matter up with those responsible for the management of the boats, so that the complicity of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine in this combine may be brought to an end immediately.
Yet in spite of this recommendation the government continued to operate the merchant marine in the combination, and the excuse given by the Prime Minister in the present debate was this:
I am told-I speak subject to correction-that one of the operations of this combine is, that if any line withdraws from it it will immediately attempt to undertake to put that line completely out of business.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the only way in which a combination could put one of its member companies out of business would be by reducing freights to an unprofitable point. Therefore, if the government had withdrawn our merchant marine, and the combine had taken the action which the Prime Minister feared, he would have accomplished all he could possibly hope to accomplish if he gets all the good results which he anticipates from this proposal.
Let me point out what the real cost of this subsidy will be to Canada. We are asked to subsidize the Petersen boats to the extent of $1,330,000 per annum. The boats will cost

Ocean Shipping Rates
approximately $600,000 each. In other words, we are paying each year for two of the boats. Or to put it another way, these ten boats are capable at their best of making some eighty voyages, fifty to the St. Lawrence and thirty to the Maritime ports; that is, providing they are at sea and busy every day,-we will give them the benefit of that assumption. But even if we calculate eighty voyages per annum we find that we are paying them a bonus of $16,660 for each voyage. Later I propose to quote the figures given by the Minister of Trade and Commerce as to the actual cost of operating these boats, but for the present I may say that we will be paying about 62 per cent of the total cost of operation.
Now, the Minister of Trade and Commerce in speaking on this subject admitted that the Petersen ships were small, having a deadweight tonnage of approximately 9,000 tons, and he said that although they were small they were effective, to prove which statement he pointed out that the Canadian White Star line had six vessels, the largest one of a gross tonnage of 6,000 tons, which had been operating for many years in the Canadian service quite satisfactorily and were one of the chief factors in our export trade. One of these boats was built as long ago as 1898. and the others were built previous to 1900. He also pointed out that the Anchor-Donaldson line also had six boats in the Canadian service, the largest having a tonnage of only 5,300 gross tons, and that they had been operating successfully; that the Cunard line had six boats, the largest being approximately of 5,600 tons gross tonnage; that the Withy-Fumess line had three, and the Head line six, all of about the same tonnage, 5,000 tons gross; the Manchester line had a large number and also the Cairn line. In each and all of these services the boats are smaller in tonnage, older, and less modem in every way than the twenty-six or twenty-eight vessels of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. The boats of the merchant marine are more up-to-date and better in every respect than the boats enumerated in Hansard, which were said to be so successful in their operations by the Minister of Trade and Commerce. The boats of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine also have a greater speed than the majority of the boats mentioned by the Minister of Trade and Commerce,-they have greater horse power and in every way are better equipped. I think it has been a set purpose on the part of the government to throw mud at the Canadian Government Merchant Marine simply
because the vessels happened to be built by the Union government. As a matter of fact, these boats cost too much; there is no question about that. But let us remember that they were not built to make money but were built solely because there was an absolute necessity for additional shipping at the time they were first put into operation.


Mr. CARROLL:: And the cost seems too
high at the present day.


James Arthurs: Certainly. Indeed, I
think we are foolish to retain this book value against the ships; we should write them down to modem cost and see how we can get along in that event. As I was going to remark, however, it seems to be the policy of the government and of those ministers particularly who have spoken on the subject to throw mud at the merchant marine. I do not want to take up much of the time of the House discussing the speech of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell); I do not usually tilt at windmills. Referring to the merchant marine, however, he said that the objection to these ships was that they were too small for the ocean and too large for the lakes.


William Richard Motherwell: Too large for the
canals.


James Arthurs: W ell, it amounts to the same thing. And the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) went even further; in so many words, he said they were no good. The Prime Minister expressed that opinion during the course of the speech delivered by the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark). Now, I have discussed this matter with men who have a greater knowledge of maritime affairs than I have, and I find that the universal opinion is that, while the boats of the merchant marine are not the best in the world, they are fully equal to others of the same tonnage and class, andi that, ilf properly handled, they should be able to give good service. What the ships need is more cargo; that has been their only trouble in the past, and the only reason they are not making money now is that they are not given sufficient cargo to carry. How can we secure that cargo? What chance have our boats against the boats of the combine or of any other line of steamships which have regularly established offices in foreign countries? The very fact that this government kept them in the combine was injurious to the merchant marine, because naturally these agents had affiliations throughout the country and directed trade to the boats with which they had had dealings for many years. The only way our merchant
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marine could have succeeded; the only way it can succeed now, would be to give some inducement to the public to patronize the vessels. If the government would give a lower rate, nfaking a ten per cent reduction in freight rates as compared with the other lines, the merchant marine ships would be filled with cargo. Is it not better to have a steamer filled at ninety cents than half-filled at a dollar? The management is the same, the overhead is the same; and the only way to make the marine a success is to see that it is properly represented abroad and to give a freight rate that will induce shippers to patronize it.
Not satisfied with keeping our boats in the combine, if there is a combine, the government went further. I would refer hon. gentlemen to a sentence or two quoted by the Minister of Trade and Commerce in his speech on this subject, which will be found at page 717 of Hansard. The statement he quoted is as follows:
I feel that the steamship companies, including the Canadian merchant marine, are only preventing trade coming to them by demanding such exorbitant freight rates, and I sometimes think that the Canadian merchant marine are the worst sinners of the lot.
The correspondent goes on to give instances in which he had found it cheaper to ship by other lines rather than by our own boats.
I shall say a few words now regarding the contract itself. The country is obligated to pay at the rate of 816,600 per voyage regardless of the number of ships operated. If Petersen puts on one ship he gets a bonus; if he puts on ten ships he gets ten times as much; and it is not necessary for him to make any particular number of voyages per month or in a year. Sir William Petersen may make three or four voyages per year and he gets the same bonus;. so that instead of $16,000 odd per voyage the amount he will get will be double or treble that sum. Let us take it on the other basis. Sir William Petersen invests a certain sum of money; at the end of ten years he has a full return for every cent of principal and interest invested and has $6,000,000 over and above 4 p.m. that. And he has his ships entirely free of debt. There can be no question therefore about the advisability of the contract from Sir William Petersen's point of view; I should imagine that he and his associates would be most anxious to have it go through. So far as the people of the country are concerned, however, I can see no possible reason why they should be compelled to make a gift of that kind to him. There is absolutely no reason for it.

Now a word as to the fixing of rates. We were told, I think by the Minister of Agriculture, that the government would fix all rates; and the Prime Minister informed us that the government would select certain commodities. I do not care which horn of the dilemma they take, whether they decide to reduce the rates on all commodities or to reduce them on certain articles only, what I want to know is: how will the government reduce the rates at all or how will they find out on what commodities they should be reduced? As a matter of fact, it would be utterly impossible to lower rates by a certain percentage pro rata throughout; and we have no means of knowing whether the rates are profitable or unprofitable so far as the shipping companies are concerned. The government themselves do not know whether or not certain of the main articles of export come under the combine at all; they do not know to-day. There is not a man who has stood up in this House who will either affirm or deny that wheat, one of our principal articles, is free from the combination. I myself do not know; it is not my place particularly to know; but it would be my place to find out before making a treaty of this kind.
Before closing I want to re-affirm what I said before, that it is most desirable that the merchant marine should be put into open competition with the combine, if there is one, and that we should give the ships a fair chance to make money, and see whether by that means we cannot accomplish the end which is sought by the present legislation. I would point out again that the merchant marine is charged against the people at the rate of approximately $200 a ton, while the real value to-day is probably one-quarter of that. The people are charged with five per cent depreciation on that inflated value, and they are charged also five and one-half per cent interest not only on the money invested but on all back deficits. So that every time they go in the hole the interest is added on to the succeeding year. Now, it is not possible as a business venture to get along that way. There is not a business man either in this House or in the country who after the war did not write down his assets to an ordinary commercial value; if he did not he went out of .business, he could not carry on. Why should we not do the same in the case of the merchant marine? I have no mud to throw at any scheme; I have no brief for the Canadian merchant marine; but I do think that we should give it a decent chance to live and see whether we cannot accomplish results.

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Mr. HERBERT MARLER (St. Lawrence-St. George):: Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention, for various reasons which it is unnecessary to relate to this House, to take part in this debate just at the moment; I had determined to wait until the report of the special committee to be appointed to consider this matter had been brought down. But the question is of such vital and far-reaching importance to the country as a whole that I do not think I should hesitate to state my view that the bill to be based on this resolution should be sent to the committee and there considered.
In the course of discussion in this House, particularly in the heat of debate, we are apt to lose sight of the most important point under consideration, either by simply sidetracking it or by submerging it in some other idea. In this debate the Petersen contract is not the main point under consideration; it is but an incident, a proposal which may or may not be ratified by the committee to which it is to be referred. To me the main point we have to consider, Mr. Speaker, is the advisability, indeed, the vital necessity, of having lower transportation rates in this country, rates from point of production to point of consumption which will enable those who grow things, and who raise things, and who manufacture things, to obtain reasonably profitable results. As to whether the Petersen contract is the proper method of bringing about that result, that is a question. There may be other ways of bringing it about; indeed, other methods may be suggested to the special committee which will deal with the matter. But what possible objection can there be to submitting the bill containing this contract to a committee which will inquire into the proper ways and means of bringing about a lowering of transportation rates? That is the attitude I take in regard to this measure.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the hon member permit me? Can he show me anything in this resolution which, if adopted, will carry this measure to a committee? Secondly, if my hon. friend supports this resolution is he not, on the face of it, approving the Petersen contract?


Herbert Meredith Marler: My hon. friend's questions are perfectly proper, and I am obliged to him for putting them. It is quite true that there is nothing in this resolution which provides that the bill shall be submitted to a committee. But when he presented the resolution the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low), at the outset of his remarks, pointed out that the bill would be submitted to a special committee. That, therefore, is clearly and distinctly stated, and I think it is fair in our parliamentary procedure to take the word of a minister who makes an assertion of that kind to the House. My hon. friend asks me also, if in adopting the resolution containing the contract we do not ratify the contract itself. I say to that, no; because the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has distinctly stated-I will quote his remarks later-that we shall be at liberty to bring the contract back into the House with such corrections, additions and amendments for the consideration of the government as the committee may think proper. But perhaps I will answer my hon. friend a little more fully later on, if he will forgive me in the meantime.


William Charles Good: May I ask a question just in
that connection? Did not the Prime Minister say, at the same time, that if 'Sir William Petersen would not agree to any of the modifications suggested by the committee the government would stand by the contract as it is?


Herbert Meredith Marler: No, I cannot understand
it in that way. But if my hon. friend also will forgive me-


William Charles Good: I hope I am wrong.


Herbert Meredith Marler: -I intend to take that
matter up specifically in the course of my remarks. But by way of partly answering my hon. friend's question, I may say that I am supporting this measure on the understanding that it is to be sent to a committee. The main attitude I take is the attitude I have previously taken in this House and out of it-I emphasized that view particularly in an address before the Canadian Club in the city of Montreal on the fifteenth of December last-and I intend to adhere to it, namely, that it is absolutely necessary if we are to have profitable production in this country that we have such transportation rates as will enable that production to go to the markets of the world. So that, if I may repeat myself, I view the resolution now before the House as a means of enabling us to discuss the transportation structure so far as ocean freight rates are concerned, and I hope at a later day we shall have an opportunity of discussing the question of lower rates on land.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), in his very proper question, suggests that if we approve this resolution we approve the contract. I do not think so,
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because the Prime Minister stated1 in his speech two days ago that he concurred) in. the suggestion of the Minister of Trade and Commerce that this contract be referred to a special committee which should go thoroughly into all matters connected therewith. Now take the converse of the argument:	Suppose
sufficient members vote against the resolution to negative it, will the opportunity that we are all looking forward to, that of discussing the question of ocean freight rates, which beyond doubt are tied up with land transportation rates-will that opportunity be realized? We shall be enabled in the committee, with this contract before us as a basis of discussion, to hear witnesses and get all the information which it is necessary to have on the subject? I ask again, Shall we have the same opportunity of discussing the great question of transportation if the measure now before the House is not referred to a committee? To me that is an extremely important point. I say quite frankly that I want to hear all sides of this question before making up my mind, but I do not want there to be taken away from me the opportunity of hearing the various ship owners and other transportation dxpeirts who will be called before the committee, and thereby enlighten me and enlighten the House on a subject which I think is one of the most difficult in the whole Dominion of Canada.


Mr. KENNEDY (Edmonton):: Could not
that object be attained without voting on this resolution at all?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Yes, and that was the contention of my hon. friend from Bow River (Mr. Garland) last night in a most excellent speech. I think his idea was most excellent in every way, and I frankly say before the House I would very much prefer adopting the manner he suggested last night. But that is not the point at the present moment, if I may say so to my hon. friend. I am not at liberty, and my hon. friend from Bow River is not at liberty, to put that method of procedure before the House and to have it carried through the House. As a matter of fact, the procedure which he suggested he frankly admitted could not be brought before the House and carried through the House. Therefore I say the next best thing to do is to accept the procedure, accept the tools, which are now before the House, so as to enable us to have this measure brought before a committee and there discussed in the fullest possible way.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: Will not
my hon. friend also state to the House that

the government has full power to put into force the suggestion which I offered?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Yes, I think my hon.
friend is quite right in that respect.


Mr. STANSELL:: I do not wish to interrupt, but there is a point of great importance which I should like cleared up. If this matter is referred. to a special committee, and in their wisdom they recommend certain changes in some of the clauses of the contract, the contract if these recommendations were adopted would not, of course, be in its present form. Would it then be in order to go to Sir William Petersen for another contract? In other words, what would be the effect on the contract itself of adopting the changes recommended by the committee?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Changes cannot be made
in a contract without the consent of both parties; that is perfectly clear. If the contract. comes back from the committee with changes in it which the government will not accept, or which Sir William Petersen will not accept, then the situation is again open for discussion on the floor of this House, and I am waiting for that situation. I admit frankly in answer to the question of my hon. friend that I am not doubting the good faith of the government as shown on the floor of this House in submitting this selfsame contract to a committee. In the discussion, responsible ministers of the crown have stated that if any changes are made in the present contract, if the spirit of the contract is not to be carried out, then the whole matter is open for discussion again; and I shall reserve my own attitude and my vote for that position, when the matter comes back again from the committee.


Mr. BOYS:: Does my hon. friend say that
if changes are made in the committee which are not acceptable to Sir William Petersen, the matter again returns to the House for further discussion?


Herbert Meredith Marler: No.


William Alves Boys: Surely if the government do
not accept the changes made, that puts an end to it finally.


Herbert Meredith Marler: The report of the committee has to come back to the House.


William Alves Boys: Perhaps I misunderstood my
hon. friend. I thought he stated at first that if the committee made changes which were not acceptable either to the government or Sir William Petersen that ended it. Then it seemed afterwards that he said the matter would come back again for further discussion

before the committee. What I submit is that if Sir William Petersen will not accept the changes made, that puts an end to the whcfle matter.


Herbert Meredith Marler: That puts an end to the contract, but it does not put an end to further discussion before this House. The report of the committee must certainly be discussed in this House: there is no other place for the committee to report to but this House which has constituted it.


William Alves Boys: I suppose my hon. friend will agree that the discussion would be futile, because if Sir William Petersen iwiill not accept the changes, the contract is at an end.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not necessarily so. Let me put it to my hon. friend in this way- and I think he will acknowledge the open and non-partisan manner in which I am debating this point. Supposing changes are made by the committee, and that Sir William Petersen is not willing to accept those changes. Then without a doubt the contract would certainly not be the same contract, and consequently there would have to be another contract entirely. But what I claim is this, that all this discussion in the committee, and all the evidence that we shall have before us as regards ocean freight rates, cannot do else than enlighten our minds very much upon the whole situation, and perhaps enable that committee to suggest to the government some means, which may or may not be acceptable, but which in the committee's opinion will go to the root of what I claim is one of the most vital and one of the most serious problems with which this country has to deal.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Then why should not this matter be referred to this investigating committee prior to the confirmation by this House of this contract?


Herbert Meredith Marler: I answered that question in reply to my hon. friend from Bow River a few moments ago.


Henry Herbert Stevens: No.


Herbert Meredith Marler: "1 es, I did, but I will
answer it to my hon. friend. There is no reason in my opinion why it should not be so submitted, and I would prefer to see it so submitted myself. I think my hon. friend cannot doubt the straightness of that answer.


William Charles Good: Does my hon. friend think that in the event of the committee voting against the contract, the government would be willing, in view of all the evidence submitted before the committee, to consider some other method of controlling rates?
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Herbert Meredith Marler: I am not speaking for the government in any way. The government may not look on me as a very good adviser in certain matters, as my hon. friend knows. But I would be extremely surprised if that committee brought forward some other means for coping with this situation and the government did not accept what was brought forward by such a committee. I would, in fact, be very disappointed indeed if the government did not.
But let me again say to my hon. friend from Brant (Mr. Good) and to other hon. members that the reason I am supporting this means of getting the matter before the committee, in the absenoe of other means of getting it there, is so that this whole transportation question can be open and we can have people before the committee who know their business, and who can tell us what the situation is; and then we will be in a position to judge, not as men without knowledge, but as men with all the possible knowledge that can be placed before us, and therebj' be in a position to cope with what I consider, and what I believe most hon. members consider to be a serious and vital problem in this country.
But there is more than that. These steamship companies have been reprimanded. They have been questioned. It has been stated that a combine of the most serious nature exists. It has been stated that they have been killing trade, and many other statements of that description have been made. These steamship men will have an opportunity of appearing before that committee and of justifying their charges, if they claim they can be justified; and if they are not justified in charging these rates, we will perhaps be able to place before these steamship men and other witnesses appearing before the committee certain means whereby not only the country but the steamship companies can be assisted, and be allowed to go on with their business in a just and reasonable way.
Let me make it quite clear, Mr. Speaker, that my intention in voting for this resolution is to ventilate the situation and be seized of all the possible intricacies of transportation rates, and so be in a position to advise my constituents as to what should be done in the interests of the country as a whole. That is the position which I have already taken in the city of Montreal, and it is the position which I intend to adhere to. I want the information and proof placed before me so that I can substantiate in every just and reasonable way the position which I have already taken. If this resolution to me meant the depriving of any company or

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any individual of any right that they were reasonably and properly entitled to exercise in the course of their business, I doubt very much whether I would support it, but I do not think it will have that effect.
Let me for a moment remind hon. gentlemen in the briefest possible terms of what I said in the debate on the Address. At that time after considerable study and, I think, with correctness, I analyzed to t'he best of my ability the financial situation of the Dominion, and the conclusion which I then reached on the figures submitted-which I in no way intend to re-submit to-day-was that until our railways could be made to pay we would have no chance in the world of reducing the taxation which the country needs in the very worst possible way. In order to make our railways pay, I quoted the old and oft repeated phrase, that we had to have more people in this country. But I added that we could not retain our present population, much less could we expect to get newcomers, unless those who were here could profitably live by means of their production.
I stated at that time in the most positive terms that any immigration policy would fail, no matter how wisely conceived and how efficiently carried out, unless the immigrants brought here could profitably produce and live in reasonable comfort. Otherwise they would not stay, and consequently we would not only lose our population but it would be impossible to secure others to take their place, and any money spent on immigration would therefore be wasted. Those opinions I stated again in the city of Montreal on the fifteenth of December last, and I repeat them to-day.
Following down the idea underlying those opinions, Mr. Speaker, can you tell me how we are to have profitable production in certain sections of the Dominion unless we have reasonable transportation rates? How can we, looking at the map of Canada and realizing the way our population is scattered over such a far-flung area-how can we, I say, expect those people to be successful unless they have reasonable transportation rates to get their products to the point where they are to be marketed? I said then that it was not a question to me of Crowsnest pass rates, nor, I may add, of combine rates; to me the question is that these rates, both ocean and rail, must be fixed in such a way as to enable the products of the country to Teach their market so they can compete with like products from other countries. Further, I said-and I have repeated it in my own constituency-that

perhaps the railways and the steamship companies could not give such rates and continue in operation. I believe that these transportation companies should be allowed to live, and I do not think any fair-minded man would deny that they should have sufficient remuneration for the services they have to sell. But if the transportation companies cannot give us the low rates I have in mind, and continue in operation, then some other means will have to be found to bring down transportation rates to a point that will enable our products to reach their market at a profit to their producers.
That brings me, it is true, to the question of subsidies. Hon. gentlemen need not doubt my opinion in this regard. I do not think subsidies are economic in many ways, but we have to take into consideration not what perhaps at the moment is the most economic way. As a matter of fact we have not an economic country to develop. Our natural market for many of our products of the west is a few miles to the south; that is the natural market for much of our Alberta coal and other products of the west. But can we get that market? No. Therefore we have to haul those commodities across the continent in a most uneconomical way and then transport them across the ocean in order to reach their point of market. And therefore when we talk about subsidies, although they may be uneconomic, still they are necessary, I claim, in order to bring transportation rates down to a basis sufficiently low to take our products to the final destination where they can be marketed. It is quite true that it may be possible to do without subsidies to some extent, to so balance up our transportation rates both by land and by water that certain commodities will be made to bear a little heavier rate and allow other basic commodities a necessarily lower rate. That is what I want to find out, and this special committee will enlighten me because transportation experts will appear and tell us whether it is possible or not to make transportation rates on the basis I have suggested.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Would not the hon. gentleman's purpose be equally well accomplished if there was a subsidy paid to the farmers instead of to the railways?


Herbert Meredith Marler: My hon. friend from Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) is absolutely right in that respect, and I am very glad indeed that he has mentioned the point to me. I was going to deal with it later on, but I will take it up now. The question which always has arisen in my mind is whether from

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point of production to point of consumption any lowering of transportation rates might not be entirely lost and the actual producer not reap any benefit at all. I think that is the point my hon. friend raises. There is no question that our system of distribution is one of the most expensive in the world. To my way of thinking there is no question that the farmer produces at a low rate and sells at a low rate, and yet when you come to the retail distribution the consumer is charged an enormous rate. Where does the spread go?
I do not know. Likewise in the question of transportation, if a rate is made on cattle or some such other commodity, I am not so sure that the lowering of that rate will go as I should like to see it go, to the producer. And I for one agree with my hon. friend from Centre Winnipeg that it would be a great deal better if possible, and it would hit the situation right at the initiation and at the point of production, to say to the cattle producer: If you ship a hundred head of cattle we will see that so much per head is taken off your transportation rates. And we could go to the transportation companies and make a reasonable basic agreement with them.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: Suppose
we go in for a somewhat comprehensive system of subsidies, that will mean additional taxation.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Oh, yes.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: Unless we
solve the problem of the incidence of taxation, you may just be taxing the people who get the subsidy the full amount of the subsidy in order to pay it.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Ocean Shipping Rates

fore the House, or before the present debate took place at all. I will read some of the remarks which my right hon. friend made at that time. He first of all asked for leave to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, a proceeding which, as hon. gentlemen are very well aware, is, to say the least of it, a very unusual proceeding, a proceeding which predicates at least that there is a very important matter to bring before the government, one which should not be put off for two or three years, but which is to be taken up at once. In moving that adjournment he-
Asked for leave to move the adjournment cf the House, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the rapid and alarming increase in rates on the north Atlantic and the duty of the government in relation thereto.
Now I am not assuming the attitude of any partisan in so far as the matter of steamship companies is concerned. I am not at this moment criticizing their rates and I am not criticizing their means of procedure, and I am not saying that the Petersen contract as submitted to the House in the form it now stands is the most satisfactory manner of solving this problem, but what I say is that if in 1913 this matter was one of great urgency, it is far more urgent now, because the difficulty of the situation in this country has increased more and more in the way of taxation and expenditure, by reason of the fact that we have acquired many miles of railways that we must feed, which means that the question of profitable production and profitable markets is far more important now than it was in 1913. I do not think anybody can deny that assertion. Following on in that speech my hon. friend said:
Whatever may be said upon that score, there can be no question that the subject is one of great and increasing importance.	[DOT]
Further on he says:
With the exception of the United States of America, no country is so vitally interested in ocean rates on the north Atlantic as is the Dominion of Canada. We import very largely from the United Kingdom; we sell a great part of our surplus products to the United Kingdom. On the reasonable level-
I ask hon. gentlemen to mark these words. -on the reasonable level of ocean rates depends to an enormous extent the profits from that trade, and consequently depends to an enormous extent the prosperity of this country.
Let me repeat to my hon. friends opposite that I am not quoting the right hon. leader of the opposition in any contentious or malignant manneT, or with any idea of making party conflict or with any party idea.. I quote these opinions because I respect them.

I believe these opinions at that time were well considered. I believe at the present time we have to consider precisely the same questions which were brought up in this debate in 1913; that we have to understand them and to settle them; that we must not take the attitude in a childish way that there are in this country certain people, owners of steamships who are not doing right; but we must ask those owners of steamships to come before this committee, as they will come, and state their case in fairness and equity to this committee, so that we, as representatives of the people of Canada, can try, if possible, to make rates which will be fair to them and fair to us also. Further on, my right hon. friend who now leads the opposition said, also in clear terms:
Whatever may be the difficulties of the solution, its magnitude will demand that it be attempted.
Then he gives a statement of rates. Further on, in the closing remarks of his address, he stated that at that time he thought a monopoly existed, and stated also in very clear and precise terms that he thought the question of monopoly should be looked into. He stated this not in arrogant or unreasonable terms, but in the same terms as I am speaking in this House to-day, that we need, desire and want information on this subject before we enter into any new contract, and also with the object in view that we shall attempt to make these rates, if possible, what they should be.
Curiously enough, the same attitude was taken in that debate by my friends in the Conservative patty. Hon. George Perley, now Sir George Perley, was Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce in those days. The debate of which I speak was most protracted, but my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen), who at that time was a simple private member, used these words which are most significant and which I share in every respect:
At all events, the purpose of my bringing this discussion up is to draw the attention of the people of this country through this parliament to the great increase that has taken place, to call attention to the serious aspect of this matter in relation to our prosperity and to enlist behind the government the active co-operation and sympathy of the Canadian people in whatever steps they may see fit to take in order to bring about a betterment of conditions.
That is the stand which I take on the floor of this House to-day. I want to enlist the sympathy of all members of all parties in this House in a non-partisan movement, if it is possible to make such a movement, in order to investigate and to inquire into this situation, to see if it exists, and if it does exist-, to see if we cannot better it. No hon. gentleman can deny the fairness of that

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attitude. No one in the city of Montreal, not even my hon. friends who are in the steamship business, can deny the fairness of that attitude. Nobody can meet me in my constituency and say that I want to do anybody any harm, or that I am trying to do something that is not right. All I say is, using again the words of my right hon. friend: Let all the people in Canada clarify their views and come forward and see if this situation cannot be bettered for the general good of the whole country. What does this mean-the general good of the whole country? What is the use of us in the city of Montreal stating that we there shall not have an investigation in order to ascertain whether this is right or wrong? Is the welfare of the city of Montreal not bound up with the welfare of the whole country? Some people do not think so.


Mr. McMASTER:: They are ignorant, if
they do not.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Well, some people do not
think so. Some people question anything said against a certain policy which may be here or a certain policy which may be there. I am not one of those who say that any one fixed policy is good for the whole country. What I say is that this whole country has to move forward as one country and we must develop it in the fairest and most reasonable way with a view to all its interests.
But continuing this discussion, as I stated a moment ago, the debate of the 5th May, 1913, took a considerable time. At that time Sir George Perley was Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce, and subsequently he was Canadian High Commissioner. What were his words in 1913? What did he think of the attitude of my right hon. friend who at that time was a private member and who brought this matter before the House? Did he oppose it? Not at all. These were the words Sir George Perley used, and the words were well used in reference to the statement made by my right hon. friend:
I think the thanks of this House are due to the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) for bringing up this question in such a fair and nonpartisan way.
That is the same way that I speak in this House to-day-in a fair and non-partisan way. That is why I have no hesitation in asking every hon. gentleman in this House to view this great question in a fair and non-partisan way, so that we can discuss it and understand exactly what the situation is. Sir George Perley continues:
87i
I believe this is one of the most important problems that we have to face in Canada to-day, the question of ocean rates on our produce going to the Old Country. Western members have chiefly spoken on the question of ocean rates, and I am rather sorry the discussion was not confined to that particular phase of the transportation problem.
Then he goes on:
The transportation problem is one of the greatest problems, perhaps the greatest, that we have to face in Canada.
Mark these words, my hon. friends. I have quoted them time .and time again. They contain my views, for what my views may be worth, but they are words we should all mark well. Sir George Perley continues:
We have built great canals, we have spent money on our railways and we have taken the step of providing a railway commission to regulate rates, a commission of which I think we are all justly proud.
He goes on to say that the commission is performing its duty efficiently. But what I want to draw to the attention of hon. members is this: We have our railway system, our canal system, our highway system. What good is all the money that has been spent on all these systems going to be unless we have people in Canada to use these systems? How are we going to keep people in this, country and put them on the farms or anywhere else, unless their production is profit-' able? No hon. member, looking at a map of this Dominion, can say that the question of transportation, particularly the bridging and going across of that vast expanse of rock that runs west of Sudbury for some hundreds of miles, with the geographical problems we have before us, can be considered in the same way that the question of transportation is considered in the United States which has a large intermediate market before the products of that country reach the seaboard. We have not that market; we cannot stop at the seaboard; our produce has to go over the ocean before it reaches its market, and that is the question we have to consider now.
In the same debate Sir Robert Borden, who was then Mr. Borden and who if I mistake not, was Prime Minister, also emphasized previously the same point. These were the closing words of his remarks:
A country such as this, which has a great export trade in agricultural products, particularly in cereals, notably in wheat and in flour, is undoubtedly deeply interested in the establishing of reasonable freight rates, and no matter could more worthily engage the attention of parliament than the bringing about of any legislation which might tend to remove any injustice or hardship in this regard that may have been created in the past or that may exist at present.
So I say, I gather a great deal of encouragement from that particular debate.
Ocean Shipping Rates

I think that what was stated in, that debate was sound common sense, and that is precisely what I hope will happen in view of this bill going before a committee.
Let me now take up another point, and I again quote my right hon. friend who leads the opposition (Mr. Meighen). I am sorry he is not in his seat because I should like him to hear it. He has a resolution on the order paper at the present time, the last paragraph of which reads:
That to enable the products of the western and Maritime provinces to reach more readily the markets so developed-


Henry Herbert Stevens: Order.


Hewitt Bostock: The hon. member may
not quote a motion of which notice has been given and which appears on the order paper,-


Herbert Meredith Marler: I apologize, Mr. Speaker.


Hewitt Bostock: -although I must say that the Prime Minister the other day quoted a part of that same motion.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I would rise to a point of order simply because my leader (Mr. Meighen) is not here, and even if he were present he could not discuss the motion. So that if the hon. member quoted it he would have an advantage which would be wholly unfair.


Hewitt Bostock: The hon. member was no doubt out of order.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My hon. friend is perfectly right and I take no exception whatever to his point of order. I may refer indirectly, however, if that is in order, to certain views as expressed in a particular resolution now on the order paper, which declares-


Henry Herbert Stevens: Order. I do not wish to
appear captious, but it is a well-established rule that a motion on the order paper may not be discussed by an hon. member while he is speaking to some other subject before the House. The reason for my objection is obvious. The right 'hon. gentleman in whose name the motion in this instance stands is absolutely precluded from discussing its subject matter himself; he cannot even reply to the hon. member who raises it. The situation is therefore clearly unfair.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I myself stated in the
city of Montreal on December 15 that, in order to allow the products of the west and of the Maritime provinces to reach their markets profitably, transportation rates should be so fixed, if necessary, as to have them borne in part by the country as a whole. That

opinion which I expressed at that time has been repeated by others; it has been commented on in this House by the Prime Minister and it has been repeated also in the daily press. I would ask this question: What is the use of levelling transportation rates on land if we leave the rates up in the air at the end of the land? Why not continue the levelling process so that the products may be subject to a reduced rate on board 5 p.m. ship until they finally reach their market? It seems to me that this line of argument is reasonable; and as I suggested it in the city of Montreal, and as others have suggested the same thing elsewhere, I think it would be futile for me or any other gentleman who has taken that view to come before the House and say, "Yes, we should level transportation rates on land to a certain figure and if necessary have the whole country bear the cost; but we must not carry that principle further and also attempt to have our ocean rate structure made in such a way as to be compatible with land rates in order that the same products shipped from the same place, in the prairie section of the country for example, might reach Liverpool, Dundee, Aberdeen or any other port on the same equitable basis." I do not think that such an attitude is rational. In order to establish some parity between land and ocean rates the government has brought down, as a basis for discussion, a certain contract made between it and Sir William Petersen. That contract is at present before parliament in the shape of a resolution and will later be embodied in a bill.
But mark this:	the contract is subject to
ratification by parliament. There is a special clause in the agreement providing that it shall be ratified, and until it is so ratified it does not become a contract at all. The government have not come forward in any unreasonable attitude. They do not say: "Here is a contract, take it or leave it. We do not care what members on this side or opposite may think about it; we do not care what their attitude may be. We have made the contract and it is for you to take it or leave it; but you shall have nothing more whatever to say about it and nothing further to do with it." From the very initiation of this debate the government declared that the contract would be submitted to a special committee for consideration and that that committee would have every means of thoroughly examining into the agreement to decide whether it was good or bad. That statement was repeated by the Prime Minister in his address the other day. Exception has been taken to

Ocean Shipping Rates
that stand on the part of the government as one that is not characteristic of other parliaments; it is said that other contracts having been entered into by a government, and having been signed and sealed, they have simply been submitted to parliament to be accepted or rejected as parliament might see fit. That is not the attitude of the government in the present instance. And what is the difference? In those days when other contracts were ratified the questions involved were entirely different from the one under consideration now. It was not then a matter of building up a general scheme of transportation rates; it was not a matter of production on a large scale; it was not a matter in which the profitable livelihood of the people at large was at stake.	All these things are vitally involved in the present contract and therefore it is only fitting that the government should afford parliament, through a special committee, an opportunity of studying the contract from every point of view and of offering such amendments as may suggest themselves. And I am free to admit that had the contract been brought down in such a way as to preclude discussion, had I been asked to accept a grave situation of this kind without the fullest means of investigation, I should have hesitated before committing myself. But that is not the case, and that has been made perfectly clear, to me at least, in the Prime Minister's statements. The Prime Minister declared, at page 1212 of Hansard:
Whether the method which the government is taking to control ocean rates may be effective or not is a subject which, I think, admits of debate and which should be discussed fully and carefully.
He then points out what the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low) had said.
The agreement which the government has made with Sir William Petersen with respect to placing on the Atlantic the ten ships mentioned, will be sent to a special committee of this House, together with the bill in which it is included, for full consideration, and that hon. members will have the opportunity afforded by such a select committee to weigh carefully all sides of that agreement, and to pass upon it, only after they have thoroughly considered it.
These words of the Prime Minister are, I think, of considerable weight. But there is more than that. I quote from page 1213:
The point I wish to make clear at the moment is that the government was careful in presenting this resolution to indicate at the outset that the intention was that, once the resolution was carried and the bill introduced and given second reading, it would be referred to a select committee of the House on which there would be representatives of the different parties in parliament, and that such committee would have all the powers which belong to a select committee of parliament, to investigate and consider the merits of the particular proposition submitted.
And further on the Prime Minister says:
I want to make that clear because I have noticed in the course of the debate that some hon. members have felt some hesitancy about supporting the resolution as introduced, fearing that they were committing themselves in some way to the specific terms of the contract.
To revert to what I said at the commencement of my remarks: Here is a contract submitted by this government as a basis for discussion, to be referred to a special committee so that we as a whole can come to a decision whether the contract is a wise and fair bargain for this country to enter into.
There is another point I want to take up, and it is a point which more or less concerns myself and my own constituency. I do not take it up for that purpose, because I say quite frankly I believe that the question of transportation rates should be solved and must be solved. But I want to make this point also clear: Many of my friends are heads of steamship companies. I respect them; I am sure they are honourable men in every way and I believe they are doing the best they can in their own way to develop this country. I for one would not like to see anything done which would deprive them of what is their fair and just due. Does this contract deprive any steamship company or any persons operating steamships of what is their fair and just due? I do not think it does, because provision is made in this contract for the making of a similar arrangement with other companies. Further than that, the Prime Minister in his address on the seventeenth instant, page 1215 of Hansard, says:
And may I say here, Mr. Speaker, that the government has made it known from the outset that it was prepared to make a similar contract with any shipping company in this country that was prepared to give it like terms. The government to-day is prepared to give the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company and other steamship companies doing business out of Canadian ports, the opportunity of entering into a contract along identical lines with the Petersen contract, if they are prepared to do the same as Sir William Petersen is prepared to do.
That is perfectly clear. If any steamship company, learning how the rates are to be made under this Petersen contract, come before this committee and offer to do the same thing, a like contract may be made with them. It may be urged by some of the steamship companies that the government will establish rates which are unfair, but I do not think that is the point in question. Anyone who is accustomed to reading contracts and acts of parliament will know that matters of this description have to be put in more or less general terms, and when the government invites other steamship companies to come forward and agree to a similar
Ocean Shipping Rates

arrangement, that does not mean that the government intends to give them anything other than a fair deal. I think my hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) will confirm that.


Mr. COOTE:: Does the hon. member think this country could' afford to pay this subsidy in respect to every ship that would be needed to handle our traffic on the north Atlantic?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Yes, if it increases profitable production. We will have to go about it in this way in order to reach our markets more cheaply.


Arthur Meighen: Can the hon. member
give us an estimate of what the annual subsidy would be?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Under these conditions?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.


Herbert Meredith Marler: No, I cannot do that. I
can tell my hon. friend a great deal but I cannot tell him just that. Can he give it?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, I think so. It
would be just about $34,000,000 per year.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I cannot question my right hon. friend's figures, but that $34,000,000 would go to increase the traffic on our railways and would get less and less on that account.


Arthur Meighen: I have not seen so great faith!


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not at all. There is nothing I would like better than to debate that point with my right hon. friend. The right hon. gentleman has been out of the chamber this afternoon but I would point out to him -in fact, I made the assertion in the city of Montreal-that if our railways are to pay we must have greater traffic on them; the only way to get greater traffic on them is to get profitable production; and the only way to get profitable production is to have more people. How can it be denied, having regard to our geographical situation and our scattered population, that we must even, if necessary, subsidize certain basic industries for the purpose of promoting them until our population increases to such an extent that traffic will be given to our railways and our railway deficits gradually eliminated? I can see no other way of doing it.


Arthur Meighen: Is the steamship business a basic industry?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Now, my hon. friend is
not fair.


Arthur Meighen: That is what we are
subsidizing here.
fMr. Marler.]


Herbert Meredith Marler: No, no; that is not a
fair attitude to take. The steamship industry, my right hon. friend knows, is simply a transportation agency. I am not talking about steamship industries; I am talking about the ordinary industries of the country. In order to promote those industries it is necessary to have lower rates. That is a fair statement, and I know my right hon. friend agrees with me in that respect; he does not deny it.


Arthur Meighen: Suppose we start in with a race of subsidies on steamships in order to get to the goal that my hon. friend is seeking, thereby incurring an expenditure of thirty-three or thirty-four millions a year, does my hon. friend not think that other countries will start in the competition with us? And if so, where will we land?


Herbert Meredith Marler: That is not the point at
all. Will my right hon. friend say that it is, advisable to lower land transportation rates unless water transportation rates are lowered at the same time?


Arthur Meighen: I did not get the question.


Herbert Meredith Marler: My right hon. friend has
pronounced himself in the press and otherwise in favour of the advisabdity of lowering certain transportation rates on land, and if necessary-I do not know that it is necessary, but it may be; I am in agreement with him in this respect-if necessary, having those burdens borne by the country at large. The question I put to him is this: What is the advantage of lowering land rates unless the water rates also are brought to a reasonable figure? Are you going to leave the stuff on the wharf at the end of the railway journey and not transport it overseas? Does my hon. friend get my point?


Arthur Meighen: Oh yes, but I never said it would not be advantageous to have water rates lowered; nobody ever argued that in this world that I ever heard of. But there is any amount of land transportation that is interprovincial, and the great purpose of low rates over the long distance is to bring the provinces closer together, rather than to have relation to export. Does my hon. friend not see the point?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Certainly, I see the point
perfectly clearly, but my right hon. friend is absolutely begging his own question. He has stated time and time again in this House that he does not confine the question of lower rates simply to interprovincial traffic. What

Ocean Shipping Rates
is the use of interprovincial traffic anyway? Are you gorng to sell all our cattle from the prairie provinces in the city of Montreal, and all our wheat from the west in the province of Ontario? That is interprovincial.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member
think that interprovincial trade is no good?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not at all.


Arthur Meighen: You asked me what good it was.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I want something a little
better than interprovincial traffic.


Arthur Meighen: So do I.


Herbert Meredith Marler: When my right hon. friend comes to debate another part of this subject I think he will agree with me that transportation rates have got to be lowered over the long haul in such a way as to bring our products to tidewater. That is the only good of lowering transportation rates, and that is not interprovincial.


Arthur Meighen: Both should be lowered.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Now my hon. friend agrees with me; I knew he would sooner or later.


Arthur Meighen: I always did, but you
did not see the point. You only thought you did.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Now we are in agreement on that point. We get the cattle on the wharf at Montreal, the rates in the meantime from Alberta being lowered-we will leave out of the situation just now the manner in which they have been lowered. The cattle are on the wharf at Montreal, subject, remember, to a lowering of rates. Now does my hon. friend say for one moment that we should not attempt in some fair, reasonable and just way to lower the rates on these cattle to Dundee and Aberdeen?


Arthur Meighen: Nobody ever suggested
we should not.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Does my hon. friend deny that it is worth while looking into that?


Arthur Meighen: I never did deny it.


Herbert Meredith Marler: He has denied it by the
amendment before the House. He has tried to throw this discussion out of the House. That is the point I made some time ago, and I am very sorry he was not in the House.


Arthur Meighen: I have been out quite a
while. But would my hon. friend say now, does he favour this contract or does he not? Now, please give me an answer.


Herbert Meredith Marler: That is not the point at
all. If my hon. friend had been here a little while ago he would have heard me quote word for word and letter for letter his address in the debate of the 5th of May, 1913. Now I would recommend most humbly that he-


Arthur Meighen: Why not answer the
question?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Just one moment; I am
answering it. If my right hon. friend compares my remarks in Hansard to-morrow with his own address of the 5th of May, 1913, he will see that I have stated word for word and letter for letter exactly what he stated himself.


Arthur Meighen: I will admit, then, the
hon. member has made a good speech. But will he now be good enough to answer the question I asked?


Herbert Meredith Marler: Most of my speech has
been based on my right hon. friend's address, so it could not be otherwise than good. Answering the question if I approve of the word and letter of the Petersen contract, I approve of having that contract sent to a committee for investigation as a basis for discussion.


Arthur Meighen: That is not the motion.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Why certainly it is. I
wish my hon. friend had been in the House before, because he would then have received a great deal of light on the situation; but unfortunately he did not do me the honour of hearing me repeat his speech of May, 1913, and hear my reasons.


Arthur Meighen: I have not got much light lately from the hon. member.


Andrew Ross McMaster: If the leader of the
opposition had been in his place he would have had some light.


Arthur Meighen: Why? Was the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) speaking?


Andrew Ross McMaster: He was listening attentively.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Mr. Speaker, I think I
have explained pretty clearly the attitude which I take on this measure. I do not think it is necessary for me to continue my remarks any longer, unless my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition desires me to repeat them for his enlightenment, which I shall be glad to do, or unless he has any questions to ask.


Arthur Meighen: I will put another question as soon as I get an answer to the last.
Ocean Shipping Rates


Herbert Meredith Marler: I have answered that question in the course of my remarks, not once, but half a dozen times, and I would commend to my right hon. friend the reading of my remarks very carefully in Hansard to-morrow morning. He will find they are based almost literally on his own remarks of a few years ago. He will probably not be able to recognize them except as being his own.
In conclusion, I have only to repeat that I am desirous of having all the necessary information brought before this committee. We cannot without that committee have any basis for discussion. I had intended to say a few words about the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, not to discuss why it was built or should not have been built, but I would say this to the government: If it is possible to use the merchant marine for this purpose, that suggestion might be very well worth while taking into consideration; but that question also will be taken up before the committee.


George Gibson Coote: Would the hon. member be good enough to inform the House how in his opinion the money for this subsidy should be raised? How are we going to get this $30,000,000 required for the subsidy?


Arthur Meighen: By income tax.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: And more income tax.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Not at all. My hon.
friends on the other side are afraid to take a fair and reasonable attitude towards a matter of this description. Perhaps they are afraid it will be successful. I do not know whether it will or not.


Arthur Meighen: Don't forget the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote).


Herbert Meredith Marler: Let me repeat for the benefit of my hon. friend from West York (Sir Henry Drayton), if my hon. friend from Macleod will excuse me for a moment, that this carries out precisely and identically the idea my hon. friend has in his own mind. It is an extension of it-nothing more and nothing less. It is not a question of more income tax, except perhaps in the meantime. But will my hon. friend from West York tell me how we are going to get more traffic for the railways unless production is made profitable?


William Irvine: Refer it to a committee.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Certainly, refer it to a committee. That is what my hon. friend from East Calgary (Mr. Irvine) always wants to have done. He would have this whole

House a committee to discuss credit and everything else, if he had his way. But he objects when a serious measure of this kind is proposed to be referred to a committee, and says: "No, I wall vote against that. I will take up the time of the Banking and Commerce committee for two or three months discussing lines of credit, and bringing people out from England to give evidence."


William Irvine: I would ask my hon. friend if he has read the resolution, and if not, if he will kindly read it to the House.


Herbert Meredith Marler: No, I will not. My hon. friend can read it for himself just as well as I can read it to him.


William Irvine: I just wanted my hon. friend to know what the resolution was that he is supposed to be discussing.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Mr. Speaker, I conclude these somewhat drawn-out remarks. This measure will be submitted to a committee for investigation, to determine first of all whether there is a combine or not; secondly, if that combine is malignant or not. At that investigation the officers of the various shipping companies will have ample opportunity to state their case in every particular. That committee will then be enabled to come to a decision as to whether or not ocean rates can be profitably reduced in the manner suggested, and report to the House accordingly. If they cannot be profitably reduced, then the point I make-and it is the main point of my whole argument-is that they will have an opportunity to suggest to this House such other means as will bring about this most desired and this great end.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity of congratulating the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low) on his rapid advancement to the important post of First Lord of the Admiralty; and after listening to the splendid speech of my hon. friend from St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler), whom I think I may regard as the junior Lord of the Admiralty, I have no doubt that one of the ten ships of the Petersen fleet will be named after him.
The question of ocean rates and their regulation is not a new one. It has been the subject of prolific inquiry and discussion since 1896. Are rates too high? Can they be reduced? And how? Is there a combine? A monopoly? A restraint of trade? In bringing down this contract the government ask us to validate it. But it is already signed, sealed

and delivered by the two parties thereto, His Majesty the King, represented by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low), and Sir William Petersen, and is enforceable in the Exchequer Court of Canada. Now the government say the contract cannot be varied and that they are prepared to stand or fall by it. This is their plan to bring about a reduction of ocean rates. Well, there are three or four ways of attempting relief- One, by the appointment of a .yaint imperial board, similar to our railway ctin,tllssIon>
who have jurisdiction by legislatioP >
second, the government's subsidy plan; N^hiid, the! development and encouragement of tramp fehips and indirect aid to them in more freedoim of use of our ocean ports.	\
This particular method has been approved by the Interstate Commerce Conmissiom. The government are relying jgn the 'epfisfc of a special committee of	rega-ding
agricultural conditions, p^Bftfred to the House a few years ago. This cWnmittee was not appointed for the purpose raf dealing with oceaa rates. It was appointed \ to investigate agricultural conditions, but instead of staying in their own pond they wandefed away out into the lake and the ocean. I wisuld not call their rate "investigation" an investigation at all. True, they had prominent agriculturists appear and give evidence, but so far as my recollection goes only a few railway officials were called on the question of transportation and ocean rates. Yet to-day the government are basing their action in this matter on the report of that committee.
In contrast to that report let me call the attention of the House to the report on interstate, international, and ocean transportation of the commit! ee on Interstate Commerce of the United States. That committee summoned world-renowned rail and shipping experts, including Mr. Acworth, the British railway expert who jointly with Sir Henry Drayton, reported on Canada's railways. This report shows that competition on the ocean is the prime factor in regulating rates. For instance, before the opening of the Panama canal practically every large city and town of the United States was in rebellion against railway rates, but with the competition *which followed the opening of the Panama canal, the competition of rail versus water, the railways of that country were brought to time. I am sorry this voluminous, modem and practical report has not been quoted more frequently. The evidence goes to show that where there are competitive rates between all-parallel-water and all-rail traffic there is opportunity for regulating
Ocean Shipping Rates
transportation rates, but out on the ocean it is different. You cannot regulate the broad ocean like the land and especially when ships have a monopoly it is practically impossible to regulate ocean rates. The report is both pertinent and practical as a guide on this case in Canada. This report shows that what I say is correct and it is a good report.
I think this parliament should order a very careful inquiry. After all, a committee of this House, with all due respect to the House and to the committees, is not a proper forum to deal with such a problem. I differ from the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) in that regard; and I think I am borne out by the report of the Interstate Commerce Commission which investigated the economic side of the question, as to how these things affected the farmer, the manufacturer and the consumer. We can only obtain lower rates in my opinion by competition on the ocean on the basis of the law of supply and demand. The opening up of the St. Lawrence waterways, from the head of the Great Lakes, will do a great deal to stabilize matters in Canada along these lines. I have given three of the reasons which I have to offer. The fourth remedy for present conditions is the extension and better use of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, and the fifth suggestion is to leave it to open competition and the free trade law of supply and demand, and to in time secure a reduction through education, negotiation and publicity, with all the cards on the table.
Coming from A large distributif.g centre in Central Canada, and as chairman of an inland port and harbour commission, I have been very much fnterested for many years in the question of ocean and lake transportation. The two things that I have wondered at at the outset] of this subsidy contract are: (1) why specifications were not prepared, and tenders were not called for, if the government has decided on the subsidy plan, and Canadian and English companies given a chance to tender, and the same principle adapted that applies to the gulf and sea ports regarding subsidies for mails and subventions of the Trade and Commerce department; and (2) why Sir William Petersen should be singled out for special favours in view of the fact that you had a contract with Sir William Petersen in 1897 and he treated it simply as a scrap of paper. Why was he singled out among all the different companies on the Atlantic and the Pacific? And why was a private tender given to him for this work? I think the government of Canada, after the
Ocean Shipping Rates

ernment's idea of rate regulation, tenders should have been called for on carefully drawn specifications. They should have been open to all and not been given without any competition whatever to Sir William Petersen, w'ho, as I say, treated his former contract as a scrap of paper. State aid to break a conference or combine will not solve the question. We have learned since the debate started that the committee can amend the contract and that the Canadian Pacific can come in second-hand on the same terms. What is this all going to cost, with this now free-for-all extension of the subsidy plan?
If ocean rates are too high, another effort should be made to secure control through the medium of a joint imperial board working as a unit. The re-creation of the subsidy plan is a relic of the mistakes made on land in Canada's extravagant railway subsidy policy. State aid by subsidy is no cure at all to lower lake and ocean rates. Canada would get better results either by building or by purchasing new ships for the merchant marine, with new and faster ships for the Atlantic and the re-routing of some of the present merchant marine vessels for Atlantic trade, than by giving 813,000,000 in a ten-year subsidy without competition. How can ten ships with fifty sailings a year control a thousand ships with fifty thousand sailings a year in a rate war? Canada's best interests would be better served by a spirit of cooperation with the British government in solving the problem, and by utilizing Canada's investment in railway facilities, merchant marine and other resources in unison with the British government. Canada learned in the war the good results that flowed from co-operation in shipping and trade and commerce with the British authorities.
Let us not forget that:
1.	The Petersen Company signed a somewhat similar contract with the Laurier government in 1897. It was unable to live up to the contract and it was cancelled.
2.	If the rates are so excessively high, why is the Canadian merchant marine losing $9,000,000 a year?
3.	Why did the United States Shipping Board lose $35,000,000 in the operation of 317 full vessels last year, with 913 inactive vessels?
4.	How can the Petersen line, with ten vessels, which at most can make only fifty voyages in a season between Montreal and Great Britain, break a combine, when in 1924 nine hundred and thirty-seven vessels cleared from the port of Montreal?
fMr. Church.]
5.	What is the need of subsidizing out of the treasury of the country an English line which has to build its ships when Canadian government-owned ships are rusting m Canadian haAours?
The west is not taking kindly to this measure, for I read in a western paper the other day a strong article opposed to it. The Progressives in this House have a fiscal organ of their own, the Grain Growers' Guide, and that journal has this to say on the subject:
W havre no more use for an ocean shipping combine than we have for any other kind of a combine, but when we have a government line of merchant ships and when the taxpayers have to make up the losses of that line every year to the tune of $9,000,000, because the ships cannot get cargoes to bring into this country, it is very apparent that it is not by subsidies to private shipping concerns that lower ocean rates are going to be secured. We could at least try the effect of lower rates on our own ships, and thus find out whether the lack of inward cargoes is due to high rates or the high rates are due to a lack of cargoes.
6.	Why not hold a proper inquiry under the direction of such a body as was constituted by the United States government to investigate a similar question? Before such a body you could take evidence and examine witneisses on a proper scale; you could call experts who would know something about ocean rates and water traffic generally.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from March 17, consideration in committee of Bill No. 13, respecting a patent of West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company-Mr. Jacobs-Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Arthur Meighen: I do not see very much use in going on with this bill. The hon. member in whose name it stands is not here to explain it.


Mr. McGIVERIN:: I can make the explanation. This bill and the following one, Bill No. 14, respecting a patent of Edgeworth Greene, were brought before the committee of which I have the honour to be chairman. Under section 47 of the Patent Act of 1923 the Commissioner of Patents is authorized to use his discretion in reviving or refusing to revive any patent, but the application must be made to him, under the act, within two years. In this case they did not apply within the two years, and therefore they have had

Private Bills
to come to parliament for that right. The committee did not pass the bill as requested by them; they are simply put in the position of appearing before the commissioner under the general act and making their application. They had not paid their second instalment of fees within the time required. The committee were satisfied with that explanation, but they left it to the Commissioner of Patents himself to hold court on this bill and on Bill No. 14; and he will decide under the general act whether or not the right should be granted.


Arthur Meighen: The Patent Act has definite provisions as to renewal of patents. Of course, if a man neglects those provisions and his patent dies he must go to parliament and parliament can either restore the patent or put him in the position of having to apply again on the merits, just as if no default had taken place. But I do not understand why one man should be relieved of the penalty of his default while another should not. I do not see any difference at all between this case and that presented the other night by the hon. member for St. Lawrenee-St. George. The rule that has been followed as long as I can remember is this:	If the applicant can
show special circumstances-for instance, that the instructions he left with his counsel were quite clear but through neglect or oversight, through something for which he was not himself responsible, his patent lapsed-then the practice has been to consider his peculiar position and relieve him of the penalty. Possibly the circumstances that I have revealed might"not be considered sufficient. The hon. member has not brought out any special circumstances in this case; the patentee simply lost his patent through neglect. While it is true we are only putting him back where he can apply again on the merits, still we are relieving him wholly of the default. What right has he to that?


Harold Buchanan McGiverin: I was not here the other night, and I do not know which case my right hon. friend is referring to. But there was another patent which the committee refused-it was an extension of the life of a patent. If that is the one referred to, it is quite a different case.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It did not go to the committee.


Arthur Meighen: This House listened to an eloquent appeal from the hon. member for Norfolk (Mr. Wallace) the other night to throw that bill out.


John Livingstone Brown: The patent referred to by the hon. member across the way was similar to
the one that was turned down 'here in the House.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I quite agree with the leader of the opposition in this matter. Two years ago we revised the Patent Act with great care; the discussion was as thorough as we have had on any statute in recent years. The question of patents is a highly technical and complicated matter. I recall that, if anything, the House leaned to the side of leniency to applicants; that we softened many of the provisions suggested by the Commissioner of Patents and, on the whole, we dealt very generously with the public in the matter. Now, as far as I can see-and I am speaking only from the knowledge I gained through an examination of the bill; I do not know the parties at all; I know nothing about it-here we have an American citizen who six years and a half ago allowed his rights under the patent to lapse. To-day he comes along and wants the rights granted him under the Patent Act extended. Now we propose by a special act to, as it were, wipe out the conditions of the main statute, the Patent Act, and place this man in a specially favoured position. I would say that certainly there is no rush about this thing. The man himself has allowed it to rest for six years. There must be some special reason why he now desires to revive the patent. It may be that some one has discovered or is trying to patent some process, or whatever it is that this covers, similar to this man's patent. It may be that someone else is very much more deserving than he is. It may be that in the evolution of the pulp and paper business this particular process or patent has a prospect of becoming more valuable, and therefore he desires to revive it, after he has allowed all these six years to elapse without protecting his rights.
I agree with what the hon. member for Lisgar said the other night, that certainly we have to give the discoverer of a process or device protection, but we give that protection under the Patent Act. After years and years of consideration in this country, and in other countries, we have come to the conclusion that a certain well defined period is justified and warranted, but this practice of coming back to the House and asking for the revival of some extinguished rights, which has been growing of late years, I think is a verj' dangerous practice.
What I would suggest to the House is this:	Let this thing stand. Let it go over
for a year. The gentleman who is asking for it allowed it to go for six years, and it is not going to hurt a particle to let it rest
Private Bills

for another year. We have just as much right to revive this patent next year as this, and in the interim the business, whatever it is that is affected by this, would have disclosed itself, as undoubtedly it will. I certainly object to blindly passing this bill without a very great deal more information than is before us at the present time, and particularly so-I do not know whether this is a reason, but still I advance it, not particularly as a reason, but rather as something to take note of-as we are asked to revive this patent for a gentleman by the name of Viggo Drewsen, of the city of Brooklyn, in the state of New York. I question very much, Mr. Chairman-indeed, I do not think there is any question about it, I venture to say-that a Canadian citizen under parallel circumstances would get short shrift in Washington. I doubt if he would get his application as far as the outer doors of the Capitol, and I doubt very much whether we are helping Canadians, in fact, the chances are we are depriving some Canadian of a parallel right, by resurrecting this extinguished right under the general Patent Act.
Mr. M.cGIVERIN:	I do not know anything more about it than as chairman of the committee all that we have done is to bring it before the commissioner. The matter has got to be threshed out before the commissioner as a judge sitting just as he would under the Patent Act. I would rather let this stand until the member who is in charge of the ball is present. I merely made the explanation as chairman of the committee.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am not attacking my
hon. friend at all. I quite understand the point he raises, but I would put it the other way round. Wait until the commissioner comes before the minister or the government, and asks for the power. I would drop this bill altogether, and if the commissioner recognizes that he is unable to do what he thinks is justice in this case, let him make his appeal to the minister, and then the government can bring in a bill as a government measure. That would be the proper course. It is quite possible the commissioner does not approve of this, but as Commissioner of Patents naturally he does not like to attack the application publicly. On the other hand, if it is a case that the commissioner feels himself warranted in intervening, he can go to the minister and suggest to him that here is a case that is,

what shall I say?- harshly dealt with by the provisions of the act, and he can get his minister to bring

in an amendment. I do not think a serious measure of this kind which affects the statute itself, and is introduced by a private member, should pass.


Mr. LOGAN:: Might I suggest that as the
hon. member in whose name this bill stands was called away th's evening, we report progress. I think it would be scarcely fair or courteous to him under the circumstances to throw the bill out. It does seem to me, however, that the hon. member for Vancouver Centre has made a very strong case, and that there is a very poor argument in favour of the renewal of this patent. At the same time, I think we should hear the hon. gentleman in whose name the bill stands.
Progress reported.



CONSIDERED IN COMMITTEE-THIRD READING

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 17, respecting the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company-Air. Jelliff.

[Stage Direction]
The House in committee on Bill No. 18, respecting the Manitoba and North Western Railway Company of Canada-Mr. Stewart (Humboldt)-Mr. Gordon in the chair.
On section 1-extension of time for construction.
John Frederick Johnston: I find it necessary to
protest against the passage of this bill through committee and against its third reading. My remarks would better have been made in the committee of Railways and Canals. The notice calling that meeting, which appeared in the Votes and Proceedings, set eleven o'clock as the hour of meeting. A further notice, was sent through the mail calling the meeting for ten o'clock, but this did not reach me in time, and consequently I was not before the committee.
I just wish to say that this bill has to do with a branch of the Canadian Pacific for a line from Theodore to a point between Govan and Lanigan in the province of Saskatchewan. Ptenewals of this charter have been asked for every two years since I have been a member of this House, and for many years before that. I believe the charter itself is twenty years old. I can see no good reason why we should prolong the life of such a charter. If the railway company is not ready to begin operations after this length of time, I think it is time an extension of the charter should be refused, and for that reason I wish to-protest against the passage of this bill.

Private Bills


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. ANDREW McMASTER (Brome) moved the second reading of Bill No. 26, respecting a patent of Walter W. Williams.
He said:	Mr. Speaker, when a patentee
wishes to get letters patent in this country for an invention he has to make a payment of $15 on applying for his patent, and a further payment of $20 within six months of the date when the patent is issued to him. If he does not pay within the six months his patent is forfeited. Now, the petitioner in this private bill applied for a patent, and he paid $15 with his application. Then when the patent was issued to him he forgot to pay the other $20, the six months elapsed, and his patent became forfeited. Thereupon he applied1 under section 3 of the Patent Act, which reads as follows:
A forfeited application may be restored and the patent granted thereon on application to the commissioner within six months of the occurrence of the forfeiture, or the passage of this act, on payment with the application for restoration, in addition to the fee payable on the granting of the patent, of a further sum of $15.
He made his further payment of $15; then even before the patent was issued he made a further payment of $20. The patent was issued and the commissioner at least thought that everything was perfectly correct. But as this House has no doubt observed, lawyers sometimes differ, and a counsel who had to look into the validity of the patent raised the question, whether the patentee should not have paid the last $20 at the same time as he paid the $15. Now, I am inclined to think that that view is rather narrow and technical. The commissioner evidently thought so, because he allowed the patent to issue, the man having paid, prior to the issue of the patent, all the fees in connection therewith. But I can quite understand that a lawyer might read clause 3 to mean that when a patent was forfeited you had not only to pay the ordinary fee on the new application but also the fee on the new issue. I do not think that is really what parliament intended, but it is open to that construction. The patentee desires that his patent should be free from any possibility of doubt, and so he has asked for the passage of this act, which in effect says: Your patent is all right; it was issued to you properly; the commissioner's action was satisfactory in the premises. That is the object of the bill. There is this saving clause:
If any person has prior to the seventh day of February, 1925, commenced to construct, manufacture, use or sell in Canada the invention covered by the
said patent, such person may continue to construct, manufacture, use or sell the said invention in as full and ample a manner as if this act had not been passed.
I cannot see that any public or private interest is affected by this legislation. It is merely sought for the purpose of placing the validity of the patent beyond any doubt.
Mr. MACDONALD (Pictou):: Would the hon. gentleman say what is the nature of the article patented?


Andrew Ross McMaster: It is a patent granted
for a liquid fuel atomizer.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is that?


Andrew Ross McMaster: It is an atomizer used in connection with liquid fuel.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Speaker, here again we have a bill similar to a large number of -bills whidh have been introduced an recent years and affecting very seriously the issuing of patents. In this case, according to the statement of my hon. friend (Mr. McMaster), which I notice follows pretty closely the preamble, a gentleman comes to the House, through an hon. member, and asks that a special act be passed. To do what? To confirm a patent which the Commissioner of Patents has already issued, and which in his judgment-and his judgment should guide this House-is a perfectly valid patent under the statute. I am not a lawyer, and I ask my hon. friends who are lawyers not to judge my objection and suggestion too critically. In the last section of the bill we have what purports to be a saving clause. Now I submit this suggestion to the House, and I should like to have the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) give his opinion on it:	Would it not be possible
under this saving clause for the applicant to have made a secret arrangement regarding the manufacture of the article patented, and then later to sell the patent to some large firm, we will say to the Westinghouse Company, and within six months or a year afterwards for the party with whom he had made the secret arrangement to come forward and say, "Oh, but I manufactured the patented article during that hiatus, and under this clause I claim the right to continue the manufacture, although in the meantime the patentee has sold his patent to a bona fide purchaser?"
I am afraid the House may not be saving this gentleman from a loss or a possible loss, but rather creating a condition under which it is perhaps possible to defraud an innocent and honest purchaser of his patent. Bills of this character, which I discussed a moment
Ocean Shipping Rates

ago when the minister was not in his seat, directly affect a statute which (governs the whole intricate question of patent, and I do not think one of them should be brought before the House until it has been most carefully scrutinized, first by the Commissioner of Patents who is an expert, and his assistant, and secondly by the law officers of the crown. I think the public are entitled to that safeguard.


Ernest Lapointe: In view of the strong
objection raised by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) I ask the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) to postpone consideration of this bill till a further sitting of this House so that the matter may be looked into. I had not read the bill until I heard the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I shall be very glad to accede to even a more onerous request.
Motion stands.



OCEAN SHIPPING RATES


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the proposed resolution to ratify and confirm a contract between His Majesty and Sir William Petersen providing for the establishment of a subsidized steamship line on the Atlantic and government control of ocean rates and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Clark.
Thomas Langton Church: Ocean Shipping Rates

I believe in the freedom of the seas-for the merchant marine-as far as possible free from legislative control, and I think the history of Britain's merchant marine, and what it has done in its long and honourable history for shipping, trade and commerce, for humanity and the human race, and the oversea dominions-will justify my contention that it is entitled to fair treatment and not to be condemned hastily and that the government in trying the subsidy plan is seeking to accomplish the impossible.
I believe we should leave the whole question to the economic law of supply and demand, and as far as possible free of direct legislative control, which has not got us anywhere, even on the land, as a regulator of rates.
I believe it is neither desirable nor advisable or at all1 practicable to invest any external authority with power to fix rates for the ocean by arbitrary methods and compulsion; whereas negotiations, conferences and conciliation, education and publicity are in the long run better and more effective. The government's subsidy plan is virtually a declaration of war against the whole merchant marine, whom the Preston report criticizes and literally denounces as rate robbers. It is a declaration of martial law out on the ocean by mobilizing ten ships of the line to fight the conference. Such a toy fleet could not fight a combine or a conference on lake Ontario, let alone on the ocean, and it will lead to nowhere. I should like to quote an eminent authority regarding the folly of trying to regulate rates, whether by subsidy or by any other control of the sea. This empire came into being by the sea. It could not continue to exist without the sea. One of the most eminent authorities on the mercantile marine is Mr. E. Keble Chatterton, and he writes at page 244 of his new work, issued after the war, with regard to the folly of trying to interfere with the freedom of the seas. He says;
Thus, with glorious traditions behind them, and an equally glorious future in front, the mercantile marines of the nations of the maritime world have every reason to be proud of their respective services. Competition there assuredly will be, not merely between British and American, but, presently, German merchant fleets. That is all for the good of the services concerned and for the world in general. The lesson from past history is that maritime legislation in the long run is better omitted except where it is necessary as a reply to that of another country setting up unfair competition. The real freedom of the seas is to allow the merchant ship to pursue her way freely, unhampered; and to find her trade where she can, and be allowed to develop that trade as it has been in the past by Venetian, Spaniard, Dutch, Briton, American and others. To interfere with this system is to court trouble which in the long run fails to benefit the very organization it was intended to protect.

Navigation laws are all very well in intention; but far better still is it to allow free trading over the seas; free flow of emigrants and commerce, fair opportunities for all. The best must win in the last instance, but why not let each marine go about its own business as each trading concern ashore is allowed to carry on its own affairs? The merchant fleets mean too much to be controlled by the state in any country, except under exceptional circumstances and with the most weighty excuse. That is one of the lessons in the history of our subject, and we may leave it at that.
These are prophetic words used at the present time. The hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) was doubtful whether we could accomplish anything by rate regulation. Mr. Justice Mabee was of the same opinion, and the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham) the other night said that there was no use in going any further in trying to regulate ocean rates. I might quote from other economic text book writers, but time will not permit.
The government is to be criticized for failure to aid in making the Canadian people a seagoing people and mariners. If we are ever to become or try to become a maritime people, we should attempt to turn out from our population a supply of merchant marine men. In the United States they are turning their war plants into peace plants, and they are building up a merchant marine fleet to go out over the seven seas of the world and capture the trade for the United States. In the United States this preparation for the sea is being carried out with that thoroughness which was shown during the war for making sailors out of raw landsmen. The recruiting for the American workers of marine, according to the latest official reports to hand, already consists of a personnel which is 68 per cent American. Its Sea Training Bureau has training stations and training ships, and in the first three yeara it turned out between 30,000 and 40,000 unlicensed ratings. In addition there are the navigation and engineering schools and advanced courses for men already holding licenses. Such subjects as the operation, repair, adjustment and general upkeep of marine turbines and matters dealing with electricity and oil, are included in the last-mentioned curricula. The result was that in four years licenses were granted to over 10,000 graduates as masters, first, second and third mates, chief engineers, first, second and third assistant engineers. By means of a sea service bureau maintained at various Atlantic, gulf and Pacific coast ports, during one year over 100,000 officers and men were placed in United States ships.
In my opinion the railway commission should be consulted in regard to this matter. We had an inquiry some years ago by the hon.

Ocean Shipping Rates
member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) and Mr. Acworth, and they say in their report presented to parliament in 1917 in connection with rates on land and ocean:
Railway policy is a sealed book to the ordinary citizen. Why tariffs should be fixed as they are. why the train service should not be arranged so as better to suit his individual requirements, why cars cannot always be available for everybody everywhere, he cannot understand The normal attitude of the public towards the railway management, whether in the hands of a company or a government, is one of mistrust, if not of active hostility. It is a good thing both for the railway itseif and for its patrons to bring the management out into the open; to have the reasons why such and such conditions exist, why certain concessions demanded cannot reasonably be granted, frankly explained in public.
The report goes on to refer to the ocean again and the principle of subsidies. It reads:
We think also that no subsidy or guarantee should be granted except after a similar report from the commission; and that no subsidy or guarantee should be voted in any session, unless it has been provided for in the financial budget of the year; and unless a substantial deposit of cash or securities has been made by the promoters, to prove the bona fides of their application.
That is a sound policy, and had Canada pursued that policy on land, for instance instead of three railways running along the north shore of lake Ontario where one railway with a double track would have been sufficient, only one line would have been constructed, and a waste of money which amounts to about a billion dollars would have been prevented. What has been done on the land can be done on the ocean.
The subsidy principle will benefit neither the producer, nor the farmer, nor the shipper, nor the grain grower, nor the manufacturer. It benefits simply one ship-owner at the expense of all the others. It benefits also the middleman. If the object is to assist the producer, the farmer, the grain grower, or the raiser of cattle, it would be better to bonus that industry. This would go directly to the farmer. Otherwise the farmer secures no direct benefit from this subsidy.
I was going to say something about how the tramp ships succeeded to the carrying trade, the tramp steamer as a factor in carrying goods and in the regulation of rates, and the creation of liners and their effect on higher rates. To-day the finest merchant ships in the world are not freighters, but passenger ships. It is the tramp which has succeeded to the carrying trade of those pioneer ships; and after the Indian monopoly had disappeared, and there came a need for people to go to the East, it was quite an innovation to provide more accommodation for passengers. Then the same thing happened in regard to China, but especially with the emigration to Australia.
88i
Gradually this element increased and again people began to travel all over the world, for business, for administrative reasons, for pleasure ; and as the number of passengers increased, so the amount of cargo space was encroached upon. Especially was this the case in the transAtlantic ships, so that to-day the principal liners on that route carry practically no cargo beyond mails and the passengers' luggage. Thus, within a hundred years, the needs of the public have entirely altered the character of the shipping.
It was natural enough that the East should for so long have instigated all the improvements in shipping for the reason that travellers went to the Orient long before America was discovered, and the East India Company had a continuous need for the best ships. But since the introduction of steam and the rapid progress of the United States, it is the West, and not the East which has always seen the greatest enterprise in shipping. Bigger and better vessels, compound engines, twin screws, triple screws, quadruple screws, turbines, oil fuel, increased speed, luxurious accommodation-all these most important and progressive factors in the mercantile marine have come as a result of the Atlantic, and not the oriental trade. These reflect, as everybody knows, on the rates, the high cost of ocean travel and so forth. If this subsidy goes through, you may be in a British port and you may see one or two of these ten ships of the line under subsidy at a dock. At the next dock you will see a tramp ship, and the tramp ship will have quite a grievance against the state-owned ship, subsidized as it is, and against the citizens of Canada for helping to pay for and maintain that ship over there. Such a policy will interfere with free competition for the tramp ship, because the tramp ship, as the evidence showed before the Interstate Commerce Commission, is one of the most important factors in rate regulating. This policy of subsidizing ships may drive tramp ships out of business; it may drive some of them to the wall.
In my opinion the subsidizing of these ten steamships under the present contract will strike a decided blow at the free competition which exists ordinarily with the operation of tramp ships. And according to the text book writers, the owner of tramp vessels is to-day a public benefactor; indeed, the tramp ship-owner is a greater benefactor than Sir William Petersen would ever be, even though the latter may be state-aided. The tramp ship gets no bonus or subsidy but it proves an important factor in our Canadian trade. In 1921 there were 301 tramps from

Ocean Shipping Rates
Montreal; in 1922, 409; in 1923, 246 and last year 447. As an hon. member has pointed out, some 153,000,000 bushels of grain were carried out of the port of Montreal in the past year, of which tramp steamers carried 60 per cent. We had a case in Toronto of both rail and rail and water rates quoted by the railways from Toronto to Vancouver on package freight. A tramp ship obtained from the Canadian merchant marine was bought by the Kirwood line and it set a cheap all water rate from Toronto to Vancouver 'via the Panama canal; it cut the rates materially and saved the merchants in Toronto a lot of money.
The government's policy will so hamper the freedom of tramp steamers as to remove competition in the open market for freight. In other words, the government will bonus the tramp's competitor, taking away a part of his customers. Now, the tramp ship has an important function to perform, and if hon. gentlemen will only consult the figures for any ocean, gulf or lake port in Canada they will see what an important factor the tramp steamer has been in Canadian shipping. Let us. beware of this policy; we do not want to do anything that will eliminate competition. Let us ensure regular business for the tramp steamers and in that way maintain competition. The regular liner has a different function to perform from that of the tramp, for the liner's sailings are always advertised in advance. The liner takes its business in a different way from the tramp and often confines its traffic to one point.
All these things must be borne in mind. I do not think that any hon. gentleman in this House can have any doubt in his mind as to what effect this contract will have on the tramp steamers. The hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) and the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) have both expressed on this subject views to which I must take exception, namely, favouring the co-ordination of the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways. Let me say emphatically here that it is not public ownership that has got our railways into their present condition, but private ownership. I do not believe in the policy which these hon. gentlemen have enunciated, for it strikes me as being-another way only of handing over the Canadian National railways to the Canadian Pacific Railway, which is the very thing that the Canadian Pacific Railway Company wants to brifrg about. Competition is the life of trade, and there is every reason why we should encourage competition between the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National

system. I am sorry that the hon. member for South York, the dean of the House a public ownership man, is not here to-night, because I should like to say to him that the policy he advances will not prove a solution of the problem we have to cope with. What is suggested would only create a vaster combine than has so far existed.
It is my firm belief that a measure of such supreme importance, before being adopted by this parliament, should be submitted to the people for their approval or otherwise. I certainly do not think that we should undertake at this time to endorse it. It seems to me that we stand in the greatest need of a control of rates, not only as they affect ocean transportation but also as they apply to our railways. There is no doubt whatever in my mind that a combine exists in the passenger associations of the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Pacific, and that combine meets to fix rates to suit itself. Let us realize once and for all that it is not only on the ocean that a conference dictates the rates that shall be charged; [DOT] there is a conference on the land as well known as an association, and it is as bad as the Atlantic combine on the ocean. The representatives of our two great railway systems sit around a table and fix rates, and both of them have an eastern and a western passenger association. These two railways utterly ignore the Board of Railway Commissioners, and this has been proved to be the case. It seems to me that if the Canadian National Railways were really anxious to secure the cream of the passenger traffic from the large centres of population, they would adopt the system that prevails in connection with the railways in Great Britain, Australia, France and in the United States;
that is to say, they would give to 9 p.m. the working people who are paying the taxes something in return for their money, in the form of reduced rates for week-end holidays, fall fairs, conventions and similar occasions. This would enable the working classes to get out of the large and congested cities into the country and so have some chance of building up their health, instead of living in close tenement houses. Let me inform the House that the British railways have found these cut rates on special occasions to make good business. But what are our National Railways doing? They simply sit around a table with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and when the representatives of that railway suggest a rate as their policy, the Canadian National says, "Me too". That is their policy-"Me too". Would it not be infinitely better for the Canadian National

Ocean Shipping Bates
Railways, by means of reduced rates on such special occasions to have their trains filled going out of Toronto, Hamilton and other large centres, instead of as at present with hardly anyone on them? Let them cut their rates and in that way obtain the cream of the passenger business. Talk about a combine on the Atlantic! Why, a greater combine for the fixing of rates exists in connection with railway transportation in this country and this in face of the fact that a railway commission is supposed to exercise of their own volition some oversight in railway matters. During the last two years the railway commission might be described as lost, strayed or stolen, so far as any influence it has exerted is concerned. For all the good it has done recently it might as well be abolished, and it seems to me that if railway rates cannot be regulated within the four comers of Canada on land there is not much hope of success when the government undertakes to apply control of rates on gulf, lake and river, and even on the ocean. If this subsidy policy is extended it will cost the country a great deal * more than $13,000,000 in ten years. If, as the Prime Minister has suggested, an offer is made to other concerns, say the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, and they come in on the same basis, and if others also come in on the same basis, where is this thing going to end? Nobody knows what it will cost. The farmers do not know; this House does not know. It may be analogous to the case of the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific where years ago it was stated that the cost to the country would be $14,000,000, but the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) showed the other night that up to date the cost had been over half a billion -and we are not through with it yet. More than that, the deficit on operation of the National railways is sixty or seventy millions a year; and this is nothing but an added subsidy put into the taxes for the boon of free competition between the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National.
The British authorities, who have done so much for Canada in maritime matters are very much alarmed about this proposal. So moderate a paper as the Morning Post, of London, England, a very conservative organ says:
In this country the ipriraciple of subsidizing shipping is considered to be unsound. It tends to relaxation of effort on the part of the subsidized. Moreover, that one province of the empire should confer an advantage by means of a state subsidy upon one particular line of steamships is to interfere with the unity of the shipping services of the Empire. It is to the profit of every part of the empire that sea transport should be conducted upon a common policy, in which the interests alike of shippers, passengers, and
ship owners are impartially and fairly recognized. And the British shipping industry may justly claim that it has been, and is being, conducted upon that principle. It was built up by individual enterprise, without state assistance other than payment for the carriage of mails or retaining fee for the use of vessels in war; and at a time when shipbuilding is three and four times what it was before the war, and the cost of management double and treble, British ship owners continue to conduct their business without asking anything from the government except freedom from regulations which would place them at a disadvantage as compared with the foreigner. The duration of the contract made by the Canadian government is stated to be ten years. It may be doubted if it will last quite as long.
I doubt it, too. The last contract in 1897 with Sir William Petersen lasted less than a year, and then Sir William Petersen was handed back his money with interest in 1899. I quote from another despatch from Great Britain, dated at London, February 16:
Sir Halford MacKinder, chairman of the Imperial Shipping Committee, the body erected by the Imperial Economic conference of 1923 to consider disputes, writes a complaining letter in to-day's Times. He says several of the complaints made by W. T. R. Preston were not first presented to the Imperial Committee and that two favourable reports on other Canadian complaints were made by the committee and two more are in preparation. Hon. Mackenzie King voted for the creation of this committee, which he now disregards.
The idea is growing in England that Preston's report, much of which is characterized by the Atlantic Conference as wild and unfounded, is only a step in a political move by Premier King. The Morning Post, devotes a column to this thesis.	.
Meantime the rumour persists that the Canadian-Pacific will jump out of the conference and accept the Canadian government's subsidy to avoid the competition of rival lines to Canadian ports, consequent upon the reduction of the United States quota. The handing to the Canadian Pacific Railway of immigrants now sent by the Cunard and White Star lines, as well as those by the Dutch and Scandinavian lines, would mean big business to the Canadian Pacific Railway, especially in view of the attempt of the Liberal government shortly to be made to increase Canada's waning population by indiscriminate recruiting on the continent of Europe.
That is what the chairman of the Imperial Shipping committee says. Then, in the British House of Commons the other day, on the orders of the day, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade, Sir B. Chadwick, in reply to Mr. B. Smith, socialist, Rotherhithe, who asked whether there was a great disparity in the freight rates to Canada for settlers' effects charged by conference lines and non-conference lines, said that the whole question of trade rates would shortly be investigated by a special parliamentary committee in Canada. I quote from a report in the Morning Post:
Mr. B. Smith asked whether, in accordance with the Preston report, which was a Canadian government official report, that colony intended to treat the favouritism between Germany and other countries as against British exports and imports to Canada as a first-class political issue, having regard to the fact
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sat in with the Canada Steamships to fix the same high rates instead of allowing free and impartial competition to give relief.
High rates are not confined to the ocean. We have in this country high telephone rates, high express rates, high telegraph rates, high railway rates. The railway commission virtually allows all these public service corporations to do what they please. We have high sales taxes and high income taxes. How is it that this is the only combine that is attacked? What about all these other combines on land that we have in this country-the bread combine, the oil combine, the bankers' combine, the American millionaires' combine grabbing our resources, the gasoline combine, the grain growers' combine, the coal combine, the elevator combine, the transportation combine and the manufacturers' combine? We have a Combines Act, passed in 1923, but how many prosecutions have ever been made under it? Not one. How many prosecutions have been made under the criminal code with regard to restraint of trade? None. We tried to get a bill of indictment a few years ago against the milk industry in Toronto, at a time when there were a lot of people out of work and the rates for milk were raised unduly. We also attacked the bread and restaurant combines. We said there was a combine of the milk association that met and fixed prices and we presented a bill of indictment to a judge at the Toronto assizes but could get nowhere. Trusts and combines are flourishing like a green bay tree in this country from coast to coast. They can regulate them in England and the United States but we cannot do it here. Yet the government ignores these land combines to interfere with the law of supply and demand on the ocean. They do not attack the trusts and combines within the confines of Canada where they have jurisdiction. Charity should begin at home instead of away out on the ocean, where we have no jurisdiction. We should first deal with the combines at home. The Imperial Shipping Board is to meet in the Old Country in a few days and take evidence. A new investigation has been ordered in England into the whole ocean rate problem in view of Canada's action.
In conclusion, I want to say a word on behalf of the party of which I am a humble member. It has been charged in this House, and in a number of party papers, including some Progressive papers, and we heard a great deal of talk also along the same line during the last election, that this party is allied with the big interests in this country. The Prime Minister and the Minister of
Labour-I am not criticizing them particularly-have referred to us as the party supporting the big interests. Last session When legislation was brought down with reference to the agricultural implement industry, it was charged that this party represented the agricultural implement industry of this country. That is not so. In the Ontario election, the agricultural implement industry did its best to keep the Drury government in power. The Conservatives are not the allies of the big interests and of the agricultural implement manufacturers. I can speak not only for myself but I think for the whole Conservative party when I say that we serve no big interests. Some of us have suffered in the battle against the big interests and are prepared to suffer again. We have battled against them in Toronto, to give that city freedom from combines in light, transportation and power. Conditions were such that only a rich man could afford to have electricity in his house, because it was costing from two to three dollars per unit for light and power. But to-day every workman in the city of Toronto has electric light in his home at a cost of 92 cents per unit as compared with two or three dollars a few years ago. So I say the Conservative party represent no big interests. On the contrary, we have battled against them, and are prepared to do so again. While we criticize this policy of the government we desire, and I believe every member of this House desires, to see lower rates on the ocean and on the lakes as well. I agree with the object the government is seeking to attain, but I disagree with the method they propose to accomplish that object. For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to the proposed Petersen agreement.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, I had hoped during the progress of this debate that some substantial reason would be advanced by the government, or by some member on the opposite side of the House, to show why we should support this resolution; but instead of that, we have had various explanations regarding the issue that is before us, and most of them have been to the effect, in my judgment at least, that the subject matter of this resolution is not really before the House at all, but something else. That would be especially true, I think, of the explanation made by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler) this afternoon.
But let us take just the first three lines of the resolution:
Resolved, that to give the government of Canada control over certain ocean rates it is expedient to
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with respect to operating costs which would seem to bear out the essential claim of Sir William, although neither has included anything for what may be called " managerial expenses." I should hardly think, however, this would t>e a very large item as our own shipping officers and freight solicitors on this side could canvass freight for the new proposition as well a3 the railway without additional expense.
There is a clause in the agreement to the effect that they will co-operate with the Canadian Government Merchant Marine and the Canadian National Railways. I contend that that clause is not really a provision to guard the interests of the National Railways, but it is really a clause that gives something to Sir William Petersen, or compels him apparently to go into a relation which would be of very great advantage to himself. I submit that it may be of some value to the Canadian National Railways to get ten modern ships, or ships possibly 'better than the ones they have, if they really are, some advantage for the National Railways to have some improvement in the steamship service in direct connection with the railway; but when it comes to the other side of the bargain, when we consider the advantage to Petersen, in addition to the subsidy, of being linked up with the Canadian National Railways, there is absolutely no comparison between .the advantage of Sir William Petersen and the advantage to the Canadian National Railways. The advantage to Sir William Petersen is overwhelming, and the advantage to the Canadian National Railways is almost nothing. The things are not on a parity; there is no comparison. So that that clause in my opinion is of very little value so far as the country is concerned.
There is another matter I wish to refer to, and that is that we have at present the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, and we have in the north Atlantic apparently a surplus tonnage, and this policy calls for an addition to surplus tonnage. Does that not mean that the Canadian Government Merchant Marine will have proportionately less chance to get full cargoes than they have at the present time, and so increase the difficulty of earning dividends or getting return cargoes? That is the great difficulty, according to Sir Henry Thornton, in the way of making them pay. Why are we seeking to follow this policy of putting additional tonnage on the north Atlantic? But suppose these ships are a great improvement on the present Canadian Government Merchant Marine boats? The right hon. leader of the opposition claims that these boats are not necessarily an improvement. I think possibly in most respects they are not, but there seems to be one feature in which there is just a little improvement, 
and that is the proportion of net tonnage of the boats to the gross tonnage. Most of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine boats have a tonnage running about five thousand and over gross, and a net tonnage less than thirty-five hundred, while the Petersen boats have a gross tonnage of five thousand with a net tonnage of thirty-five hundred. There is not very much difference. But in any case if the government and Sir William Petersen are fitting those ships up to efficiently serve the trade in the north Atlantic, surely they have been collaborating together in order that we may get suitable boats, and drawing from the experience that has been gained from the operation of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, they will be able thereby to judge more accurately the needs of the trade; and if these boats are better and practically brought into the Canadian National service, are we not going to turn to Petersen the profitable end of the shipping business, and hold for ourselves the less profitable end, the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, if that merchant marine is as unsuitable as has been claimed. And I do not therefore see why Petersen should be brought into this bargain at all. Petersen can get his subsidy, but what guarantee has the government of Canada or the Parliament of Canada that this business is going to be extended? What knowledge are they going to obtain of the business by handing a subsidy to Sir William Petersen? I submit the Canadian government and the merchant marine can operate boats as successfully as Sir William Petersen, and if they can do so and if the boats are profitable and successful, we will have the same access to knowledge of the shipping business as carried on by the new boats, as we now have with the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. But if the profitable end of our business is to be in private hands and the private company is to obtain all the advantage of being connected with a national system of railways, and all the advantages that the Canadian National can give them in the way of soliciting freight, I say we are letting business that ought to be in our hands get into the hands of private owners, and the government will be in this position, that seeking to fix reasonable rates they will not have access to the accounts and therefore will not have a proper knowledge of what the rates ought to be.
For a few moments I wish to examine some of the reasons that have been given as to why wre do not use the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. The right hon. leader of the opposition referred yesterday to the statement of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. MARCH 20, 1925
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Motherwell) who said that the ships were too small for the ocean and too large for the lakes. When I heard that statement I could not help thinking of the old explanation of why men do not marry. The explanation was that young- men are too young and old men are too old. I think that matter was dealt with sufficiently yesterday, and there is no object in referring to it again. The hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) went into another explanation. He stated at page 1070 of Hansard :
The Canadian Government Merchant Marine ships are of very different construction and, with the engines they have, in very rough weather cannot make more than five knots actual speed.
Then he said regarding the Petersen boats:
You will find that with the Diesel engines with which these ships will be equipped, they will be able to make their eleven knots at any time except, of course, in a very heavy gale of wind.
That is not a very good explanation, because it gives the speed of the merchant marine in very rough weather, and gives the speed of the new boats in fairly good weather. Perhaps the hon. member was canny in that regard. But in any case what is it that very largely determines the speed of a ship? Is it not the ratio of power to tonnage? You will find, if you examine the specifications of the Petersen boats, the 9,000 deadweight ton boats, or 5,000 gross tons, have an indicated horse-power of 2,250 and a brake horse-power of 1,850, while the boats of approximately the *same size in the merchant marine have an indicated horse-power of 3,000 and up to 4,000 with a brake horse-power of about 80 per cent of the indicated horse-power. Therefore, there is no reason for concluding, as far as I can see, that the Petersen boats with less horsepower in proportion to their weight, can have any greater speed, especially in rough weather, than the present boats of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine.
The Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Graham), gave us in his speech as the reason that the merchant marine boats could not be used, that they were at present in use and could not be switched to the north Atlantic. I am not very -well convinced that this is a good argument, because wherever you read about shipping to-day, there is a surplus tonnage everywhere and it would not appear that with a surplus tonnage throughout the world to the extent of millions of tons, there would be any great disturbance of trade on any route by the transfer of a few boats. But in any case, as I have argued before, there is no reason why we should hand over these boats to Sir William Petersen when we might utilize them
and do the same business as Sir William Petersen can do, the only difference being that in the one case we have to pay a subsidy without an actual knowledge of -the returns and, in the other, we would pay any deficit, if there was a deficit, with the fullest knowledge of the transaction. Sir Henry Thornton, speaking before the select standing committee on National Railways and Shipping last year was asked this question:
Q. Would you say this particular fleet we have now, of sixty vessels-has it any possibility of ever arriving at that condition? You spoke of the Canadian Pacific Railway? They have different kind of vessels? -A. Yes.
Q. Is it possible to secure success, in your opinion, with vessels we have now, or will it be a continual loss from year to year?-A. I would not like to make a positive assertion, but I will say this, somewhat tentatively; that, considering our merchant marine as a whole, we have to go either forward or backward. If we feel that the merchant marine service has a value to the people of Canada in all of their industrial activities, and to the railway itself, I think I should answer that question in the affirmative. Then we have to face up to, I think, putting these vessels, these implements in such shape as to get the maximum efficiency out of them.
There is just one other quotation I wish to read here, and that is with regard to the north Atlantic business. Sir Henry Thornton was asked this question:
Q. These returns are not very encouraging. You must have something to offset them?-A. Probably not to the United Kingdom, because if I remember the figures rightly, our total United Kingdom trade showed a deficit of about half a million dollars.
A little further on Sir Henry Thornton said:
We do not show any profit to the United Kingdom, and we can charge all of that to the wretched condition of the westbound movement.
I am opposed to this method of attempted control which, in my judgment, will not control at all, or at least I am not convinced that it is leading us in that direction. I am opposed to the resolution because I believe it is a step backwards and not the step forward that the man whom we have put in charge of the National railways and merchant marine has said that we should take. We are taking a backward step. I am opposed to the resolution because it is definite and specific with regard to this agreement, I am opposed to subsidies in general, and I am opposed to this one in particular until I get more information. If I am forced To vote on this question without additional information, I must vote against the resolution. I am opposed to it, in addition, because I believe we are not standing in the way of the measure of control that we could get through putting on additional boats, because we have the unit of organization now in the merchant marine,
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which, if its present boats are not sufficient, can be supplied with additional ships at just as little expense as we are supplying Sir William Petersen with boats * under this resolution, and we would be more certain of the actual results obtained by putting them under our Canadian Government Merchant Marine. I am opposed to subsidies in general because, in the history of the country, possibly there is nothing that has led to more political corruption than the granting of subsidies to private individuals.
As regards the amendment, I am not very well satisfied with it either. We are not going to get any hasty action, I fear, if one goes back over the investigations that have been conducted with regard to shipping throughout the Empire for the last ten or fifteen years. I have in my hand the report of the Imperial conference of 1923, and it refers to the nugatory character of the recommendations of the Dominions Royal Commission. Nothing was done as a result of the investigation of the royal commission. I find that when the report which Sir Halford Mackinder presented to the Imperial conference, the most they had to recommend was that, instead of carrying on under the old system of deferred rebates that had 'been repudiated by a few of the dominions, they recommended a general application of the agreement system whereby shippers agreed to ship by conference lines. So, with the Imperial Shipping Committee coming up nearly to that point, in 1923 a point that South Africa had reached before by legislating against deferred rebates and recommending, instead agreements, I fear that the Imperial Shipping Committee, which apparently would be the body that would take this into consideration, would not give us results in time to save the cattle industry or any other industry that is in a very difficult position at this time. So, while I do not want to shut out this question, I am not willing at this stage to support the resolution as it stands. I shall, therefore, vote against the resolution if it is pressed to a vote in its present form, and I shall also vote against the amendment.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Mr. Speaker, I had intended addressing an argument to you and making a statement to the House in connection with this very important matter. I do not, however, do so, simply because this afternoon some time after three o'clock our whip tells us that, against all usual parliamentary practice in this House, this matter is to be pressed to a vote on

Friday night. Under those circumstances, it is idle, I think, for me to take up the time of the House. Of course, I shall have ample opportunity of discussing the question while the matter is in committee. But I point out that in the past, I think I am right in saying, a major motion of this kind has never been pressed on, contested, or got rid of, on a Friday night, certainly not without at least a. day's notice being given to the other side. Everybody knows that hon. gentlemen leave on Friday, and everybody also knows that many Ontario members leave by the eleven o'clock train.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why should they?


Henry Lumley Drayton: An hon. gentleman asks, why should they? The question is idle. Gentlemen on the other side know before making their arrangements just what is going to happen. We do not; we are told on Friday what is going to be done. And we have in connection with this most novel kind of legislation a novel kind of parliamentary practice. I therefore address no argument to-night to you, Sir. But I am going to do one thing which I think necessary, a thing which hon. gentlemen from Montreal have failed to do. The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler) did take part in the debate, and he gave us first-rate periods; he gave us some sentences that bring us back to where we were when we started.
What the hon. gentleman has said is entirely for the purpose of showing that the English language does not mean what it says. But there are written documents which I think ought to be submitted to the House, and I do not think that Montreal should be forced to be inarticulate because its members, under the whip of party necessity, must remain silent.


Herbert Meredith Marler: Has Montreal been inarticulate? Have I not expressed my opinion clearly-perhaps not for the whole of Montreal but certainly for one section of it?


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend will hardly make any of us believe, in view of what our newspapers tell us, and in view of what is contained in the papers laid upon the table, that he was giving very loud utterance to the real feelings, the real ideas of Montreal on this question.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I take entire issue with
the hon. member in that regard.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is getting
late and the hon. gentleman is interrupting rather than asking questions; I shall therefore

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have to press on. The hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) filed two petitions from Montreal bearing on this subject, but he was not kind enough to tell us just what they were. I got them this afternoon and I think it is only fair and just that they should be placed on Hansard. The first petition is from the Montreal Corn . Exchange Association, addressed to the House in the usual form, humbly showing:
That the question of ocean shipping is a complex and difficult one, and has been investigated by the very best authorities for many years; -
That the conclusions of these various investigations have not been unanimous; -
That any drastic legislative action concerning ocean transportation is 'fraught with the gravest danger, and should be based on a report made by a properly constituted commission with the fullest possible powers to thoroughly investigate all phases of this most involved question, as well as to closely analyse all reports issued by various commissions, committees and individuals regarding it; -
Wherefore, the committee of management of the Montreal Corn Exchange Association earnestly prays your honourable House not to ratify the proposed contract between the Dominion government and Sir William Petersen for the establishment and operation of a regular steamship service between Canadian ports and British and continental ports.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, et cetera.
I at once assure the Prime Minister that the petition is duly signed both by the president and by the secretary of the association. The other petition is from the Montreal Board of Trade and reads :
That the government of Canada has contracted, subject to the ratification of the Dominion parliament, with one. Sir William Petersen, or a company to be formed by him, for the establishment and operation of a regular steamship service between Canadian ports and British and continental ports, the consideration for said service being an annual subsidy to be paid by the government, amounting to approximately $1,340,000, on the basis of a service of ten ships, the government having the right to demand that the service be doubled, in which case the subsidy will be increased proportionately; -
That the reasons adduced by the government for entering into the contract are that trading communities and interests of the country are seriously handicapped in their overseas trade by disadvantages artificially created by the indiscriminate and uncertain rates and conditions enforced by shipping combines or conferences, the existence of which combines or conferences, however, together with the disadvantages for which they are held responsible, seem to have been predicated largely on the report of an individual investigator, who, however sincere, did not possess the necessary authority or technical knowledge to conduct an investigation into a question which is international in its scope and character;-
That, it is impossible to influence ocean rates generally by the method proposed because it provides lower rates on a small part of the traffic only, saich lower rates benefiting only those shippers whose goods are carried by ships operating under the contract, and that at the cost of the already overburdened taxpayer; - That the expenditure of such a large sum annually as is called for under the contract cannot but be
contemplated with alarm, in view of the state of the national finances; -
Wherefore, the council of the Montreal Board of Trade earnestly prays your honourable House not to approve of the proposed contract, which would involve the country in such a heavy annual outlay without commensurate benefits to the citizens of Canada.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, et cetera.
That petition also is duly signed by the president and the secretary of the board.


Herbert Meredith Marler: And what is therein set
forth is precisely what the committee will do; it will make an investigation before the contract is ratified.


Henry Lumley Drayton: There are
evasions sometimes that work and evasions sometimes that recoil on themselves, and I am inclined to think that my hon. friend will find that most people are of the opinion that the English language means just what it says. The hon. gentleman says that what the government proposes to do in appointing a committee to investigate the matter is just what is asked in these petitions. That is not so. These petitions say definitely:	"Don't have
anything to do with the contract; don't overburden the tax-payer who already has a heavier load than he can carry. Don't do something ridiculous, something that will cope with only a very small modicum of the traffic, something that will have absolutely no effect on any general reduction of rates but will mean a tremendous expense to the rate-
10	p.m. payers". I have tried to be as brief as possible, Mr. Speaker, because I do not desire to delay hon. gentlemen who have made arrangements which they are bound to keep.
Mr. JEAN J. DENIS (Joliette):	I have
only a few words to say on the resolution but before casting my vote I should like to make my position clear and explain to the House my view of the question. What is sought in this proposed legislation is a reduction of ocean freight rates; and of all the problems which might come before the Parliament of Canada at any time there is none more arduous or more difficult than the problem of attempting to reduce the cost of ocean transportation. I say, therefore, at the very outset that any government that has the courage to try in any way to tackle this question and to wrestle with it ought to deserve the sympathy of the community at large as well as of hon. members of this House. I think we are all agreed that the reduction of freight rates, whether on land or on sea, is absolutely necessary in the interests of this country. Since the war freight rates have increased enormously, and this increase has
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to a very large extent hampered the trade and the industrial development of Canada,
It is all very well to say we have an enormous country with unlimited resources, but those resources have to be carried to the markets of the world and unless we are able to carry them under conditions profitable to the growers, to the producers, to the miners, these magnificent resources can be of no avail. Therefore the government should be praised for their worthy attempt to reduce freight rates. Any such reduction would benefit all classes, more particularly the farmers; and in that connection I cannot forget the farmers of my own province, the old historic province of Quebec. I know wrhat hardships the farmers of my province are facing now and have been facing since the conclusion of the war. Only through their thrift, their industry, their endurance and their patience have they been able to cope with the situation brought about not through the fault of any government but on account of circumstances arising out of the war and post-war conditions. I know that the farmers not only of my province but of every province of this Dominion are anxious that freight rates should be reduced; and this applies also, as I have just said, to all other classes of the community. That being the case; everyone being anxious to see the rates reduced-and that has been the desire not this year only, but for many years, as was mentioned this afternoon-the government have made a move; they have come to parliament with a contract. They have asked parliament to examine that contract and to pass judgment upon it, not as it is set forth in the resolution, but as subsequently submitted by the committee of parliament to which the matter is to be referred. What is now being submitted to us, unless I am mistaken, is not a final, irrevocable proposition; it is a draft contract; and I base my opinion as to that on the declarations made by the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low) and the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King).
I do not desire to pass judgment upon the procedure of this House, Mr. Speaker, but it would appear to me that the opposition have opposed the resolution altogether too soon. What was asked was merely the reference of the resolution to a committee for examination and investigation, and that being the case every hon. member might very well reserve his final judgment, as I intend to do, until the special committee reports back to the House. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the fate of this scheme will not be finally determined until the report of that 
committee is presented and until a vote of the House either gives effect to the contract or nullifies it. It seems to me, therefore, that it would have been much more appropriate to have deferred the discussion on the subject until after the committee had brought in their report. But hon. members on the other side were so anxious to engage in combat that they attacked the resolution immediately upon its being introduced and brought all their arguments to bear against it. For my part I do not intend to-night to discuss the merits of the resolution, except to say that on the face of it, it appears to me to be a worthy attempt on the part of the government to give the people of this country cheaper freight rates on the ocean. Is the resolution perfect? Are there any flaws in it? Can it be made better? All these questions will be submitted to the committee, and after the committee has made its report it will be time for us to judge as to the merits or demerits of the contract.
It appears to me that in following this procedure the government have not only acted in good faith but have also proceeded in a most democratic way. The autocratic method would have been to submit the contract to parliament and ask for a decision at once on the contract as submitted. The democratic way is to have the contract sent to a committee to be thoroughly examined, thoroughly sifted, thoroughly tested, and then for parliament to make its final decision when the report is brought in.
I listened this afternoon with a great deal of pleasure to the speech delivered by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler) and I must say that I am fully in accord with what he said. I wrote down one of his sentences as correctly as I could, and if I made no mistake it would read like this; "I reserve my attitude and my vote until the bill comes back from the committee." This is the stand I intend to take, Mr. Speaker. In accord with the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George I think that all hon. members who are anxious that ocean freight rates be reduced should give this resolution an opportunity to be discussed in committee; should have this question, so important to all classes of the country, fully gone into both in the committee and in the House when the report of the committee is presented. For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I will vote with pleasure for the resolution.
Mr. T. W. BIRD (Nelson); Mr. Speaker, after listening to most of this debate I have concluded that the only sensible thing to

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do is to allow this proposal to go to a special committee. We are told that it would be a breach of parliamentary technique to vote for this resolution simply to enable the matter to be referred to a committee. Well, all I can say if technique stands in the way of the only sensible course to be taken, then so much the worse for the technique. I believe that the method of discussing trade resolutions prior to the introduction of a bill is something of a nuisance. It has involved us in a lot of waste time this week; in fact, we have wasted a whole week of parliamentary time over what is after all only a relic of procedure that has outlived its usefulness. I cannot see where there is any place in reason for discussion of this kind which leads to no practical results. I doubt whether in voting for this resolution we are transgressing, those of us who may ultimately be opposed to the final proposal, the technicalities of parliament. I believe it has been customary in the practice of this House to qse this stage of the discussion on a proposal of this kind to settle the general principle involved. I think that is all that has ever been expected from this stage of the discussion. Now I notice that the general question, the underlying principle, has been accepted in an almost unqualified way by almost all sides of this House, and yet we have wasted almost a week over that one particular. The general question of the desirability of the control of ocean freight rates has been almost universally accepted by this House.
I shall not try to delve into the motives of the government or of the Prime Minister in introducing the motion as they have. The official opposition attributed it to the desire of the Prime Minister to wriggle out of- I think that was the word used-the responsibility which is supposed to attach to the Prime Minister and his government. As I say, I do not know what the motive of the Prime Minister was. I do not care very much, although I desire to credit him with the best of motives. But whatever his motives were, I think his action in submitting this motion to the House with the proviso that it is only the general principle which is to be decided upon is to be commended in itself. I think it is in full accord with the tendencies of parliaments in modern times. The circumstances under which governments of old came down to the House with a policy in one hand, and a big stick in the other, fortunately are of the past. I think this ought to be dwelt upon a little. I think it is significant in these days that prime ministers do consult the wishes of the people, and the wishes of the representatives of the
people. To illustrate my point I want to refer to what I consider to be one of the most significant parliamentary incidents of modern times. I refer to the debate in the British House on the Trades Union Levy Amendment Bill. You will remember that the Conservative government in Great Britain came into power with the avowed policy of destroying the trades union political levy. That was their declared policy, but in the debate the other day on that proposition. Mr. Baldwin made history. He delivered a speech the like of which I venture to say has not been equalled in the British House. This is what the Manchester Guardian says of Mr. Baldwin's effort. After criticizing the old way of doing things that is, the big stick method of government, in which the government comes down to the House and says- take it or leave it-the Guardian goes on to say:
Mr. Baldwin's way was different. He made no promises about fulfilling his pledges later on when he had time to remember them; no threats against the recalcitrant members of his own .party; no impassioned pleas for the due observance of parliamentary procedure. " We abandon what we have laid our hands to," he said. " We, at any rate, are not going to fire the first shot. We stand for peace and to remove suspicion in the country. We want to create a new atmosphere in a new parliament for a new age in which the people can come together."
Then the editorial goes on to say:
If he (Mr. Baldwin) lives up to the spirit of this speech he will be a great Prime Minister. It was the speech of one, who though the leader of a great party and a great majority tries to interpret the will of the people irrespective of party, who would rather conciliate than dominate, who can look at the other fellow's point of view, and who does not forget that a Prime Minister owes more to his country than to his party. Whether so striking, so emphatic, and so unusual an appeal to idealism in party politics will meet with a fitting response from either his supporters or his critics remains to be seen. But we may be grateful that the appeal has been made.
Mr. Speaker, I will not be trespassing very much on the time of the House if I read one of the closing paragraphs of that wonderful speech. In the Manchester Guardian of the 7th of March the debate in the British parliament is given in full. I will read the second to the last paragraph of the speech:
We have our majority-
Hon. gentleman to my right ought to pay attention to this. This is a speech of a famous Tory leader:
We have our majority, we believe in the justice of this bill which has been brought in to-day, but we are going to withdraw to one side, and we are not going to push our political advantage home at a moment like this. We at any rate are not going to fire the first shot. We stand for peace. We stand for the removal of suspicion in the country. We want to create an atmosphere, a new atmosphere in a new
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parliament, for a new age in which the people can come together. We abandon what we have laid our hands to. We know we may be called cowards for doing it. We know we may be told that we have gone back on our (principles. But at this moment we believe we know what the country wants, and we believe it is for us in our strength to do what no other party can do at this moment, and to say that we at any rate stand for peace.
That speech created a profound impression on all parties in the British House, and I venture to say in every quarter of the British islands. It met with immediate commendation from Labour and Liberal, and I cannot see how it can escape the commendation of every reasonable man. That is the tendency of the times. The big stick type of government is an outworn superstition, and whatever the motives of the Prime Minister may be- hon. gentlemen to our right who seek to prove that those motives are other than strictly virtuous are following a line of reasoning which I think is not strictly relevant to the question before the House. I believe the Prime Minister's action in itself is just what a modern democracy expects from a Prime Minister. To introduce a cut and dried proposition and try to ram it down the throat of parliament is the last thing that the ordinary citizen expects from a government to-day, and if that is the kind of government we are to get from the right hon. leader of the opposition, I think his chances of ever succeeding to power are exceedingly slim, because there is a temper abroad not only in Britain but in Canada which is absolutely against that spirit.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I contend that the debate so far, if it has proved anything at all, has proved that we cannot get any further intelligently without submitting this thing to a special committee. I have carefully followed the speeches and even the best of them, I think, are clouded over with a doubt. They have consisted for the most part of excerpts from different sources more or less well digested-less rather than more. One hon. gentleman said that we as a House could not foe expected to know much about marine affairs. I heartily agree with him after hearing some of the speeches to-night. I think as the debate has proceeded we have not had very much real light shed upon the problems of shipping. So I contend that the only thing we can do is to send this resolution to a special committee, where we can meet transportation experts face to face and get their opinions. We are not experts; I venture to say that most of us know as much about the horse marine as we know about the merchant marine.
I think probably three questions ought to be put to a special committee. We do not

need to ask if a combine exists; we are agreed that it does, and we are also agreed that some form of control is necessary. What we need ask the special committee is whether the combine which exists is hurtful or is one of the domestic type that is not ferocious to any degree. I do not know how the special committee would answer that question. It certainly has not been answered in this debate. There have been many attempts to do so, but I must confess that as yet I am no nearer deciding whether the combine is hurtful or not. Some hon. members have endeavoured to show that it is a monstrous affair, and others-mostly on my right-have attempted to show that it is comparatively harmless. Well, we do not know as yet, and we require the experts to get us anywhere in that direction. There is not enough knowledge among the whole of us to advance us one inch along that particular line. With respect to certain features of the situation I am more clear in my judgment than with respect to others. I believe that with regard to the important factor of grain the combine is not doing Canada very much harm. We have that proved in black and white. With respect to cattle we are in grave doubt. With respect to package and passenger freight we are equally in the dark. We cannot get any further- than we are to-night-and we are nowhere-unless we have the experts face to face with us, and we might as well recognize our helplessness. Another appropriate question to put before the committee is: What kind of control if necessary, will be best? Of course, if the combine is harmless no control will foe necessary. Does the proposal now before us promise to be effective in giving us control of ocean rates? I will not seek to enter into that question, because I believe we are just in the same position in regard to it as we are with respect to the nature of the combine itself. I do not think anyone to-night is qualified to give a. convincing opinion as to whether this proposition is going to work or not. There is just as much haziness in the House on that score as there is on other aspects of the case.
Now, certain alternatives have been put forward, and I think it is the duty of hon. members to put forward alternatives when they disagree with any proposal presented by the government. I have noticed no less than five or six alternatives submitted during the debate, some of them more or less practical, others purely idealistic. For instance, there is an alternative in the amendment. There are certain things we do not know about the motion; but there is nothing we do not know about the amendment; it is so perfectly

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transparent. The amendment belongs entirely to the realm of improbabilities. The leader of the opposition in his excellent contribution to the debate argued that it was incompetent for Canada alone to set rates between here and Europe. Well, it was an impressive argument and delivered with some dramatic display, but I immediately thought to myself: Well, if that argument is good against Canada, how much more is it good against the empire setting rates for itself? Why, I think the leader of the official opposition has only to reflect for a moment to realize how absurd in a world like this it would be for the British Empire to try to set rates against other countries. The world would blow up at once. Farewell to the League of Nations, farewell to pacts of peace if once the British Empire set itself against the world in this respect. There is no such thing as inter-imperial trade pure and simple. The empire is just as much enmeshed in international trade as the other nations are, and it is beside the mark to say that Canada herself cannot control rates.
I have been very much interested in reading opinions expressed in the British newspapers on the Petersen contract. I notice in the Economist-a periodical quoted by the leader of the opposition-that the new president of the Chamber of Shipping, giving his opinion, said that Canada unfortunately-I suppose he meant certain people in Canada-believe that it was possible for her to do all of the selling and none of the buying. I believe there is a widespread conviction in Great Britain that Canada is out to sell Britain everything and buy nothing from her. If ever the empire is to be persuaded to control rates on behalf of the Dominion,, the empire would expect something from the dominions and that something is just what our friends to the right are unwilling to give them. They know that any bargain between us and Great Britain must be on a give and take basis, that if we are to get consideration in the matter of transportation we must give them consideration in this other regard. There is a certain amount of selfishness in an attitude of that kind, and I believe the time will never come when Great Britain, to whom shipping is so vital, will accept, a one-sided arrangement of that kind. I was somewhat interested in the view put forward by the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler). He deprecated the mixing of poetry and politics, but hon. members will notice that he was not so hesitant himself in entering the realm of prophecy, and it was very long range prophecy at that. He looked forward! to the time when the Canadian Pacific Railway 89
and the Canadian National Railways would join hands for the welfare of the country. He reminds me of the prophet who looked forward to the time when a little child would play with impunity on the hole of the asp and the lamb would lie down with the lion. I think it is a very attractive object but utterly idealistic, and wre do not always associate idealism with the mind of an hon. gentleman who is so practical in his method of reasoning.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: Did the hon. member
for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) not imply that there was a possibility of the Canadian Pacific being taken over by the Canadian government?


Mr. BIRD:: I believe he did, but that possibility verges on the realm of impossibilities, a possibility which is far from being a probability.
I wish to enter the realm of prophecy on my own account, a little short-range prophecy for a change. There is one thing that has not been mentioned in this debate, and I am going to take upon myself the honour of mentioning it; and that is that in this country there are springing up mighty co-operative organizations. In the west we have monster grain co-operative pools. We have cattle pools also making great strides. Now these movements which are characteristic of the age spell co-operation, and I declare to-night, Mr. Speaker, that co-operation is the only alternative to combination, so we might as *well face it to-night. All these other things are doubtful, probably visionary, and will bring upon us the bitterness of disappointment, but in this movement which is so characteristic of our western life at the present time some of us see the only hope of checking the menace of these combinations. Those of us who have been interested in the co-operative movement for a good many years, as though it were a kind of religion, have wondered at times at the indifference of governments to the movement. It seems to me that the movement could not do better to-day than to throw its weight into the scale on behalf of a movement of that kind. I do not say that the co-operative movement in Canada is ripe for any practical proposal as to shipping and transportation, but it will be in that position very speedily. And I would suggest to the government that it keep its eyes upon that movement, because I believe that in a short time it will have arrived at a stage of development where some proposition of that kind will be very feasible, and it is the only thing in Canada that holds out

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the least hope of successfully combating the combine. There is another short-range prophecy that I want to make, and the House will pardon me if I refer to the Hudson Bay railway.


An hon. MEMBER:: Order, order.


Thomas William Bird: It hit somebody in a very tender place. It has seemed to me during this debate an odd thing that the Hudson Bay railway has never occurred to the minds of hon. members of this House as being an alternative proposal, perhaps not an alternative but a subsidiary proposal. I listened with great attention to the speech of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler). His speeches in this House compel one to listen because they give signs that they originate in his own mind. They are not pale copies of dead philosophies, and so on. We may disagree with him considerably, but he speaks with such originality on Canadian problems that we are compelled to sit and listen to him, notwithstanding the extreme length of his speeches. When he was talking about the idea of universal subsidies in order to relieve the farmer in regard to his transportation problem, I wondered that his logical mind did not turn to the Hudson Bay railway, because if this government would complete the Hudson Bay railway-and there are only ninety short miles to build, and it is all graded-if they would spend a few million dollars, which would be a mere flea bite compared with this doubtful proposition before us to-night, in completing the Hudson Bay railway, they would bring the western farmer just one thousand miles nearer to Liverpool, and it is the worst thousand miles too, because while the ocean stretch is infested by sea serpents, this other thousand miles is infested by worse animals. At one stroke they would take that thousand miles of land transportation forever from the sphere in which it is at present, being now wide open to the exploiters of this country.
Talking about exploiters on the Atlantic ocean, they are not to be compared with the exploiters on the land. Somebody said something about not stopping at the shore. I would not begin at the shore. You want to go a long way this side of the shore if you are going to do the thing right. The fight on the ocean is problematic, but the fight on land is a real fight with those whom we know and we meet face to face with men of our own country. There is not much heroism in fighting the British merchant marine. It is of no political significance to rub them the wrong way. But it takes really hard fighting
IMr. Bird.]
to get rid of some of the pests that exist along our land transportation lines. By a very simple process, by spending just a few dollars which have been promised for many years by both political parties, they would cut out 1,000 miles. This would solve the grain problem. It would solve the cattle problem more than the grain problem. That is something which the western farmer can understand, but I question whether he can understand five words of the debate that has been going on during the last week. It means nothing to him; it is a medley of words, sound and fury signifying nothing to an inlander.
To return again to the attitude of my hon. friend to whom I refer, his attitude both in his speech on the Address and his speech this afternoon shows to me that a new light is breaking upon the statesmen of this country. I would say that my hon. friend ranks in that class. I think he has raised himself above the position of mere politician. I think he has endeavoured to look at the problems of this country in a fair, broad, statesmanlike way, perhaps not from the particular angle that we view them and not arriving at the conclusions that we arrive at. But we are getting somewhere when we have men stand up in this House and throw the old precedents and old' ways of thinking to the winds and try to build up something constructive, not for political reasons, but as he says, and as we believe him, for the good of this country. I have no faith in subsidies as such; but I believe if a subsidy, as someone has said, can be proved to be of national benefit, not very many scruples will remain in the hearts of the farmers of this country. I believe we are fast coming to a kind of parliamentary government in which subsidies will be a comparatively safe form of national development. It has not been safe in the past because we have had the wrong kind of parliamentary domination. You could not entrust subsidies in the hands of politicians with whom we have been blessed for the past number of years; but I believe that the process is coming about by which this parliament, when it is thoroughly representative of the people and when the-people have proper control over it, will be-able to subsidize necessitous concerns of this country. I look forward to that age. I believe a complex civilization cannot go on without some form of mutual help; but this all assumes a very much advanced form of parliamentary government, and I am afraid that as yet we have not reached that stage. The hon. member is just a forerunner. I am afraid there is just a sprinkling of this spirit-

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I am not in a position to make sweeping statements. I think this House is well meaning, but I believe the attitude taken by my hon. friend is not yet come. I should like to see more of it. As I said, when he was speaking, it was a wonder to me that his logical mind did not throw out some crumbs to the western farmer with respect to the thing for which he has been longing for almost half a century. I cannot conceive of anything that this parliament could do which would tend more completely to heal up the sores, the wounds, that are open and gaping in this fair country of ours. I was talking to a professional man in this city some time ago and naturally I reverted to this subject. He said to me: "Now, I do not know anything about the Hudson Bay railroad. I am not going to set myself up as a critic of that railway. I do not know the facts. I am going to refuse to accept the leading articles of these eastern newspapers which are most obviously inspired against it. This is the attitude I take. If this thing was going to cost twice the money, I would gladly concede it, because I cannot conceive of anything that would bring the west and the east together more effectively than that concession." It is a wonder to me that the government has not had something to say in that regard.
Finally I think the suggestion which has been made from different sides of the House that the proper solution lies in the use of our merchant marine, is the one that is finding most favour on this side of the House and, I believe, in the country. There is a wonderful appeal in the thought that we can make use of our merchant marine in order to reduce rates upon the Atlantic, and the government, when the time comes, will be well advised, in that spirit which I have tried to enunciate tonight and which was so wonderfully exemplified in Premier Baldwin, which I believe to be the spirit of the new age which is upon us, to reconsider the proposal which they have on the order paper and try to meet what I believe to be the overwhelming opinion in large sections of this country, that the use of the merchant marine with this end in view is the logical, reasonable and wise course to pursue.
Mr. JOS. T. SHAW (West Calgary): Mr. Speaker, such few observations as I have to make will, at least, have the merit of brevity. I have listened with the greatest interest to the arguments that have been advanced on all sides of the House in connection with this very important matter. I think one can readily dissect the subject matter into the three orthodox parts. First of all, does a combine exist? It may be called by a different 89i
name; the delightful term of conference may be applied to it; but not a voice in this House will be raised against the proposition that a combine does actually exist on the north Atlantic. The second question naturally follows: Is this a pernicious combine? Does it engage in unreasonable rate fixing? To that question, too, many of us, judging from the investigations that have been made not only in this country and in England, but in the United States, will agree, I think, that certainly on some occasions and probably on the great majority of occasions, the rates fixed are unreasonable. I do not now want to deal with that matter further. I think we all agree that there should be some measure of control in connection with ocean rates. We admit the principle immediately when we consider transportation rates on land. When it comes to the sea, perhaps some of us have a difficulty in the matter, but I for one find no difficulty whatever in coming to the conclusion that it is absolutely essential and vital that ocean freight rates should be governmentally controlled.
That brings me to the next proposition. We have before us two plans for meeting the situation. We have the plan embodied in the amendment proposed by the official opposition. We have on the other hand the plan proposed by the government. As regards the Conservative plan, because of the fact that it postpones action, because we can see no end to the road, I have no hesitation whatever in dismissing that plan from my consideration, ,
With regard to the government plan, I am not in a position to say whether or not the ten Petersen ships working in co-operation with the Canadian National Railways and with the Canadian Government Merchant Marine will be able to effect a reduction in ocean freight rates. I do not know; and that I think must be the position of a great many members of the House. We are not in a position to say, owing to lack of information. I suggest, therefore, that this is essentially a matter which should go to a special committee, a committee which can call before it representatives of the steamship companies and ascertain the rates that are charged, and which will have the facilities for determining what moneys the steamship companies are making as a result of their undertaking-a committee, in short, which will be in a position after listening to all the evidence to determine precisely what the real effect will be of this particular plan.
There will be another advantage in connection with the proposed committee: it will have an opportunity to call before it the man who framed the agreement, Mr. Lafleur,
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who undoubtedly is one of the most distinguished jurists in this country, and who I have no doubt will be ready to answer many of what I think have been very severe reflections on the draftsmanship of this contract. It seems to me that the only reasonable objection offered to the reference of the matter to a committee rests in the fact that some members are of the opinion that the second reading of the bill commits them to its principle and that they are bound in consequence and feel themselves fettered and unable properly to deal with the subject when it comes from the hands of the committee. But so far as this objection is concerned I have not the slightest difficulty in view of the statement made by the Prime Minister on March 17, as follows:
Let me emphasize the fact that hon. gentlemen, in agreeing to the resolution and the second reading of the bill, are committing themselves only to the principle of governmental control of rates.
That is the statement of the Prime Minister in connection with this proposal to refer the matter to a committee. Now I am not one of those who for a single moment will suggest that we should not take seriously the undertaking of the Prime Minister in this regard. I believe of every hon. gentleman in this House, as indeed I would have the House believe of mysdlf, that an undertaking once given will be honoured; and we are justified in concluding that this particular undertaking will be carried out, especially when made by the responsible first minister of the country.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Did not the Prime Minister also say that the government would stand or fall by the resolution?


Mr. SHAW:: What I have just quoted is
the last statement of the Prime Minister on the subject, it is surely the considered undertaking of the Prime Minister and the one that should be given primary consideration. I say consequently that, the House not committing itself to the principle of the measure In supporting the resolution, one should find no difficulty whatever in voting for it. I commend the Prime Minister in this regard, although I should have preferred, instead of the matter being carried to a second reading of the bill as is proposed, that the
11	p.m. whole question be referred im' mediately to a committee after the passing of this resolution.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If my hon.
friend will allow me to intervene here, I may say that I have had before me all evening a motion which I intended submitting to the House the moment the resolution before the House carried. That motion is to the
[Mr. Shaw.l
effect that instead of the committee proceeding with the resolution we are discussing, it be referred immediately to a special committee. I have gathered from the trend of the discussion that there is a doubt in the minds of some hon. members as to whether or not they would be committing themselves to the measure if they voted for the second reading of the bill. The government, when the resolution was first introduced, made it perfectly clear that the intention was that it should go to a special committee for consideration and that there would be ample opportunity before the committee to consider and discuss the whole matter. So that there may be no misunderstanding, I may tell the hon. gentleman that such is the intention of the government; when the resolution carries the matter will at once be referred to the special committee.


Joseph Tweed Shaw: I need not assure the Prime
Minister that this meets with the approval of a great many hon. members, myself included, although I am frank to say that I am prepared to rely on his undertaking, whether or not the second reading is moved. I commend the Prime Minister on the step he has just indicated, because in my opinion one of the serious problems we have to deal with to-day is the problem of cabinet autocracy. The principle is one that arose in the war and it is a principle from which we should get away as rapidly as possible. I disagree fundamentally and entirely with the view of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) in this regard; for if members of parliament are to be mere rubber stamps to register approval or disapproval of governmental action, then it seems to me we could do just as well by staying at home. I prefer the situation in which the member of parliament can feel that his suggestions and his criticism may have some definite part in the formulation of government policy. For that reason if for no other I commend the Prime Minister for having put this particular resolution in the form in which it is drafted, so that the committee may bring to it their unfettered consideration and their unbiased judgment. I shall have no difficulty whatever in voting against the amendment and, especially under the circumstances that 'have now developed, in supporting the resolution as proposed.


Mr. C. H. DICKIE (Nanaimo):: There has been a great deal said both pro and con this resolution and we are well aware what the result of the vote will be; the amendment will be voted down and the resolution

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carried. So that any words of mine will be futile. But I feel it my duty to place some of my views with respect to this important question before the House. We were assured from the outset that our good friends to the left would not see the party directly opposite in difficulty; their life boat is always to be seen coming through the mist when the government is in trouble, as my leader (Mr. Meighen) observed. However, the government is not in trouble in this instance. The Prime Minister doubtless expected when this proposition was put before the country that the agricultural population would be swept off their feet in favour of it, but for once some of the agriculturists have displayed a little incredulity and it is necessary to prolong debate in order to bring them to terms. We see them hour by hour being brought around to the government's way of thinking. With respect to the government's attitude in this matter, I can see that the Prime Minister did not feel quite happy when he perceived that it was not going over as strongly as he wished it to do. He is looking for a place on which to land; he is tired of the sea and I am sure that terra firma will loom up when this matter reaches the committee stage. I do not believe that the Petersen proposal will be ratified by this parliament; I do not believe that the public of Canada are in favour of it. It is folly to expect that ten small ships will have any influence on the immense shipping of the seven seas.
I come now to the immigration phase of this subject, on which the minister in charge of the measure (Mr. Low) dwelt with some emphasis. He stressed the great benefits that would accrue to the immigration problem in the operation of these ships. The Prime Minister touched upon it more lightly than the Minister of Trade and Commerce. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald), if I remember rightly, did not touch on it at all. The reason was that a few well expressed remarks on the part of the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. Clark) entirely dissipated any hopes in that direction. No accommodation is to be provided on these ships for immigrants. We know that in Europe thousands are waiting to get into the United States when they can under the quota laws, willing to pay the rates exacted by the steamships. These people do not want to come here. This is not the time to discuss the reason why, and I assure you the Petersen line will not bring immigrants here who would not come otherwise. So that you can consider the immigration argument pretty well dissipated.
Another argument is based on the alleged exorbitant freight rates on the ocean. But there is not one jot or tittle of evidence to show that freight rates are exorbitant on the Atlantic.. We have not one tittle of evidence that the steamships in the combine-and doubtless it is a combine; I do not see how it could very well be otherwise and give good service-are paying huge dividends or even making adequate profits. On the other hand we have the fact that our merchant marine, although it has .been sitting in at the conference, has been losing money. That is a very good argument that the combine as a whole is not making exorbitant profits; at least, we have no reason to assume that they are, so that is a very doubtful argument. We know that high rates are being charged on the ocean, but we know also that in these progressive days the ship-owners have to improve their services from time to time. We know that they have gone through very difficult times. We know that the Cunard line at one time was almost down and out, requiring assistance. These lines must vie with each other in giving service that is adequate to meet the demands of a rather critical travelling public, yet they must make money, they must make profits in order to maintain the service, keep the ships in proper condition and make renewals from time to time. Unless it can be proved that they are making excessive and exorbitant profits, that argument falls to the pound. And these two arguments, the one with respect to immigration and the other with respect to exorbitant freight charges, were the two strongest arguments used in favour of this resolution.
It has always been the practice when in doubt to hammer the big interests. But I am getting a little ahead of my subject. In a very eloquent address the Prime Minister read numerous letters with respect to the lack of success of shippers and others in Canada. But has there ever been a time in our history when people did not attribute to exorbitant freight charges, or to something else, what was probably due to their lack of business ability? Our agricultural people, my hon. friends to my left-have they not year after year hammered and hammered for a decrease in freight rates-hammered until they made one think of the horse leech's daughters who said, "Give, give, give?" Yet they are not satisfied. They would not be satisfied if they had lower rates; it is not natural for them to be satisfied. But I am not blaming them for one moment. The manufacturers of Canada are in the same position. We are. always hammering at the big interests for
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Hewitt Bostock: Is the House ready for
the question?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Th ; House was pretty nearly ready for the question, Mr. Speaker, an hour ago. We are faced at this time with perhaps one of the most unfair actions on the part of the government, one of the most flagram, departures from the long recognized practice of this House, and that is: bringing to a vote, in this House, without notice, on a Friday night a major measure. I am quite aware, Mr. Speaker, and you with your long experience in parliament are no doubt equally well aware, that there is no rule of the House calling for this special consideration to be given to members; but there has been a practice stretching back as long as the memory of the oldest member of this House, and much longer, that no major question shall be brought to a vote on Friday night. And why? Not that it ever advantages me a particle; I happen to come, Mr. Speaker, from the extreme west, and am fated with some other members to attend here at all times. I have not the privilege of going to my home every week end, as have members from Ontario and Quebec. But there is perhaps a third or more of the members of this House who so arrange their affairs that they go home on Friday afternoon or Friday evening regularly. It is well known and understood what has been the practice. It is this: That on Fridays, government measures that are not of major importance shall be before the House, usually such matters as estimates and the like, or measures that are not looked upon as controversial. I venture this assertion, Sir, and I invite you to search your memory for the past twenty-five or thirty years that you have graced a position in this House, and see if you can recall-I certainly cannot- a single case where without notice, without previous arrangement, a major question has been brought to a vote on a Friday. There was absolutely no thought of this matter being brought to a vote to-night, and when our whip consulted with the government authorities after the session opened to-day he was coolly informed that a vote would be taken to-night.


Ernest Lapointe: Will my hon. friend permit me a question? Does he think that it is more unfair to compel a vote on Friday than to force members of parliament to vote under
closures, as he and his friends have forced us to vote so many times.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Not so many times. I have no objection whatever to the government introducing closure on any measure on which they choose to introduce it. The closure is part of the rules of this House, and I bow to it. What I was pointing out, though was this. Once the government took that stand, what was our position? We had twelve further members who wanted to speak. We called every one of them off except one or two who spoke this afternoon and into this evening. We were prepared to stop, but the debate has been carried on, not by us at all, until the hour is past when hon. gentlemen could take their train.
Now we are faced with this situation. Here are some hon. gentlemen in this group, legal members, who had made arrangements to attend certain cases in the courts in Toronto.
I am aware you can say: That is none of our business. It certainly is not, but the point is that following the long established practice of this House, following what has been understood from time immemorial, these hon. gentlemen made their arrangements and left, and the consequence is, and the government can I suppose gleefully chuckle to themselves over it, that if a vote is forced to-night this particular group will show a very depleted force, and that, of course, is a very, very delightful situation for the government.


Mr. VIEN:: Does my hon. friend know that eighteen of his friends, out of fifty-one, have already secured pairs?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly I am aware of that. But it makes it all the worse. What is the situation regarding the pairs? The pairs were given largely to hon. gentlemen from Quebec who left at 3.30, and that arrangement was made before we knew a vote was to be taken to-night. Had we been advised, as the common courtesy of parliament demands, of this vote to-night, there would have been no pairs, or very few of them, only in extreme cases, and we would have had our members here ready to take the vote. But as the matter now stands, they are not here. I consider, Mr. Speaker, it is one of the most unfortunate occurrences. Why do I say unfortunate? For this reason: Public life is fraught with difficulties enough, goodness knows. There are bound to be questions ooming up which cause schisms and divisions among us in this House and in the country; there is enough bitterness engendered in our ordinary public life. But there is one thought I have cherished as perhaps the great saving feature of our public life, and that is
Ocean Shipping Rates

the splendid spirit of co-operation that has characterized the actions of all groups and parties in this House on almost all occasions where suitable arrangements could be made to discharge the business of the House without unduly interfering; and it has been one of the pleasures, Sir, as you also well know, to be able to contract a pair with hon. gentlemen in opposing factions. All this, however, has been violated; all of this has been swept aside. I am quite aware there are hon. gentlemen who welcome what they call, as one hon. gentleman said to-night, smashing the precedents of parliament, and violating these old time-worn customs, as I think he called them. But I want to say to this House that the precedents of parliament, the rules of parliament, and the practice of parliament have been proven from experience, spreading over the last three hundred years in the case of Great Britain, and the last seventy-five or one hundred years in Canada, to be the best method of carrying on public business. When my hon. friend from Nelson (Mr. Bird) a few moments ago sneered, as he does, on every occasion when he addresses this House, and not only sneered at the practice of parliament, but also impugned the honour of hon. members of this House, as he did to-night-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order. Order.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Am I out of order, Mr. Speaker?


Hance James Logan: To impugn the honour of an hon. member is going a little bit too far.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I did not say that at all. I said that what the hon. gentleman did was this-


Thomas Vien: I rise to a point of order.
The question before the House is the Petersen agreement, and my point is that the hon. member is not discussing the question before the chair.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I will discuss the question before the chair quite soon enough for the hon. gentleman. It is a queer thing to me, Mr. Speaker, that my hon. friend to whom I am about to refer (Mr. Bird) could read long extracts from the Manchester Guardian for over half an hour about what Mr. Baldwin said in London on parliamentary practice, which had absolutely nothing to do with the question before the House, while my other hon. friend (Mr. Vien) could sit by smilingly. Why? Simply because, he said, he rather congratulated the Prime Minister on this measure and he was watching the clock in order to prevent closing of the 
debate before that hour. I close this portion of my remarks with this further reiteration of what I have already said. It is one of the most unfortunate occurrences, because it creates in parliament a schism which ought not to be there, we have enough difficulties without introducing these somewhat disagreeable matters.
Now, Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend (Mr. Vien)-and I notice that he has taken to himself a seat on the treasury bench-says that I am not addressing myself to what is before the House. I will address myself now directly to the question. What is before the House? My right hon. friend the Prime Minister spent three hours of his time the other night talking on what? The matter before the House? No, in discussing something that was going to be referred to or debated in a committee, provision for which was not before the House at all. I want to make this point perfectly clear. I think scarcely an hon. member has spoken on this subject who has not directed all his remarks to the appointment of a special committee. That matter is not before the House, and any discussion of it was out of order. Strictly speaking, Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend (Mr. Vien) had been in the chair and had been ruling as he seeks to have you rule now, not one iota of that discussion would have been in order, because there is no such question before the House. And let hon. gentlemen ponder this. What is before the House is this resolution-which when the vote is taken does not go to a special committee- and I propose to analyze it. What we are asked to do is to disregard the question before the House. This is what my hon. friend from West Calgary (Mr. Shaw) discussed, this is what is being discussed by almost every hon. gentleman supporting the government's view. What is before the House is simply, "that Mr. Speaker do leave the chair." The resolution is not even the Petersen agreement; it is, "that Mr. Speaker d'o leave the chair." What for? That we go into committee to discuss the resolution authorizing the Petersen agreement. That is what is before the House and nothing more. What are we asked to do? We are asked to disregard that, simply because the Prime Minister-and he takes three different steps-abandons his first position, which was that the government would stand or fall on this motion whether it carried or whether it did not carry. Those were his words; that was his attitude the first day it was introduced.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Keep to this
resolution.

Ocean Shipping Rates


Henry Herbert Stevens: So I will.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government will stand or fall on this resolution.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes. My hon. friend from West Calgary based his position a moment ago on the last word of the Prime Minister. Now we have the Prime Minister's fourth utterance.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Order.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the trouble?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon.
friend should address the chair.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friends opposite apparently desire not only to violate the practice of parliament, but also to disregard even its decencies. I was addressing the chair. There was not one utterance of mine that was not preceded by the proper parliamentary term, namely, the hon. member. I addressed my remarks in this way, and I now repeat them, that the hon. member for West Calgary a moment ago said that he would stand by the last utterance of the Prime Minister. That remark was based upon a query from another hon. gentleman that the Prime Minister had previously said something else. Thereupon the hon. member for West Calgary said "I am not taking his first utterance, I am taking his last." I invite him now to take the iast utterance of the Prime Minister. What is that? That he will stand or fall by this agreement.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Just a moment. He did not say that at all.


Henry Herbert Stevens: By this resolution.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Stick to the word.
What I said, and what I wanted to make perfectly clear, was that the government was taking the quickest procedure possible to get this proposed bill to a committee. If the government are prevented in that step, they certainly will stand by the action of the House in the matter.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What does the Prime Minister mean by "will stand by the action of the
House"?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: By the decision of the House. The government will take its course in accordance with the decision of this House. My hon. friend will find that this resolution will carry in this House. If it does not, he will very soon find that the resolution is taken elsewhere for consideration.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The proper parliamentary procedure is this. Primarily this is a government resolution dealing with money matters, and it is the peculiar prerogative of the government to deal with such matters. It is the primary practice of constitutional government that the administration submit any measure to parliament as its considered judgment, and by that considered judgment it stands or falls. That is responsible government. That is where we differ with some hon. members in this House, not because we are old-fashioned, not because we do not appreciate progress, but because we are convinced that responsible government is the best system under which a country can progress. I am quite aware that another practice might be adopted, that parliament should ipse dixit, be like a county council, and that measures might be introduced from any quarter, here, there or elsewhere, and no one take responsibility for them. But I ask hon. gentlemen to ponder what sort of chaotic condition would this country be in within a measurably short period of years if that course were followed? Again I repeat that the practice we are standing for, the practice we are insisting shall be followed in this parliament, is the practice that has been proven for hundreds of years to be the best. What is that practice? What are the rules of this House? In heaven's name, Mr. Speaker, let us amend the rules and do things in an orderly way if we are going to depart from the regular practice. What is the practice in dealing with this resolution and this amendment? If the government desire to send this contract to a committee later on, let them introduce a resolution accordingly. But why inject it into this debate? I would ask hon. gentlemen to use just simple common sense in the matter. Here is a signed and sealed contract. No one disputes that the contract cannot be changed or varied except with the consent of the two parties to it. Here is a resolution. It is before this House to put its stamp of approval upon it. Let me read it:
That to give the government of Canada control over certain ocean rates, it is expedient-
What?
-it is expedient to ratify and confirm the agreement between His Majesty and Sir William Petersen.
That is what we are considering in plain simple English. If this parliament says, "Yes, we ratify that agreement," I ask hon. gentlemen, Mr. Speaker, what position will we find ourselves in if two, three or four weeks from now we come back and say, "Why, we did not know what we were doing, we acted hastily without information; now we want tc change this whole thing".
Ocean Shipping Rates


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: Does the hon. membe. contend that in the vote about to be taken we are ratifying or refusing to ratify this agreement?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Absolutely-


Alfred Speakman: Might I ask one more question? Did the hon. gentleman not state that the question before the House at the present time was not the agreement itself but the resolution, that Mr. Speaker leave the chair?


Henry Herbert Stevens: If you will allow me
to finish my answer-yes, absolutely we are ratifying this. But this is where British parliamentary practice and Canadian parliamentary practice are sound. What does it do? It provides for certain processes to be followed. What are they for? To safeguard the rights of the people or those who desire to criticize or object. What is the process in this case? The first thing is the introduction of the notice of motion. Then we come to the position we are in now, that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee. The next thing is that the committee considers the resolution. The resolution is reported out of committee, then it is read a second time. Then there is a bill based upon that. Then leave is asked to introduce the bill. Then next it is read the first time. After that it is read the second time. That is what some hon. gentlemen call red tape, unnecessary parliamentary methods, something that should be largely done away with, and they say "let us take a short cut." The point is this: such processes are fixed in our rules and regulations for the purpose of protecting the public in just such cases as this. Ordinary bills, which on the face of them are non-controversial, we pass through these stages very rapidly, and the procedure is called useless red tape, but it is nothing of the kind. These formalities are prescribed in our rules for the purpose of protecting just such important measures as this. What I want to point out to the House is this: we might very well use the analogy of the budget. There is a process followed in that case, and it is virtually the same process as this. This resolution has the same effect as the budget. This is a vote of money. We are voting here at least fifteen million.


Mr. HOEY:: At what stage in the procedure is the resolution ratified, or is not the whole procedure necessary before ratification?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Absolutely. The hon.
gentleman is quite right. It has to go through

the procedure I have mentioned, and finally come to a third reading. There are certain stages in the procedure of this House that through long parliamentary practice are recognized as very important stages. This is what I want to place before my hon. friends to my left, because I apprehend what is in their mind3: they say they are not quite satisfied that this is a good measure. Some distinctly disagree with it. Some of them, and practically all, say they do not like the general idea, the trend of the legislation, but they say, "We are convinced that something should be done." We agree with them. I do not think anybody in the House disagrees with that statement, but what I want to put before my hon. friends is this: they rest their case for a complete departure from parliamentary rules of procedure on what? Upon the word of the Prime Minister interjected in the middle of a debate. I am not impugning the Prime Minister's word, nor am I challenging his sincerity. Let us take it at a hundred per cent for the sake of argument, but if the Prime Minister is absolutely sincere in this, before bringing this measure in a finished form before parliament for ratification, why did he not move for the appointment of a special committee? What is the resolution my right hon. friend will have to move? It will be a resolution something to this effect: that a special committee consisting of fifteen members, or whatever number he chooses to name, shall be appointed for the purpose of doing certain things. The order of reference will be the whole value of that committee. My hon. friends do not know what the order of reference is to be. They are voting blindly on this on the assumption that the order of reference is going to be of a character that will please and satisfy them. Suppose the Prime Minister says in his order of reference that he moves for a committee of fifteen members to be appointed for the purpose of considering this agreement and for the purpose of reporting to the House its finding. What better are you off in that case than you would be if you adopted such course right here?
The Prime Minister states that so far as this agreement is concerned he stands or falls by it. Let us take another supposition: suppose my right hon. friend goes the full limit of the expectation of my hon. friends to my left and moves a committee be appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the alleged effect of the combination on the north Atlantic in restraint of trade, and to ascertain if general rates are too high, and to .report, and if there can be some measure of control, to secure it, and

Ocean Shipping Rates
report their findings to the House. Assume he goes that distance-and that or something similar to that is what they want-what was there to hinder him from moving that at any time in the last three weeks or a month? For the first few weeks after the opening of the House no committee sat at all. A committee might have been holding sittings dhring that period. In the Speech from the Throne he forecast this measure, and stated that the government had made up its mind on this question. He stated it had made up its mind on the 24th December, or before Mr. Preston put- in his report. He, Mr. Preston, says in his letter contained in his report that the government's mind was made up as to what it would do, and is precisely what this resolution says: to organize a company for the purpose of competing with the North Atlantic Steamship Conference. This is not a new thing. The government knew about it when parliament met. If the Prime Minister is sincere, and if he was sincere, why did he not introduce such resolution andl have this committee hold sittings before we are asked to ratify the agreement at all?
I ask my hon. friends, are we to take what the rules of the House declare is the interpretation of this proceeding; or are we to vote in a manner which virtually ratifies the agreement and then trust to the Prime Minister to bring in a resolution later on with the proper order of reference? I will give my hon. friends another procedure which could have been followed. When notice of the resolution was given and it was placed on the order paper, it was still open to the Prime Minister to appoint a committee, and it has been open to the Prime Minister ever since the debate started, to let the debate stand in abeyance, appoint a committee, and have the committee report before we were called upon to vote upon the resolution. I ask my hon. friends as sensible men, how do we vote on this? We vote in the light of the information we have. That i3 how I am called upon to vote. I am not called upon to take the evidence of the hon. member opposite and his interpretation of some circuitous process to get some further evidence that we know nothing about. I am not called upon to do that, and he has not the right to ask members of parliament on this side, or any other side of the House, to accept his word in this matter, and I should not be expected to conform to that procedure. I accept the plain English of this resolution.
I want to examine the resolution for a moment. I am not going into the agreement, or going to again go through the process, but I want to examine the procedure.
We have two things before us and one of them is that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair. I have under my hand an interpolation of the Prime Minister to the speech that was delivered a few minutes ago by the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Shaw). That hon. member had just stated that he accepted the word of the Prime Minister that this resolution would go to a committee ultimately and ample scope would be given to consider it and vary it in any way they chose. He said he accepted that. But the Prime Minister rose and interpolated this:
Not only will we do that, but as soon as this resolution under consideration carries I intend to move, and before it goes into committee at all-
And I want hon. members to follow me-
-before it goes into committee of the whole House,
I am prepared to move the appointment of this special committee.
Let us examine his position. Surely the rules of the House and plain, simple English ought to govern. The resolution is that Mr. Speaker leave the chair. If the resolution is carried, ordinarily what position are we in? The position we are in is this, that Mr. Speaker is out of the chair and this House is in committee of the Whole on this resolution. It is not competent for the Prime Minister to interject such a resolution as the one he mentions now.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I beg my hon. friend's pardon. What I said was that when the House went into committee and the committee reported progress and asked leave to sit again, I would move an amendment that the committee do not sit again, but that the resolution be referred to a special committee, that being the quickest way to get the matter before a special committee.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This is another. The fifth position the Prime Minister takes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is the
position I took.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Hitherto the position was
that what would be done would be this, that the bill on its second reading would be referred to a special committee. That has been told us time and time again. What I am arguing and pleading for in this House is simply to let us stand by the rules of the House and the plain English of this measure. Let me illustrate my point. Eminent authorities on law have pointed out certain things in this agreement. What have we had in reply? We have had in reply this from the Prime Minister: I do not care what is in the agreement: I say so and so. Surely we are not going to
Ocean Shipping Rates

be called upon to accept a position of that kind. We are not children; we are not here to accept the ipse dixit of the Prime Minister; we are here to deal with measures in black and white and plain English. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb), and several other ministers of the crown, who have had long experience in parliamentary life, know that one of the most important things in legislation is to have measures carefully, properly and clearly drafted, and there is no sense or use in introducing to parliament a measure that does not convey the intention of the government, if it is a government measure. If the Prime Minister has any desire to change this, if, as he says, his private interpretation of this measure is what will control, then why does he not and why has he not embodied it in the resolution itself? Further than that, when this resolution passes this committee, it is not competent for private members to change the principle of the bill that is based upon the resolution. I know it is quite competent for parliament to reverse its own action. But for instance, this resolution, when it carries, authorizes the payment to Sir William Petersen of a certain sum of money as a subsidy, not as a charter, as the Minister of National: Defence (Mr, Macdonald) would have us believe. It is not a charter or any distant relation of a charter; it is a subsidy pure and simple, and no private member of this House has any right to substitute anything else for it. There is one of two courses, one of two destinies for this bill and only those, in the minds of the government now, in the mind of the Prime Minister as he sits in this House-I am not quite sure which of the two he intends to take-one is a deliberate intention to kill this measure in committee and then to go to the country at large and say: We tried to do our 'best, but we were defeated in parliamentary committee on the matter. The other is to use his majority in the committee, which he will have over both oppositions, to force this thing through, then to come back to the House and say it was carried after careful investigation, and go before the country and say; This was given careful consideration by a parliamentary committee, approved by that committee, approved by a majority of the House and, therefore, we are justified in carrying it into effect. One of these two courses the Prime Minister has determined to pursue. It is all balderdash to my mind-the idea of giving to a committee an opportunity to study carefully this matter. Let hon. gentlemen take

note of the voluminous reports on this subject. Do hon. gentlemen who have read those reports expect to get in that committee any better information than they can get from the reports of the Shipping Committee of 1909, or 'the Dominions Royal Commission, or the committee that sat in 1918 on shipbuilding, or the latest one, the Imperial Shipping Committee? Any one of those will give us not only British but Canadian testimony. 7. here is any quantity of it and it has been conned over by hon. gentlemen in this House. There is nothing you can bring up in a committee that will help to solve the question any more than that.


Mr. CANNON:: Am I to understand that my hon. friend contends that this government could spend any money simply because a resolution had been voted without a bill following the resolution in the regular course?


Henry Herbert Stevens: No, I have already outlined the procedure. My hon. friend probably did not hear me.


Lucien Cannon: I followed my hon. friend.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I carefully followed the
proper parliamentary procedure. I will do it again so that there will be no mistake in regard to my position. I said, first, there was notice given of a resolution; second, the resolution was moved into committee of the Whole; third, the resolution was reported; fourth, it was read a second time and agreed to; fifth, leave to introduce a bill was asked for; sixth, the bill was read a first time; seventh, the bill was read a second time; eighth, it was sent to a committee, and lastly, it came back to the House and was read a third time. That is the procedure.
Let me refer to the amendment. You cannot brush aside this resolution by any simple gesture, saying: Let us slip it out of the way and we shall have it up in the committee in some fashion or another. There is the resolu- ' tion for our consideration. It is one of the most important documents that has been introduced in this House during this session. It involves the expenditure of a large sum of money. It makes possible the expenditure of an unlimited sum, as I want hon. gentlemen to realize as well. In addition to that, it deals with a very serious principle, that of subsidizing ocean steamships in competition . with others in connection with the freight handling business. We do not agree with that. We have been charged that we have offered no constructive criticism. This is what we suggest, and I invite bon. gentlemen to give some thought to this. We say that

Ocean Shipping Rates
we do not agree with this Petersen contract at all. We want to reject it absolutely and we say that, instead of Mr. Speaker leaving the chair and the House going into committee on this question, this be done:
That Mr. Speaker do not now leave the chair but that it be resolved: That effective control of ocean rates can be exercised only with the co-operation of all portions of the empire, and by a body on which all are represented, and the contract made by the government with Sir William Petersen, based on the report of W. T, R. Preston, is ill-advised, costly and futile and unworthy of the serious consideration of this House.
This is what we offer to the House. There is not in this amendment a word that is inconsistent with the report, the advice and the recommendation of the Agriculture committee of 1923, upon which the Prime Minister now says he bases his measure. I am not going to read the report again as it has been read several times. What did it recommend? First, it cited and reviewed a great deal of the testimony and said that it was a tremendously important question; that it was a question that required the utmost care and consideration. It suggested a reference to the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome. Then it recommended that we should cooperate with other parts of the empire in bringing about some stabilization and control of freight rates. We suggest that there should be co-operation with all portions of the empire.
My right hon. leader yesterday showed with such clarity that all must have seen the point and accepted it as beyond contravention, that the government couid not possibly control rates between Canada and any other country. We could not control rates between Canada and the United States nor between Canada and Great Britain. We could control them by owning the ships and carrying freight at a loss, but we could exercise no control nor could we direct the transportation of freight between this country and another. And that is what the amendment says;.it declares that in order to secure that control there must be co-operation with other parts of the empire. My right hon. friend, the Prime Minister, in his speech, in a somewhat light vein I admit, said that the time may come when an international board may be set up. Well, I know of no better way of starting than by setting up an inter-imperial board which would comprehend half of the liner steamship tonnage of the world, thus taking a long step towards the goal which the Prime Minister has in view at some distant date in the future. We say that there should be co-operation, in which all parts of the empire should be
represented; and further we say that this contract entered' into by the government with Sir William Petersen is ill-advised, costly and futile. I invite hon. gentlemen to examine these last few words. I have not heard any hon. gentlemen in this House, with the exception possibly of the minister himself (Mr. Low) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), say anything else than that the agreement was ill-advised and that they questioned the wisdom of proceeding with it. I have not heard one single gentleman say anything to the contrary, nor have I read in any leading journal in this country, with the exception of the Manitoba Free Press, any editorial which openly commended the contract. Take my hon. friend from St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Mailer); he knows perfectly well that the contract is undoubtedly ill-advised and he knows it is costly and futile. Nor would he und'er any circumstances stand in this House and say he approved of it. Yet the hon. gentleman will vote for it; he will vote in support of it. The hon. member knows perfectly well that the whole thing is absolutely futile; he knows that it is in direct contravention of the veiy policy about which he has been speaking so learnedly in the last few months. There is not a single thing in this contract, not a principle of it, not one of its terms, which is consonant with his attitude during recent months. Yet he will vote for it.


Herbert Meredith Marler: I did not say I would
vote for the contract; I said I
12	m. would vote in support of a motion to investigate the facts as set out in the contract, using the contract as a basis for discussion.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend represents probably the greatest city in Canada and if he and others on his side, together with some hon. gentlemen to my left, had simply taken a clear stand on the question they could have had their investigation, because the Prime Minister would not dare for a moment under the circumstances to press the matter to a vote. I could name a dozen hon. gentlemen opposite who dare not stand in this House this evening and support the government in this measure except by a subterfuge which will enable them to escape the consequences of their action. If they thought that the resolution would come out of the committee confirmed they would not risk their position in this House by supporting it; they would not dare face their constituents after voting for the measure. There are I say a dozen gentlemen opposite who would not support it if they thought that anything of the
Ocean Shipping Rates

kind would ensue. Hon. gentlemen to my left have taken a more honourable and moderate stand, but a large number of them, if they were certain that the matter would come out of the committee confirmed and that the agreement would go into operation, would not support the motion now. I plead with the House to take the plain simple English of the resolution before them and to say whether they are for or against the contract. That is the position. We say in our amendment that the agreement is ill-advised, that it is costly, and that it is unworthy of serious consideration. Let me refer to the costliness of it.


William Charles Good: Before the hon. member
leaves that point, would he be satisfied if the debate were adjourned now and a committee appointed to look into the matter and report later?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly; let the Prime
Minister adjourn the debate and suspend this thing. If the Prime Minister is sincere that is what he will do. My hon. friend has put his finger on the spot. What object is there in forcing the matter to a vote and placing us in the compromising position of supporting or rejecting it-supporting it when hon. gentlemen desire to reject it? What is the object in doing that? I venture the suggestion right now that if the experts on our rules were to look carefully into this matter it is doubtful whether the Prime Minister's motion would be considered in order at all. It would be but sound parliamentary procedure for the Prime Minister to move the adjournment of the debate, or have one of his supporters move it, and then appoint a committee. That is sound parliamentary procedure and certainly it is the plain common sense of the situation, if he wants to play the game square with hon. gentlemen to my left whom he wants to support the measure. I am not suggesting to hon. gentlemen to my left that they should line up with us and vote against the government to put them out of office. Not at all; I should prefer the government to stay in office a little while longer, for they are killing themselves faster than we could kill them. I do not want to defeat the government now. But if half a dozen honourable gentlemen would politely tell the Prime Minister that the ordinary parliamentary procedure should be followed, if they would challenge his sincerity by asking him to have the debate adjourned and to appoint a committee to investigate the matter, they could secure the object they have in view. But my hon. friends are not particularly anxious

to investigate the Petersen contract; what they want to do is to investigate the broad question of ocean freight rates.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Oh, Lord.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My right hon. friend
says "Oh, good Lord."


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No he didn't; he left out the "good."


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is fine parliamentary language for the Prime Minister to use. The right hon. gentleman says that I am wrong, but I thought that I was interpreting him generously. The Prime Minister inferred that we should have an opportunity of investigating ocean freight rates; that is how I view the matter. He says "Oh Lord" to that; whatever that interpolation means I do not know. However, let him now tell the House what his order of reference is to be; let him tell the House, before he asks us to vote, what is going to the committee. Let the Prime Minister in some definite form, in the form of a resolution to which we can hold him and his government, tell us where we are drifting in connection with this subject. He has probably sixty or eighty members behind him who have not yet spoken. Let some hon. gentlemen from Montreal and Quebec tell us; let the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), who has not yet spoken, rise in his place and inform the House how the matter will be referred. Will the Minister of Justice move the adjournment of the debate?


Ernest Lapointe: Has the hon. member
concluded his speech?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Let the Minister of Justice adjourn the debate and then let the Prime Minister move his resolution for a committee of the House to go into the matter.
What I want to say in conclusion is simply this: we have before us a resolution that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair in order that the House may consider a contract that the governement has agreed to and signed, a contract which is subject only to final ratification; and	that ratification	the
government now seeks to obtain. The other motion before the House is that instead of doing that, the matter be taken up in conjunction with other sections of the empire and a definite method of control of ocean freight rates worked out by that process, consonant with and in harmony with the report of the agricultural committee of two years ago, upon which report the Prime Minister declared the other day he based this present proposal.

Ocean Shipping Rates


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I cannot resist the
urgent appeal of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens). He will forgive me, however, if I do not take his display of passion too seriously. I wish merely to say a word on the question of procedure. Seven full days have been devoted to the consideration of this resolution. It was introduced on the third of March-I merely give these dates in order to show that the charge of unfairness proffered so violently by my hon. friend is not well founded-and was considered on that date. It was further considered on Tuesday the 'tenth of March, on Thursday the twelfth of March, on Friday the thirteenth of March, on Tuesday the seventeenth of March, on Thursday the nineteenth of March, and to-day, the twentieth of March. All this was on the motion which merely asks that Mr. Speaker leave the chair, as my hon. friend has stated, for the purpose of considering this resolution. My hon. friend speaks very eloquently of the procedure of parliament. He knows very well that a bill concerning trade or involving an expenditure of money has to be preceded by a resolution.


Henry Herbert Stevens: And I approve of it,
wholly.


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend approves of it. It is merely to give the House an opportunity to provide another stage for discussion on the part of the House. But that discussion has always been, and should be, merely on the general lines of the measure submitted. Here is what Bourinot says concerning this matter:
The rale, as generally understood in the Canadian House-and English practice bears it out-simply requires the House to go into committee to consider a general proposition, setting forth the expediency of bringing in a measure on a particular question affecting trade.
Now, my hon. friend says we all agree-


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman permit me? The motion is that the Speaker leave the chair for the House to resolve itself into committee on a certain resolution. Does he say that the policy embodied in that resolution is not submitted to the House for determination?


Ernest Lapointe: I \ a general way-the
broad principle of it, not the principle of the bill which is going to follow it; not the details; not the particulars as they have been discussed during this debate.


Arthur Meighen: Not the principle of the bill which is to follow it?


Ernest Lapointe: In a general way.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly.


Ernest Lapointe: If my hon. friend is serious when he says, as he said, a few minutes ago, that we are in agreement on some things: first, that there is a combine, and secondly, that there should be a measure of control of ocean rates; if we are all in agreement on that, I submit that this resolution should have been voted on long ago.


Arthur Meighen: Will the minister please define in his own words what he considers the general principle of this resolution?


Ernest Lapointe: Control of ocean rates.


Arthur Meighen: By what means?


Ernest Lapointe: The details of the-


Arthur Meighen: By any method at all?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister mean by that, controlled by any method at all?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: I do not want any bear garden; I want some thoughtful discussion. Does the minister mean that the only principle here at stake when we approve of this motion is control of ocean rates by any method at all? Will he answer that?


Ernest Lapointe: Surely the particular method proposed by the government is entitled to some discussion. But as a bill will be presented following the adoption of the resolution, and as that bill will have to be read a second time and the whole principle of the thing discussed again by the House, I claim that the discussion of the details and the clauses of the agreement that has taken place during this debate was not called for.


Arthur Meighen: Will the minister permit me again? Will he say that the particular method proposed by the government for the control of rates is not now under review and for determination?


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend knows full well-


Arthur Meighen: Will he answer that?


Ernest Lapointe: -that the method itself, the particulars of the agreement, will be discussed later. That is never done on the resolution preceding the bill. My hon. friend speaks of precedents. Well, I have been in the House just as long as he has, I think a little longer. I have been in this House longer than my right hon. friend
Ocean Shipping Rates

the leader of the opposition, and very seldom indeed-I do not remember more than one or two occasions-has any amendment been moved to a resolution preceding a bill, as has been done here.


Arthur Meighen: Will the hon. gentleman permit me? He is a lot nearer the point than any other minister that has spoken. When the motion is made that the Speaker leave the chair for the House to resolve itself into a committee of Ways and Means on the budget resolution, is not the budget as presented at stake, and has not this House voted on that motion, and have not hon. members to my left voted against it? Further, have amendments not been moved to that motion?


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend
knows very well that the resolution preceding a bill concerning trade or involving an expenditure of money is not at all in the same class as a resolution on the occasion of the budget debate, to which he referred.


Arthur Meighen: Oh yes.


Ernest Lapointe: By no means.


Arthur Meighen: What is the budget debate but exactly that thing-a debate on a resolution preceding the budget bill? It is precisely the same thing.


Ernest Lapointe: I crave the indulgence
of the House, because I did not want to take up as much time as I have taken. I wanted to be brief, but my right hon. friend is responsible for the prolongation of my remarks.


Arthur Meighen: I accept that.


Ernest Lapointe: I say that we are not
open to any charge of unfairness in this regard. So far as voting on Friday is concerned, my hon. friend is still wrong. Apart from having no rules in any book that I know of concerning the prohibition against voting on Friday, if the word prohibition may be used by me-


Henry Herbert Stevens: Which I admitted, and
stated.


Ernest Lapointe: I say again to my hon. friend that I have been in this House as long as he has and I voted on Friday on many occasions.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the minister permit
me?


Ernest Lapointe: I will tell him further-


Henry Herbert Stevens: My point was-and I
know the minister does not desire to misrepresent me-that it has always been the

practice to make an arrangement if a major matter was to be under discussion.


Ernest Lapointe: Surely my hon. friend
is not serious when he speaks of arrangements being made in every case.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, I am.


Ernest Lapointe: When we have been
forced to vote under compulsion, does the leader of the opposition claim that he selected his days? Does he say that Fridays were excluded?


Arthur Meighen: Yes, and under the rules it cannot be done on Friday.


Ernest Lapointe: It has been done every
day on questions at least as important as this one, on questions which were identical with this one.


William Alves Boys: Will-


Ernest Lapointe: Will my hon. friend
allow me to proceed? Really, I do not interrupt hon. gentlemen all the time when they are making speeches, but if my hon. friend insists-


William Alves Boys: I was just going to ask the
minister if he would say when the government determined to force a vote to-day?


Ernest Lapointe: I do not know. There
has been no determination of forcing a vote. We have been discussing this matter seven days, and I think the vote should have been taken at the beginning of the week. We are not responsible for that. If we have to vote to-night, it is because my hon. friend's friends have been discussing this contract all week; we are not responsible for that. I say that in the very session that preceded the last general election, when my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition was Prime Minister, we were forced under closure to vote I think eight millions of dollars for the Canadian merchant marine, after only one night of discussion. And now these hon. gentlemen are protesting because, after having discussed this resolution for seven days, a resolution preceding a bill, which will be introduced and which they will still have full opportunity to discuss, which bill will be referred to a committee and be reported back to the 'House-with all this opportunity for discussion, they claim they are being treated unfairly. Well, Mr. Speaker, we have had the administration of the affairs of this country under my right hon. leader and he has been leading parliament now for his fourth session, and the present government has never yet applied closure to the business of parliament. This charge

Ocean Shipping Rates
of unfairness I throw back at my hon. friends over there.


William Alves Boys: I had not the slightest thought of occupying the House at this time of night in connection with this debate, but I feel I cannot allow the remarks of my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) to pass without making some observations.
It has been my pleasure and my privilege to act as whip of this party now for nearly four years. I am glad to say we have managed to get on without any misunderstanding, with an exchange of courtesy and fair play in our proceedings during all that time, and I would like to pay the whip of the government party the compliment of saying that I am of the opinion that if he had not been laid up at his house with sickness, we would not have had the situation we have to-night. I asked the minister if he would say when the government determined to force a vote. He said he did not know the government did determine to force a vote.


Ernest Lapointe: I know the government wanted a vote to be reached at the beginning of the week.


William Alves Boys: That is a different thing. I concede at once the right of the government to force a vote whenever they want to. But I do think that the custom of years and the courtesy of years should play some part in that determination. I want to say that when I discussed this morning in no exceptional way, but in the ordinary way, the matter of those who had yet to speak, not to obstruct, but to make speeches, there was no suggestion on the part of the government whips that there would be a vote to-day. Not until I got into the House at three o'clock was there ever such a suggestion, and I feel it my duty in order that those at all events in my own group may see that the trouble we have got to-day is one that cannot be laid at my door, to make the situation clear. I think I have always tried to be fair in conducting the business of this Houise so far as this party is concerned, and I believe the whips with whom I have worked will do me the justice of saying so. But it has certainly been forced upon me that we have now reached the stage where one of two things must happen:	We must
either continue to be frank and fair with each other, and maintain the customs of the past, or else come to the conclusion that they are to be lat an end.
Now I got this note after three o'clock. This was after a preliminary talk when there was no suggestion that there was to be a vote 90
to-day. It has been known for two weeks that we had eight or ten more speakers, and I suggest it would be hardly fair to ask them to speak at two or three o'clock in the morning. As a matter of fact, most of the government members from Quebec want to go home at 3.30 on Friday afternoon, and frankly I may say that most of our members from Ontario want to go away at eleven o'clock on Friday night. I naturally wished to avoid this vote to-night, and I suggested that it could go over till Tuesday, that the budget could be introduced on Tuesday, and then could be left over a day or two for consideration, and that we could then go on with this, and I promised that so far 'as we were concerned there would be a vote on -this resolution on Tuesday night.
I got this letter from one of the government assistant whips. He did not say to me: There will be a vote to-night. He said, "We will try to vote to-day." I thought that was a little strange, and I wrote back and said, "Does this mean you intend to force a vote? If it does, I do not think it is fair, for I have had no notice, and I have not notified my members. Nobody expected a vote." The answer came back, and I give him credit for being frank with me, "Yes that is the intention." I have not the slightest doubt the government made up their minds yesterday to force a vote on this resolution to-night. I notice in the House to-night members who have not been here for quite a long time, who have come from a long distance, upon word from somebody upon the government side to be here on hand to vote.
I want to say most emphatically that if we are to be fair and frank with each other the least courtesy that could have been shown to me was to tell me this morning, at all events, when I was negotiating for the proceedings of to-day, that there was to be a vote to-night, so that I could notify the members. But that was kept back. Now I appeal to the Prime Minister. I do not think that I suffer from a chronic grouch, but I admit that I am disappointed. To me this is one of the most unfortunate days since I have been in the House of Commons. I do not think it a creditable performance. I do not know who is absolutely responsible for it, but I do not believe the whips are. I think if we are going to use the whips at all in the House, then surely we must be fair with each other. If I had been asked to agree to a day and had refused, or had been unreasonable, it would have been quite in order to say: We will force a vote. But I have never been asked to do it. I see the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) in

Ocean Shipping Rates

his place. He once occupied the position I occupy, the whip of the opposition, and I wonder what he would have thought if he had been treated that way.
I have said enough, I think, to show that this proceeding is not fair. It comes to this: If we cannot be fair with each other, the only way to get business done will be to do business at arm's length, and to cancel all pairs. That is not my desire. I would be very sorry to see that done. I appeal to the Prime Minister: I do not think we have been treated fairly on this occasion, and I trust that if we do come to some understanding for the future, that a repetition of this incident will not take place. If it does, then so far as I am concerned I would no longer want to be whip of the Conservative party, for I would be unable to do business with the whip on the other side under those conditions.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend has made a reference to me. Probably he will permit me to remind him and the House that some ten days ago I mentioned that the govemnment was ready on that Thursday to bring down the budget, and that we were anxious to have the budget debate over before Easter. Again this week I mentioned that the budget would be brought down this week. I made it perfectly plain that if we did not get it down this week, we would bring it down on Tuesday next, and at the very outset I intimated that when the budget was brought down it would take precedence over everything else, and that we hoped to conclude the budget debate by Easter.
Now this resolution has been before the House eight or ten days. It has been understood all along that we wished to get the bill to a committee before the budget debate came on. My hon. friend knows that Monday is private members' day, and that if we did not take the course of getting this vote to-night the chance of getting this bill to a committee might remain over until after the recess. I do not think anyone would wish that. To-day I was told that no undertaking could be given by my hon. friend that this bill would get to a committee even on Thursday, if Thursday were set apart for further debate. When that intimation was given to me I made it perfectly clear that we would have to take the vote to-night.


William Alves Boys: I simply wish to add this. As a rule-and my right hon. friend knows it perfectly well- we have an understanding, or try to have at all events, as to the day on which the vote will take place. That practice has obtained for years and meets the mutual

convenience of all members of the House. That practice was absolutely abandoned in this case, and that is why we find ourselves in this position.
The House divided on the amendment (Mr. Clark) which was negatived on the following division.
++YEAS
Messrs:
Black (Halifax),	McQuarrie,
Bo wen,	Manion,
Charters,	Maybee,
Clark,	Meighen,
Dickie,	Preston,
Doucet,	Simpson,
Grimmer,	Spence,
Hanson,	StanseU,
Harris.	Stevens,
Hawken,	Stirling,
Irvine,	Sutherland,
Jones,	Thompson,
Ladner,	Tolmie,
LeSueur,	White,
MacLaren, McKillop,	Woodsworth.-31.
 NAYS Messrs:
Bancroft,	Garland (Bow River),
Beaubien,	Good,
Beland,	Gordon,
Benoit,	Gould,
Binette,	Graham,
Bird,	Hammell,
Black (Huron),	Hanna,
Boivin,	Hatfield,
Bouchard,	Hoey,
Boucher,	Hopkins,
Brethen,	Hudson,
Brown,	Hughes,
Cahill.	Humphrey,
Campbell,	Hunt,
Cannon,	Hush ion,
Cardin,	Jelliff,
Carmichael,	Johnston,
Carroll,	Kelly,
Carruthers,	Kennedy (Edmonton),
Casgrain,	Kennedy (Port Arthur
Chevrier,	& Kenora),
Chisholm,	King (Huron),
Clifford,	King (Kootenay),
Copp,	King, Mackenzie (York),
Davies,	Knox,
Dechene,	Laflamme,
Denis (Joliette),	Lanctot,
Denis (St. Denis),	Lapierre,
Desaulniers,	Lapointe,
Descoteaux,	Lewis,
Deslauriers,	Logan,
Drummond,	Lovett,
Elliott (Dundas),	Lovie,
Ethier,	Low,
Evans,	Lucas,
Fafard,	Macdonald (Pictou),
Findlay,	Mackinnon,
Finn,	MacLean (Prince, P.E.I),
Fiset (Sir Eugene),	Maophail (Miss),
Fontaine,	McBride,
Forke,	McGiverin,
Forrester,	Mclsaac,
Fortier,	McKay,
Fournier,	McMaster,
Gardiner,	McTaggart,

Ocean Shipping Rates
Marcile (Bagot),	Roberge,
Marler,	Robichaud,
Mart ell,	Robinson,
Mercier,	Robitaille,
Michaud,	Ross (Simcoe),
Millar,	St. Pere,
Milne,	Sales,
Morin,	Savard,
Motherwell,	Seguin,
Munro,	Sexsmith,
Murdock,	Shaw,
Neill,	Sinclair (Oxford),
Ouimet,	Sinclair (Queens, P.E.I.),
Papineau,	Snowball,
Parent,	Speakman,
Pelletier,	Spencer,
Pouliot,	Steedsman,
Prevost,	Stewart (Argenteuil),
Pritchard,	Stewart (Humboldt),
Rankin,	Stork,
Raymond,	Tobin,
Reed,	Wallace,
Rheaume,	Walsh,
Rinfret,	Warner,
Robb,	Woods.-139. PAIRS
(The list of pairs	is furnished by the chief whips).
PETERSEN CONTRACT PERMANENT Messrs:	
Power,	Mewburn,
Kvte,	Boys,
Kay,	Wilson,
Malcolm,	Duncan,
German,	Chaplin,
Marcil (Bon.),	Stewart (Ham.),
Lavigueur,	Sheard,
Arohambault,	Guthrie,
Bureau,	Drayton,
Bourassa,	Bristol,
Gouin,	Stewart (Leeds),
Derochers,	Baxter,
Gendron,	Garland (Carleton),
Gervais,	Black (Yukon),
Euler,	Hubbs,
Baldwin,	Ryckman, TEMPORARY
Putnam,	Ross (Kingston),
Vien,	Anderson,
Delisle,	Maclean (York),
Healy,	Church,
Crerar,	McCrea,
Hodgins,	Kellner,
McConica,	Arthurs.
Mr, VIEN:	I was paired with the hon.
member for Halton (Mr. Anderson). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I was paired
with the hon. Minister of Customs and Excise (Mr. Bureau). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. MALCOLM:: 
Thomas Vien: I was paired with the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Anderson). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


William Alves Boys: I was paired with the hon. member for Cape Breton South and Richmond (Mr. Xyte). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


James Malcolm: I was paired with the hon. member for North Grey (Mr. Duncan). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I was paired with the hon. Minister of Customs and Excise (Mr. Bureau). 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.
The House thereupon went into committee on the resolution, Mr. Gordon in the chair.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I intimated in the course of the discussion, that 'as soon as the resolution was referred to the committee of the Whdle, it was my intention to move that the committee should report progress and ask leave to sit again in order that I might at once have the resolution referred to a special committee, I beg to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Progress reported.


Hewitt Bostock: When shall the committee sit again?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I move that the committee do not sit again, but that the resolution be referred to a special committee.


Arthur Meighen: I submit that the motion is not in order. In the first place, it is not a substantive motion and, notice not having been given, if for no other reason, it would be out of order on that account. That is the point of order I raise first.


Ernest Lapointe: I would refer you, Mr. Speaker,
to Bourinot, page 527 which reads:
In case a committee of the Whole has reported progress a motion may be made immediately before fixing the committee for a future day, that the bill be referred to a select standing or other committee.


Arthur Meighen: A motion is frequently
made immediately, but notice must be given of the motion. Any motion may be in otfder, but it is subject to the usud rules of debate,


Hewitt Bostock: I was aware of that
dictum of Bourinot which reads:
In case a committee of the Whole has reported progress a motion may be made immediately before fixing (the committee for a future day, that the bill be referred to a select standing or other committee.
Now it is stated that notice should have been given. I find in the Journals of the House, on May 7, 1901, the following:
The order of the day being read, for resuming the adjourned debate on (the question which was, on Friday last proposed, that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair (for the House in committee on the bill to incorporate the Canadian Nurses' Association);
And the question being again proposed-The House resumed the said adjourned debate.
And the question being put on the motion-It was resolved in the affirmative.

Ocean Shipping Rates
The House accordingly resolved itself into a committee on the said bill, and, after some time spent therein, Mr. Speaker resumed the chair; and Mr. Macdonald reported, that the committee had made some progress.
On motion of Mr. Clarke, seconded by Mr. Bell (Pictou).
Ordered, That the bill to incorporate the Canadian Nurses' Association be referred back to the select standing committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills, for further consideration.
No notice was given in that instance, and it is my firm opinion that rule 40 does not apply in the present case, inasmuch as it is a consequential procedure as regards the main question before the House; and if at each stage of the proceedings notice were required the session would be protracted indefinitely. My ruling therefore is that no notice is necessary in the present instance.


Arthur Meighen: I would call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to this, in regard to the case mentioned, that in the first place the point as to notice was never raised; and in the second place it was the case of a bill. It is not the custom of this government to give any notice that can prepare one; they prefer the other method. I would point out, however, that no precedent can be found for a reference to a special committee-


Lucien Cannon: Am I to understand, Mr. Speaker, that your ruling is being debated?


Arthur Meighen: -of a resolution-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Arthur Meighen: I am rising at the moment to another point of order. I say that there is no precedent for the reference of a resolution to a special committee.


Hewitt Bostock: I did not quite catch the point submitted by the right hon. member.


Arthur Meighen: In the first place, I raise the point that in the case cited there were these distinctions: it was the case of a bill, and as well the point of order was not raised as to the request for notice. In the second place, my point of order is that this resolution has a certain set purpose, a certain set course, and the rules and practices of the House provide that course through many decades: it goes to committee of the Whole. And I have never heard of a resolution which has that purpose and which follows that course, being moved to a special committee. I submit further that such a resolution is not capable of being moved to a special committee.


Hewitt Bostock: As regards the distinction between a resolution and a bill, in my judgment a bill is the legal child of a resolution.
A money or a trade bill is always based on a resolution. As to the other point, I have not the case at hand; but certainly it is within my recollection that on several occasions resolutions have been referred to special committees.


Arthur Meighen: That is not my point,
Mr. Speaker. I do not say that no resolution can be referred to a special committee; what I say is that such a procedure cannot be followed in the case of a resolution of this character, which, under the rules, has a set purpose. A resolution moved by a private member often is referred to a special committee, but this resolution is for a different purpose; it must follow a certain procedure, and the practices of the House have never warranted any other.


Hewitt Bostock: In my judgment the
opinion of Bourinot is peremptory on this matter. Bourinot states that in case a committee of the Whole has reported progress, a motion may be made, immediately before fixing the committee for a future day, that the bill-or in my judgment a resolution-be referred to a select standing or other committee. I must stand by the first ruling I gave.


Arthur Meighen: Before the motion is
put, Mr. Speaker,-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The motion
is not debatable. My right hon. friend has occupied a good deal of time this evening and I think, Mr. Speaker, that the motion had better be put.


Hewitt Bostock: The right hon. member
was discussing the point of order, as he had a right to do. Of course, the motion is not debatable, per se, under rule 17(a).


Arthur Meighen: I shall not fail to thank the Prime Minister and hon. gentlemen for the exceeding courtesy they have shown throughout the day. I simply want to say that I do not wish my failure to appeal against the ruling to be regarded as acquiescence. I considered it a serious matter that a resolution of this kind should be submitted to a special committee in the absence of any precedent to justify it.


Hewitt Bostock: I gave my ruling conscientiously and would not be affronted at all if an appeal were taken against it. Under the rules of the House, when the Speaker gives a decision it may be appealed against.


Ernest Lapointe: And that is all that may be done.
Tax Collections


Henry Herbert Stevens: May I ask one question? Do I understand, Sir, that you interpret this resolution as constituting the order of reference to the committee?


Hewitt Bostock: The motion speaks for
itself. The motion is that the committee do not sit again but that the resolution be referred to a special committee. In my judgment the resolution which was adopted is thereby referred to the committee.


Arthur Meighen: I am sorry to rise again. I understood that the motion included the tclause, "that the committee do not sit again." I submit that this clause makes it doubly *clear that the committee should sit again on the resolution.


Hewitt Bostock: The special committee
will have to report to the House and its report will be debated before the House.


Arthur Meighen: Before the House?


Hewitt Bostock: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: My point is that under
the rules this resolution must pass through committee of the Whole. The motion now is that it do not; and for the simple reason that the motion is contrary to the rules it cannot be in order.


George Perry Graham: Will my hon. friend see
this? I know he will see it if he thinks of it: You cannot have a resolution before two committees at the same time. It is now resolved to send the resolution to a special committee, and that committee will submit its report.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 1.20 am. (Saturday).
Monday, March 23, 1925